The Power to Act

Archive for January, 2010

At 27 I asked my mother if she thought I would ever meet the man of my dreams and marry.  Her sage response:  When you meet the right person, you won’t be asking me, you will be telling me.    The area of love and marriage has always been a “mind field” for me.  For others it might be strategizing for the next great career move, or planning to have their first child.  In the arena of meaningful relationships, I was hopeless.

The first time that I knew something with certainty was when I met my first husband.  I was 29 years old when I met Gene. I was opening the first secretarial school to teach Iranians how to provide secretarial support Read the rest of this entry »

About 5 years ago, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a dream I can only describe as startling, puzzling, and life changing. There was a polar bear that lived in a lean-to beside my home.  As strange as that was in itself, the thing that really troubled me was that this bear wore a muzzle.  The image tormented me; I couldn’t get it out of my mind’s eye. Why was the bear wearing a muzzle and what was it doing living beside my home? Why wasn’t it living in the wild? Just thinking about it brought me to tears and made my stomach clench tightly.

Whenever I have a physical reaction to a dream, I pay attention because I know I’ve struck a vein of pure gold. With the help of a Jungian analyst, I came to understand that the polar bear represented my powerful instinctual energies and the thing that was muzzled Read the rest of this entry »

As a young woman I never thought about progress or possibilities.  My dreams were small – of being a hair stylist or stewardess.  My journey has been defined by what I didn’t want rather then what I wanted.  At 18 I knew I didn’t want to be married; I didn’t want to have babies any time soon.  I lived in reaction to life.  I matured into adulthood, graduated from school, began my career and married.  I was happy.

Within the first six months of my 39^th year, my husband died of brain cancer and my father had a fatal heart attack. True to my past, I had fashioned my life in reaction to others; I was my husband’s wife and my father’s daughter. And when they were both gone, I found I didn’t know who I was.  Who was the person who embodied those roles? Read the rest of this entry »