The Dream Sharing Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Your Personal Relationships (23 page)

Read The Dream Sharing Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Your Personal Relationships Online

Authors: Phyllis R. Koch-Sheras

Tags: #test

BOOK: The Dream Sharing Sourcebook: A Practical Guide to Enhancing Your Personal Relationships
9.14Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
 
Page 118
Partners can coach each other, usually when one of you has a particular expertise you would like to share or specific problems to solve, as with Kelly and Phil (see "Late" earlier in this chapter). This sort of relationship can enrich both of you, but it is best undertaken when there is mutual coaching. In this way, each person gets to coach and be coached. You can learn a lot about how to receive coaching by giving it, and vice versa. For instance, one of you may coach the other on a vision to ski, while the other receives instruction and feedback about writing poetry. The areas of support need to be chosen carefully so that you can give feedback honestly. One of the major tools the coach has is the brutal truth, a nonjudgmental response that avoids theorizing about what it means that the goal was or was not reached.
Your dreams can give you a clue as to what areas in your relationship need improvement through coaching. That is what happened for Peter and Phyllis in "The Wake-up Call" (see chapter 1). In that dream, Peter was concerned that he might wake up Phyllis. When he told her the dream, he was able to give and get some feedback about his concerns. The dream served to focus them on an area of potential conflict or hurt where sharing information could lead to more cooperation or coaching.
Recognition of the truth: Telling the truth is essential, because the person being coached cannot always see it. This seems to be more a part of human nature than any real weakness in character. Psychological research tells us that once we see the world in a particular way, it is nearly impossible to see it otherwise unless we are forced to by the acknowledgment of real facts or an experience that is new. Your dreams can sometimes lead you to the truth by highlighting something previously unnoticed. Dreams often have a great deal of unconscious con-
 
Page 119
tent that can warn you about what you do not see. Consider this dream that Roz had:
She's Not Coming Back
I am sitting in the front yard of my house with two little black dogs, poodles, I think. They are playing together, rough-housing, and barking. I tell them to calm down and be nice to each other. All of a sudden, one of them runs off toward the street. I get up to run after her but hear the squealing of brakes and I know that she has been hit by a car. I look at the other dog and say, ''She's not coming back."
At first, Roz thought this dream was about her dog. As she talked about it more and more with a friend, she saw it differently: "I think this dream is about me and my boyfriend, Art. It seems lately that we have been arguing more and that I am usually the one to leave. Maybe the dream is warning me that if I run off, I might not come back."
Roz spoke with Art about her concerns, and they saw a "truth" that had not been obvious to them before: They were spending less and less time together, scrapping when together, then running away from each other. They decided to look more carefully at their feelings about being together and get some help from a counselor.
Coaches can recognize your achievements even when they are invisible to you. You may be so used to expecting a particular outcome that you do not notice what is different. This is what happened to Randy and Adele.
One day Randy had a daydream while driving to work. He saw a young man jogging by the side of the road looking very thin and fit. For a moment he imagined that was him finishing up a daily exercise program. Randy knew he wanted to slim down and lose a few pounds. He asked Adele, his wife of thirty
 
Page 120
years, to be his coach. She agreed to help him set up an exercise program at a nearby gym and then make sure that he stuck to it. He set a goal of losing twenty pounds within the next six months (ending just a week before their daughter's wedding). Adele coached him to create a vision of his goal, a proclamation that brought the future to the present. It was "I feel thin."
Randy felt he had been down this road many times before without much success. However, Adele coached him regularly to attend sessions at the gym, track his exercises, and eat at least one healthy meal a day (which she prepared for him). Despite his resistance, she also coached him to refrain from weighing himself for six weeks! When the day came to step on the scale, Randy was shocked to discover that he had lost only three pounds. Adele was extremely clear in her coaching at that point. She got him to recognize that although he had not lost much weight, he was two inches smaller at the waist, much better proportioned, and able to climb the stairs at home without being winded. He was in line with his vision of feeling thin, even though he had not lost much weight. She asked him to focus on these accomplishments and coached him to wait six more weeks to check his weight. By then he had lost ten more pounds.
For Randy, coaching involved encouraging him to be patient and see what he was doing in a different light. Adele's ability to stick to the facts and help her husband change his attitude made her an excellent coach. When members of a couple coach each other, it may change the power relationship between them. If both people do not want that, an outside coach is needed.
Celebration: The final component of creating a couple as a team has to do with celebrating what has been accomplished. Picture the jubilation when a team wins a great victory or an Olympic gold medal; imagine the NBA finals celebration or last
 
Page 121
year's Super Bowl victory or World Series championship. Winners are incredibly happy. (Remember Michael Jordan falling to the floor and crying after winning a championship for the Chicago Bulls?) This type of ecstasy is possible in your relationship. When you have accomplished the birth of a child, an anniversary, or buying a home, celebrate. Take yourselves out to dinner, or on a trip, or just to the movies. Be sure to say to each other what you are celebrating. These activities are acknowledgments of your power as a couple and in many cases your ability to live a dream into reality. Noticing your dreams, as in the following example, can give you clues about what to celebrate and how to go about it.
The Beautiful Mansion
Drew and I are in a beautiful mansion. Large doors covered with white lace curtains open to a huge patio. We're invited to have dinner with the owners. We watch a beautiful pale sunset while eating. Feeling very relaxed, I go outside to watch the end of the natural spectacle with others. I walk around and look at the incredible views, enjoying it immensely.
In this dream, Molly feels awed by this great house and the beautiful sunset. ''The whole thing feels like a celebration of life and beauty," she recalls. She also remembers that she and Drew have just completed their own new house but have not yet been able to revel in its beauty and their own accomplishment. After this dream, they decide to plan a housewarming party to celebrate.

Other books

Fragmentos de honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
THE BRIDGE by CAROL ERICSON
Storm Bride by J. S. Bangs
Arizona Ambushers by Jon Sharpe
Frankenstein (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Tamara's Future by Cyna Kade
Black Water by David Metzenthen