All my life, I have bristled whenever anyone tries to order me around. I cannot seem to avert my initial knee-jerk resistance. I’ve warned bosses about it, begging them to ignore my immediate reaction and give me a chance to register their comments. Most people generously allow me time to adjust, bless them.

I think I am ready to consciously confront this Jungian “complex” and disarm its ability to highjack my personality. I think this ISSUE WITH AUTHORITY currently represents fear of my identity being subsumed into amorphous conformity. Presumably it is a primal survival defense I invented as an initially unwelcome child.

I currently enjoy a low-stress life, since my father’s death in 2015 allows me to enjoy unemployment for a while. However, much to my surprise, my reactive resistance still pops up at times.  I’ve been reading and meditating on defusing psychological complexes. I am making progress, but my notorious Issue-with-Authority Complex still highjacks me occasionally—not as strongly or for as long a time, but still…

In early May, the principal I worked under for 14 years died, rather suddenly. I went to her large and loving celebration of life at our school. I went to visit with my friends and coworkers. None of us spoke, but many other people did. The speakers described someone I didn’t recognize! And I’m afraid that I am the misperceiving one, with my Issue-with-Authority Complex seeing bosses through distorted lenses.

The principal was the boss; it was her job to tell us what to do, including how the school district had decided to comply with No Child Left Behind and endless testing protocols, grrr. It was not HER fault that we had such limited time to teach! She was stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I’m sure she did the best she could under the circumstances, being pressured differently from all sides.

The night of her celebration, I meditated on seeing her in a new way, to reconsider my past perspective consciously, to access that counterproductive complex and to further defuse it!  I had a dream fragment soon after falling asleep and two dreams next morning.

 

The first fragment was just a clear message:  Changing perspective reveals new understanding and develops new appreciation, leading to personal growth.

 

The first dream next morning was the main one, referring clearly to my renewed drive (VAN) to figure out my subconscious beliefs/attitudes (OLD MOVIES) and purge the outdated, restrictive beliefs (apparently using symbolic TOOTHBRUSHES).

Once or twice, I/we were going through (a relative’s?) estate stuff, specifically going through OLD MOVIES and setting aside the ones I wanted to keep.

When “we” left, we went down the stairs, to drive off in the VAN. Somehow, I knocked down both of my bright-green-on-white TOOTHBRUSHES, which tumbled down the straight, wooden, white stairwell.  I propped them up on a step and continued down the stairs.

I drove our big white VAN, with my husband David as passenger.  (I think David represents my male, action energy in dreams.) TWICE, I had to REstart the van, to keep driving, because I forgot that, TO DISABLE the SECURITY DEVICE, I had to FIRST turn the key to the LEFT before turning it to right to start the engine. (However, as my sister pointed out, the van also needed the key turned to the right—balance of both polarities is required.)

Then David and I were at the dentist’s office, greeting the receptionists and passing their station on the left.  They were quite excited about a special offer; they had bright-green-on-white TOOTHBRUSHES for us!  (Even in the dream, I recognized the connection with the toothbrushes in the stairwell.)  Just past the desk, there was a big Wal-Mart-style bin of cheap, boxed sets of OLD MOVIES!  Just what I didn’t need!  LOL.

INTERPRETATIONS:

I couldn’t find the reference today, but I am certain that I’ve read somewhere that doubles-theme symbolizes emerging new consciousness, which makes perfect sense to me here.

The “old movies” at the family estate and dental office represent family and cultural conditioning, operating unconsciously.

“Toothbrushes” clean the extraneous crud out of teeth.

“Teeth” symbolize so many things:  power to sink teeth into actions (control);  the face we show to the world (persona and self-image, self-worth);  breaking into bite-sized pieces so we can swallow (beginning to understand);  losing baby teeth when we grow (evolve into new stage of life);  perhaps a need to verbalize–cleanly? purely?

The bright spring-green color symbolizes healing and growth.  Coincidentally(?), this is also the exact color of my next toothbrush, already in my bathroom cabinet!

The big white VAN is our Volkswagen van in waking life!  My dream-self is driving it, with David–my male side, intellect–as companion.  The KEY to keeping my life progressing is mostly, firstly, my intuition (left). I do need my dominant intellectual side (right), but in subsidiary, supportive role.  Following my intuitive guidance, I will get around those old subconscious beliefs holding me back.  Keep trying.

Usually, going downstairs symbolizes going the wrong way.  However, I’m going downstairs to drive onward.  So I think this may refer more to grounding than going backwards developmentally.

The OSHO ZEN TAROT card for this dream was the QUEEN of WANDS, which Osho calls “Sharing,” and which reads that my heart is opening and overflowing, that I have much love and abundance to share.  The Spiritual Tarot‘s key phrase is “Manifesting Spiritual Potential.” I assume this refers to increased power after expelling all those constraining “old movies.”

 

The last dream was set in a classroom full of school staff learning a new testing procedure.  I was having trouble getting the VOTING section to work right.  But finally I figured out that I COULD vote “blue” IF/AFTER I voted “red” twice and then erased it.

Interpretation:  I CAN stop my habitual knee-jerk negativity (red/stop) by consciously erasing those instinctive-feeling reactions and then choosing the more (blue/)spiritual) choices.

The OSHO ZEN TAROT card for this dream was XIX Innocence, or conventionally The SUN.  I think this boils down to quit resisting and ACCEPT what comes and have fun making the most of it, transforming through integrating or balancing intellect/intuition, male/female, conscious/unconscious, physical/spiritual.  It’s a VERY upbeat card!

 

I also meditated on my issues with the principal.  Three ideas came to me:

 *She may have felt my strong personality is accompanied by a thicker skin than I actually have.

*She may have felt other persons (students, parents) were more in need of support; that her staffers are strong professionals.

*My favorite, A Course in Miracles-themed: She was so stressed that she desperately needed nurturing herself but had forgotten how to ask for help.