Meet The Tooth-less, Naked Renaissance Hobo…

I’m sure you’ve had one of these sorts of dreams (actually nightmares) before… a really vivid dream that’s really scary, and you wake up and take a few moments to realize that it was just a nightmare. And then you sigh in relief that it wasn’t real. But the vivid-ness of the dream stays with you throughout the day, with flashbacks of feelings and images from the dream popping into your mind throughout the day.

I had one of these the other day.

I dreamt that I was in some sort of communal residence, where we all lived together in one big room, in close quarters, with very little privacy. I was having a good time chatting to people and then suddenly I felt one of my teeth loosen and drop onto my tongue. I felt around my mouth with my tongue, gently pressing on each tooth and found that all of my teeth were loose. As I pressed on them, they dropped, like ripe fruit off a tree. I caught my teeth in my hands and stared at them. It wasn’t painful and the teeth weren’t rotten. But they were all falling out, and they were falling out fast.

I was terrified. Of course I worried that I would look like a hobo for the rest of my life and every time I smiled people would think I was poor or crazy or both. But more than that, I was anxious that my teeth falling out like this might mean that I’m sick and dying.

Worried silly, I took my teeth to my mother and my sister and I held out my hands and showed them the teeth that had fallen out and the gas in my mouth. They both just shrugged and said, “It’s fine.” I tried to impress on them all the reasons why it wasn’t fine, why it was a fucking disaster. And still they shrugged and said, “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

Right about then, I noticed that I was suddenly naked and all the clothing I owned had been shrunk in the dryer so that it was small enough to fit a barbie doll. Once again, I pleaded with my mother and sister to help me with this disaster and they just shrugged and said, “Don’t worry, it’s fine.” Eventually, after harassing my sister further, she suggested that I wear her clothes.

So I went and had a look through her closet and began trying on clothing. I tried on everything in the closet and found that every item was too small and glittery and slutty – I looked ridiculous in them. As I stood there, wearing a sequined halter-neck that barely covered my body and looked more like an unusual neck-tie, I realized that I looked more stupid and felt more uncomfortable in these ill-fitting clothes than I did naked. So I took the clothing off and went out and socialized, naked and tooth-less.

Mining the wisdom in your crazy dreams

I’ve learned to pay close attention when I have a dream like this. So I took some time out to use Martha Beck’s Jungian dream analysis technique. Basically, the idea is that every symbol in the dream represents a part of you, and every part of you has a positive intention for you. So there I was, being the teensy, sequined halter top, the ripe teeth and the assuring mother and sister, and asking myself, “What’s your positive intention for Cath?”

It’s a playful exercise and actually, it feels a lot like you’re just guessing and making up BS. But you know you’ve hit on something worth listening to when you find yourself springing tears, or getting goosebumps as you guess the symbol’s positive intention. It’s not a logic thing. It’s a feeling thing. And when you relax and play, your Essential Self comes out and speaks to you, and the message, even when it’s announcing that it’s time for you to take a scary leap, always feels like a home-coming, and a big sigh of relief.

Here’s what I learned from my tooth-less, naked Essential Self

The teeth and clothes represent my social veneers and cover-ups – the social self stuff that I use to ensure that I’m be appropriate and socially acceptable, and to present a good front to the world. They allow me to feel normal and to blend in, and they cover up my vulnerabilities.

But I’m losing this veneer and realizing that some of me has outgrown its old identity. And this feels super-scary. I worry that people will think I’m poor or crazy – in other words, someone that society doesn’t value, and even rejects. I feel like I could be dying.

And I guess in many ways I am – at least the old me is, and more of my naked Essential Self is being able to emerge. While it’s scary (I woke up with my heart beating like crazy!), it’s actually safe. Even in the dream, my fears were about “what if” stuff, rather than actual problems. I had no pain when my teeth fell out. Nobody gave me a hard time about being tooth-less and naked. All of my anxiety was in my head. The people that matter will probably just think, “That’s fine,” when I drop my social veneers and let more of my Essential Self show, and I’ll feel more comfortable and look less ridiculous if I just be the naked me than if I was trying to put on someone else’s Essential Self or social cover-ups.

Don’t get me wrong.

I’ve not been putting on a fake self here. This is me. It’s just not ALL of me. This dream came at a time when I’m feeling much more seen online and offline. And while this is mostly a good experience and I’m loving the new folks I’m meeting and the new opportunities I’m being offered, the whole “being seen” thing does scare me shit-less sometimes. And I realized that when I’m scared and feeling seen, I tend to withdraw parts of myself a little – usually the artistic, creative, playful, funny and fun, swear-y, rough-around-the-edges parts of myself. And then you get to see my more serious, buttoned-up, professional, intellectual self (read: boring).

Of course I’m all of that… and much more.

Ultimately Agile Living is about discarding the restrictive social veneers and experiencing, creating and being more of what you love. This dream gave me the gift of a big shift, and you might already be seeing a bit of that evident on this site and at The Bottom-line Bookclub. The video I added to my coaching page lets you in on my silly side, the Bottom-line on Fuck It lets you see more of the swear-y Cath, and I’m sharing more of my own personal journey in my blog posts. Charlie and Kyle, who’ve both gotten to know me a bit better have taken to calling me the Renaissance Hobo, in celebration of the more eccentric, rough-and-ready and “less refined” (read: coarse), traveler aspects of myself that they’ve had the opportunity to discover this year. And I have to say, I kinda like it…

I’m not sure where else this will take us, but I intend to continue sharing more of my whole self here – even when it’s scary to do so. Just a little warning…

Picture credit: Humor pictures