We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Pam Muller a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Pam, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Honestly? It came through a combination of life experience and self-reflection. I am still working to develop confidence and self-esteem, but I am not starting from scratch anymore. Venturing away from the career field of teaching and into the unreliable entrepreneurial world required that I rely on whatever confidence I had within me to keep going. So every small step I took along the way to branch out into the wellbeing, practitioner-based space was a risk. Taking those risks and having them either work out or, if they didn’t work out, not break me gave me more self-confidence that I could manage the responsibilities of such risk-taking. This was true no matter which arena my risks were in- social media, financial decisions, starting the business, choosing my brand logo, designing the website- and, every arena had one thing in common, me. So as I stretched beyond my comfort zone, I would look back and see that I could be counted on.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
The short version of what I do is this, I help people learn to feel more and fear less by way of working with them at the intersection of their dreams, symbolism and the inner spiritual journey of life (aka, the big questions). That pretty much encapsulates my Sweet Georgia Pam brand.
What is most exciting for me is to meet people at that very vulnerable place where some deep, emotional truth becomes dislodged from the unconscious and floats up into awareness where they can say the true thing out loud in their own words (sometimes it’s a difficult truth, other times it’s a revolutionary truth that is delightful rather than difficult). There is something alchemical that happens when we hear ourselves speaking the truth in our own voice; rather than someone else naming it.
Nighttime dreams carry that level of depth and wisdom in them- each and every time. Even though it is usually the nightmares or prophetic dreams that get peoples’ attention, what most people don’t realize is that they don’t have to wait until some big dream shows up to get to the deep and meaningful inner truths through dream interpretation. My mission is to normalize dream work as a self-help modality that works with any dream at any time.
People have way more access to fearlessness and feelings than they know. One third of their lives, in fact is spent sleeping and dreaming! Sweet Georgia Pam, LLC is all about helping people take full advantage of their “night vision” to live the fullest life possible.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The skills that were most impactful on my journey have been developing emotional intelligence (and maturity), learning to listen without fixing, and learning the language of symbolism and metaphor that the unconscious mind uses to be in constant communication with us both in dreaming and in waking.
Emotional intelligence is not what I thought it was. As an empath, I believed I was naturally emotionally intelligent. I thought that because I felt so much I was better at feeling than other people. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Emotional intelligence means that I can feel the full range of emotions (which can only be done when you stop suppressing the negative ones), I can identify what I feel (meaning I understand how to discern when I am feeling something that isn’t mine), and I can allow other people to feel their feelings without becoming overwhelmed. It took me a long time practicing each component individually before I matured into my emotional intelligence. I would advise someone who’s looking to gain this skill to spend more time every day talking about how they’re feeling. Emotions rule us if we don’t learn to recognize them.
In my spiritual direction training, we were taught again and again to let someone tell their story without interrupting them and without responding with our own thoughts afterwards. What I learned by doing that was that when I rush in with my sympathy and solutions, I am actually taking control of another person’s narrative and robbing them of the opportunity to choose what they want to do or say in response to the experience they’ve just shared. The silence that follows someone sharing their truth is actually the most potent moment of truth for them. It is sacred and listening without fixing bares witness to that moment when they get to choose what comes next. My best advice to readers is to practice just once a day to listen and let silence hang in the air a little longer than you’re comfortable with before you respond when someone is telling you a story. And notice what happens in that silent space between words.
The language of the dreaming mind, that of symbolism and metaphor is the language that is embedded into all great art, poetry, religious texts, and mythology. We spend so much of our time focused on our conscious mind’s activity and input. But learning to understand how your own unconscious mind is constantly feeding you potent, creative symbols opens up an entirely new worldview that is teeming with possibility and hope! My advice is for readers to simply get curious about the meaning of symbols and follow that curiosity wherever it leads.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
I wholeheartedly believe in investing time to improve on your non-strengths. Relying completely on what you’re good at may eventually (or to be honest, maybe immediately) lead to success; but it will not help you grow and expand on that success.
Diverse, difficult experiences that challenge you in ways that do not cater to your strengths, actually help you discover new parts of yourself that otherwise may have remained in hibernation for your whole life.
I grew up with tons of privilege, love and support. And, being the sensitive introverted empath in a group of 4 siblings, I also grew up shielded from discomfort. I was a kind, big-hearted, emotional sweet child who was easily overwhelmed in big feeling situations, even positive ones. So, my siblings and parents loved me enough to save me from overwhelm whenever my eyes begin to well up with feelings. I was raised without ever having to face conflict. My strengths were supported and I was successful in charming the world with my sweet big heart. But because of all of that, I was never challenged to face my area of weakness, namely being able to be present with emotional tension or survive any form of conflict.
So, when I was challenged later in life by the inevitable conflicts of living as an adult in reality, my weaknesses were exposed. I suffered greatly, and my strengths couldn’t carry the whole load of sustaining me through it all. I went through years of growing pains (or growing-up pains) and eventually, my weakness actually became my greatest strength. Over time, I learned the “Pam” way of dealing with conflict and I learned that there was no right and wrong way to “be” in the world. There was no official good version of me, only the authentic version of me. It was my weakness and being faced with the reality of just how weak in that area that woke me up to an whole entire other dimension of my life I hadn’t known existed. Now I can confidently say that I live a fully realized life with depth and dimension.
But the depth and dimension parts originate, for all of us, as areas of weakness.
Dreams and spiritual direction help people grow in depth and dimension into a more fully realized version of themselves.
It’s so incredible to me that this work I do allows me to meet people where they are and follow their breadcrumbs that they have left to themselves (the unconscious mind is constantly dropping hints in dreams and synchronicities), in order to lead them into their weaknesses to discover new revelations and invitations to discover greater and greater strengths.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://sweetgeorgiapam.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/SweetGeorgiaPam
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sweetgeorgiapam/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi34UlpcSL4n1PL2vN71BDQ
- Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sweetgeorgiapam
