Day Twenty Eight - Archetypal Characters in my Dreams

There are people I have known in my life that have become archetypal representatives to me. I know this because they repeatedly appear in my dreams and always make me feel a certain way when they do. There is a family that makes me feel unsuccessful and unworthy of success from a home life perspective. There is a married couple that makes me feel overly pampered by my upbringing and therefore disqualified from having valid opinions. There is a former employer who recently appeared in a dream that made me feel unworthy and unsuccessful from a career perspective. Last night I had a dream in which members of the family and the former employer sat around a table. I was also sitting at this table. Other than that I do not have a strong recollection of what actually happened at this meeting although there is a glimpse of a scene from a Superman movie where he (or me as he I'm not sure) carries a woman from the sky and sets her down gently on the ground. The implication seems to be that I derive my sense of self worth by my perceptions of what others think of me. (I'm not sure about the Superman part). But this observation is nothing new. I've known this for a long time but have not been able to or seen a way to move past it.

I had expected the removal of crutches to provide solutions to the problems but really it has only allowed me to see them and to admit to them. In order to take something home from my Lenten Hero's journey, I must face the ordeal. The ordeal is not removing that which insulates me from my problems, but actually facing them. The removal of the insulation allows me to cross the threshold from the ordinary world into the special world where ultimately the ordeal can be faced. So the question remains, must I actively seek this ordeal or will it come to me when I am ready and the time is right?