The ritual of sleep
JPW Design Team
Do you every feel as if you are undergoing some sort of initiation, rituals which, if you pass, will take you to the next level of your development as a human being? I'm at that point right now. Knowing deep down that I can somehow make it, but having trouble finding the will to want to make it.
Today is day something of my cleanse. 16? 17? I have lost count. All I know is that Tuesday is my last day, and then I will start incorporating -- slowly, oh, so slowly -- grains, dairy, and other foods back into my life again.
The problem is, on a cleanse, you are supposed to rest, because you naturally feel tired when your body and psyche are cleaning house and getting rid of all that old stuff that doesn't belong there anymore.
At the beginning of the cleanse I felt a bit like Wonder Woman, with a will of steel. (OK, except on that day I was being chased by a large piece of dark chocolate.) Now my will falters as my energy falters. My patience is faltering. Life is simply getting in the way.
Sleep deprivation is the worst sort of initiation there is, don't you think? The last two nights I have been wakened at obscene hours by my children. I am used to waking in the night because of them, but the last two nights have been particularly difficult. On Wednesday night, Nadia woke at 3am crying with a fever and stomachache, and I spent the rest of the night (morning?) comforting her and doing energy work to alleviate the nausea so that she could finally fall asleep again around 6:30. Then this morning, after not getting to bed until 11, Luke woke me up at 5:00 with his tossing and turning and snoring.
I know. I should have gotten up to take advantage of being awake to do yoga. But instead, I went and tried to sleep in Nadia's bed (since she was again in our bed), though as you probably know, falling back asleep for 20 minutes seldom does anyone any good. It actually made me feel worse. The will, however, was simply lacking. My brain said, "get up," and my body said, "I don't think so."
Right now I can feel the pressure beginning to mount again, the pressure of wanting to just sleep dammit, the pressure of having all this studying to do, of needing to move and do yoga, of mama-guilt, of wife-guilt, of needing to see more clients so we don't bounce the rent check, and yet the tools I need to release the pressure are simply not available. Is this part of the initiation, to teach myself how to dig even deeper to find the light and love that are the whole reason for being?