I am retiring even if I am still relatively young. I am surprised by everyone showing up to celebrate (or acknowledge) the retirement. Most of them are from an eclectic spiritual group. I feel a bit isolated and like and outsider, and am touched that even the ones I don’t know very well seem to care.
What am I retiring from? What does retirement in the dream reflect? My sense is that it has to do with retiring from the many dreams and plans I used to have about the future. (Doing a Ph.D., writing books, doing art more full time again, living in New Mexico, and so on.) Something in me seems to release its grip on those dreams and visions, and it feels good. Maybe I am retiring from my old dreams and into the life I have? That feels most resonant with the dream.
In the dream, I feel a bit isolated and an outsider. My conscious part may be a bit isolated from the rest of me, perhaps because I have spent the last few months focusing on daily life tasks and less on intentionally connecting with the many parts of me. Also, this reflects a pattern in me from childhood. I have always felt a bit isolated and like an outsider, including in whatever spiritual group I have been involved in.
What about the people showing up to celebrate or mark the retirement? They are from a spiritual group I am involved with that’s pragmatic and eclectic and take a similar approach to me. They all seem to care and support me in the transition. These must be parts of me aligned with awakening (?) that support this retirement.
The night before this dream, I did mention to another that I used to invest energy and happiness in my dreams about the future (in my early twenties especially), and I cannot find that so much anymore. Also, I cannot find much investment in my old dreams of doing a Ph.D. and the other projects I had envisioned for myself.
Instead, I have new projects – like the regeneration project in the Andes – and notice I don’t invest energy in these new projects as I used to. I take a more pragmatic approach and know it can all change in a moment. I am engaged in it and do what’s needed to be a good steward of these projects, but I don’t seem to add so much of an extra charge to it as I did earlier in life.
I am very aware that this is just what it looks to my conscious side. I don’t really know what’s going on. But the change I seem to notice feels freeing. It feels more real. More aligned with reality. A bit more mature perhaps.
INITIAL NOTES
Dream s20
- I am retiring, even if relatively young still
- Surprised by everyone showing up, even people I don’t know very well, came to celebrate/acknowledge that I was retiring
- Most from a spiritual group (similar to Css)
- I feel a bit isolated and like an outsider, but people care even if they don’t know me very well
- (Retiring? From investing in my dreams about the future? From finding identity in what I am doing? Giving up on worldly ambitions.)
- Day residue: talking about in the past investing in the future, investing my optimism, identity in plans for the future, found my happiness in the future
- I am retired from thinking I’ll do a PhD etc., all the things I had planned and invested happiness, identity and so on in