The Ditch & Dreams–A Divine Connection
Five years ago, if you would have told me the ditch is a divine invitation to begin dreaming again, I would have probably looked at you like you had totally lost your mind while pointing a finger at my temple to draw little circles in the air while mouthing, “That’s nice.”
And, yet, here I am to tell you this very thing. The ditch you are sitting in is not a place for you to escape from, but rather a magical time out and invitation for you to dream bigger for yourself. The ditch is a cosmic time out where your heart takes you when you are woefully overdue for some time with yourself–your True Self.
The only issue with this whole scenario is that when you are in the ditch, you don’t realize this. If only you knew where you are now is the perfect place for you.
This is why I wrote this book.
A few years ago I fell down into the ditch and I couldn’t get up. I tried to get out of it, but as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t seem to pull myself ‘together.’ I was scared, paralyzed and I felt so alone. The more I tried to get myself out, the deeper I dug myself down into that darn ditch! If you’ve seen cartoons where the character is running but digging deeper into the ground with dirt flying behind making a big pile, you have a great view of what I was doing. I kept thinking I could get out of it, and reassured myself that I was smart enough, able enough, and doggone it; I was going to get myself out of the ditch!
But, as it turns out, that didn’t happen–at least not at first, and certainly not by force.
I had never fallen down in the ditch as deeply before. I had visited for a day here or there, but never had I spent months there. I didn’t realize it then, but the ditch was exactly what I needed to shake up my life, wake me up to my True You and invite me to start living again in true connection with God, The Creator of All That Is. And, wow, has my life been an adventure ever since!
When I think about why I would be writing a book about living in the present and reconnecting to dreams, the True You and passion, I can see why I would gravitate toward this. My life is a reflection of all of these.
I remember when I was about 16 asking my mother what she could have been thinking having a child in the late 60s. Conceived in late 1967, I was born on July 16, 1968. That year, the U.S. battled on both foreign and domestic soil. The Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Feminist Movement–all were alive and well the year I came to be.
My mother was only 19. She would turn 20 six weeks after I was born. When I asked her about the chaos, the turmoil that I entered into as a baby she simply responded, “That’s how life is. Some days it’s good and some days it isn’t. But, you don’t stop living just because it isn’t.”
My mother who is an amazingly creative soul has a beautiful way of living in her world of art and creative spirit. I suppose I followed in her footsteps as we are both highly intuitive and also very creative. We are artists first and foremost, and it is this artist spirit that allows us to dream from a place where those who don’t venture into creative waters could never begin to understand. I believe everyone is an artist. I believe everyone has access to this dreamland. I believe everyone is a creator.
These two examples show how I view the world. One eye on the magic, the beauty, the amazing art of life, and the other on the practical, realistic understanding that life is life and it’s up to us to make the most of it.
I believe dreams are the fuel of our soul. Dreams propel us toward what is possible even when sometimes all we can see is what isn’t.
Before I was born, Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of a country united in race. Tragically he died April 4, 1968. After riots broke out, the U.S. President, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the second Civil Rights Act on April 11–just one week later–further expanding the landmark legislation from four years earlier. When John F. Kennedy talked about putting a man on the moon by the end of the 60s it was thought to be impossible. Yet, with his vision–and a nation’s dream–ordinary men and woman followed his lead and figured out how to accomplish the extraordinary. Our first manned space flight took off the day I turned one, less than 300 miles from where I lived, and landed on the moon July 20, 1969.
Dreams do matter. The dreamer matters too. You are the dreamer.
I’m not sure if I am so indelibly connected to dreams because I was born in a time when dreams inspired us to reach into greater possibility, or if it was a result of my near collision with fate.
A near death experience when I was just seven months old allowed me to choose whether I wanted to continue this life. Almost unbelievably, I remember the entire sequence of events the day that I almost died of chicken pox. My fever shot to well over 105 degrees, and I was all but gone. I remember seeing my mother and grandmother arguing about what to do – I saw myself from outside of myself, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue on in this life. A few days later I seemed to miraculously heal overnight.
I have been dreaming for as long as I can remember. Raised with one of the earliest feminists–my grandmother; daily, I experienced a female force of nature. She was pragmatic, down to earth, saucy and hard as nails except when it came to me. I always wondered where she got that defiant nature and how on Earth she lived so fearlessly.
Born in the depression, she earned a very good living as an LVN–the type of nursing license you get when you only have a two-year degree versus a four-year degree (RN or registered nurse). She began working as a child in the late twenties picking cotton on her family’s farm when she was only six, and never stopped working until Alzheimer’s claimed her mind in her late 70s. Despite my grandmother’s double-shifts at the nursing home where I would go with her when I was little, we seemed to always live in government subsidized housing projects. My mother, throughout my childhood and teens, would return to these in between husbands so I clearly remember what government housing is like. I also remember the feeling of living in these places–limited.
For as far as I can go back into my mind I have wondered why people end up where they do in life. At five, I declared to my mother that there was a reason why some people had more than others. I seemed to ‘know’ that we all can achieve whatever it is we want. When I was told things were not possible when I was a little girl, I would just pray about whatever it is I wanted–asking for it, and over and over again I would be gifted with what I most desired.
Dreaming to me was, and is, like breathing. Without it, life would not be worth living.
And perhaps I believe in the power of dreams because when I was three, I had an extraordinary experience. One night, while I lay in my bed deathly afraid of the sensations I could feel of ‘spirits’ swirling above me, an illuminated doorway next to the actual bedroom door appeared. Through the crack in this door a light shined so brightly that it almost seemed unreal. As fearful as I was just a few minutes before, I didn’t scream because the most incredible love and peace enveloped my body. I felt safe–just like I always did when I was with my fearless grandmother. Only, on this night, I was staying at my mother’s house.
A figure that looked like a man in a sparkling robe came through the door first. Around the outline of his body, I could see the most brilliant light shining. I could barely make out his face because the light around him was so bright against the darkness.
That night had started just like every other night when I was little. I had a ritual where I would lay in bed and close one eye and then the next. With one eye closed I would pretend I was as tiny as an ant. I would imagine that if anything tried to ‘get me’ I could simply hide underneath the mattress, or maybe in between the mattresses. Then I would open that eye and close the other one and would imagine I was larger than the room. If anything dared to come get me, I would simply transform into this Alice in Wonderland larger than myself version and I would instantly be safe because of my size.
I never stopped to consider why I was always so afraid. I never thought to ask anyone, either.
On this night, as this man stood in front of me, I didn’t feel like running away. I suddenly felt so safe and so loved. “Do not be afraid, I come to you in love,” he said softly. “I will always care for you. You will always be provided for.” That is what I remember most–those few messages–and the tremendous love that filled my heart and soul.
Just behind him was the most luminous angel that literally looked like a glass light-filled doll. I don’t recall wings, but have always thought this woman was an angel. Her face was pure light. The two of them together were dazzling.
I don’t recall hearing the exact word “Jesus” but when I woke up that was the word that came to my little mind, and I began asking my mom to go see ‘Jesus.’ I can’t imagine what my mother thought when her little girl started asking to go to church. My mom was a very young mother of two by this time–and from her account I was not your typical child–often acting like a “little old lady” she has remarked. I was quite a handful from the stories I hear, and she allowed me to catch a bus each Sunday to go to church with the other neighborhood kids.
I only remember one thing from going to church back then. I kept asking to talk to Jesus, and being told that talking to him directly wasn’t possible. I wanted to see him again. I kept insisting I knew him, basically demanding in my headstrong way for these people to show me where he lived. I was told that it was impossible. I was also told the bible is very clear about people who say they can speak to spirits. That would begin a lifelong fear of going to hell sharply contrasted against my deep desire to feel, see and talk to this sparkly man who came to visit me that night. For a very long time I was deathly afraid there was something very wrong with me.
My sensitivity to the other side has always been strong. For the longest time I was terrified of the dark despite the beautiful message I had been given not to be afraid. I could feel these unseen beings and I didn’t know what to do about them. They were as real to me as anything in this world. Like so many other sensitives I went through the usual process of trying to ‘numb’ the feelings, run away from the feelings and basically disown this part of who I am. Some of these spirits scared me, some of them felt friendly and when too many of them came around me I felt like I was suffocating. No wonder I was afraid!
But, as I learned, and now also share with others, you can never outrun yourself.
What I didn’t know during this time was that I share this gift with my family. My mother and brother are also sensitives. We all have seen ghosts in homes where we lived together while I was growing up. Many years later we would talk about the “Colonel” who lived in our home in Texas built near the area of a historic battle. Who knew that so much relief could be gained from simply talking about your experiences and learning that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you? We didn’t have these conversations until I was in my mid 30s. All those years, the three of us wondered if we were imagining things and the answer was under our noses the entire time!
Throughout my childhood and teen years, no matter how fearful I would be in the dark with the Messengers, I could somehow find my way to that peaceful, loving feeling in my heart that Jesus and my guardian angel brought that night when I was three.
From the time I was 17 when I left the church I grew up in until well into my first marriage, I had been searching for an answer. I knew I wasn’t evil, but what was this sensitivity and knowing that no one else seemed to be talking about? Churches I had attended pointed to the bible to tell me that I was not ‘right,’ that I needed to be different. But, something in me knew I was exactly as God designed me to be. At three, I certainly had no idea of making any of this up, and I had literally had no religious influence to even know who Jesus was!
After I married my first husband, though, I felt like I couldn’t feel my connection to God, Jesus or anything else anymore. This was my first extended stint in the ditch. I just didn’t know it then. It was a confusing time, and all I knew was I wanted more than anything to feel that connection again. My dreams were dried up with the lack of abundance in our life. I remember he and I drove one night over to the ‘nice’ neighborhood and I would say out loud, “I’m going to live in a house just like that one day.” My entire life, I’ve always pulled myself up by my bootstraps with a new dream. If I felt down, I would just dream a new dream and get moving with God and the Messengers. That night, as I proclaimed my new dream, I had no idea how that would happen, but dreaming was just part of my make-up. I remember that not once did he ever say it too. He would always say, “Oh yeah? We’ll see.” Today I do live in a house similar, if not better, than those I looked at nearly 20 years ago.
One night when I was 23, I lay awake in bed as my then husband slept. Something was not right. I didn’t feel like myself. I felt unhappy and dissatisfied. My dreams were sparse. I had attended many different types of churches looking for answers. I had started studying different religions trying to figure out where I belonged. The God I had known intimately was amazing, friendly and kind. Where were the people who had seen Jesus and talked to Him? Over the years, I began to believe that it was not safe to be ‘different.’ That night, I prayed and asked God to please come back to me, to show me that I was loved. I had reason to believe I wouldn’t be. I had done things I was not proud of over a year and a half where I was very destructive following a feeling that I didn’t belong anywhere in this world. I wanted to forget this sensitivity that wouldn’t turn off. I drank. I did drugs. I really didn’t care about anything other than tuning out from myself. Of course, that was not the way to find an answer.
That night laying in bed, I did fear that perhaps something was wrong with me. But as I asked over and over again, “Please come back to me, please come back to me.” I saw the most brilliant blue light come through the bedroom wall and hover over my body and then I felt this energy move through my entire body. The force was so strong that it startled me, and I didn’t know what to think, but I do remember how I felt–safe and loved. The same, safe feeling returned again. After that, I easily found a church that acknowledged my spiritual gifts and my conscious intuitive adventure began.
First, I began serving as angels woke me up to write and deliver messages to my brother-in-law. At the time I was so grateful for the union of Spirit again that I didn’t even question this. I think about it now, and wonder why. But, dutifully, I would write down pages and pages of what I was told and mail the letters. Over the years I probably sent five or six long letters to my brother-in-law who appeared to be an alcoholic musician with more lives than a cat.
During the nine years I knew him and a few prior to that, he amassed 14 DWIs, a couple of severe car accidents, one of which we came across on our way home from dinner one night. As we drove toward the flashing lights, I instantly knew he was in the wreckage. I didn’t understand the connection I had to this man because we didn’t really know each other that well. I continued with serving as asked. I remember the feeling of being useful.
The final letter was sent the week before he died in a Texas prison. I don’t recall the specifics of the letters except that they encouraged him to be himself, and to take care of himself because he had much to share with others. After his death, we learned from other ex-inmates that he made a tremendous difference in the lives of many men who seemingly had ‘nothing’ to live for. He influenced these men tremendously and many changed their lives dramatically after meeting him. He would preach about God’s love and this message transformed many of the men he met along the way.
You just never know who will be a Messenger, where a message will be delivered, or how far out the ripple will travel. We are all Messengers. Yes, that means you, too.
I have not always acted like I cherished my gifts. I have not always acted as if I was truly protected and safe. When I look back at my life I wonder why I would be chosen to share with the world these messages. I have not been courageous. I have not trusted with strong, unwavering faith like many others I know. I am just an imperfect human being who has learned a lot of things the very hard way because she has not always trusted or listened.
Through all of my experiences, though, I have had a sense that I was being watched over. The reassurance that Jesus shared that things would be okay. That He would always provide for me. Whether it was only $1 left in the bank or it was an Earth Angel that showed up in my life just in time for things to work out, I have felt supported and protected. Most of the time, when I felt lost, I would find myself gathering tools to help myself and others, and a wonderful Earth Angel would show up and put me back onto the path.
Dreams do come true. I’m also now married to a visionary dreamer who can dream big dreams with me. By the time I reached 38, I would learn that dreaming is more about connecting with the soul than it is about accumulating material possessions. However, if we can unite race–even have a black president only 40 years later, and take civilians to space, then I believe we can also have some of the material things that make life sweet, too.
I have used my intuition or divine connection in every job I have held and every business I created, but I never considered this natural ability a calling. When I work with clients, I implicitly trust the Messengers and have delivered the messages as they have come to me. It’s so easy to love other people. These unseen Messengers have been deceased relatives, angels, teachers, loving beings and religious icons. Over the years I have risen early in the morning to write letters to people to share with them a message of hope and love. I would mail these letters not knowing what the message meant or even if it would be accepted. I only hoped that I was doing what God wanted me to do.
After I had my son nearly 10 years ago, I experienced many changes that expanded my abilities rapidly and soon my intuition took center stage. I couldn’t numb myself and tune it out anymore. It was ‘on’ 24/7 and I wanted more than anything to turn it off. I had no idea that this ability would save my life just a few years later. I had a lot of learning to do in a very short period of time. I truly had no idea how dramatically my life would change in the next decade.
Just as I had done before, I would share messages with those who were asking for answers from God. Over the course of a year and a half, many people would appear on my doorstep asking for help. Business colleagues would send people who were lost and seeking direction. It was the oddest thing. I was known for marketing, but people showed up for so much more.
For a very long time I’ve had an agreement with God to help whomever ‘shows up’–I figured that’s how I can serve and I’ve always been provided for. During this time, I kept saying yes even though I had no idea what to do, or why these people were showing up. I just listened and did what I was guided to do. One by one many people’s lives changed. Many of these people were suicidal, many of them were depressed–all were disconnected from themselves–their essential nature. They were all in the ditch.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was too. I had drifted slowly away from myself and so, unlike when I was 23, I didn’t even realize I was in the ditch. I had many opportunities to learn from these people and also from other experiences, but I couldn’t see the opportunity. It took a huge crisis and a trip deeper into the ditch to ‘wake me up.’
After my own crisis, I soon learned exactly how these disconnected people really felt. For so long, aided by the comfort of Jesus’s promise, I was a can-do person who would go after what I wanted and thrived on trying new things. I always loved to help, but I don’t know that I was always compassionate. By sharp contrast, in the ditch, I found myself in a situation where I felt helpless and lost. I gained intense compassion for the suffering of others during those years, and let go of my self-righteous personality. I can never know how another person feels completely. I can only share what they feel. I also had not known what it was like to feel I was spinning in my head. I learned a great deal from my experience about what works and what doesn’t.
One of the most significant realizations I learned is that I didn’t realize that I truly did believe that I was the one that was ‘making’ my dreams come true. Oh, of course, with just a little help from God. My disconnection brought all kinds of false stories. This crisis taught me how truly fragile and fearful I felt inside my ego. Day after day I would rise and try to sort out my confusing feelings. I felt like I couldn’t get my normally peaceful mind to stop racing. I started to think in extremely limited ways–all or nothing, now or never. I wanted to be anywhere except where I was at the time. I wanted to escape my feelings and the present moment where I could feel every one of them. I wanted an escape button. I would imagine myself in an airplane crashing toward the ground and I desperately wanted a button that would eject me out of the plane before it became wreckage. I felt like not only could I not find the eject button, but that the plane was already in flames all around me. I began to think that my family would be better off without me. I searched for anything to bring ‘me’ back.
With my mind constantly racing, I couldn’t hear the Messengers. I literally felt so alone. My spirit felt shattered. I remember thinking how sad it must be for people who don’t usually have these heavenly beings around because I missed them so much.
One night I fell asleep on the couch while frantically trying to figure out ‘what to do’ to clean up the mess I made of a business and financial failure. I felt like I was eight years old and I just committed a terrible wrong and I had no idea what to do to clean it up. I couldn’t hear guidance, so I looked for an answer on the internet. I spent hours spinning around the web desperately seeking a solution.
The next morning a solution arrived in a very different form than what I expected. An enthusiastic voice said, “Good morning!”
I slowly looked up startled by how loud the voice was. Drool glued my cheek to the couch. I pried the two apart and blinked a few times trying to determine if I was still dreaming. I looked around and didn’t see anything.
“A duck is a duck. Why would you think you are anything other than what you are?”
By this time I was wide awake and paying attention.
“Who are you?” I asked the unfamiliar voice.
“Who are you?” the voice asked back.
I thought to myself…Who am I? I don’t recall an answer. I just felt the fog I had been living in, and the sharp contrast of this exuberant being sharing space with me.
That question was the beginning of my climb out of the ditch. The big ditch felt like I was on one side of the Grand Canyon and I couldn’t figure out how to get to the other side. I had no energy and everything felt like a tremendous effort. What I couldn’t know is that the biggest, scariest experience of my life held the greatest gift also.
Aided by the guidance of these beautiful Messengers who answered my SOS call and many more clients who came to heal and also teach me how to return to myself, I began to put my life back together. By combining what I learned from working with other people with what I learned myself as I addressed my own return to the land of the living the program in this book emerged.
I now know that every trip to the ditch holds a special gift. However, it’s up to us to retrieve it while we are there. Plus, the trip to the ditch is also a gift. I wish I could have seen this at the time. I spent so much time trying to get away from it! The great news for you is that the hard work is done. These tools have assisted many people to reunite with their True You. I’ve seen clients reconnect in record time. What took me years to learn takes them days, weeks, months, depending on how often the show up for themselves.
Now it’s your turn to take these nifty tools and put them to use in your own life and discover the gift your ditch has in store for you and discover the True You. I promise you that your gift is greater than the misery you might be feeling right now.
Until my growth from the ditch came, I had never known fearlessness like my grandmother’s nature. She was fearless. She was a warrior. I now have my own courage and strength, though I still feel I am learning to fly. I’m a work in progress. I do my best each and every day. As the saying goes, God isn’t finished with me yet.
I am grateful for the Heavenly Messengers who came to work with my clients and me, and am ever so grateful for the Earthly Messengers who brought to me their healing and teaching messages. Without my clients who had the courage to face their own crises and decide to choose life, this book (and I) would not be nearly as abundant in wisdom and story.
I believe that we are all Messengers each and every day. We are messengers of what we are. We all act as divine messengers to heal each other in all ways–always.
My prayer for you is that this book will hold you and invite you to be the light that you are. I pray it will help you answer the question…Who am I? and it will show you the ditch is actually a gift you give to yourself–it’s a time-out from your overworked mind. In the ditch, if you choose, you can reconnect to your heart to discuss important things like dreams, living big, and loving yourself and others.
I know, I know. . .so hard to believe, but oh so true.
Stick with me, and I’ll share what I’ve discovered with you.
Tina Ferguson, a.k.a. The Queen of Dreams
July 2010
