Another fascinating dream to share.....
Victoria and I were traveling in Italy and we had met up with a friend who lives there. We were standing outside our motel which had an arch over the entrance with the name of the hotel on it. I could not read it as it was in Italian so I asked out local friend what it meant in English. Her reply was that it said "Beautiful Together". After this we saw some art and this will take a little to describe. It was a 'work in progress' by many people, in fact each person was only allowed to add one piece or element to it. Each piece was like a jig-saw puzzle piece although there were all arrows of specific shapes. There were straight pieces, left turns and right turns; that's the only shapes and each person could only add one piece to the bigger picture. Generally speaking it looked like a long coloured line stretching from left to right across this very big long canvas as I've attempted to partly show below. Victoria added her piece and I added my piece at the end, both coloured green as shown below. The significance was that with Victoria and I working together we could totally reverse the direction "it" was heading in - perhaps there is some symbolism of life in that...
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When somebody says the word exercise, most people will immediately think of physical exercise, but that is just one type. Another type is mental exercise; exercising the brain to perform certain tasks more quickly and easily. An example could be a mathematical exercise where you gain strength in the ability to solve certain mathematical formulas, or a problem solving exercise where you get better at working out problems or puzzles. A person who regularly does crossword puzzles will notice their ability improve over time, solving puzzles more quickly as they exercise their vocabulary and knowledge. But what else can you exercise, and can you measure an improvement from that exercise? In case you haven't guessed by the title, and the Peanuts cartoon, I am talking about exercising your ability to 'appreciate'. I had heard of people going on an 'appreciation program', which is similar to an exercise program where you repeat a task to build strength in that area, and decided to give it a go. The concept is simple - find one thing to appreciate every day. What you appreciate could be many things, but I guess the more personally meaningful it is the better the exercise works. You could appreciate something somebody does for you, you could appreciate something about yourself, you could appreciate something you did really well.
At the beginning, like in any exercise program, I found it difficult to find something to appreciate every single day; but also, like other exercise programs, it got easier and easier as time went by. It didn't matter if my appreciation for the day was a big thing or a tiny thing - it was the constant exercise that built the strength. So what is the benefit of all this appreciation? It gave me a very different outlook on life, basically opening my eyes to the good things in the world, in other people, and in myself that I simply had not noticed before. I feel more confident as I know there are so many things that I can do, and do do very well each and every day. Previously I only saw the highlights and appreciated them, but they were few and far between; now I see so many things to appreciate every single day. I can see the beauty in other people, even those I don't know, just by watching them interact with others. Most importantly though, I appreciate a lot more about myself than before - and that brings an inner joy that I've never known before. I am in a room with Victoria, we are at one side of a table, and there is a third person in the room standing on the opposite side. I don't know who this person is, but it is a man and he feels threatening either towards Victoria or both of us. He isn't saying or doing anything yet, he is just there as a presence, but he has a very evil or threatening feel. I have a sense that I have been very powerful in the past, but this power has not been used recently, and I have not supported myself to keep it active. In my left hand I have something like a glass of orange juice which I am either drinking to restore my power, or drinking it after doing something else to restore my power. Either way, I have a sense that I have now regained my lost power. The third person in the room makes some gesture of a threatening nature and my right arm is suddenly able to stretch out or extend far beyond its normal length to reach across the room, grab him by the throat. A bit like 'Elastigirl' from the Disney movie 'The Incredibles'. I hold him firmly against the wall with my long arm thereby stopping the threat. I woke up immediately after the dream and found my right arm stretched straight out to the side of the bed with my hand in the position as if I was grabbing the evil entity. Likewise my left hand had the fingers and thumb gently curved as if holding the glass.
Everyone should know of the five human senses; sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, but far less can define the sixth sense, and even fewer believe it actually exists. I have known for a while that we do indeed have 6 senses, and a simple recent incident proved it to me yet again. I was at the barbeque cooking some lamb sausages for dinner. We have a Weber Spirit 5 burner gas barbeque and the sausages were on the grill. Prior to starting to cook them I pierced them all several times with a fork to allow any fat to drain away without spurting anywhere. As they were cooking the fat was indeed draining away as intended, dropping down onto the hot elements above the flames, and catching fire. No problem, this just enhances the flame-grilled flavour. As I watched this happen a 'thought' entered my consciousness, I thought to myself; interesting how all the fat is just dripping down, none of it has spurted towards me. Within about 1 second a spurt of fat from the sausages came directly at me landing on my apron just above waist high. It didn't spurt up, sideways, backwards, or any other way, it was directly at me. This was the one and only such spurt of fat - and exactly as I had just sensed mere moments earlier. This little event proved to me yet again that we do have six senses, the sixth being the ability to feel what is going to happen even before it does. Actually its broader than that - we can read and feel the energy in everything around us, everyone and everything..!! I just watched an episode in the current series of Dr Who and it reminded me of the reasons that I like Dr Who. This episode was called 'Knock Knock' and stared Peter Capaldi as The Doctor. There was a scene near the beginning where The Doctor accompanies his travelling companion to a house she is moving into. The Doctor walks in the gate, and turns to see the house for the first time. At this point he stops, but says very little - he has clearly sensed something....something that isn't right. This is one of the qualities of The Doctor that I admire and relate to, he trusts his senses - ALL of them, and ALL of the time. Although in this case he doesn't know exactly what is wrong at this point, he has felt it, he trusts and follows that feeling which proves to be well founded as the story develops.
There are other qualities that appeal to me as well:-
Dreams....if I think about every dream I have ever had, and can remember, they can be both scary and absolutely fascinating. As a young child I frequently had a dream where I would walk around a corner and find a lion. No matter what I did I could never yell out for help - my voice simply wouldn't work. This dream happened time and time again but at some point it just stopped happening.
In a recent dream I was in London Airport and saw a person I thought I knew. I asked him if he was from Australia - he said yes. I asked him if he was from Queensland - he said yes. I asked him if he lived in Ipswich - he said yes. I asked him if he went to school in Ipswich - he said yes. I asked him if his name was Steven Vogler - he said yes, and he then replied "Ah...I remember you too". When I woke up I wondered why I had this dream about a person I knew from school who I have not seen or even thought of for decades. I then tried to track him down but without success. My feeling is that the dream wasn't specifically about this particular person, but about re-connecting with people in general that I have not been in contact with for a long time. I know that dreams aren't just for entertainment, or something that is playing on our minds before going to bed - dreams are meant to show us something, although it isn't always clear to me exactly what that is. As a child I seemed to sleep a lot, went to bed early and got up late, and later in life this pretty much continued to be the normal pattern for me. I was never one to stay up very late, even when going out I was usually home before midnight and asleep. Throughout much of my working life I was available to be called out after hours to attend to urgent faults so sleep was often broken, but it never seemed to cause me any great issues.
When I changed jobs in 2007 and went into shift-work I wondered how I would handle it, the answer is - quite easily. I was working in a place where I had my own private bedroom, well sound proofed and quite dark, and I could choose to sleep as much as I needed to and when I needed to. Returning to Brisbane with a solid foundation set to manage sleep and shift-work, it was more-or-less just a change of location. My approach to sleep and shift-work has continued to develop and sleep is given absolute top priority, especially when full night shifts are involved. I've always been tall and slim, but that doesn't mean that I've never had any issues with food. People of all shapes and sizes can have different food issues, some are obvious and others are far less obvious. I read a Blog recently about a person suffering Bulimia, and I also had the opportunity to speak to them about it via email. It was a real eye-opener to how some food issues can be quite hidden from family, friends and colleagues - yet have a high impact on the person in question.
As a younger person I never had to think about what I ate, it seemed like my metabolism allowed me to eat what I liked without having any obvious physical effect on my body. I recall working at Sherwood in the 1980's and frequently having cream buns etc., for morning tea, and hamburgers from the local Take Away shop just about every working day. Later in life I discovered that milk and cheese was starting to effect me like it had never before it seemed. Although as a child I could drink a glass of full cream milk with ease, as an adult to do that resulted in the most intense stomach pains I've known. Very sharp pains which were impossible to ignore. Cheesy foods like pizza and some pasta dishes had similar strong physical effects so I cut them from my diet. While working in Central Queensland I began to wonder if Gluten was also something I shouldn't be eating. Conversations with a friend resulted in me deciding to experiment with Gluten Free foods and see what happened. The problem was that in Central Queensland at that time the options available were very few and rather basic. Two years later I returned to Brisbane and met my wife Victoria with whom I have continued to explore and develop my dietary choices. There are a lot of things that I don't eat and seemingly only a handful of things that I do eat - but that isn't quite true, and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't enjoy a great variety of tastes and flavours. It also doesn't mean that dining out or with friends is impossible, it is very possible and just requires a little homework to check out available options. The great news is that many restaurants are increasing their options for people with dietary requirements. Some great places I've found to eat out at...
Food time....that isn't a declaration that I'm hungry if that's what you're thinking. What it actually refers to is how much time I dedicate to food and food preparation. As a shift worker organizing meetings and family events always requires a check of the roster to see what I'm doing that time on that day - then I can book in the event.
It has become apparent to me that I also need to have that same level of attention dedicated to my food preparation - in effect I need to allocate or roster time to shopping and cooking. It simply doesn't work for me to decide on the day what I'm feeling like preparing, cooking and eating. It is much more supportive to look ahead and dedicate some time to cooking what I need for the upcoming few days - and its also makes better use of available time. For example; cooking a batch of curry that will last a few days at one time feels easier and more supportive of me and my various routines based around the shift work. It's a new concept to have to go to that level and not just think about what to eat when I'm hungry and looking for something to eat. And it is taking time to get used to that and make it a natural rhythm.... For a while now I've been aware that my relationship with food isn't as good as it should be. As a younger man I could eat almost anything with (what I thought) no side effects. People were constantly jealous that I could eat cream buns and huge hamburgers and still be slim. I didn't have to exercise to burn off excess weight. In my 40's I became aware that milk and some dairy products didn't agree with my digestion at all. Severe pain accompanied the days when I had a glass of milk, or a cheese filled pizza - I was becoming aware that something wasn't right, I was tuning in to food and the effects on my body. At a similar time a friend of mine suspected he may be gluten intolerant and he decided to try gluten free products to see what happened. I wanted to do the same, but working in Central Queensland, with limited shopping options, meant that wasn't possible.
When I came back to Brisbane, and met my lovely wife, I was able with her to explore a gluten free and dairy free diet. Apart from being free of the pains associated with milk and dairy products I started to see other changes in my body - and to become aware of how other foods effected me, some in very subtle ways. My journey of 'tuning in' to food and what it did to my body had begun. |
AuthorI love to understand things, how they work, why they happen - I'm always learning and keen to investigate... Archives
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