I taught History and coached high school basketball for 16 years. It was all I ever wanted to do. My heroes were teachers and coaches. My heroes were mentors. I wanted to teach kids, mentor them, and compete as a coach at the highest level. But I was beginning to tire of it. The thought of walking away from it was difficult. I felt guilt. I felt shame. I felt uncertainty. I spent a year in reflection, analyzing the decision with the people I trusted the most and doing a lot of inner work on myself. Finally, I reached a point when I knew it was what I had to do. It was time to tell my boss.
The night before I was to inform them of my decision I had a powerful dream. I was standing on the edge of a very high waterfall, looking into the depths below and debating whether to jump. Nobody was up there with me. Just me, the waterfall, and my own trepidation. Finally, I worked up the courage and decided to jump. I don’t recall the actual jump but I vividly remember the feeling of floating through the air. How freeing and how terrifying it was all at once. I kept waiting in my head to hit the water, bracing for impact. But I just keep free-falling, floating through the air. It felt amazing. Then a sudden crash as I hit the water below. Everything changed. The sounds got much louder. Panic set in. I wasn’t sure I could find my way back to the surface. I was struggling and the rushing force of the waterfall was pushing me back down. I felt for a brief moment that I would drown. But I made my way back up, letting out a mighty roar as I cleared the surface of the water. On the banks I could see my family.
This dream was letting me know what a risk I was taking, how much security I was giving up, that things were going to feel incredibly freeing after I first quit my job but that it would also be very tough at times and that I had to be prepared to fight for this decision and see it through. It also let me know that I was going to be ok and that the most important people in my life, my family, were going to be there for me, sink or swim.
It was not all that surprising to me that I had a dream like this the night before such a big decision. What was surprising, and what still amazes me to this day, is what happened when I walked into my boss’s office the next morning. Before I could even sit down she said, “Clint, I had a dream about you last night!”
On a conscious level my boss had no idea what I was getting ready to tell her. We were on good terms. I liked working for her and she believed in and supported me. But as she began to tell me about her dream I realized that even though she had no idea I was getting ready to re-sign my position her unconscious knew exactly what was coming!
She explained to me that in her dream the two of us were in a canoe trying to make our way down a challenging stretch of river when we lost one of the oars to the rushing water. Then, the two of us began to struggle for control of the remaining oar. We both wanted to control the canoe. She never said how the dream ended just that we were fighting over the oar.
I was floored! That’s the power of the unconscious. On some level she already knew. Her telling of this dream was the final confirmation for me that I had made the right decision. She handled my resignation with understanding and grace. We parted amicably. I never looked back.
