Quote from: Mrs. Oliphant on March 30, 2025, 07:41:03 PMAnd my question is this: if I embark on this journey, will I feel like the woman in my dreams while I am awake?
There's another way of looking at this, which is, 'What's the optimal route I can travel to help me understand what's the best possible destination for me?' That usually means therapy.
Therapy is at its most powerful when we use it to understand what it is within us that makes us want to travel in a direction, rather than for pinpointing an exact destination. That's because as we come to understand ourselves better, which is key to dealing with repressed issues core to our personality, so does our understanding of the circumstances in which we will be most content change.
This sounds like a chicken and egg situation, but it's not, because it's only when you are happy with being yourself you will be able to answer the question you've put here.
Our sense of self is the one part of us we can never change, but it can be tough to see the essence of that 'self' is when we're fighting against layers of masculine conditioning (it's called scripting) we don't get on with, or feminine scripting if we're travelling the other way.
What you've had is a glimpse of the essence of your 'self', though barely visible through the fog of scripting and so more easily accessed in dreams. But you've focused on it just enough to know it's there which is a massive, massive step, so don't underestimate the achievement. One way of looking at this is your innate sense of self has a feminine flavour but you've been brought up all your life with it buried under a lake of masculine sauce, a lake so deep it's impossible not to think of yourself without the masculine taste interfering.
Another metaphor to illuminate your question is think of this being like a journey through the uncharted forests of your mind, toward a treasure chest you know exists, but of whose location you are unsure and of whose contents you only have a vague idea. Only once you accept the need to make the journey, which you've done, will the path you personally need to take become clear. There'll be a nagging voice in your ear saying, 'Go back to what's safe!' but once you are confident you need to explore, not only will that voice fade, but so will the path become clearer with every step. Setting out on the journey will lead to the answers revealing themselves.
A good therapist can transform the journey by helping you see past the scripting and helping remove the taste of the sauce, if you like. And asking stupid questions here is traditional, we've all done it and continue to do so :-)
