Mind Release

Counting various sheep

 Midnight, middle of my night-

need to calm my mind

blow away the angst calm the flight.

 When on the odd night I awake in the middle of  sleeping, often I'm so wide awake and I can't figure out why. The pistons of my mind take flight. Was it too much stimulus on the movie I watched, am I worried about someone or something? This used to happen much more often with that "former guy" as President, "what new horror is being delivered?" But then now it's "how long is this blasted pandemic going to keep inflicting us?"

Last year I was literally scared for my and my husband and friends lives. I knew about how truly awful Covid 19 was because I have a good friend who worked, really slaved away in the emergency room of a big city hospital. She witnessed all the trauma that the patients and their families were going through. To do my part and help, I wrote a post last year on          If They Were Filming https://susansmagicfeather.blogspot.com/2020/06/if-there-was-film-answers-you-dont-want.html. It's only when people see and believe the terribleness of Covid 19 or one of their friends or relatives dies of the virus that they will believe of its veracity. 

We've gotten our shots, a huge relief! We're awaiting a reasonable time period before we venture forth, in our fashionable masks, traveling to see our family.

So, you might ask what's keeping me up at night? What's keeping you up at night? The silliness of worrying about the daily problems or troubles does absolutely nothing to solve them. For many years I had a nifty, though not flawless solution to the racing mind in the middle of the night. I urged my clients to write down a list of what's whirling on their mind or in their conscience. Take that list and on purpose make a deal with yourself that you will worry hard on the list in the morning for twenty minutes. If you get insights, write them down and make an action list. That is the deal, twenty minutes and then put the worry list away in a drawer to be used the next day. If your brain says, "ah, yes, we're worried about --------------------" answer firmly, "let's tackle that tomorrow, we already worried about that today". As simplistic as that sounds it works 90% of the time. Nothing works 100% of the time. That's life.

Another idea for calming, releasing the thoughts and any accumulated tension in the the mind and body is to get out of bed, ugh, and do some yoga or stretching. I read somewhere years ago that just ten minutes of stretching, or doing gentle yoga poses can aid in relaxation and encourage sleep. Let each limb have their say. In my case, I probably have over done the exercise or gardening or even walking. I give thanks with a silent prayerful attitude to all the parts of my body that work so hard for me.

Then I climb back in bed and urge the relaxation of each limb and tell the mind to: let go, let go. I breathe deeply and evenly, sometimes counting the breaths, but mostly trying to think of nothing "be clear mind." I need my sleep so dreams will come and give me a clue what's on my mind keeping me awake. 

People who insist on telling their dreams are the terror of the breakfast table.                                Max Beerbohm

Dreams are marvelous and not always ridiculous and last night was no exception.  I dreamt there was a surveyor in front of our house and he was busily making mistakes on the lines for our property. I asked him his name and he said, "Susan". Doesn't take a genius to see that apparently I have the feeling I've made some mistakes but nothing that can't be corrected. After all I did catch him in the act.

susansmagicfeather 2021 Susan R. Grout