Episode 143: Nightmares are past traumas, not future predictions

Welcome to the Soul Veneration Podcast. I am Thomas Anglero, and I just woke up from a nightmare. A nightmare as bad as any nightmare can be. You know what I'm talking about. We've all had them. My nightmare seemed so damn real. Don't they all though? But I at least know where this nightmare came from, and I want to share with you where it came from so that maybe we both learn how to deal with these things, because what nightmares is, is unprocessed emotions, unprocessed events that have happened in our lives that come out in our dreams when our defenses are down. And maybe it's a health thing, but boy, is it painful. Yesterday at work, I told a colleague of mine a story. I don't know why. I've not told the story in 20 years. Story of what happened to me in my first job in an office environment when I was a kid. I must have been 16 at the time. Maybe 17. Anyway, it was with Mutual of New York Insurance Company, based in Midtown Manhattan, probably around 48th Street on Broadway. They're no longer there, though the building's still there, and it's no longer Mutual of New York anyway. This was my first job that was inside of a corporate building and that I had to put on nice clothes because I would be working in the office. And I was so excited. I'm working in the office, I'm an office man, right? As a kid, this, uh, first real job. I go to the office my first day, so proud, meet everybody. And in the office, there's only— I meet one man, his name is Mark Weiss. He's the only man of color there. Everybody else is white, and I think nothing of it other than, I guess, okay, there's one, all right, no big deal. And I thought, okay, we'll probably be really good friends. Mark calls me into his office and says, listen, young blood, I have an assignment for you. I go, wow, my first assignment, my first office assignment. My first corporate assignment. Get the drift? So proud I was. I remember I felt so good about myself. I was like, I'm gonna kill this, I'm gonna do really well, I'm gonna make sure everybody how good I am. That enthusiasm of youth. And he said he went over to this table and there was a huge pile of printouts. Now, not the regular printouts like we have today, because we have these printers that we don't know what they are today, but back in the day there was a daisy wheel printers, if anybody's so old to remember, the dot matrix printers and these huge pieces of paper that would come out of it. I mean, huge being like 2.5 meters wide, and they were brown paper with perforations at the end. Dating myself. Anyway, he had a stack and it was about 750 pages of 2.5 feet wide paper, so the stack must have been about a foot high. For you people who are metric, about 30 centimeters high. And he said, "Make copies of this entire stack." I picked up that stack, it was heavy. And he says, "Don't come back until you're done." I said, "Yes, sir. Got this." I went to the copy room. The copy room was in the center of the building. There was no windows. It was inside of a closet. And inside the closet was another door, and that was a copier. And I stood inside that room within a room where all there was was a copier and that smell of ink and ozone, because those printers back in those days were not environmentally friendly or nice to be around. I stood in that little room standing up making copies all day long for 8 days in a row. Didn't talk to anyone, didn't see anyone. I would only leave the room to go to the bathroom or go to have lunch, and I didn't have lunch with anyone because I didn't meet with anyone. I would just come to work, go straight to the copy room and continue copying. That was my first 8 days, my first job. When I was all done, went back to his office, brought back the best— said, Mark, do you have a moment?

Yes.

So I brought back the originals, laid it on his table, went back to the copy room, brought back the huge set of copies, laid that on the table next to the originals and said, I'm done, Mark. And I stood there with my chest out proud. I was almost like a soldier. He walked over to the table, looked at the two sets of copies, turned around, looked at me standing there with my smile of pride. He took his arm, separated the originals from the copies, slit the copies, the stack of paper of copies all the way to the edge of the table. And then at the other side of the table was a garbage can, and he slid all the copies and just let them slide off the table into the garbage can. He then turned around and looked at me, and I was like, what is going on? Why would he do that? But I don't understand. And he said to me, "You're gonna have to learn to pay your dues, boy." Now, I'm a person of color. The only other person of color is this gentleman, Mark. And this is the first lesson he gives me in corporate life. You're gonna have to pay your dues, boy. I told that story yesterday at work. I haven't thought about that in decades, years. And that thing unleashed within me— telling that story released within me pain, anger, frustration, reflection on a life of just why do people behave and do such horrible things. Have you in your life had someone do something to you that just reverberates throughout your life? That ripple of emotional trauma continues to ripple from then till now. The reason I bring this up is that I— when I woke up, I realized I had to make a choice. Am I going to do the same damn thing to someone else because I'm pissed off and angry, or am I going to stop this damn curse? I'm going to stop producing horrible people who are traumatized for the rest of our lives. I'm going to stop traumatizing young kids who, on their very first job job on their very first day of work, someone puts into their mind, into their hearts, into their soul, into their DNA, something so disrespectful that they didn't deserve. And then they hold on to that, and that thing goes on, and they give it to the next one, they give it to the next one. I choose to stop. I choose love. I choose to respect and take care of people. I choose to look at someone and say, I love you even though I don't know you. I'm going to take care of you if it's your first day of your job. And you know what? Everyone else in that office did. There was this old woman, she was about 69 years old. She was a week, few weeks away from retiring. And during that summer that I worked there, she treated me with the greatest respect ever. She was one of the few people who actually had an office. Everybody else would work in these cubicle spaces. And then during the summer, as I was walking there, she would say, she would tell her assistant or secretary, Bring Thomas in here. Her office had glass windows and she was able to look through the window and see what was even going on. And she would see what's happening to me out there and she would ask me to come in. And I would come into her and I go— I forgot her name. I'm so disrespectful, I can't remember her name. I think it was like Beth or something. And I go, hi Beth, how can I help you? She goes, Thomas, sit down. And I would sit there, and it wasn't like, Thomas, sit down, I'm gonna yell at you. It was like, Thomas, sit down, we need to talk. And I would sit there and I go, yeah, Beth, what's going on? She goes, Thomas, did this just happen to you? I saw it through the window. I go, yes, it did. And what did that person say? And I explained. And she said, do you know what the implications of that meant? Do you know what that person was really saying? And I said, well, yeah, they said blah blah blah. She goes, no. And she would give me the other way of seeing, of interpreting the situation. She taught me that there were many— people have hidden genders. People do things to be very sneaky. She woke me up, but she did it in the most caring, loving way, as if like a grandmother would do, who would give words of wisdom to someone they love. All this woman had to do really was ask me to sit on her lap, which was not appropriate for an office place, but she had my heart sitting on her, with her heart side by side, hugging me. And throughout that summer, that woman raised me. She nurtured my mind. She nurtured my heart. She nurtured my feelings. She took care of me. And I grew up as a man, and I started seeing the world fuller, and I started understanding that people are very complex and we do things for the strangest reasons. By the end of that summer, after my very last day that summer— excuse me— They threw a huge office party for me. The only person that didn't attend it and stood in his cubicle was Mark Weiss. I learned a lot. But what we do in this moment today lives on for infamy. Taken from, uh, One of my favorite movies, that line. What choices, what actions you decide to do against other people lives on forever because that action reverberates in that person, and that person then reverberates it and gives it to someone else, and it goes on and perpetuates forever and ever. Your choice you must make, the choices you make right now The things that come out of your mouth, the glances you give people, the intent that you have when you do or say something to someone reverberates forever. What choice do you make? What feelings you have behind it? That is your call. I choose love, and I want you to choose love. This is coming from a young child. This is not Thomas of today who's talking. This is a Thomas of 17 years old who's telling you now, years, years later, that those words that you use when you were upset that day, those words that you use when you wanted to feel more powerful and your ego got to you, Those words that you use because you just knew you could shit on somebody. You destroyed a young boy and his dreams and hopes, and you gave him nightmares that he doesn't deserve. Choose wisely. The actions, the words, the intent that you have when you speak to other people. Go forth and spread beauty and light. Love everyone. Understand that you have such tremendous power on the outcome of not just people, but the whole entire planet. Your words, Your actions, your thoughts live on forever. Choose them wisely. I'm Thomas Anglero, 17 years old right now, asking all of you to not hurt my feelings. I love you. Until next time.

Thank you for listening to that episode. If you want to contact me, you can contact me on my website at anglero.com, and you can also subscribe to the newsletter, or you can find me anywhere on social media with Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Thank you so much, and I hope to hear from you very soon.