Hi Love,
I’ve been real, sleepy, recently.
I don’t even remember quite when it started, but it must have been a few months back at least; I find that when I wake up in the morning my body is telling my brain very convincingly that I need to snooze for at least 20 more minutes.
It’s one thing to make up a sleep debt, or to finally get some much needed snoozing during a holiday season, but it’s another thing entirely to be overcome by this compulsion so much that it becomes a daily battle to not lose more of the day (sometimes until noon).
I am doing myself not to beat myself up over this, given how much I remember I was able to get by in high school with sometimes not even two hours of sleep, back when I struggled with insomnia. It is a privilege to like sleep and have a relationship where it can be had regularly! It’s been a complicated progression of sleepiness during the mornings and throughout the day, which feels so weird because I get like ten hours almost every day 🙁 .
But I think I know what it is.
It’s agonizing internal pressure, like a balloon flinching at the caress of a knife.
It’s gnawing anxiety steamrolling over my gratitude for life and my recognition of my now-earned privileges. Seeing a number of vivid landscapes on my most recent rad trip helped remind me of this, and helped me reflect back to myself what self-harm I was implicit in. I have a strong gut feeling that these developments of feelings are related to whatever it is in my soul that keeps me from waking and rising. My resistance to acknowledge that “tomorrow, and tomorrow, is another day” has been causing me such psychological indigestion that my body was beginning to reject trying altogether, showing annoyance at consciousness.
I’m afraid about grad apps. It’s hard to even be realistic, and acknowledge the good chance I stand this time around, because there is such an overwhelming and dominating voice that asserts that it could never happen. I have been unable to fantasize a single second of being a grad student, or being a PhD, because I have not yet been able to say out loud that I actually feel like it would ever happen. For all my confidence and bluster, when it comes down to it, my motivation and confidence comes squarely from those I love- and my ability to fan that flame when alone is much harder because I can barely sustain the hope.
It’s okay to be discouraged by stuff which is uncertain. Much of the substance of life is riding the finest line between risk which pays off and risk which has real costs. What’s not okay is to treat your body like a limp and rigid device. You should have the humility to know that your brain and body are not totally knowable, and that you should be grateful and respectful to them first and foremost because you depend on them to survive. Take good care of your mental, treat your body like your own child, give up resistance to nourishing the mind and body when it needs nourishing. I’m working on it, but it already feels so clear because the positive feedback loop of keeping gratitude a daily practice is so rewarding. Spending 15 minutes per day and nothing else thinking about your worth and your skills and your ability to achieve things in both near and distant future will unlock things in you which you may have though never could have existed for you like it does for others.
If you want to be savvy, do what I do and do more than one meditation per day. I give 15 minutes three times per day, when I can, dedicated to just thinking about these things.
As always, this is not a website just selling you some crap. I don’t have any snake oil nor magic medicine; I just think I have something which is valuable to me, which may or may not end up being valuable to you.
Thanks Love,
Tate
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