S2E8 What If The Missing Part Of You Is The Point

We start with the hard question a lot of people quietly ask: why do the work when it takes so much effort? Our answer is simple and uncomfortable. Your way of living works until it doesn’t, and when it stops working at home, at work, or in your own inner life, you either “own your stuff” or you keep paying the same price. We also talk about the sneaky roadblock that shows up when things are going well like how couples can unconsciously hand off undeveloped parts of themselves to a partner and call it “a system.”

Then we walk through a listener’s dream featuring two distinct feminine energies, one reserved and one more direct, and the strange detail that neither ever speaks. That silence opens a bigger conversation about masculine and feminine energy, indirect versus direct confrontation, and the dream-work question that changes everything: what’s missing? We also connect the dots to therapy and coaching dynamics, including transference, the early-session mask, and why dreams often arrive with fewer defenses.

If you enjoy thoughtful dream analysis, personal growth, therapy insights, and practical tools for emotional intelligence, listen through and consider submitting a dream for us to explore. Subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

You can connect with the cohosts through their respective websites:

AFCCounselors.com (Dr. Shalley) / https://www.inyourdreams.coach/contact (Dr. Kelley)

Transcript

Section A

SPEAKER_00 0:13

We're in season two. We're exploring further the landscape of our inner life and personality, uh, trying to put to into practice some of the things from season one, using dreams as a tool to dig deeper into self-awareness. And so this week, I would encourage folks, if you didn't listen to season one, to maybe listen to the last episode. It's a summary episode that pulls together a lot of the theory and is a great introduction, a great summary and an introduction to season two. But Jim, I thought maybe we could start off with a dream and a person's reflection on their own dream.

unknown 0:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

I think to restate Pardon the interruption.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

To restate that the real focus is using all of the things we're talking about as a way of increasing self-awareness and self-discovery. And dreams, I think, are an incredible way to do that. Because it speaks, you know, third of our lives are sleeping and dreaming and all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

So great point. And it's become such a valuable tool in my journey. Whenever I get stuck, I typically go to dreams and pay more attention to what they might be indicating in my journey as a way to kind of break through the plateau and keep growing. Or regression. Feel like I'm doing the same old things again. And often it's the people that are closest to me that will expose that, intentionally or not. They'll make a comment. That's true. Yeah. So dreams become a way by which I can kind of gently dig into my own stuff and see what might be bringing that about. Though you do because of what you just said, I want to bring up a conversation that you told me you had with a client who said, it's a lot of work. Why would you do this? And I think that is a great question. Can I ask? How do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

I wouldn't, I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

That's what I thought you would say.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

No, it was a genuine question because they're pretty they they resist change a lot, just in their natural personality. And so certainly an understandable question. And I just encouraged this person by saying, I think that the gift we give ourselves, our family, and to be to be global in it, the world, is to own our own stuff. And the way we do that is by increasing self-awareness and how we are experienced by others and how we are experienced by ourselves. And yes, one of the one of the challenges is when you face that moment where you realize, wow, I am uh, let's say, I'm a transformer and I need to bring more order to my life. And this just is so difficult to do. It's just so easy to go with the flow and expect other people to kind of fill that in and take care of it when they need to take care of it, but let me off the hook rather than stepping up and saying, wait a minute, I can do this. And so one of my challenges is always what is always to be able to point out or have them point out in their lives when they've had to access energies that have not been easy for them to do. And they all everybody can, but they almost always say, But it's so difficult. Does it ever get easier? And I think that the more you make peace with the idea that the gift I give myself, my family, my friends, the world at large is owning my stuff, I think that's the encouragement. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

I think that's great. I I would add, and this is not adding something that's completely new, but it's an extension of what you just said. I would add first that often what leads us to this place that requires work is that my pattern of living works until it doesn't. And it's that place of where it's no longer working. Like I am this way. This is the way I've been my whole journey, but it's no longer working with my family, or it's no longer working at work, or I see that it's no luck working in. I'm no longer satisfied. And so I think it is one of the reasons you do the work is because old patterns are no longer satisfactory. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

They and they keep interfering in the same way over and over again. And some people will just get discouraged and at that point just kind of give in and say, that's kind of who I am. And they they they they let down a little bit and just kind of live their rest of their life out like that rather than what I would say encouraging, and for lack of a better phrase, it's like, how do you die well? Well, I think that's that's how you maybe die, die well sounds kind of morbid, but how you leave this part of life more effectively is by doing doing the work. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Um here's one of the roadblocks that comes in regard to digging deeper and bringing about change is when things are going well. I have an absolutely wonderful couple with whom I work, that I challenged and I said, you're giving away a part of yourself to your partner in that you have this system that works well, but you were depending on your partner for those parts of you that are completely undeveloped. And the reaction is, but it's working. Okay, great. And if that's satisfactory, fine. But you're leaving a part of you undeveloped. And ultimately, from my perspective, you uh though you may be grateful for the fact that your partner handles that, it's difficult to fully appreciate what your partner does if you don't try and dig in yourself and find that part in you that you've allowed to be projected onto your partner over and over again. Right. That's great. Yep. So I can see why you wouldn't want to mess up something that's going well, other than to raise your awareness that when it doesn't go well, you might come back to these moments and go, yeah, I have surrendered this part of me and I've left my partner holding all the weight of this in our relationship. So yeah, it's raised awareness, but timing is a big deal as to whether or not you want to do the work or not. That's very true. Yeah. That's good. I think that you've probably in your long journey of practice come across this far more than I have. But you hate for somebody to have to hit the crisis point before they consider change, because that is so painful.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

And that's why I I will reframe that. And unfortunately, we'll say it takes usually it takes a trauma to get our attention enough to to to to address that pattern that over and over again causes us pain, but we minimize it until we have a a really big trauma, whether that's a job loss or a divorce or you know something like that. And that's why I will say a trauma is is devastating, but it's also a doorway through a better life, if we take it that way. Yeah. Yeah. But it would be nice to invite people. Yeah, it can be a doorway. I I shouldn't make it so blanket.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

So it'd be nice if people had the foresight to walk that path before they had to unlock the trauma door to get there. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

We we humans have a limited insight and awareness sometimes with that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Very true. So let me read the dream of somebody who actually did work on the dream that relates, I think, directly to what we've been talking about. Okay, cool. And you can certainly ask whatever questions you want, but I'd love for you to just expand on this person's reflections and help them dig deeper. Okay. So it begins this way. This is this individual came in with three different dreams. The second one was that the person was in a uh Jerry Seinfeld episode, which is always entertaining.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Has this person been watching lots of shorts on like YouTube or or Instagram?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Probably so. Yeah. Just residue from previous days. But this this is dream three of the night. I am in a circle of adults. We are all seated. I asked a question of a young woman across the circle. I told her that I respected how she thought, and I wondered what her position was on using personal finances in relationship to social concerns that she had, including such things as environmental care, social justice, those kinds of things. She stood up, walked over to me, and faced me. She was about to respond, and I woke up. I was disappointed because I wanted to hear what she had to say. It occurred to me that I could try to recreate the scene in my imagination and ask her what she was going to say. So I did that. And in so doing, I faded into a dream state again. And in the continuation of this dream, a figure like Rachel Maddow entered the circle. The original woman was back in her seat, and the Rachel figure walked toward her. I could only see her from the back. And then the dream ended again. So now this is the reflection of the person. These two were very different feminine energies to me. One was much more reserved, kind of like a person I know by the name of Joy, and the other was much more vocal and direct, like the Rachel Maddow figure. Yet there were no words spoken by either. I still live in that space where I want the feminine to provide explanations, not intuition.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

This is the ref reflection of the person who dreamed this.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. So I want the feminine, and I think that he is referring both to the feminine people in his life, but also the feminine side of who he is. I want them to provide explanations, not intuition. Where I want logic, not feeling, where I want to understand something, but not necessarily have to live it. I beat my feminine side up with expectations that don't fit the feminine way of being. I think I rob it of its joy. I think I steal its actions without paying the price of its uncertainty. And then I beat myself up when it doesn't work. That's my dilemma.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Well, it feels like this person's uh wanting the feminine to become more masculine. Exactly is what it sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. And why is this person so it feels like so hesitant about just the masculine energy?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Oh, interesting. So your viewpoint is not to examine more of the feminine side. Yeah. Why is he yeah, why is he not connected to the masculine? Because you've already got a masculine side. Why not just tap into it? Yeah. Interesting thought.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

So plus, okay, so it was it Rachel Maddow, the the the person on on the uh news was commentator? Correct. Correct. Okay, so is that okay, so that's how would you describe her energy? Or the person? I mean, do you did Jack?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

The person who had the dream? Yeah. Oh, I would consider that person My interactions would be that he's static in terms of his energy.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

So he's not comfortable accessing the strong masculine. He's more comfortable trying to get the feminine to become more masculine. So is that an expression of this person's journey that they have strong feminine energy and they rather than going into the complete masculine, wants to masculinize the feminine because it's safer?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Does that make any sense? It does. And I'm trying to think of the interactions, how I would respond to that. I think he would I think he would say that Well this is a he who had the dream. Yeah. I think he would probably express uh his interactions with women as being uh energizing and uh appealing, but he is probably because of his static energy drawn to the transforming voice. Okay. But he keeps trying to force that transforming voice into a spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_02 13:14

Okay, so but listen to the look at the dream. The dream is this person is walking towards you, towards the person in the dream. Yeah. And then stops, and you and the person wakes up. And they never say anything. Okay. Yeah. And then the then this person goes back to sleep, dreams more, and now this Rachel Maddow figure is walking towards the person who was walking towards the person in the dream and stops.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

So both are feminine, right? And they don't follow through with the masculine that finally goes ahead and says it. So the masculine is once again stopped in the expression. Because it's the feminine walking towards. Feminine is trying to confront, but then they don't confront. Because it takes masculine energy to confront. Gotcha. So you don't think the dynamic feminine has a confrontational side? No, not indirect. They're indirect. They say, is that your pants? Are those your pants on the floor? Ah. They don't say pick up your freaking pants. Masculine does that. The masculine confronts directly. The feminine confronts, but indirectly. Got it. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

So the voice is often there can be nuances to all that, but I'm just saying. But the prophetic voice of the feminine side transformer is couched in poetry or symbolism or absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Yeah. And so this person's having the dream. It'd be interesting to know does he have a hard time accessing the strong masculine confrontive energy that says, oh yeah, you talk a big game about covering all these causes, but you don't spend your personal money to support it. Come on, buddy, what's your problem?

SPEAKER_00 14:53

I think that's spot on. Yeah, I think his static energy hesitates to step into that initiator side.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So are you suggesting, in terms of this gentleman's work, that the focus may be he seems to be very aware of his interaction with the feminine side. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Very aware. And that's relational. So of course he would be. So that then is don't miss what's missing in the dream. What's missing in the dream is the initiator. Absolutely sure. Yeah. Yeah. So one of the issues that we often do in dream work is you pay attention to the emotions you're feeling in the dream, but you always ask the question, what's missing in the dream? What didn't show up?

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Aaron Ross Powell And again, both times you woke up just when the initiator needed to take over, or the person woke the person in the dream woke up.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Fascinating. I love how uh this draws out the possibility for a direction for perception.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

No, that's that's that's fascinating because I personally I've had dreams, recurring dreams of certain images where I could never have a conversation with them. They'd always be turning away from me and always be walking away. And in that light of that, that's an interesting reflection. Because I would say, looking back on those, uh I was not connected to the the same way this of your dreamer, the strong masculine that says, What are you doing? What are you walking away from me for? I don't confront it. Yeah. That's really interesting. Anyway, we're taking a little diversion about my journey, but that's that's fascinating. I'll have to think more about that. Because that I've had a recurring dream for years, and that that makes really sense because I would get angry that I didn't confront and say what I think needed to be said. Yeah. Yeah. Similar to the to that dream.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

And life patterns are-I mean, it you can uncover a life pattern, the next step is really difficult. So how do you then challenge the life pattern? Because we often want to take, like we go on a journey and we take far too much luggage. When we're going on an inward journey, we take along with us too much of the familiar patterns, and it keeps us from experiencing and engaging what the what a new pattern has to offer. And it's never going to be about um turning your back on all the ways of doing things. It's about integrating new ways to bring about balance.

SPEAKER_02 17:28

Yeah. The way the way I would describe it is if you have a if your bias is feminine energy and you're you get hurt by something, and you really would like to say, you know, F you to somebody. But if you say that, then you feel guilty, so you don't say it. So then the feminine overrides that natural need to say what you really, really want to say. And the reverses as well. If I'm strong masculine, I'll just go off and just tell you what I think, and I won't even even think about how it affected the relationship. And I worked with so many people that will get frustrated because they'll have a strong response and be so upset and they'll feel horrible guilt and they'll go back and apologize and say, I'm so sorry. And it's like, yeah, that's like the abuse cycle in that sense. It's like they have both sides, but the one is predominant, and when they express the other one, they feel guilt either way. It's just interesting.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah. And taken to an extreme, there are individuals who feel incredibly guilty for even thinking it.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Absolutely true. And the other extreme is they never consider how their words affect others. Don't even think about it. It's like, well, oh, you were hurt by that? Oh, did I say that? I didn't really say that.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Did I say that? Oh, okay. That's fine. Or the response that is, just grow up. Come on. Are you not an adult? You know, the absolute response just minimizes the relational side.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

And what I find interesting in my work, I'm probably I always say that Mike the phrase, we're healthier at work than we are at home because we get a paycheck. And I will say, because of the detachment of my work, I can say things to clients that seem very harsh, but in the moment, it's very truthful, very honest. And it takes them back. I don't even think about how that might have hurt them. I just think that's well, that's good therapy. And if it rang true, that's great. But I don't go home and think, oh man, I'm really sorry. So like the next session I process, I feel bad. Did I really hurt your feelings last time? Don't even think about it. But in my personal life, if I do that, I'm more likely to go, d I'm so sorry. Did that hurt you? Yeah. Just interesting.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Yeah. It is. It would also be interesting to look at in a therapeutic or coaching relationship, the whole notion of transference, that if transference has taken place, how that muddies the water of safe space. Absolutely true. And how you get concerned about the things that really interrupt good work because it's clouded by that. Did I hurt you? Did I not hurt you because of the transference of emotions, relationship things that take place?

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Or even in the Yeah, even in the therapeutic relationship, the transference of the client transfers the good feelings on the therapist, so they aren't as likely to share their unvarnished truth because of how the therapist might view them differently.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Right. Yeah. And we often think of transference kind of taking place over time in therapeutic or coaching relationships, but there's also something that happens in the very early stages where you're trying to get a client to remove the mask. They feel like they have to do something to make the hour be successful as opposed to being honest. And so there's kind of a breaking down of those barriers that often happens in the first couple sessions of therapy or coaching.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yeah, oftentimes a client will say, they'll stop and they'll go, okay, I I probab I probably should just tell you the truth, right? That'd probably better for our work. And I'll go, well, you know, yeah, I suppose that would be helpful. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah. Yeah, those moments when the client goes, Yeah, I probably ought to fill you in on this.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Do you think? Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. There may be some information that might be helpful. Oh, yeah, okay. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Oh my goodness. Again, I've said this before, but one of the reasons I think dreams are such a great tool is that we often share them without thinking about all that they imply. And they typically come with very few defense mechanisms up. At night, the defense mechanisms drop, the executive functioning of the brain goes dormant, and we have dreams that reveal things. That are unfiltered. And it becomes wonderful material in that interaction to kind of jumpstart a conversation that would otherwise be hidden or held back. So I love that. I think this is probably a great time to bring this to a close. I certainly would encourage our listeners, if you just want to submit a dream and like this person, let us know something that we can use and discuss beneficial for you, beneficial for the other listeners. So hopefully we can go down that pathway some more. Jim, as always, great to be with you. Great to be with you, Dee. Thanks, Jim. That's it for this episode of Therapy, Coaching, and Dreams. If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love for you to follow, rate, or share it with someone who might appreciate it as well. Thanks for being here, and until next time, keep growing, stay curious, and take good care of yourself. Yeah, now that's good stuff.