Good Will Hunting

As I am getting ready to move towards a different life, I have been making some pretty big changes. 

I keep telling my daughter, "You can't expect a totally new life if you are taking an old version of you into it." I have been asking her to think of little ways she can change, now, before we head back to where I grew up. I have been encouraging her to complain less and change her thoughts to gratitude as though what she wants already exists. I explained that we create more of what we focus on, so if we are focusing on the lack or issue, lack and issues is what we will draw to us.

I have encouraged my daughter to create new helpful habits, right now, so that we aren't bringing old bad habits with us. I suggested that she make little adjustments like eating less sugar and more fresh fruit and vegetables, cleaning up after herself and learning to comfortably spend time on her own so she can learn to love her own company.

I do try to practice what I preach.

I have made some huge internal changes where I am releasing self-destructive and self-harming thoughts. I am working hard to rewrite the internal script. Wishing I was dead had become a habit. It was my go-to internal narrative when I was in a lot of pain or sadness or stress. 

The thing is, thoughts are things and they create our reality. My guides showed it to me in a dream as these beings that were created who had a self-destructive mechanism. When they were triggered, they would explode and take out whatever was around them. I saw this as our thoughts creating these cells within our bodies that create illness. It could be cancer, autoimmune disorders and a whole array of illnesses that are "self-harming". My lingering self-destructive thoughts that would kick in on autopilot were keeping me in pain and suffering.

On April 16, I made a declaration to break up with those self-harming, self-destructive thoughts and the outer representation of them. I was tested during that time when it seemed like all of my plans were going to fall through. I slipped once when I saw myself put a gun to my head and pull the trigger. I immediately caught myself, I apologized to my body, renounced the images and reimagined it with flowers coming out of the barrel and smelling them. I worked hard in those moments not to fall into a deep despair. I did cry, quite a lot, but I also changed my thoughts to gratitude and support in those moments.

The truth is, I don't like it when my pendulum swings. I prefer to be balanced, so finding a way to express my feelings without falling into darkness was a huge step for me. It felt like a huge test and I am happy to say, it feels like I passed it.  It is a huge turning point for me.

Since I have been shifting my inner dialogue, I have noticed that I am in less pain. I believe fully that I will be completely pain free before long as I replace the self-destructive cells (thoughts) within my body with healthy self-loving, self-nurturing ones.

I have ended my life long coffee addiction. This time I think it will be for good because I am working to "lighten up" and bring sweetness into my life. Instead I have been drinking cranberry juice with honey and chia seeds. I'm starting to make healthier choices for my body, so the coffee had to go so I could leave that old version of me behind.

I was discussing with a friend how the last time I quit coffee, it was excruciating. I suffered with withdrawal symptoms for three days. This time I did it differently and I suffered very little. A mild headache and that was it. I was shocked at my own will power to make some of these recent changes where, in the past, it had been a real challenge. As I discussed some of these changes, I remembered a dream about a teenage boy named Will going to a shop to buy socks. I stated to my friend that maybe what the boy in the dream represents is my "Will" power. I considered that maybe he wasn't fully grown because he was a part of me that had to be reborn and was still developing, but it was his presence that has made it easier for me to make some big changes.

This is that dream:

September 14, 2020 I dreamed about Keanu all night. It was strange because we kept jumping through time. There was a version of him which jumped with me to a specific timeline and then there was a version of him that seemed to leave half of his brain behind. I heard the word "meathead" to describe that one and then there was the younger version of him that already existed in that timeline. The one who jumped with me had trouble landing where he intended near me but finally got there. 

Somehow I ran into the younger version of him and then all three and I heard "All three want to he with you." I started to rouse and tried to process what that means but fell back to sleep.

Again, I seem to be energetically jumping and at one jump I accidentally broke a mirror. I remember a scene where I saw Amber with my daughter and observing how much that seem to have bonded as though she were her mother and not me.

There was a bit about a teenage boy with dark hair going into a store to buy some socks. He is hoping the clerk doesn't ask him where he got the money from. The boy is asking if they had another item but I can't remember what. The clerk said to him, "Will, this store exists only for you." That is when I noticed they only sold men's/boys items and guessed that the store literally only existed for his benefit.

The first part of the dream makes me think of how different people know different versions of us. They hold a reflection inside of them of us. So if I was the character that they all wanted to be with, I would be Keanu himself and the different versions of him who wanted to be with me represents different people and which version of me they are reflecting back to me. There was the person who knew me when I was younger, the person who knew my "meathead" version and the person who knew me as I truly am now. 

Of course, this dream takes on more meaning to me, now, as I get ready to go back to the city and state I grew up in. I dread running into people who know a previous version of me because I know that is all they can see me as...who they remember and not who I currently am. That was why I left in the first place. This version of me is very different from the one who fled the Midwest all those years ago. 

With Will as my co-driver, I am facing a lot of fears by going back and trusting that everything is going to be okay.... better than okay... magical, even. I will continue to grow and learn wherever I land, but now I will be living in a bright, lighter, happier version of me.

Seven leaf clover I found.

That offer is still open to you, Keanu, should you ever want to join me in the sunshine. 😉

***Image Credit: All images by me, Oktobre Taylor

Dear Clown

Here is the thing, Clown. I thought you were Keanu's "Tyler Durden" and his alone, but what I was missing is that, because you are showing up in my reality as well, you also represent my inner Tyler Durden, MY self-punishment, my self-destructive thoughts.

Yesterday I gave advice saying that Keanu needs to break up with you and create a new character to replace you with. The funny thing about advice we give is that it is often meant for ourselves, as well.  

So, this is it.

I'm breaking up with you, Clown, and all that you represent within me. I renounce you and all that your existence in my reality represents. I renounce all of my self-destructive and self-harming wishes.

Today I start to create new thought patterns based in self-love, gratitude, self-support and self-nurturing.

I'm sorry, but I can't love you, because loving you means I keep harming me and I don't want to do that anymore.

Bye forever, Clown.

Soul Retrieval and Clean Canvases

I call back to me 

All the pieces that are mine

All the pieces of my daughter

All the pieces of our trine

I give back to you

The promises you never kept

The hooks you attached

Are all now released and swept

I call for justice

To set the wrongs, right

Let the sword of truth

Bring your many lies to light

I call for a refund

To be paid in full to me

For the pain I paid

For the order I didn't receive

I call for balance

For you to financially lose 

For you to experience

The rest of your life in my old shoes

I call for a clearing

Let the canvas now be blank

Bring forth my abundance

While you have to walk the plank

I call for abundance

Fruits of my labor held back

Let them fill my cups

An end to my struggles and lack

I call for healing

Energetic balance once depleted

Now fully restored

The body repaired and wounds treated

I call for true love

To take a seat on my heart throne

Tear up old contracts

Burn karma that kept me from "home"

I call for judgement

Of those wicked and impure

Clear out the baggage

So a new way of being can endure

I call for transmutation

Of that which no longer serves me

Send it deep into the earth

To become rich soil to feed my tree

I call for protection

From those who mean me harm

Whose intentions are selfish

Let me hear the danger alarms

And so it is

April 7, 2021

Oktobre Taylor

Dear Jeffrey Lee, JTJ and UGOSSIP Owner

Art by Hillary White

I dreamed of you last night. You were the manager of an apartment building. Everyone hated and avoided you because you had to enforce the rules. Your mom and dad owned the place, but you were responsible for keeping the tenants in check.

It seems like the people there were having a BBQ in a common area. They were cooking on a tiny grill and could only cook one burger at a time. I decided to invite you to join us but explained that it could be awhile before we got our food. Apparently no one was ever nice to you and no one ever invited you to the parties. At first everyone groaned about it. But something shifted in you at that point. You softened towards me. You introduced me to your husband. I was asking you both about what state you got married in and saying how I thought it still wasn't legal in some states.

You became kind of smitten with me because I was nice to you. There was something about everyone from the apartments going to the community pool (UGOSSIP original), but it had been closed down for some reason. Your husband came up near you, but you moved away from him to be closer to me.

At one point you were behind me and connecting to me through our clothes and I spontaneously orgasmed. (Symbolic of a connection that moves you on an energetic level.)

I remember introducing you to my father. My father, awkwardly, took your left hand in his gloved hand and sort of shook it. For some reason, I couldn't remember your name. I had a complete brain fart. You felt upset and I apologized, said I did the same with my sister once. Sometimes I just can't extract a word I want no matter how hard I try.

I saw the letter "E" and I heard the name "Jenny Povacheck". (Point of view check?) Seeing "E" has been a recurring theme lately. I'm hearing "Rated E for Everyone" as I type this.

As I discussed this dream with my friend, I told her, that the theme was about being inclusive and not leaving people out.  I explained that, in the dream, you seemed like an unpleasant guy, but were really not. You were just hurt and felt left out because you had the unpopular task of enforcing rules. When someone could actually see you as a person and took an interest in knowing you, something in you shifted into a more pleasant way of being.

We all want to be seen. We all want to be included. We all want someone to be genuinely interested in who we are beyond the jobs we perform no matter what they may be. We all want to feel connection that moves us on a deeper level.

Empathy, the kind where we try to imagine what someone else might feel in a situation, can help us shift our point of view about someone. It can help us be more understanding and then behave in such a way that we would want to be treated.

Empathy can heal and soothe. We can help each other bloom with the empathic choices we make in how we treat each other.

I hope one day you bring back UGOSSIP but instead of using it to tear people apart and tear them down, I hope you use it to help, heal and include those lonely misfits and broken people it attracts.

Dream Journal Entry: April 29, 2021 As I was rousing, I was thinking about a puppy I saw in a dream that Inara received and heard, "He just needed to be trained so that he was an asset instead of a distraction." (Using UGOSSIP as an asset instead of a distraction?)

The puppy I saw was dark with streaks of brown. He looked kind of like a german shepherd but had longer hair. I looked up breeds and the closest I could find is a Dutch Shepherd.

There is a place for what you do and what you have to offer, it's just, maybe you can use your powers for good going forward. Be a teacher, not in just your profession, but in every action you take along the way. Being a living example is the most powerful teaching tool any of us possess.

Blessings and love to you, brother.

Oktobre