In the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Psalms 23:4)

Some years ago, I wrote book. I was out of work after moving to California with my family and I had ideas but no real prospects. Yet, I knew if something had “died,” like my old job, something new would be made known to me to fill the space. I believe that is how God works: we ask, feel, see and believe those things we are wanting, and when they align with the Creator's plan and purpose, they become a reality. I have also learned through experience that while waiting, it is best to do something, even if that means to sit down. I chose to use this time to write a book.

I did not know what would come of the book, as I was struggling to feel qualified. Years of education, writing, teaching and practicing, and still I did not feel qualified. Can you relate? Self sabotage is an enemy of the mind. We tell ourselves all kind of things to kill our momentum. That is how the shadow that we often times come to know intimately works; it is designed to cause death. That is certain.

Qualifying ourselves based on how we measure up to others often means that we choose not to show up. So once the book was written, I sat on it. Like a hen, I sat on my egg and waited for it to hatch or die. Like others who have buried their gifts because they didn’t realize how big what they have can be, I sat.

I sat on it for years. I’d found a job and other things to consume my mind. And then it happened. I'm not sure what exactly though. I can’t remember now how I reconnected with this practice in the book. It’s not the first or the last of the 108 practices that I wrote, but we reconnected. This one practice took flight and became more than a page in my book. It took a new shape. It became The Dream Sessions.

Let me give you a little more backstory. Since I was young, I had an active imagination and enjoyed writing. Writing poetry or stories has been a way for me to process my imaginations, feelings, hopes, and dreams. I used to have all of these in excess and not all of them were good, especially not my dreams.

I struggled with my dreams for years, my waking and sleeping dreams. They would often haunt me, leave me feeling attacked. I would see and hear things that I couldn’t understand. It shook me, made me afraid to dream because they felt so out of my control. There was a time when I remember telling myself that I would not dream. And over time they went black; they died. I had successfully, for the most part, shut out that which I could remember of my dreams. This did not help me. Repression doesn’t help. Denial does not help. But when we are attacked, we have several options, kill or be killed to name two. I decided to kill my dreams, since that was what I felt I had control over.

We are always walking through the valley of the shadow of death, allowing one thing to live while something else dies. As an adult, I think back to when my dreams lived again in my memory, when I realized my dreams were a necessary part of creation and release, and when I stopped telling myself that I couldn't dream because I did not have any control over what might happen.

Letting my dreams live again opened me to lucid dreaming, a practice of actively participating in one's dreams. When I could see the spiritual work done through dreams, I wanted badly to dream again. I practiced with timers throughout the day set to ask me was I dreaming. I practiced recognizing stationary everyday things in my environment, so that in my dreams, I’d be able to recognize their absence. I wrote my dreams down upon waking. I also practiced day dreaming of better times, letting my feelings and hopes be bigger and more grand. I wrote scenarios (those that were possible and impossible) to get at the feelings that I wanted to let live, especially as I went through hard times with cancer and within my marriage.

Letting my dreams live, and even pursuing them, helped me to see that the doom I was expecting did not have to be. My beliefs were only what they were because I kept thinking them. I realized that I could use my waking and sleeping dreams to create a reality that I desired, to bring more excitement into my days and nights, and to facilitate a more full life, while those things I did not need fell away. I could walk through the valley of the shadow of death and let those things that I did not want die, rather than the things that I did.

What is inside of us wants to live, and we must decide what that will be by choosing our actions.

I had tools to actualize my dreams, but I had to be OK with "walking" in order to get there. In other words, I had to be willing to do the work. What is inside of us wants to live, and we must decide what that will be by choosing our actions. In order to reach my dreams, I had to believe in what God put inside of me, what I had tried so hard to repress. I had to do something about it. And when I did, The Dream Sessions became a tool that helped me to live more fully.

You may have been a part of The Dream Sessions of the past. I have offered it free for some time to several different cohorts as it’s grown. I’d love to have your feedback on your experience. You can share it here in this SHORT SURVEY (password: Letmetellyou) and use that same password for a 20% discount on the new program now (for a time) when you checkout, too.

​The Dream Sessions is now complete with: more practices for your day and night time dreams, timers for each day, a membership community page, and audio guides for the practices.

The Dream Sessions: once a practice chapter in my book, that had to die, then an email that I wrote and automated myself, which had to die.... is alive, more digestible, and supportive because I was not afraid to walk into my dream, with the shadow lurking.

It is a work of love to make what one desires in their life tangible, to give it life even in the shadow, especially in the shadow, which makes us believe that because of our past we can not live anew now. The Dream Sessions is a way to write your own story now and not let what has been or could be stop you. The commitment to practice the right things is still and will always be an important key to having the things we desire for our lives.

So what do you dream, my friend? What do you want to make of these dreams? How will you practice the right things? It is possible to live as you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, for God is with you. His rod and His staff do comfort you as you walk, if you believe.

Go well,

Courtney