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Hope and Happiness My Opinion

Pep Talks in a Pub – with Walid Bakr

Pep Talk Pub Life in a Blog

The woman closed her eyes shut so hard it hurt and for the millionth time she wondered if she should have taken something in preparation for the chaos that was about to occur so that at least she would not have to live through the experience of a deadly rogue wave tearing through the foundations of her house and taking the lives of the ones that she loves. The thought was accompanied with images of the prior evening when the entire neighborhood took to their terraces to watch for themselves, death spelled in the sky. The weather channel had warned – across the board – that a global disaster is going to rip this earth into pieces and for every city, there will be a tidal wave so tall – taller than the tallest mountains – and it will sweep away all forms of life and that is how it will all end. As she lay waiting, not savoring these lapsing moments for she felt she had failed herself in this little life. She didn’t have the academic portfolio she had always wished for, she didn’t have the professional profile she had aimed for, nor the kind of familial bonding she had yearned for and the most disappointing of all was her failure to establish for herself a permanent spiritual connection – one that she could succumb to in all times good and bad. She had failed. In that moment, the decision to walk out of hiding and face her end was to her that last act of courage – the least she could do.

There in the doorway she stood, the sky was dark mirroring the terror she felt as she looked head on at that mountain of water rising high behind the hills- rising higher still – and then there was tremor so ferocious, a howling in the wind so petrifying as that rogue wave came crashing down onto civilization that she paralyzed with fear. It was merely moments when the water would hit her too when, for maybe the tenth time now during the past few months, she awoke with her heart hammering against her rib cage. The disaster was a dream but the terrorizing fear, the dry throat, the sweat and crazy heart beat, all that was very real.

There must be some meaning in these dreams, she thought to herself as she flipped open her laptop to reach out to Google for a dream interpretation, as cliche’ as it sounds. The internet said and I quote, “Tidal waves often appear in our dreams when we are under a lot of pressure or when significant change is occurring.  They may be an indication that we feel a little overwhelmed, that maybe we fear we won’t be able to cope or adjust with what we see in our own future.  They may occur as recurring dreams, with the wave getting bigger or closer over subsequent nights.  This may correspond to our increasing anxiety.”

And here is when it started making all too much sense to her, when a few conversations in a few pubs started coming back to her – the conversation with someone telling her exactly this. I quote the internet again, “It is worth recognizing that when we have these tidal wave dreams there is often an area of our life that we are not looking at clearly, or that we are avoiding.  Tidal wave and tsunami dreams remind us that if we don’t confront and deal with things that are out of balance in our life, then they will confront us first!  There are fewer clearer signs of confrontation than standing right before a towering body of surging water! Remember that the sea is often a symbol for our own subconscious, so a giant wave in the sea can be like our subconscious rising up, making sure its power is felt through-out our waking and conscious life.”

She felt the power alright – and rightly so in her waking and conscious life. She immediately referred back to all the Dictaphone notes she had of the time of the conversations, the late nights of music and dance. She listened, and listened again, to the advise and the pep talk, she reflected on the wise words of the man.

“Deal with your feelings and deal with things that bother you or have bothered you in the past. Deal with the stuff that hurt you and ponder over the stuff that made you happy. Figure yourself out”, he said. “Do what makes you happy. Don’t sell yourself short and don’t let your own being down. Do not settle and never compromise your own happiness for anything in this world. Most of all do what makes sense to you and try to do it right”, he advised.

He said if she didn’t tackle with her subconscious it most surely will tackle her in her everyday life, her conscious life and he was so right. And even as she looked back onto the dreams, she felt that most dominating of the two fears was the fear of failure, not death. It made her think how you meet some people only so that they could guide you through some of the most ambiguous times of your life.

All this reminiscing, the horrible dream and the reflections made her think of how every human is born with special healing powers that are meant for certain other humans. Not everyone is equipped with these healing powers. And when you meet people like these, often from across the globe, during a once in a life time experience, you just tend to connect. There might be a million different sides to one person both good and bad, but thousands of miles away from home, in a pub filled with strangers, there will be that one conversation that will have the power to change the way you look at life.

It was these conversations that filled in all the blanks for her, blanks that hindered her success and all those pit falls that made her doubt herself. Not to mention, these conversations were empowered by the strong will of a kind and extremely wise individual, that kind which if you are very lucky, you shall encounter during your lifetime.  Gratitude does not even begin to cover it.

 

Life in a Blog

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