Fall and Flight

Spark | by Suhailah is A Monthly Personal Growth & Transformation Newsletter providing you with tools and personal stories & insights to help you feel better—and to feel, better. Let’s embark on this journey of self-discovery and awakening together, embracing emotional and mental freedom.

“Fall seven times, stand up eight.” – Japanese proverb

“Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle.” – Nemo Nox

I trust my own depth. And I rise with ease.

I had a dream a few nights ago. Dreams are my thing and I can’t remember a time when I’ve been without them.

In this dream, I was standing on a cliff. One that overlooked everything beneath it because there was nothing above it. There was a similar cliff or a mountain wall across from where I stood at a distance, and down below between these mountains was the ocean or sea. There was water.

There were two people next to me – both to my right. They both seemed to hold their own space or have their own place where they stood. Meaning, we weren’t standing shoulder to shoulder. We were a few feet apart from one another.

In my dreams, sometimes characters appear who are faceless. Not that they don’t have a face, it’s just that they never face me directly. Meaning, I can see them clearly; they are clearly with me and there for me, walking with me; they are always someone close to me, as in familiar to me; it’s always clear that they know me and I know them, even if we don’t exchange words, as I can always feel this from the energy between us in the dream — how they are relating to me, their proximity to me (beside me, in front, or slightly behind flanking me); but I never see them straight on, so I can’t see their actual faces because of where they are positioned in relation to me. I long ago started to realize or identify that these figures, these characters in my dreams, are my guides; they are there to guide me and/or just stand alongside and be with me, for whatever reason.

And when I say “they,” I don’t mean as a group. There is only ever one of them at a time in this role as “guide,” to be alongside me in my dreams. So here I mean “they” as a pronoun. They also don’t appear in all of my dreams.

So, in this dream on the cliff, there were two people or figures with me, and one of these two figures with me was a guide. The other person on the other side of my guide – to their right – was someone else. Not a guide, but someone I must have known and who was on this particular journey with me in this dream.

So in the dream, we were at the edge of this cliff. Each of us standing in our respective spots a few feet apart from each other. It was clear we were about to jump. I don’t know where we had been prior to this moment, but it was also clear that we were prepared to do this or had come here to do this – to jump – meaning there was no feeling of “I’m unprepared” or “not dressed for the occasion.” There was no concern in that way…in that we might ruin or mess up what we were wearing, whatever we were wearing. I don’t remember us being naked, and it felt like we arrived on the cliff naturally, in that area naturally, or at least on purpose and not by mistake, even though it was apparent that there was nowhere else to go, as it felt like a cul-de-sac on this cliffside or mountain top. We were literally at the very top and as far as you could go on feet…unless a bird or helicopter rose up to meet us there eye to eye.

It was nighttime.

From my position, I looked down at the water below us and it was the most beautiful sparkling green or turquoise, lit, like it was glowing in some way. The color of the water was reminiscent of being in the most beautiful Caribbean island in the ocean, if you’ve ever been or seen images of this. The light in it looked like when a pool is lit from the bottom and all sides, except this wasn’t a pool, it was the ocean, so I can only assume that it was the moon and stars from above that were lighting this water in this way, or else something beneath it.

In the dream, none of this was my concern – the glow or where it might be coming from or how we got here – because I was busy standing at the edge of the cliff looking over and down at the water below, my knees shaking from the knowledge that we were all about to jump.

There was no question, not even a thought, that I would not jump. There was no thought whatsoever that I would or even could back out of it. So my nervousness was more about moving forward and jumping and what on earth it would feel like. I was shaking in my boots…or whatever was on my feet.

I am very familiar with my dreamscape and dream world and all of the feelings that can accompany any dream, as well as all of the sensations that can be felt inside of a dream outside of the range of human emotions. Many of these sensations you may be familiar with too, like the feeling of falling, skating, gliding, flying, spinning, or dropping in a dream, and so I can tell you that this shaky and scared feeling that I had was like none of the sensations that come from any of those.

This was such a visceral feeling of nervousness and being afraid that when I woke up from the dream I had the feeling of – not “I’m glad that was just a dream and I woke up,” but “I can’t believe I was just experiencing that less than 5 minutes ago.” Like my waking self was aware that I just felt that and had been there, and the two worlds joined.

So here we stood on the cliff’s edge. I was aware of what I was about to do. I was steady looking down in the ocean below with that beautiful color, but still quite dark in general around it, everywhere else, and otherwise because it’s nighttime and this is not a city or any place with houses or other people. I see and know the two others – including my guide/right-hand person to my right (no pun intended) – are next to me, each standing in their spots. I was also aware that I was the only one who seemed to be scared and nervous. My legs literally shaking. The other two seemed eager, maybe even excited and looking forward to it, but I was keenly focused on what was below us and the fact that we were about to jump. Like “I can’t believe I’m about to do this. What did I get myself into?”

Then…1, 2, 3…like missiles, we jump. In unison is what it felt like, but at the same time the clean and contained splash and sound of the water as we entered it seemed to happen like that…1, 2, 3…not even a second between each of us because I heard it, with me entering the water last.

I was now wondering how deep and how far the water is and goes down. I was now aware that while I can swim a little, I am not equipped to swim in the deep ocean on any day, let alone at night. My mind now quickly goes to something like: “Will this require me to swim back up and, if so, what level of strength am I supposed to use to do that?” I was very aware that I don’t know how to swim like that!

But I’m in the water now. Submerged. Shot straight down. And I’m not sure if we dove in head, arms, and hands first like divers, but it seemed so by how we all landed or entered the water with such precision, like bullets straight down – no messy splash. Very efficient. And like pros…1, 2, 3. Again, 3 being me.

By the time I jumped in, there was definitely a willingness in the moment (no resistance) on my part, even if I’d been nervous or held trepidation right before or as I did. And by the time I’m in the water and all of these thoughts about how deep, if I’d need to swim back up, how far, how long, how much breath, strength, stamina, as well as technique (of which I have none when it comes to swimming, not even in this dream), I would need – by the time all of this was running through my head in the dream, my feet hit the earth...the floor of the ocean or the seabed.

I felt and looked down and saw the ocean floor give way and welcome me like a cushion beneath my feet, the sediment rising softly but powerfully like a cloud of dust billowing around my feet and lower legs on impact.

And before I could even think or plan what to do next, my body and legs and knees knew to bend without breaking and push me back up the way I used to push myself off the side of the white swimming pool wall when I was a kid, swimming under water in the local community pool in real life, when I wanted to move through the water quickly, even though I couldn’t really swim back then either.

So, in the dream, I pushed myself back up from that ocean floor in a way that seemed as automatic as breathing in how natural, quickly, and easily it happened. But, unlike how most of us normally breathe without noticing, with absolute and full awareness and attention that this was indeed happening as I felt it happen and as I felt me and myself know to do this.

I don’t know if we just dropped to the bottom so swiftly and completely that we got there at record speed, or what, but the water was definitely not shallow, while it was also not as deep as I thought. And the jump down was definitely not a short distance from the top of the cliff or mountain where we’d just been standing. If the distance down was measured by the length of an American football field or a FIFA standard soccer field, I don’t know how many it would have measured; It was a long way down.

At the same time, we hit the bottom so quickly (within seconds, not even a minute, and definitely not minutes) that the bounce back and buoyancy of me shooting right back up once I hit the bottom was so immediate and natural that I understood, as it was happening, that I could do this and would do this, and that it took no thought.

Just as quickly as we went in and down, was just as quickly as we came up and out. As we were coming up, I saw one of them right up above me, but I had no clue when we’d break the surface until we did. And it was quick. Again, less than a minute, not more, and way quicker than I would have thought from looking down from the top of that cliff or upon entering the water. And all three of us, just as we went in…1, 2, 3…must have been how we came up, because when my head and shoulders broke through the surface of the water to look around, there now was one of the two figures who’d jumped with me close by. Not my guide this time, because I could see her face.

She was already there, at the surface, looking straight at or for me when my head broke through the water and our eyes met after I turned around 180 degrees to take in where I was and my eyes landed on her.

She was stunning. She looked like a centerfold from a magazine or a movie scene taking place in a lagoon or hot spring. Just beautiful. She was brown like me when I have a tan. The most perfect and deep-colored dark brown I’ve ever seen, skin and hair wet and glistening from the water, which around us still seemed to glow with a light whose origins I did not know. This light was also how I saw my own feet when they hit the ocean floor, except down there it was more of a faint yellow or beige glow and not turquoise or green, more like a flashlight or light shining from somewhere in the distance lighting where we were.

But this woman now next to me - the other of the two I’d jumped with - her hair was slicked back, jet black and short maybe to the nape of her neck or chin length, but slicked back completely. And she gently squeezed her nose from the bridge and nostrils like one would after emerging from water, as I wiped my eyes to look around and see clearly. Just me and her, face to face, and the other person/figure, my guide, somewhere nearby – I could see them and feel them. Nearby.

And I looked at her and she looked at me – none of us injured, bleeding, broken, or panicked.

The dive down and coming up was so beautiful - no jumping or splashing like kids or adults cannonballing in a lake during the summer. Nothing like that.

It was quiet and still now as I looked around and I could not believe I’d done it. I had just been so scared seconds, a couple of minutes earlier, at the cliff’s edge. And I didn’t drown, no matter how scary and nervous I had been prior to jumping. No matter how daunting the jump seemed.

That’s resilience. And that is the topic of this newsletter for October - RESILIENCE. And it builds on the overall theme of Rebuilding for this year that each topic of each month of this newsletter has built upon.

That dream showed me touch bottom, push off, and rise with ease. And so the lesson in resilience and reminder for us to affirm this month is:

“I can descend into depth and rise renewed. Fear no longer anchors me.”

In the dream, I didn’t resist the fall. I moved with it, trusted it. I met the depth, and then I used that very depth as the source of my rise, and that’s the essence of resilience…not avoiding the descent, but transforming it into upward motion.

It was a sacred kind of resilience too. The kind born from surrender and trust, not from force or denial. And so the dream also says I can trust my own evolution even when I feel afraid. And so this month I am asking and inviting each of us to do that too: To trust your own evolution even when you feel afraid.

But it was also that buoyancy that I felt when I lifted back up. It was a natural return to the surface…to light…after touching the depths, and it’s a reminder of the soul’s tendency to return to lightness no matter how deep it goes. If nothing else, remember this.

Have a beautiful October.

~ Suhailah 🩵 💫

Reflect on a time when you felt yourself “hit bottom”…emotionally, spiritually, or circumstantially.

1. What helped you rise?

2. What strength did you discover in that ascent?

3. Close your eyes and visualize yourself at the cliff’s edge. Breathe, and jump with trust. Feel our Mother Earth catch you either in the water, or if you hit the bottom like I did in my dream.
   Write one sentence that begins with:
   “I trust myself to rise when…”

My purpose here in this lifetime is to help others remember who they are, what they came to create, and then to provide examples and tools to help them do these things. Click HERE to see everything at once, click HERE to explore my company website and learn more about what I do, and feel free to share any or all with anyone who might find anything useful. Also, Episodes 14 and 15 of Grow with Me by Suhailah, titled Born to Build, are available below and across all platforms. Click the links to listen:

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