Hum. Since waking up this morning, I’ve felt generally blah. Mostly, I think, because of my sinuses and the fact that I didn’t get much sleep last night. I stayed up visiting friends, then got up early to have a nick in my windshield repaired. Apparently they don’t repair well during the heat of the day. Ugh, today was the day of spending money, first on the windshield, then on new brake pads. And whereas neither of these things was TOO expensive, the mechanic who replaced my brake pads said, “Crap. One of your struts is leaking. But don’t worry–I can fix it for $420.”

I can’t tell you how much I hate this news.

The last time I talked to my therapist about my financial concerns, she said, “I know it feels like you’re taking one step forward just to take two steps back, but hang in there. I’ve been exactly where you are and I promise–it won’t always be this way.”

This is my new mantra. It won’t always be this way.

In the past when I’ve been overwhelmed by money or anything else, my therapist has suggested self-care–crying, spending time with friends, anything I can do to let go and relax. So this evening, for the first time in a long time, I laced up my tennis shoes and went for walk. And whereas it didn’t solve any of my immediate problems, it did feel good to move. Hell, I even skipped part of the way. Might as well do some knee rehab, I thought. Also, although I didn’t cry, I did have one tender moment when I passed a particular evergreen tree that reminded me of several from my childhood. They were all in a row on the playground of the school I attended in first and second grade, and I remember crawling in between them to read a book or hide during hide-and-seek. Memories like this one always get me, I guess because they remind me of a time when I felt free.

This evening I started reading a book called Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth by Robert A. Johnson. I’m only about fifty pages in, but so far I’m riveted. The book quotes Jung, stating that our personality (our ego) is like a cork floating in the ocean, and our unconscious is the ocean. In other words, you’re probably not aware of the vast majority of you. The good news, the book says, is that our unconscious self daily makes an effort to communicate with our conscious self and give it information it needs. Through dreams, for example, which use SYMBOLS to convey important information that we’re not aware of in our waking state.

Several times before I’ve mentioned Internal Family Systems, a psychological model that sees each of us as made up of different parts, like the Inner Critic, the Inner Child, and others. Well, Johnson says the same thing, that our unconscious is made up of different energetic patterns (thoughts, emotions, beliefs) or personalities, and that it’s these patterns or personalties that clothe themselves in the images (or symbols) of our dreams. This is why if you dream about someone you think is a real bitch (or, on the other hand, a real class act), the dream isn’t about that honest-to-god person. Rather, it’s about the real bitch in you, the real class act in you.

Another point the book makes is that if you don’t learn to work with your unconscious consciously, it’s still going to reveal itself to you–through “psychosomatic symptoms, compulsions, depressions, and neuroses.” In other words, you’d better learn how to swim or you’ll end up drowning in your own ocean.

I said recently that there’s a theory that our needs (problems, challenges) arise because something bigger than our needs is wanting to emerge from within us. Along these lines, I’m encouraged by the idea of having an unconscious that’s so much bigger than my conscious personality. Granted, my conscious personality is what I’m used to. Hi, I’m Marcus. I teach dance. I’m a nice guy, a damn fine fella. Still, my conscious personalty doesn’t have the answers to a lot of my problems. Indeed, it worries about money and gets in quite the twist when things don’t go its way. So I’m really coming around to this idea of the unconscious, this powerful ocean inside of me, this powerful ocean that is me, full of answers and resources and–above all else–free.