Subliminal Fear

I had a dream last night that was weird. On many levels. What was probably the weirdest thing though was that it was so transparent about what the dream was really all about.

I have been in one committed, serious relationship since I left my marriage and without going into all of that drama again, it was a shitshow that has kept me reeling for the past four years.

I am now in my second serious, committed relationship and it is going really well. I am happy. He is happy. We take it a day at a time and are having so much fun. It has been a few months now and I have no complaints…seriously, not one! So last night having this severely deranged dream about him lying to me and cheating and doing all kinds of fucked up shit was clearly just my fear making a rather ugly appearance.

None of what happened in the dream is true or even likely to be true, ever. He is not a cheater or a liar. He is a good person who really works on his own spiritual evolution…daily. So why did I have this nasty (not in a good way) dream about such a lovely human whom I happen to be dating? Subliminal fear. I am worried, actually scared shitless, that I will get my heart and ass handed to me again. But not in my waking life, in my waking life, I am doing great. Happy. Content. Peaceful. But underneath that calm and happy exterior lies a frightened child who is apparently very worried about loving and losing again.

Even though I woke up on the far side of the bed this morning and was angry at him for absolutely no real reason, I knew immediately what I needed to do…tell him. Tell him that I was scared, tell him that I have come to value his presence in my life so much that the thought of losing it would be something devastating to me. And do you know what he said, “ Me too.” I mean he didn’t have a fucked up dream where I did all kinds of really mean things to him, but he could honor and share that he worries about loving and losing again too. I mean, now that I think about it, who the fuck doesn’t? Even if you have been married a gazillion years, those people probably worry about the other one dying or getting sick and leaving them. So I guess that makes fear of loving and losing rather customary.

So that is where I landed today. Alive with the fear, without letting it control me or my relationship. No guarantees, if this keeps going the way it has, this man could gut me like a fish. And I guess I might have that same ability except I have never gutted anything before so I would have to find some other analogy that would be more befitting my own leveling of his love and life. For now, I guess what I am most in touch with is how much risk there is with loving someone. Caring about their well being. Tangling that up with your own. It is inherently risky business but I am finding that it is worth the risk even if I get gutted…again.

Trauma is part of life, and in fact, surviving trauma is what gives us access to the parts of ourselves that are kinder, more loving and better able to access those parts of ourselves that we only gained access to because of our previous leveling. Trauma sucks but it also evolves us and sets us down on new roads if we let it.

So this morning when I woke and there was a lot of sheeted real estate between us, I did the hardest and bravest thing…I moved toward him and told him that I was scared. That I cared. That I didn’t want to lose him and that I didn’t want to get hurt again. We ended up talking about emotional safety and our relationship and where we are and how much we are both enjoying the evolution of us. And, well, the sheeted real estate between us, folded and became nothing but a passing moment in time instead of a weird distance that ruined the day.

It is hard to move toward those that scare us, most especially when we love them. Loving is risky business. Fear will always come and whisper crazy shit to our sleeping minds, praying that it take root and cause us to cut off and out anything that threatens to maim us again…

But it is just subliminal fear. And in the light of day and in the shadow of truth, it shrinks and recedes and creates more space for love and intimacy and hope to prevail.