The death of a friend, an enlightening dream and the search for goodness…

Is it me or does there seem to be a lot of negative energy out there lately? I have felt like I need to spend more time alone than I normally do because I have not felt comfortable outside my home, it is as if the energy everywhere is heavy and uncomfortable. It is more of an un-settling feeling than the act of others complaining in a negative way although that is happening too. I am not a big TV fan but if I do turn it on I have purposely choose to NOT watch the news or anything with drama which is 80+ percent of what seems to be available anymore. I have changed my music spin to include more mellow vibes. I have been trying to exercise more, eat less and be healthier with my overall choices. I guess I have been spending more time being spiritual and trying to figure out how to just feel good, stay positive and be happy.

I recently had a strange dream and I have been trying to decide whether I should post my thoughts or not. Someone I lost a few years ago came to me in my dream and spoke to me about life and death. I guess maybe this dream was brought on by recent events I have been dealing with emotionally. A week and a half ago I lost a great friend, Victoria from my life back in Orlando whom I was very close to and she was only 51 years old. It seems so unfair and I am still in a state of shock. My mind has been trying to understand, to deal and to heal. I have lost 5 extremely important people-2 family members, 1 significant other, 2 great friends and a pet in the past 5 years and each time it kicks me down and makes me question life and why we are here.

As I struggled to sleep the night this dream occurred I was restless, my back has been bothering me and the house has not felt cool due to the intense heat wave. TG came to me in this dream, he passed away in 2008 from addiction and perhaps the news of Amy Winehouse’s death influence his visit with all the public discussion on her addiction. What ever the case it was a very vivid and enlightening experience. In the dream he was smiling at me and he told me he was happy. I told him I knew he was in Heaven (earlier post about him being in Hell due to the nature of his death), he smiled and said that when a person dies they are stripped down to the core of who they are, the goodness that they are born with which is their spirit and that goes to a wonderful place that I could never imagine because it is beyond human understanding. All the bad stuff goes somewhere else and is no longer a part of that spirit (he did not say where that part went). He went on to explain how throughout our lives, with all of our experiences and choices we often lose sight of our goodness, our judgement, we start to express anger, and other negative emotions. In time if we do not allow ourselves to notice this constant negativity we slowly grow into that role and we become what we think. We become something so far away from what we are intended to be and with all of that distance comes depression, unhappiness, lack of integrity and anger. He said that because we begin to dis-like who we are subconsciously we begin doing things out of character in our unhappiness. Things like cheating, substance abuse, overeating, constant negative judgement and others as they begin to mask our unhappiness. This happens because it is easier to put that energy into making others wrong than to look within our selves and deal with the pain and guilt we have created. If we don’t recognize what we are doing and make changes we continue to hate who we are and live with self guilt. If we can at anytime stop the busyness, the noise of life and recognize that gift of goodness each one of us are born with we will realize how good it makes us feel. If we allow that to resonate long enough it will bring us back to who we are supposed to be, if not we will go through life feeling lost from time to time, staying busy to keep us from feeling anything and later regret the things we did or didn’t do. There were many other personal things TG and I talked about in that dream but in the end he smiled and said he had to go, I said I knew, he kissed me and I awoke from the dream.

It was a lot to take in, I made myself turn on the light and write every single thing I remembered so it wouldn’t be lost the next morning. I don’t know the truth of our dreams, if we subconsciously make them up or if there really is a way for loved ones who have passed to come to us when we are sleeping. When he kissed me before he left he asked me to look into his eyes. It was what made me fall in love with him early on in out relationship before he became intertwined with addiction. He had beautiful deep blue eyes you could get lost in. It was something I couldn’t do later because of the pain I saw when he was slowly killing himself after the addiction started. When he asked me to look into them I was scared of what I might see but was relieved when I saw no pain..only happiness. I am unsure what this dream is supposed to mean, if anything but it deeply moved me. I feel better about his passing and content that even if I made it up as a way of letting go that is all ok because I know he is with God now. His death makes me want to give, to share and to love deeper than ever before so he gave me more than he ever knew.

It is hard to loose people you love that you are close to, Victoria’s death has me thinking more about what I want to accomplish, she always appeared to be the healthier one in our group, she ate better foods, exercised more and was always doing. I was with her the first time I ever traveled outside the US, and repeated the trip more than once. We backpacked throughout Portugal and Spain, visited Amsterdam and got lost once in the Paris airport, missed a flight and laughed so hard people thought we were crazy. I am so grateful that those beautiful memories will always be with me. Her death makes me want to see more of the world, to take more chances, to be more than I have allowed myself to be. It has made me question so many things yet be grateful for so many more.

I am still pondering the idea that the goodness we were born with is still somewhere in each and everyone of us, some of us just have no idea what that was because we have allowed ourselves to drift so far away. I want my goodness to shine brighter than it ever has and I want to see others do the same. Together we can change the negativity around us one person at a time and I know the core of all goodness starts with LOVE…pass it on and see what happens!