What Do I Do When I Can't Sleep?

Usually I toss and turn or just lie there practicing surrendering and opening up my body to relaxation and release. If there's physical discomfort wreaking havoc, I practice "disappearing pain." And sometimes I just put on a guided meditation. But this morning, when I woke up at 4:30, wide awake after only 4 hours of sleep, I got out of bed. Apparently this is what one is supposed to do if after 15 minutes one does not go back to sleep. That's what my doctor recently told me. And so I decided to test it out, even though there's a flaw in this experiment; avoiding computer screens is also recommended.

But I wanted to write! And not by hand. I wanted to crank out a new chapter for one of my books. I had it all so perfectly crafted in my head. So I turned on my laptop, opened up the document. And nothing came out. 

So I moved on to finding a DVD ripper online so that I could finish up a couple of Sheng Zhen video projects. It takes over an hour for one DVD. I don't want to go back to sleep until it's done. So I clean my room, then see if my website needs updating, then schedule a Meetup, and then the first DVD is ripped. I check it out to see if it worked, and it did, so I load another one, get back in bed planning to practice 9 Turns, a Sheng Zhen form of non-moving lying down qigong, and then possibly sleep. But first? A foot massage. And before I know it I'm out of bed again dancing with my shadow. Literally. I'm dancing around my room, and the lamp is creating a big shadow on the wall, my shadow, and we dance. And I laugh in recognition of the perfection of what I'm doing: dancing with my shadow. A big one.

Why? Because I decided pretty recently that it was time to stop denying the shadow side in general and also time to specifically revisit and admit to the horrific traumas I endured as a teenager. My coping mechanism, especially  the first year or two after the car accident, was denial. I was ok. I'd survived. It was ok. I was alive. But I wasn't ok, and it wasn't ok. And that truth, those truths, must be expressed. And there's a part of me that reads what I just wrote and says that's bullshit, that it was ok and I was ok. And that conflict is part of why this needs to be explored.

There's so much more to say about this, so much more to share. And yet, as often is the case, I didn't really expect to go there in this post. I even contemplate not posting this, since it's quite incomplete. I consider re-writing it completely, or having a post just about the concept of "Being OK" or just about "Shadow Dancing" or about all the old stuff that's getting stirred up for me now and why (such as re-reading "Waking the Tiger" and various bodywork experiences over the past month and preparing to start EMDR). And why now after all these years?

But considering the several "drafts" I've started and not posted over the past 4 months, I think I've just gotta hit that "publish" button and accept the perfect imperfection of this post and where I'm at. I've had writer's block for too long. This is a start in the right direction.

To be continued....



© 2013 Rebecca Clio Gould. All rights reserved.