Sleeplessness

Todd doesn’t usually do emergency call overnight these days, but he’s had more the past year, with a few the past couple of weeks.  Which I hate.  I stay up and read until I’m solidly tired, ever hopeful that I will just sail into morning without a break in sleep waves.  But almost never does that happen.  I usually find myself awake somewhere in the middle.  I’ve stopped looking at my phone to ascertain where we are because I already know.  It’s too early, it’s sleeping time, I would know if it were the right time to wake up.

And so there I am.  As I’m sure many of you my age and older are.  Then what?  I’ve tried a million different ways to trick myself into going back to sleep.  I’ve tried doing a monk-hypnotist-like chant, “Sleep, sleeeeep, sleeeeeep…”  I’ve tried praying for everyone I know.  I’ve tried just admitting I’m awake.  I’ve tried playing my quiet music on Pandora but all that does is tell me how many songs I’ve been awake through.

Finally I decided to write out the question in my journal.  “What can I do to go back to sleep?”  And I prayed.  Not really expecting an answer, but I figured why not, I pray about all sorts of specifically weird things.  It wasn’t at that exact time, but it wasn’t too many days later when the thought came to me as the answer: Breathe.  I considered that and remembered lying on my brown leather couch six years ago after my mastectomy recovering.  I was so desperate for some sort of pain relief that I did some deep breathing.  I’ve heard and read many variations, but the one I remember best is to breathe in for four counts, hold for four and release for four.  I know it’s deep if it involves my belly.  So I’ve tried focusing when I find myself awake, I quiet the clatter and chatter in my head and just breathe. In for four and so on.  I think if nothing else it relaxes me and helps me clear away my thoughts because it takes concentrated effort.  I don’t know how long before it works because at some point in the morning I wake up, unaware of my last breath, a lot like the surgery, where one moment I was counting and meeting the surgeons and the next I was awake with tubes coming out of my torso.  Surreal.

It occurred to me as I listened to at least an hour’s worth of instrumental music last night (because I was not breathing and focused), that this idea would be useful in so many scenarios, situations, and struggles we’re faced with in our awake times of the day.  Breathe.

I thought of a specific trial that had low-key (and occasionally intensely) plagued me for several years.  I had journaled about it copiously, and I’d prayed incessantly for resolution, understanding, and knowledge about how to deal with it.  I finally quit praying about it ever changing and decided instead to simply pray for the person involved.  For love.  I felt like I settled down and chose to just breathe through it, not knowing what the outcome would ever look like or expecting to ever feel peace.  

And I thought about how interesting it is that breathing slowly, mindfully, and deeply can have such a powerful resolute effect, a transformative power almost, carrying us from a state of worry and upset to a place of calm restfulness.

I realized just last night during my bout of wakefulness that this struggle, the turmoil, I’d been experiencing for all these years had somehow dissipated.  I was shocked actually.  But not in a jolting or even surprising way.  All my angst had faded and I realized I wasn’t bothered or concerned about it even a little bit anymore.  Something that had paralyzed me many times, that I had cried to Todd and God about even more, something that had caused me deep internal analysis and soul-searching, wasn’t even a problem at all anymore.  Bizarre, given the grief I’d felt for so long.

But just as our worries lead to restless nights where we toss and turn and fight sleep and wakefulness both, this struggle kept me from relaxing into my own restfulness of soul.  It was only when I let it go, when I tuned into what I could control and focused on my “breathing,” which to me meant loving and trusting, that I felt peace.  Just like my night sleep that transcends the issues of the day and the anxieties in my head, calm came once I finally gave up the fight and just trusted my breath.