Dreams
Life can feel like a dream when something incredible comes out of nowhere and time and logic suddenly make no sense. You get a beautiful and unexpected experience. Unfortunately, dreams aren’t something you can hold on to. Their impermanence is bittersweet. You can appreciate their perfection frozen in time without the complications of reality.
They can show us a picture of what we want. They can open a heart to possibilities your mind had previously blocked off. What does Walt Disney say? A dream is a wish your heart makes. If only wishing for something was enough. Life is messy. Pain exists. Healing takes time. I have learned some universal truths about grief while walking alongside dozens of people in pain over the years:
You cannot rush the process.
You cannot wait it out.
You have to go through it. Every step.
There isn’t a magic equation to figure out how long healing takes. That said, I have seen the process speed up working with a mental health professional to help gently push you to face the feelings and reality you might be avoiding. I have also seen exponential healing when people lean on their faith and not their own understanding of how things work here on Earth.
Time, intentional processing, and faith… that’s what I believe it takes to get to the other side of grief. A triangle is the strongest shape. It can bear the heaviest load. If we are going to walk through fire, why not forge a firm foundation that can support us all the way through to the other side?
What the heck does this have to do with dreams?! A cynic might say that our dreams getting ripped away from us is what causes grief… and while I have experienced that a time or two, I have been blessed/cursed with eternal optimism. I choose to see another perspective:
I believe dreams are a beautiful sign that you are on a path of healing. They are an indication that grief won’t keep you chained up forever. Dreams show you that your heart is still making wishes - and that gives me hope.
XX,
Langley
PS - The ‘art’ was a phone sketch at about 32,000ft on the plane as I got this out of my head into words.
