Episode Transcript
Do you have highly emotional or disturbing dreams? Today we're gonna talk about tips on how to purify your dreams here on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Thank you all for being here. Today, we're gonna talk about dreams a little bit and talk about some. I wrote a list of things that over time I've kind of come to understand that for me, working on these things has really helped to calm down my dreams, believe it or not. Very rarely now do I have a very highly emotional dream and, it really, I think overall it's worked like a lot of the stuff that I'm gonna talk about today. So what about dreams? What do I mean by disturbing dreams? Highly emotional dreams. I don't know if you've all had these, but we, in growing up, we all had the, the dream that your teeth are falling out, the dreams, that you can't find something, the dream that you're late, the dream about the relationship or the breakup or the no relationship, the the physical interaction dreams, whether it's a fighting or something else or whatever. There's all kinds of dreams that are going on. And what are dreams? So from a spiritual standpoint, the understanding is that dreams are basically your unprocessed emotions. At night when you're asleep, the mind says, great. I can make up a story about this and have feel this. I can make up a story about this to feel this. So the mind is creating the circumstances for you to feel the feelings. That's what's happening. Kind of amazing, right? That the, that the mind could do that. It's not always a bad dream, right? But today we're talking about the negative dreams, the disturbing dreams, the emotional, highly emotional dreams. Usually they're fearful, right? Fearful dreams. So I wrote a list. So let's go through the list and we'll discuss what did I incorporate, what things did I do, or what things that principles do we think will work in terms of purifying our dreams. So one is simplify your life. Very easy. This thing early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. You would never let a child stay up till midnight. Why do we stay up till midnight? I've been through this on many discussions with people as a nurse and also health-wise. Why do we have this lifestyle where we are so out of sync with the natural rhythms of the day? So one thing we could do is try, I'm not saying do it overnight because habits don't get changed overnight, but think about it, put it in the thinking stage. How can I simplify my life? How can I start organizing my life around? What I would consider normal or healthy rhythms, waking up early, maybe getting some exercise, eating properly, going to work, having a good attitude. It's so simple, but how much do we get off of that, during the day and during the night, whatever emotions that we're creating during the day that aren't processed possibility for dreams, right? So simplifying our life and being in such a way that we have stability and repetition and routine and things like that is very healthy for us. So second thing is elevate my self-image. So what does that mean In spirituality, we talk about the soul. So I'm a soul. My nature is peace. Right there, I'm elevating self-image. Another way to elevate my self image is to talk about myself, to myself in relation to God. So I am God's child. I am a good person. Like all these positive self identifying sentences I can tell myself and begin to change my own self-image. Now, for those of you who are hearing that and are saying. No way. Yeah, right. That's just words, doesn't mean anything. I'm gonna say that. All of us are starting from a place where none of this seems real. All of this happy, good, positive stuff doesn't seem real because we're suffering, because we have a lot of pain, we have a lot of fear, we have a lot of, maybe depression, maybe anxiety, things going on in our life. So when you hear these things, it doesn't sound like it's real. So I would suggest if you're listening to me talk about elevating my self image, and it doesn't sound real to you or it doesn't sound possible, and you still are interested. I would say go back and look at those first a hundred episodes of this podcast. I went, we went through so many different aspects and it will be helpful to sort out some of that emotional turmoil to get to this place where I'm talking about now, where I'm actually looking at, okay, how can I get my dreams even now to calm down? So I invite you to do that if you're hearing this, like it's not possible. So, elevate myself, image, I'm a soul. My nature is peace. I actually am a benevolent person. I actually am a good person. And think about that throughout the day, like try to remind yourself throughout the day. Remember, the dreams are unprocessed emotions. So every, whenever I'm afraid or are anxious, or maybe even the food is bothering my mind, you know, if I eat poorly, it's gonna affect my mind also. There's plenty of things that can create disturbance in my mind throughout the day. So elevate my self image. Third thing, relationship to God. I'm God's child. God is my father. You know, sometimes we think about God as like this untouchable being, and in a way maybe He is untouchable 'cause he's not physical, right? But it doesn't mean he's not touchable with the heart. So I can touch. I can feel connection to God. I'm a soul. God is a soul. I have the same spiritual DNA as God loving, peaceful, powerful, pure, happy, blissful, wise being I am God is the ocean of peace, the ocean of love, the ocean of bliss, the ocean of wisdom. It's the same so I can remember that, and that can also help me feel better about myself throughout the day. And mitigate some of those excess emotional states. Next one is service. So one thing I can do throughout the day is have an attitude of service, have the heart of service. I really just want to be helpful and be of service. And again, I'm saying to those of you who are hearing this and are saying, I have to say it because I spent so many years listening to people talk like this and not believing them. Just saying, I spent most of my life listening to people talk about happy, good, serve, this, that, and not believing one word of it. If you're one of those, go back and listen to those episodes. It means, I'm gonna say right now, it means that there's a lot of excess emotional stuff in there. That needs to get sorted out. All of us have it, like I said, so don't feel bad. Service, heart of service. I'm here to serve. I'm here to do something. That's what I wanna be. I wanna be helpful. I wanna be of use. I wanna use my life in a worthwhile way. That's the heart of service. Next one is take care of your health. This is definitely a big one. Your health affects everything, isn't it? There are so many times where I've heard in movies and in literature where people say health is a number one thing, especially as people get older. You realize that your health is really your main sustenance. If something's going on with your body, you really can't think of anything else. We saw this in healthcare. I'm sure some of you are familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy. Spirituality is way up at the top of that pyramid, and the bottom line is like food, water, shelter. So our physical needs and our health and our relationships are very, very important. The spirituality comes on top of that. If all that other stuff needs to be worked on as well. So take care of your health. What does that mean? Does that mean I'm gonna have a perfect diet, perfect body, perfect like tomorrow? No, it means today. Can I at least start thinking about taking care of myself, taking care of my body and my health? Very important. Whatever that means for you. Everybody's different. Next one, have the courage to stop when there is a disturbance. Have the courage to stop when there is a disturbance. So what does that mean? If I'm in a situation where I'm in a relationship, I'm in a conversation with someone and I start to feel bad, and maybe they're not doing anything wrong, maybe, or maybe they're not doing anything, outrageous, but for some reason I'm starting to feel bad. Maybe I feel jealous, maybe I feel sorry for myself or something like that. Have the courage to take care of yourself in that situation. Don't let the feeling continue to proliferate. Do something. And I'm gonna say, and I said this in a recent episode, also, if you're in a situation where your feelings are there and you can't talk yourself out of it in the moment, get yourself outta the situation. It's okay. It's okay for you to pull yourself out of a situation that's stimulating something in you. It's not responsible, but it's stimulating and maybe you can't process it right away, then stop the situation. At least you're caring for yourself. Do you see like the principle here? The less emotional I am through the day, the better my dreams are gonna be. Right? Okay. Then practicing love and acceptance, and I'm gonna say primarily love and accept yourself primarily. Don't even worry about anybody else just yet. However you are, whatever you are, whatever's going on, it's okay for you to accept yourself exactly the way you are. As a matter of fact, it's essential because haven't we all felt the inner critic. The inner sadness of feeling disappointed that I'm not measuring up to some voice in my head or some idea of how I'm supposed to be or how I should aspire to be, but will never make it, you know? What about that one? Internal torture, right? Practice, love and acceptance. I am. Worthy, I'm okay. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm deserving of love and respect, and I'm gonna give myself love and respect exactly where I am. Nobody does anything for no reason. If you're sitting out there and you're thinking, well, I did this, I did that, and your mind is full of all this stuff, just realize nobody does anything for no reason. There's always a reason we make a decision based on feelings or based on whatever's going on in the moment. It doesn't mean you have to make the same decision again. I have an 18-year-old son, and he said something to me yesterday, he apologized this morning. He said, you know, I'm sorry about this and that. And then he was telling me about something happened at school. He didn't tell me the details, but he said that something happened between him and his friends, and oh, he did tell me something. He let down one of his friends, something happened and he was supposed to do something and he didn't, and he felt really bad. And he goes, yeah, that's something I have to add to my list of regrets. I said, no, you don't. I said, just don't do it again. So you see how we can be encouraging to ourselves. So love and acceptance means there's no room for regret. There's no room for guilt. There's no room for these like thick self-hatred, self negative emotions. Have the courage to push them away, bring in love, bring in acceptance. Even if you have to say, even though I did all this, even though I did all that, I'm just gonna accept myself. Like I'm not gonna allow that self criticism and that self attack. That's also emotional, isn't it? Like attacking and then I'm upset and then whatever, and then you go down and you try to sleep. What do you expect is gonna happen? Same thing when we meditate. You sit down to meditate. People say, okay, I sit down and meditate. My mind goes crazy. Well, why is my mind going crazy? It's because all day my mind's going nuts. And then you say, okay, go sit down and be quiet. Really. No, we have to work on our whole day. Doesn't mean you have to be literal and get overwhelmed. It just means, think about this, if you like what you're hearing right now, and it feels like, okay, it feels encouraging. It feels like, all right, this sounds pretty good. Write down those steps. So I'll say them again. Simplify your life. Elevate your self image, relationship with God. Service, heart of service. Take care of your health. Have courage to stop the disturbing feelings and experiences. So if it's an experience, you gotta stop it. If it's the feelings, that inner thing, stop it. And then practice love and acceptance primarily for yourself. So those are the items that I wanted to share. I have found that working on these things over time has created a situation where I rarely have a disturbing dream, and it's nice to be able to have sleep without that mental thing going on. So I will leave it there. I hope you enjoyed this talk. If you are interested in learning more, there are videos in the description below. Also, there is, online free meditation class and the Bra kumar's website. You can check out if there's a center near you, meditation center near you, and you can, if you like this vibe, if you like and you wanna learn more, you can check that out as well. So I will leave it there. Remember, our slogan is Heal, Empower, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
