Sleeping: Trying to
fight a losing battle
(Oh! Goodnight’s rest, Goodnight’s rest…wherefore art thou Goodnight’s
rest? – continued)
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.
For quite some time, in evenings when I couldn’t fall asleep
– being awake and alert, slightly tired but not enough for me to want to move
myself into bed to go to sleep - I in such evenings would emotionally react to
this experience thinking: “I should be sleeping, got a long day tomorrow, going
to be tired, I’ll regret this, got so much to do / get done” etc. So, my
thoughts and experiences would go all over the place in relation to this moment
in the evenings of not being tired and being able to fall asleep. Obviously
making matter worse for myself, because the more I think and react, the more my
adrenaline starts rushing as my heart is racing because of the extent of
thoughts and emotions I accept and allow within myself and so - the more awake
/ alert I become, making it so much more difficult for myself to be in a state
of comfort and rest within myself and my body.
The above, opens up two important points to consider:
Emotionally reacting to genuinely not being tired
Making sleeping dependent on feeling tired
Initially this was an odd experience for me: having NO
reason for not being tired / not physically experiencing myself as being ‘restful’.
I grew up experiencing and believing that ‘you’ve got to feel and be tired –
mentally and physically to go to sleep’. When I was not particularly tired
mentally and/or physically – I went into the experience (or more the emotional
reaction) of: “So, what now?”
Initially, my first response to this was to emotionally react
- going into fear, anxiety and stress because of not feeling tired / not
particularly wanting to go to sleep. Then I’d go to bed, try breathing, but
eventually roll around for HOURS. During the rolling around trying to FORCE
myself to sleep while at the same time being emotional and thinking A LOT about
not being able to sleep, trying to sleep, thinking about the next day and all
sorts of other things – I would literally think and react myself into a state,
only because of the relationship I had created towards sleeping / resting / tiredness
within my Mind.
Such evenings (not having any reason / why for not being
tired / not feeling restful) would not come often. I mostly would not be able
to sleep due to real things bothering me within myself – such as things in
myself and my life causing stress / anxiety / fear. I would be physically
tired, REALLY tired, but thinking and reacting so much I wouldn’t be able to
fall asleep ‘cause my body is in a conflict of exhaustion and alertness due to
what’s going on inside of me/my mind. This experience – I was very familiar with.
When I can’t sleep due to this – I know the reason / why of me not being able
to fall asleep / really rest. This I will expand on my next posts in terms of
assisting and supporting you with practical methods of how to walk through the
thoughts / reactions contributing to you not being able to fall asleep /
genuinely rest. But for now, getting back to honestly having no particular
reason for not being tired / being able to fall asleep…
What I eventually did, when I recognised that I was simply
honestly not tired / restful was to firstly breathe, slow down and forgive any
reactions I had towards me not being able to fall asleep / not being tired.
Realising within this I am just going to make matters worse for myself if I try
and FIGHT the fact that I am not tired and try and FIGHT myself into falling
asleep with my own thoughts and emotions lol In this, essentially, fighting a
losing battle. I would usually do the breathing / slowing down process during
the evening after taking a nice hot shower / bath. I found during such
evenings, taking a nice hot shower / bath really settles and grounds the body.
Once this is done, I would then reassess myself and decide on one of two
things:
Either going to bed, closing my eyes, breathing and then eventually
slowly but surely settling into my body and send myself off into a deep restful
slumber
Or I would stay awake, getting some work done - staying
awake for a couple of hours more until eventually deciding to go to sleep.
I will in the next post continue with how I found that I
could go to sleep by making a DECISION yet not being tired and also how, even if
I only had a couple of hours of sleep a night cause of staying awake due to not
being tired – I wouldn’t be as tired the next day. How much of this has got to
do with “who you are” before and during going to sleep that very much
determines your mental and physical state / experience the next day.
