Mirror of my soul – Stories of you, me, the world and eternity

The doors that we open & close

Life is full of choices: each choice representing a door that we either open or close. Every time we open a door and make a choice, other doors are closing; often to remain shut forever. Only very rarely do we get a chance to return to a door and reconsider our past choices – and perhaps choose differently. Luckily, it seems that with our beloved we are the fortunate ones, because if they are truly our “twin”, then no matter how long it takes, we do seem to get renewed chances to, at the very least, kiss them softly at these doorways… It is in the nature of the connection to pull you back together from time to time; to test you, to see if you can withstand the mirror, to see if you are really committed to your spiritual growth and mission, above all. In those moments, there is always an opportunity to step through that door together; hand in hand, or to choose another door; another detour, until the next time…

When I briefly reunited with my beloved in 2005, I ruminated on why suddenly my spiritual awakening, led by a force far greater than anything I had ever known, had led me into that doorway again if we weren’t going to step through it together. My beloved had despite an intense and – for me – magical reunion, friend-zoned me and denied we had anything more than a “special friendship”. Yet I knew that I was not the one wanting this for us: it was God who was pulling me to him. While I had never been a religious person, I was not immune to instantly recognising and knowing the presence of my Creator, just like any other creature in this universe would have been. I had no doubt that whatever the higher power was that created this world was also the one who pretty much forcefully “guided” me to this place. I literally did not get a choice: the guidance was both internal and external. Synchronicities bombarded me day & night as a reminder of what He wanted me to do. So to stand there at this doorway, only to realise that my beloved wasn’t going to step through with me was, for me, incomprehensible.

After months of trying to understand why, I finally came to a place of acceptance; of even feeling lucky to have been able to cross roads with him again, even if it didn’t turn out the way I had hoped. The journey that led me there taught me the meaning of real love, friendship, intimacy, integrity, truth, acceptance, forgiveness, human nature, spirituality and so much more. It gave me the opportunity to grasp who I really was and to start to become the person I want to be. It pushed me to grow in such a way that I could not have imagined even a couple of months earlier. It gave me the ability to go after my dreams. And, it made me realise just how much I loved him, all over again.

I also realised that just because I’d had a spiritual awakening and realised some deep truths, this did not mean that I had the right to drag him into that doorway with me. I felt completely insignificant, and I didn’t know whether it was my ego playing out all my feelings of unworthiness or whether it was spiritual humbleness. I just wanted to bow my head down and sneak out of there backwards as if my mere presence created a disturbance. I felt like I didn’t even have the right to tell him all that I already had. Then it dawned on me that maybe he returned to that door only to wave me goodbye; and that this didn’t mean that he didn’t love me or didn’t wish me all the best, but there was nothing I could do to convince him, because the timing just wasn’t right.

Rising from a place of numbness

And so passed 8 years, during which I married and created a family with someone else, and during which I endlessly purged and peeled away multiple layers of the spiritual “onion”, while attempting to live a life that didn’t fully reflect who I was on the inside but which had provided me with the escape I had needed all those years ago. Finally, through a series of existential crises I came to a place of numbness, which was really on hindsight a significant spiritual milestone as I finally saw how the disconnection from my beloved had actually led to a disconnection from myself.

I also realised that all those years ago I hadn’t really surrendered the connection to God; but rather given up & resigned. I saw that to fully surrender I had to give my beloved, and especially my love for him, the space and position in my life which was rightfully his, regardless of what that meant for me, my marriage, my sanity etc.- and regardless of whether he wanted to be any part of it. There was simply no other way; to find peace and to be who really I am, I needed to accept who he is to me. And more importantly, I had to do it to align myself with God’s will because he is the one who brought us together; I had no doubt about that. So, I sat down and, for the first time in 8 years, poured out my heart in a long email, telling him that while I didn’t feel entirely ready yet, I had finally reached a place of realisation that I can no longer deny my immense love for him and I invited him to be part of my life again.

EFT

Later that summer, I had a session of EFT (Emotional freedom technique) with tapping, with a lovely lady and Holistic Health Practitioner called Eileen Strong. I had been getting various body pains that baffled the doctors and so I had figured that perhaps the pain was being held in my emotional body rather than the physical. I had never tried the therapy before and did not know what to expect. To my great surprise during the session out of nowhere arose a mountain of grief and tears, and I cried like I had not cried since I first ran from my beloved in 2002. It felt good; like a huge emotional blockage was being released. I hadn’t been feeling sad or depressed, but as I described the pain to Eileen and came to some deep realisations, I saw the link to some emotional blockages created out of fears and anxiety which I had been holding on to. It was yet another mind-blowing experience on my spiritual path.

The dream

Very soon after the EFT session I had a dream. I rarely remember dreams nowadays and when I do, they always have a deeper meaning which is only revealed to me in the days, weeks and months that follow. This time was no different.

In my dream, I was in Paris (where we first met) and went to view what seemed to be an old abandoned bakery, or a flat. I stepped into the front room up a couple of stairs up from the street, landing in what was a store-front type room. It seemed like time had stopped there; the shelves, which covered most of the walls, were dusty, and mostly empty, with some old objects left to cover dust. It didn’t seem like a place anyone could live – and no one likely had, for many years. The air was so dusty that it was almost hard to breathe. I wandered towards the back of the room, into a small dark hall. I glanced to my right where there seemed to another room, and possibly a staircase leading upstairs. As I did this, I got the hit by that same feeling that I got right before I first met my twin: a feeling of unexplainable energy, of tingling in the air. I seemed to be pulled towards a door slightly ajar at the back of the building. A bright light was shining through the slightly open door into the dark hallway.

Interpretation: Doors are often a symbol of transition, suggesting that either a person is in need of change or undergoing a transition from one stage to another. Doors can lead to new opportunities and new starts. The “when one door closes, another one opens” suddenly became very relevant again. To see an opened door in your dream symbolizes your receptiveness and willingness to accept new ideas/concepts. In particular, to see a light behind the door suggests that you are moving toward greater enlightenment/spirituality.

So, I pushed the door open and stepped outside into what seemed to be a Parisian courtyard surrounded by tall buildings, filled with plants and flowers. To my right, peaking through the clouds was the sun; shining onto the courtyard in a stark contrast to the dusty, dark, oppressive interior I had just walked through.

Interpretation: To dream that you are entering through a door signifies new opportunities that are presented before you. This could be entering into a new stage in your life and moving from one level of consciousness to another. If your dream takes you through the door, what is on the other side is of importance. If you come across a land of plenty, with bountiful scenes, then it indicates that you will transition gloriously. A door that takes you somewhere familiar and comforting is a sign that you are ready to transition but that you will remain whole and same during and beyond the transition, just more experienced and wise on the other side.

As I was stood there, barely out of the building and not having taken a single step yet, to my right a man stumbled into the quiet courtyard from the same building as me, but through a different door. He was only within about five meters of me, and only a few seconds behind. The force at which he pushed the door open indicated that he had probably thrown his entire body weight against the door to get it to open. He literally stumbled out. He was facing sideways to me and did not see me, but turned towards the sun, and just stood there, with his eyes closed, feeling the rays of the sun warm his face.

Intepretation: To see the sun in your dream symbolizes peace of mind, enlightenment, tranquility, fortune, goodwill, and insight. It also represents radiant energy and divine power. Generally, the sun is a good omen, especially if the sun is shining in your dream.

My heartbeat accelerated, I recognised this man! I could feel the adrenaline rising in my blood. It dawned on me, just before he turned around, that it was my “twin”. I hadn’t seen him for 8 years – not in real life, and rarely in my dreams. For a split second I wanted to run; then resisted the urge just as our eyes met. It was an unexplainable moment of… no words. I couldn’t believe that he was there; questions were racing through my mind – yet I wasn’t entirely surprised either. I felt like for the first time in a very long time that I was able to look at him and not hide myself. We weren’t speaking, both too shocked to utter a word, but the telepathy between our hearts was there. He was looking at me, relieved and amazed, saying what now? I am here. I made it. I made it – what happens now? I walked up to him and just held him against my heart. Heaven on Earth. Then I woke up.

It was only in the weeks that followed, as I started to make changes in my life, that the dream started to reveal its deep meaning to me. I could see the many symbols: coming out of the dark night of the soul into the light, the parallel paths, the sun coming through the clouds etc. Without wanting to interpret the dream too much, I was reminded of things such as the lyrics to one of “our songs”, Foreigner’s “I want to know what love is”: “Through the clouds I see love shine, it keeps me warm as life grows colder”. I remembered how once when a friend of his developed a crush on me he joked saying his friend might be hoping he would see me through his (twin’s) clouds. Often, he mentioned my “bright, shining light” and warmth, and once referred to my energy as the “omni-present, the potent, the ever revolving “SUN” that rises and sets somewhere and everywhere”. It was clear that the sun= love which he in his life caught glimpses of through the clouds was my love (and on a larger scale, that of God). It was that love that he yearned to feel and that is what made him push through that door. Furthermore, our song “Total eclipse of the heart” by Bonnie Tyler contains the lyrics “Turn around” over and over again. This is what he did in that dream. He finally turned around!!

Realisations

It started to dawn on me through the months that followed that not only had I reached a new place in my spiritual growth, but likely, so had he. Did my letter earlier in the summer help? Yes, perhaps. I could feel from the uncharacteristically overwhelming emotions that would at times wash over me that he was feeling what I wrote very deeply; and that it was helping him transform. I could also feel his closeness with God and had visions of him praying kneeling down, fasting during Ramadan, and later in the year even attending a pilgrimage. All of this was later confirmed to be true by him. I got a feeling that he had sought God’s mercy and love in a much deeper way than ever before. Also, the mind chatter (telepathy) which had been a constant occurrence when we had first reconnected in 2005 had now returned.

And as it would be revealed to me in the weeks to come, the dream was very significant and reflective of the internal spiritual progress we were both making. So while he perhaps did wave me goodbye at the door 8 years ago, also, like he himself said, he knew I would always come back to him. And here we are. He just took another path; a parallel path that lead him to the same place as me. Through a different door, but to the same place! He even told me that he felt we had reached a new level of emotional and spiritual mature at the same time.

What a magical, magical adventure!!

Dream interpretations in italics from http://www.wikihow.com/Interpret-a-Dream-Involving-Doors