What’s Wrong with my Dream Vision?

Last updated on August 12th, 2023 at 01:27 pm

Many answers to finding your life purpose lie within our childhood memories.

When I was going through my divorce and experiencing a great deal of anger and resentment, I searched for a therapist to help me come to terms with what had happened and help me manage my new life as a single mom. He was fabulous, to say the least, and we spent time looking at my past memories so that I could recognize negative relationship patterns and how not to repeat them.

This type of therapy wasn’t about placing blame. It was about looking at habits I may have picked up through experiences back when I was too young to be objective.  It’s like a part of our soul gets stuck, but we are blind to it — like a rear tire repeatedly spinning in the sand, but we keep our foot on the accelerator.

Once I understand why I am doing something, I can move beyond the “tire-stuck-in-sand” issue. I am free not to repeat the same pattern. For this article, I will use my relationship with money to show you how you can uncover your dream or what habits are keeping you from moving on.

Exploring the past …

1. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 0 – 8?

In my house, we had to ask for money, my mother managed it, and my brother was great at saving it (because that is what my mother always told me: “Your brother is great at saving money.”)  Somehow, he had the magic touch, and I didn’t (it didn’t matter that I was 4 and he was 7).  I liked sharing my piggy bank with my friends and making up a plan for a way to spend it where all of us got what we wanted. I loved money when I was this age. I especially liked small change.

My father used to loose change under his leather recliner in the living room. He’d often whisper to me to peek under his chair when my brother wasn’t looking. I’d sneak around behind him as he laid back happily in his dad’s chair, run my small fingers under the soft underbelly of this favorite chair and scoop up a big handful of quarters. He smelled of aftershave and toothpaste, and I’d always hug him for the surprise. To this day, I still love the smell of leather.  Looking back, I think he planted the money just for me.  We were close that way.  I still miss him terribly.

2. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 8 – 16?

I don’t remember thinking about money a lot during these years.  My mother was a fabulous seamstress, making me the most amazing one-of-a-kind clothes. I loved my clothes.  I loved my bedroom, ballet classes, ice skating, and ice skates.  Even though we were a middle-class family, I felt rich, safe, happy, and cared for.

My parents took my brother and me traveling every summer, and I’ve seen places people rarely get to see in their lifetime.

I didn’t like school once I entered middle school, but this was because my best friend Deanna moved away to Texas.  I never really thought about money because it felt like I didn’t need it in my perfect life.  Who needs money when you feel so loved?

3. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 16 – 24?

Money can’t buy life.  My father died from esophageal cancer when I was 18.  I remember how much was spent on his medical expenses.  You could have offered me all the money in the world, and I would have turned it down for just one more day with my dad.  Money became this hassle-thing between paying for college, working, and receiving social security.  I hated money.  No surprise. I hated everyone after my father died.

Money seemed like one royal pain in the ass . . . until I met my college boyfriend, who made great money.  He won me over by never giving up on asking me out.  He was a kind person who loved to travel as much as I did, so I’d like to say the relationship wasn’t about the fact that he had money, but after losing my dad, the fact that he was good with money and had a nice amount of it made me feel safe. Like my dad was still around dropping change for me under his leather chair.

4. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 24 – 32?

The person who makes the most money in a relationship has the most power.  Money is more important than what I want to give credit for during this time in my life.  The money took me to the Olympics, Hawaii, The World’s Fair, Canada, Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Jackson Hole, the Grand Tetons, white-water rafting, Monterrey, Santa Barbara, the gold country, back to college for real estate, wedding expenses, a honeymoon, a new car, a house, and more.

Money did not prevent the break-up of my college relationship or my marriage.  Even divorce costs money.  Never marry anyone who isn’t halfway decent with money or willing to learn how to save it.  I learned that it’s great to make your own money and not have to share it with anyone, well, except to take my son traveling and buy him adorable clothes.

5. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 32 – 40?

I loved making the best money of my life, working a job I loved with people who inspired me. I loved using money to travel to see my friend Elisabet on the weekends and share my love of the Pacific Ocean with my son.  I bought a new vehicle and paid it off on my own.  I dated, spent my money how I wished, and began setting money aside to accomplish some major goals.

My divorce was finalized, and I was on my own.  The buck quite literally stopped with me.  But I did begin to notice that even though I was making good money — friends and family that were married and drawing on two incomes were moving forward in their financial goals at a faster clip than I was. I often resented their lack of understanding of what it’s like to live on one income. Married people bugged me.

6. What do you remember about money (in dreaming, it’s what you loved doing) from age 40 – until now?

I saw money leave the lives of good friends like wildfire through a virgin forest on a windy summer day.  I saw the collapse of not one but two industries I loved. I watched people I cared for lose everything, including their careers, with no chance of making back what they spent a lifetime creating.  An industry they loved just vanished overnight and was replaced by people willing to make money knocking on doors and kicking people out of their homes or collecting their cars in the middle of the night.

I fought to survive the tsunami that swept over those around me and threatened my own life more than once.  We all came together to survive, and there were nights I went to bed without dinner so that food could be shared among those who desperately needed it. My thyroid disease suffered.  I suffered.  We all suffered.  I tried to keep it all from my son.  I’m pretty creative that way, but sometimes the truth around us forced me to have many long conversations sitting on his bed.  I hated what life had become. It felt like the times after my father died.

But instead of staring at all the misery around me, I started 8 Women Dream.  In the middle of that crazy period of time, I thought, “There has to be more than this — more than just the money.” I went on a personal search to take a chance on “do what you love, and the money will follow.” And I promised to show the world (especially women) they can do the same.

It’s working, but not to the degree that I would like. It feels like when I was an itty-bitty girl. I used to see all the money in my brother’s wallet (which he kept hidden in the middle of a novel that he had hollowed out just the size of that wallet) with me shaking the last quarter out of my piggy bank because I had just shared my savings with my friends so that we could have Popsicles. He’d smirk at me like I was an idiot.

And that is the feeling that I want to go away.

I was just a small child, for God’s sake. Now?  Now I want my bigger dream to come true, which needs an infusion of cash. But I need to find a different way of looking at what I am thinking about cash and this dream of mine. Apparently, the money is not coming from that old, black piggy bank.