It’s that time of year again. The time of year for dreams. Winter time brings so many dreams, tells me so many stories that help me understand myself when I take the time to listen and understand myself. It’s a good time to spend a few minutes in the morning writing and processing what I’ve learned through the night.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Dr. Gabor Mate recently, his audiobooks, podcasts, and other interviews. He and his son Daniel have been sharing some immportant ideas. They speak a great deal to the idea that trauma isn’t the thing that happened to you, but is the way that your body responds to that negative event. It’s an empowering idea. One can never change the thing that happened, but you can change your response to that event.

This brings me to last night. I got out my sketch pad again. I only just started doing this again this week after months hiatus. As I drew I went to the space I had forgotten, that meditative space that exists in the world of imagination. It opened the doors in a way that other meditation cannot. It was a good reminder of what is important to be the full me and a good helper to my writing. I think it opened the door to allow in my dreams.

What’s sticking out to me now from last night’s dreams is going to a band concert. I think it was a youth concert, maybe my own school concert. I arrived as the concert was happening. There were many open seats in the audience. In one seat there was a little girl. She was chained to the floor with a huge, heavy chain, something that belonged to a tractor, not a child. She sat quietly in her spot in tears while a man some rows in front of her turned toward her and admonished her, telling her to quit crying, stop acting like a baby, just listen to the music. Afterall, that’s why the director had put her there in that spot, so she could listen and hear the music of those bigger and better and stronger than her.

I took the child in my arms. I sought to comfort her, but that was all I could do. On waking I found myself wondering where is the key? Afterall, that child was me. I can comfort my inner child and that is good, but she needs to be let loose of the chains, given the chance to leave the dark theater, to play her own music, and run in the sunlight. That’s the hard part, isn’t it? We can comfort our inner selves, but healing is tough.

We all have our stuff to heal from sometimes. If we didn’t there would be no sickness and sadness, only health and joy. It is okay to have those things in our lives. It is simply life. It is better to find our ways to heal. For me, I’ll be asking the little girl in the theater to help me find the key. Together we will search. Together we will find. Tonight, I may just start with a drawing.