This morning I woke up around 5 am. I felt exhausted still but suddenly my mind became very active. I hate when this happens. I put my attention in my body and really let myself relax and fall into the bed, to feel weighty and it did have a calming effect. Still, each time I felt myself drift off, my mind went into a repetitive thought. I had had a meeting on Monday afternoon and there were a couple issues that suddenly came to mind of great importance. I acknowledged the thoughts. I said that I would get to them as soon as I got more sleep. I even said that I'd be in a better place to function with more sleep. It was like I was trying to beg to a young child that I would be a better parent if I had more sleep to function better... I kept trying to let my body drift back to sleep but these thoughts kept chiming in so loudly. After about 30 minutes, I decided to go pee and then come back to do a meditation practice.
I sat with the thoughts and acknowledged that they kept coming up. I realized I wanted to remember these items of importance because I want to advocate for myself and my family. I scanned down into my body and relaxed all the way down to my feet and back up to my head. I can't tell you how different these thoughts were than other thoughts in the (not so distant) past. They were so strong and powerful and I actually yelled loudly to myself in thought, "PLEASE!! STOP! I HEAR YOU! I LOVE YOU! I HEAR YOU!" (I thought this was kind of funny. It reminded me a little bit of what I read years ago in Eat, Pray, Love, when Elizabeth Gilbert was yelling at herself in meditation.) The pervasive thoughts stopped only briefly but then kept streaming in in the same succession, in the same order. So I just said, "Ok, fine! I'll write this down so I can get back to sleep!" It was like I was bargaining with myself.
I wrote down all the things on my mind. I listed it out and read it and edited and read it again. I did this until every issue and need was listed out. I asked myself if this seemed good and the answer was yes. I put down the computer and I laid back down. The thoughts that kept going in my head after that is, "I love you. I love you. I love you," and I drifted back to sleep finally.
We are reading a Course in Miracles this week and the main points are that thoughts, feelings, things are all illusions and the lesson is to practice to not attach to them, to view them with non-judgement and with curiosity. It was an interesting thing that happened to me. My brain wouldn't let go of these items until I wrote them down and then it was almost too easy to fall back asleep. I had the impression that my mind and body were working in cahoots or something! Maybe sometimes, some thoughts are more worth paying attention to than others. I don't know what meditation masters would say but I was just happy to get my requests down and get my body back to bed. I suppose according to the Course in Miracles, I would need lots of training to realize that these thoughts were nothing... I do wonder, though about the creative spirit that chimes in sometimes and says, "Listen." I'm not sure if this was the creative spirit but this was a very repetitive thought telling me to "Listen and do what I say." I was trying to use all these tools and they worked only briefly... Sometimes, maybe, you just gotta listen and do...