Getting to Sleep
I didn't sleep well the other night. Unresolved problems
and worries kept me restless. But I discovered something interesting that
helped. It was related to the story on symbols I spoke about last month.
So here I was, tossing and turning. The more I tried to
still my thoughts the more tangled they got - emotions, thinking, trying to
stop, not being able to stop. Counting sheep wasn't working, so I decided to
see what this mental and emotional mess looked like symbolically.
I stilled myself and let an image float up. What appeared
was a tiny, wiry, very bad-tempered, snarling, growling little creature,
about the size of a hardball. A nasty little piece of work, yet oddly
vulnerable at the same time.
I didn't expect it to seem so alive, but the symbol
couldn't have been better. It reminded me a bit of a small version of the
cartoon Tasmanian Devil.
Well no wonder I couldn't sleep.
So, to put this worry to rest, I asked for another symbol
to represent a safe haven for the creature for the night - close enough to
be acknowledged, but
far enough away to be, well, far enough away. A basket appeared filled with
cotton, and the creature seemed to snuggle down into its softness, still
snarling and grumbling, but settling down.
Just doing this little exercise put me in a more restful
mental state. I had to still myself to get started. That was calming in
itself. Letting symbols float up to the surface is more passive than
building an image using rational thought. That is calming, too. And it's fun
to allow symbols to bypass the usual habitual thinking and allow my inner
world to be seen in another way. Anything fun is calming, too.
So at this point I was falling back to sleep.
I woke up the next day feeling rested and cheerful. When
I checked, the creature was still there, but it had quieted down through the
night. It opened an eye, looked at me and then closed it again, snuggling
back down into the basket, not too interested in leaving its cozy nest.
Later that day when I checked in again it was still at rest,
purring like a kitten.
I won't deceive myself that all insomnia will be cured by
this little exercise. But I was grateful the other night when this tiny,
bad-tempered creature allowed me to settle it down enough that we could both
get some sleep.
Stories like these are a regular feature of my free monthly Ezine, Starry Night.
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