"Now you're beside me, and look how far we've come, so far."
-- "Robert," Enchanted
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| Self portrait 5-8-14 |
"What mattered to me in that moment was that I did not freak out.
I did not catastrophize as if it were a person I love who died ...
Once upon a time, when anything went wrong, I fell apart.
Responding calmly for me is a huge victory.
So I decided to stop and celebrate that, to rejoice in how far I've come."
-- Lori Deschene, "Tiny Wisdom: How Far We've Come," tinybuddha.com
I've had a few rough, restless nights in the sleep department lately.
It's been a while.
Not that long ago it was a nightly thing, me struggling to fall asleep, and to stay there. Insomnia ruled my nights, my days, my life.
But I'm better now, right? Cured. Thanks to months of a rigorous "sleep restructuring" regimen I'm sleeping heartily, robustly, solid as a log night after night.
Or so I thought.
But it's OK. My sleep specialists told me there would be nights like this.
So I didn't panic when I started to feel that old feeling creeping back, that one where I'm still lying there wide awake and it's 2:30 a.m. and I'm getting more and more agitated. The one where I wake up night after night at 3 or 4 in the morning and then can't get back to sleep. The one where I'm reaching for the forbidden gin bottle, or Ambien bottle and taking just a half ... and then another half.
I'm not freaking out.
Instead of reaching for the whiskey, I'm reaching for the rules and the tools I learned in "sleep school" and I am fighting back.
Old me would have had an insomniac-crazed meltdown.
New me feels the scary feelings of insomnia lurking in the shadows, then takes a deep breath and logically reassesses the situation and calmly says "Hey insomnia, I see you're lurking in the shadows there. And that's weird, you know, because I thought I kicked your annoying ass. Don't get too comfortable, because I'm going to make a few adjustments and send you packing again you pesky little fucker."
So I've tweaked a couple of knobs, turned a few dials. It's not fixed yet, but I'll get there. It may take a little while, but I'll get there.
Meanwhile, I've had a good little reminder of how far I've come. How hard I've worked. How much I've grown. Which choices I need to make to protect my sleep. Where perhaps I've grown a little lax, a little lazy.
Reminders are good.
A pain in the ass, but good.
