A tsunami is a different kind of wave. Keep this in mind when trying to make sense of tsunami dream meaning.
Usually, there’s an earthquake, that shifts the volume of water from underneath.
It would seem that the shoreline would retreat to expose the bottom of the beach and the nearby sea or part of the ocean.
Well, don’t let that dry land fool you, because it’s temporary.
And once the water comes rushing back, it can reach up to 30 feet, or even 100 feet.
That’s how devastating a tsunami can be.
And it’s no surprise that in the great Trans-Pacific 2004 tsunami that started off the coast of Indonesia, close to a quarter of a million people living in coastal areas stretching from Sri Lanka all the way to Indonesia, lost their lives.
That’s how powerful a tsunami is.
If your subconscious is presenting personal truths to you in the form of a tsunami, you will need to pay attention.
The general meaning of tsunami dreams
Tsunamis are the product of a chain reaction of events.
These events in themselves contain fairly specific meanings.
For example, when there’s an earthquake, you pretty much know how to respond.
The same goes with water flooding your area.
But when an earthquake triggers flooding, many people get caught by surprise.
This is a metaphor for choices, decisions, and points of view that you have adopted made, or stuck to over the years, creating consequences in your life.
What makes this really frustrating is that you are going to suffer from the consequences of your choices but you may not know the connection.
It may be something that you have triggered away in the past and it went through some causal chain that you may not be fully aware of and here you are suffering the aftermath.
That’s how life works.
And a lot of people think that life is unfair precisely because they cannot see the connection between point A, point B, and point C all the way to their present lives now.
But just because you’re unaware of the exact chain of events, it doesn’t mean that you are not responsible for triggering this result.
In this context, the general meaning of tsunami dreams involves being aware of the power of your choices and accepting the fact that you are going to reap the consequences of your past decisions.
This is its most basic form.
And if you can wrap your head around this and make sense of it, things will become possible in your life again.
The problem is a lot of people are so eager to blame others or blame the circumstances beyond their control for how things turned out in some regions of their life.
Maybe you feel that you’re not getting paid enough.
Maybe you feel you’re not getting the kind of professional recognition otherwise feel you deserve.
Maybe your relationships suck.
Maybe you are looking in the mirror and you’re not happy with the person you see in front of you.
Whatever it is that you are unhappy, dissatisfied, or frustrated with, please understand that it all came from a series of choices.
Who do you think made those choices?
You have to take responsibility and ownership of your ability over your ability to make decisions.
This is probably the most important step you could ever take because it unleashes a different chain of events.
The power of self-ownership
What if I told you that your parents don’t own you?
What if I went a step further and told you that your past doesn’t own you?
That’s right, >strong>your past doesn’t have to define you.
Your past mistakes, whatever it is you feel guilty about, whatever it is that you feel like you want to do over again, all of these do not make up your identity.
Instead, you are made up of your ability to choose who you want to become.
You select your values, and you can choose to live up to them.
I’m not talking about it in one flashy, “one time, big time” kind of way.
No, life doesn’t work that way.
I’m talking about selecting values and taking baby steps every single day, practicing them, putting them into motion and before you know it, you repeatedly do them, and they become you.
That’s what I’m talking about.
We all have this power.
Unfortunately, too many of us define ourselves based on personal disasters.
And it’s no surprise that our subconscious is using this horrific natural disaster image of a tsunami to let us know that we are in control of that chain reaction.
Self-ownership begins by understanding that it is your choice that started that chain, you may not have intent, desire, or even the final outcome, but you pulled the trigger.
You signed on the dotted line, you said what you had to say, you did what you did.
Instead of going over these pivotal moments in your past and feeling sorry about them.
I want you to flip the script.
I want you to say in a defiant voice, “Yeah, I did that. That is me. There is no place to hide. There is no one to try to pretend to become, there are no excuses. I did that. I take ownership”.
You against the world
Most of us live in a world that we did not create.
Did you ask to be born?
Did you ask to be born in the circumstances that you’re in?
Did you ask to have the parents that you had?
If you’re like most people, the answer is of course no.
We were just born into a world we did not create, we did not have a voice in, and we did not have a roll in, to begin with.
That is the hand that we dealt with.
If you are fortunate enough to be born in a tower made of gold with all your needs attended to, congratulations.
If you were born into a hard-working family, with parents that love you, congratulations.
But if you were born in circumstances that are less than favorable., it’s very hard to say congratulations.
But the truth is, we need to congratulate ourselves because we began.
That is the opening in our life journey, you have to begin somewhere.
Stop agonizing over the fact that you were dealt a “bad hand of cards”.
Celebrate the fact that you have cards to play with because this is the grand adventure of life and it all begins with the acknowledgment that I own my life.
My thoughts determine who I am in the present moment and how I choose to act, talk, and think today impacts who I will be tomorrow.
My actions today trigger a chain reaction that will result in my tomorrow.
It’s that simple.
Open and shut.
The problem is most people deny this.
They are so busy focusing on the past, they’re so busy focusing on what they did not have.
So they keep saying “I had a disadvantaged childhood, my parents suck”.
Let me tell you, if that is your attitude, even if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth, you will always find something to complain about.
Life has never been fair, nor has it ever been perfect.
It is what it is.
You have to deal with life the way you see it but this doesn’t mean that things won’t change because you can make a change.
This is the key to self-ownership.
Instead of seeing yourself in front of this massive wall of water, understand that tsunami came from somewhere.
Understand that you are the cause of that tsunami and just as you can move mountains with your decisions, you can create new ones as well.
This is the power of choice.
Celebrate your personal power to make reality
What if I told you that the things that you can see around you are all choices?
Seriously.
While there is such a thing as objective reality, our interpretation of objective reality depends on our choice of mindset.
If you’re the type of person who always looks at a glass as half-empty, it doesn’t really matter how many blessings the universe pours into your life, it will always come up short.
On the other hand, if you’re the type of person who sees the cup as always half full and everything has a beginning, no matter how meager small, and unpromising, that’s how your universe will unfold.
It all depends on your choice of mindset.
And this is not just some fantasy idea that is intended to make you feel good and settle for whatever crap results fill your life.
I’m not talking about that, that is self-delusion.
I’m talking about claiming your ability to control your reality based on how you see things.
Nobody can defeat you better than yourself
Tsunamis come unexpectedly.
What tricks people is that the water seems to disappear.
I’ve seen videos of the 2004 tsunami of Indonesia and certain parts of Southern Asia, it’s scary.
Because there is an eerie calm, you can see the bottom of the shore.
Usually, this coastal area is filled with water, you can barely wade into it.
But there it was, empty you can see the bottom.
Glistening mud fills the horizon, and there’s this eerie calm.
What makes it so deceptively deadly, is that there’s even an air of beauty to all of it.
Then all of a sudden you hear the faint rumbling of the water.
First, it starts really low, kind of like a slow hum and then if you look far enough into the horizon, you see the outlines of the water, and then pretty soon if you blink your eyes, water rushes.
First, it starts slow, and then all of a sudden you see this wall of water piling up.
It is no surprise that when people see this materialize, they freeze.
Just like a deer caught in headlights on many highways in the United States, we freeze when the consequences of our choices manifest themselves in very terrifying and unexpected ways.
It also doesn’t help that our number one instinct is to blame somebody else or deny that this is happening at all.
Whatever it is that is unpleasant in your present reality chances are you’ve dealt with it.
Just as a deer caught in headlamps deals with its impending death.
You freeze, you’re stuck in your tracks, you can’t move a muscle, and then it’s over.
Well, in most cases of personal disaster, it unfolds slowly.
That’s what makes it painful.
But the truth is, you are in control of this whole process based on how you see things.
If you take ownership and understand that how you choose to interpret reality impacts the reality that you get to live, you will find yourself less often in this type of situation.
Pay close attention to my phrasing, I did not say you will never find yourself in this situation ever again.
I never said that.
People do have a habit of finding themselves on the receiving end of the consequences of their ill-advised and badly thought out decisions from the past.
That’s just how we are, this is baked into our DNA no problems with that, that is reality.
But you can at least through self-ownership and a little bit more self-awareness, avoid being caught by surprise.
Instead, you would say, “I deserve this, I cost this, I own this”.
These are not words of resignation.
Instead, they are words of power.
As unpleasant as the results may be, when you take ownership the understanding is that you can choose a different outcome.
By being aware of the power of your ability to make a choice, you can set a different path.
It may seem like it’s too late now because the cancer has progressed.
Your partner has shut the door behind her as she leaves your life.
Your boss has successfully removed his foot from your butt after your firing.
And whatever other personal disasters, you may care to add to this list.
But just like the ending of the classic Greek mythology story, Pandora’s box is the last thing that you are conscious of as you see the full blossoming of the consequences of your past decisions play out.
You get a sense of hope.
This hope comes from the fact that you have taken ownership.
So what is at stake if you do not take ownership?
What if you are completely convinced that whatever personal disasters, pain, hassles, misgivings, regret, and other personal issues that you’re dealing with are the fault of somebody else?
What can possibly go wrong?
Let me tell you, it’s actually quite simple, you get to relive this disaster again and again.
That’s what will happen.
You see it over and over again and each and every time you feel powerless.
You feel like you’re the victim of the universe.
You are the sacrificial lamb of humanity, whatever grandiose mental construction you can come up with, you will definitely come up with it.
Because you’re on the receiving end, you’re constantly getting the short end of the stick.
It’s unfair.
So when you hang on to that mindset, it repeats itself again and again because you never take responsibility, you never take full ownership of the fact that you chose this.
Because when you say “I have chosen this” then this means that you can choose something else.
Start responding and stop reacting
Most people like to believe that they have values, we’d like to believe that there are certain principles that drive our lives and inform the things that we think about, say to others, and do on a daily basis.
But in reality, we are just simply reacting.
We’re waiting for this one person to say something, then we will say something off our list.
We’re waiting for our boss to do a series of things and depending on what they do, we respond based on a formula.
I could go on and on.
This applies to all areas of your life, from your health to your relationship, to self-care, to personal well-being, to your spirituality, across the board.
But here’s the problem.
You are not pushing the ball, you are not taking control of the steering wheel.
Instead, you’re this hapless passenger waiting for the driver to make a move.
What if they don’t enter the vehicle and turn on the ignition key?
What if you’re just left waiting?
What if nothing happens, because you’re just waiting for somebody to make the move?
Sounds ridiculous, right?
But this is precisely what’s playing out in the lives of so many people in different important areas of their existence.
They’re constantly waiting to react to what somebody else is doing.
If you want a more empowered, meaningful, and substantive life, make the move.
Stop thinking about how other people will react, stop thinking about kind of the toes that you will be stepping on, and stop thinking about how your actions and words will affect the people that you don’t even talk to.
Just focus on the values that you have chosen for yourself and make a move.
You become who you focus on
When I was first getting started in business, one of my co-workers at a venture capital firm in Southern California took me aside and in a hushed voice told me the secret to success.
As I remember this memory, I can’t help but flash a smile.
Part of me was laughing out loud when he pulled me aside.
It’s as if he was going to tell me the Da Vinci Code.
He said, “If you want to be rich, have rich people pull you up”, and “Be friends with people who are already where you want to be”.
I was very polite, to say the least when I heard that, because my real reaction, which I tried really hard to contain was to laugh at his face.
How ridiculous is that?
I mean, I grew up in an immigrant household.
If you were to tell me that I would be handling millions of dollars, I would laugh at your face because my parents came to America when martial law was declared in our former homeland, barely the shits on their back, and maybe $50.
Have rich people pulled me up?
I could barely contain my scorn, to say the least.
But I grant that he and I said “Yeah, you’re right, Max. I think you may be onto something”.
Guess what?
He is absolutely correct.
When I first tasted success, several years after that scene, it played out just as he said.
Attitudes are infectious.
If you want to soar like an eagle, hang out with other Eagles even if you are the only hen or rooster they’re, hang out with them.
Be the breath of their jokes, fetch their drinks, do what you need to do to be there, and be treated as one of them.
Now they will treat you as one of them not because you have money in your pocket.
They will treat you as one of them because you are a striver, you see things that are not fully formed, you see possibilities, and you are willing to put in the work.
I was that striver, I was that student.
And what my friend Max said was true.
Because if you hang out with other eagles, eventually you will soar like an eagle.
At first, you’re going to fall off a branch, break a few bones, you will be very clunky people might even point at you and laugh and say “What a pathetic excuse for an eagle”.
But you keep flapping your wings.
You keep making mistakes one after another and taking notes.
You resolve to fail quickly, to unlock the lesson behind each opportunity, and pretty soon you get your bearings and small successes lead to bigger ones.
And before you know it, it becomes a habit, it becomes an expectation.
Do you no longer look at opportunities as how do I make the bare minimum with this?
Or how do I get to the next day?
No, you’re thinking about how do I blow this up?
How do I spread this to the world?
How do I share this vision with everybody?
Do you see how that works?
It all comes from the people you surround yourself with because attitudes are infectious.
Now let’s look at that same scenario, but let’s make a few changes.
What if you want to be an eagle but you surround yourself with turkeys?
It’s going to be very hard for you to soar, why?
Everybody expects you to stay on the ground, everybody expects you to stay small, everybody expects you to bow your head and stop dreaming about big things because those are nonsense.
You have no business thinking big.
Who do you think you are?
You’re stuck at the bottom of this pit-like us.
That’s the mindset.
Of course, it’s disguised in different ways, and believe me, I’ve been in the pit.
And it’s a lot of fun, definitely a lot of alcohol, drugs and sex.
It’s a good time.
But the problem is, life is more than pleasing your body, life is more than just looking at what you can do today to please yourself today.
Because the meaning of life can be summarized by the parable of the talents in the Christian Bible.
The parable of the talents
Jesus told a story about a Master who left talents which are coins to three servants.
To one servant, he left five coins, for the next servant he left two, and to the third servant, he left one.
He didn’t give any explicit instructions on what they were supposed to do with the coins.
He just entrusted them with their property and he went on a long journey.
When he came back, the first servant turned the five talents into 10, and the master was overjoyed.
The same goes with a second, serve unwed two he turned it into four “Good job”, he said.
When it came to the third servant’s turn, the servant said “You are a hard man, you expect to reap when you didn’t saw. You expect to gain when you didn’t work. So here’s your coin back. I preserved it”.
His thinking is simply returning to form and not losing anything that itself is gained.
What he didn’t see is that the real gain is the risk of loss.
The real gain is the venture with all its risk of defeat, twists, and turns, ups and downs.
That’s the real game, the adventure of life you end up with more than you begin.
And this is measured in many different ways, not just going to be measured in the scars that you have both emotional and physical.
It’s measured and the new vistas that you have seen because you’ve decided to venture forth from the darkness of the pit where you began and to see what else is outside of that cave.
I’m kind of mixing metaphors here because that’s Plato from the allegory of the cave, but I hope you get the connection.
The key here is to just end up with more than your head, and it’s not about money.
It goes beyond that.
It’s your mindset.
It’s the kind of life that you have to live because eventually, you’re going to have to account for the life that you lived.
It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not, you’re going to have to account at the very least to yourself, “What kind of life do they live? Did I stay in the pit? Did I continue to think small, whereas I fearful of trying and failing?”.
Sadly, the only person who can answer these questions is yourself.
Because if you’re stumped, then the consequences of your decisions will always remain a mystery to you.
It’s kind of like a Tsunami overtaking you all of a sudden.
But once you take ownership and once you start thinking beyond today, and several inches from your nose, you have a world to conquer.
You have a world of adventure possibilities with both the highest highs and the most grueling heartbreaks, but that’s life.
That is the adventure.
Are you going to are you willing to take the step?
Are you willing to go from the Unformed to the formed of your choosing?
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Dream interpretation and symbology have fascinated me ever since I read Freud’s classic, “The Interpretation of Dreams.” Ever since, I have explored Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist as well as Jungian psychological ideas about the meaning of dreams. Thanks for joining me in my exploration of the amazing intersection between our conscious waking world and the rich expanse of our subconscious-the home of our intuition, instincts, and hidden potential.
