Hi JustBen,

I feel that what it really showed was how the image of the abuser "retreated".. meaning I would stop unconsciously abusing myself with this memory/experience. What I did not share, that it also showed, was the young girl who had given up/succumbed to the abuse. In the dream, I was asking her why she allowed it to happen, why she allowed herself to be abused. She told me, you will give up too. "No, I will not!" I told her very adamantly.. and then proceeded to beating this man away down the stairs of my childhood home. In real life, I was a fighter, as a child.. but that fighter was protecting this part of me (this aspect) of my psyche, who did feel so helpless as to have given up. Normally, when there is a strength, there is a weakness that it is protecting. I feel our job is to learn to stand in the middle and love all of ourself. Waking from that dream I felt the deep need of that child.. the one who had given up.. for my love. It was she I fought all those years for. I felt her inside of me.. and was full of incredible compassion and warmth for her. She came home to me.. and I am filling her full of love.. reassuring her that she did nothing wrong.

You see, as a child, I once witnessed an older sister cry out to my mother for help (because my father was molesting her by night).. and my mother (also a victim of abuse, powerless, emotinally absent and unable to accept the despair in her home) angrily blamed my sister.. saying why do you let him do it? Ofcourse, my sister, in tears, said, "Mom, he is stronger than me."

That is when the young child I was learned to become a fighter.. but it also was when she learned to give up because none would help her, not even Mom.

That Mom became my own inner Mom, too, in a sense.

You can see these reflections in my dream.

Dreams are very powerful in the healing journey.. for they show us what has been/is occurring in the subconscious. I feel this is where the healing needs to occur, at/from these deeper levels.

When I dream it is like I am recovering pieces of my soul.. it is like a coming home.. growing into wholeness and understanding of how my life experiences have shaped me.

Working with them takes some time.. symbols more vague at first, but as we learn to work with them, it all becomes clearer.

I feel the subconscious is always trying to show us what we need to heal.

Kamini