Oh! Good night’s rest,
Good night’s rest…wherefore art thou Good night’s rest?
Interesting with having a look at the meaning of “wherefore
art thou” – I understood “wherefore art thou” to mean “where are you”, when it
in fact it means “why are you”. This coming from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
quote “O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?”
This is essentially the question I am asking within this
post: WHY my good night’s rest some is just beyond my reach some evenings – where I
am physically tired and sometimes exhausted, but mentally awake / alert; placing
me in this experience of a good night’s rest being so close, yet so far away at
the same time – creating the inner conflict between alertness and exhaustion
yet yearning for the comfort of a deep slumber. This experience, I find, is quite
similar to the relationship between Romeo and Juliet, especially in the scene
where Juliet is crying out to Romeo. I sometimes feel this way when it comes to
my good night’s rest: as though I am standing, calling out to ‘my love’ lol ‘my
good night’s rest’ – yearning for it, being so close, yet so far away at the
same time while being in the conflict between exhaustion and alertness.
Some may be wondering why I am connecting a good night’s rest
to the conflicting love relationship between Romeo and Juliet as depicted by
Shakespeare: We all in some way or another have a ‘love relationship’ when it
comes to a good night’s rest. What I mean with a ‘love relationship’ is that we
really appreciate, honour, respect and value our sleep…no matter how few or
many hours of rest we get to have - a good night’s rest is the best in so many
ways!
Having a look at rest, a good night’s sleep – this is a vital
part of your general health and living experience. Sleepless, restless nights
have a major impact on your mental and physical experience. Interestingly
enough, the reason, the WHY behind sleepless nights, I have experienced, also
very much determines your mental and physical functioning the next day. There
are two main ‘why’s’ / ‘reasons’ I have personally experienced contributes to
my sleepless and/or restless nights:
1. Some evenings I am genuinely not experiencing myself as ‘wanting
to / needing to’ sleep for many hours, so then I sleep less.
Within the above point, I’ve experienced not being able tosleep / rest some evenings where I’m genuinely not particularly tired. I can
physically ‘feel’ / ‘experience’ I am able to sleep/rest – but not enough for
me to actually move myself to get into bed and close my eyes to send myself off
into a deep restful slumber. Here, nothing per say is ‘keeping me awake’ within
myself in the sense of for example being stressed / bothered / reactive /
preoccupied with something / someone within me / my life. I’m very much stable
and grounded within such experiences during evenings and so then I continue
busying myself for a while longer until eventually I decide to go to rest to
get in some hours of sleep in – considering all my responsibilities and
everything I need to tend to the next day.
I have experimented with such evenings in the way of:
a) Sometimes I will stay awake a while longer and then go to
sleep. Even with less hours, I do wake up the next morning feeling slightly tired,
but not too much – very seldom even needing an afternoon nap. Yet, sometimes I
will take an afternoon nap for about 40 minutes to an hour, but this very much
depends also on how active / busy my day is / will be.
b) Other times, I know I could stay awake – but then do decide
to go lie down and I simply breathe, look at some points within myself, play
with sounding some self forgiveness until I eventually close my eyes and gently
move into the embracing, comforting arms of a good night’s rest.
I will in the next post continue with how I initially in
point 1. above emotionally reacted to not being particularly tired and trying
to force myself to sleep / rest – how I walked through this process to a point
of simply embracing the experience and staying awake for a while longer and/or
using breathing and self forgiveness to fall asleep. Then continue with point
2. – the second dimension I experienced contributing to sleepless and restless nights,
which is when you have stressful / emotional thoughts and experiences within
you creating the inner conflict of alertness and exhaustion; also how to assist
and support yourself when facing such experiences within you.
