This morning's meditation came at around 4 am. This was unintentional! I was not trying to be monk-like! I woke up around 3 something and my thoughts started churning immediately. I kept trying to catch them - "Stop! please! I don't want to start thinking now. I want to get to bed! I'm not getting enough sleep as it is!" I kept putting the focus back to my belly and breathing and it was amazing how thoughts kept getting pulled to a conversation I had that day and the imagining a future conversation that I will have next week. I was processing and thinking and analyzing at 3 something in the morning! AACK! I don't want to do this. I want to sleep!
Each time I thought that I was doing a good job of focusing on my body and my breathing - the conversation would just start again. So I said, "Forget it - time to get serious." And I sat up and started meditating. I might as well, I thought. I sat and bowed to the thoughts that kept streaming in. I gave myself a lot of kindness and understanding as to why I was doing this. I was trying to understand what had gone wrong in my conversation and what I could do to ensure that I was going to be understood. I was trying to foresee a future conversation and what I might say the next time. I saw this with great kindness and then it was easy to shift out of it. It was as if the trial of pushing the thoughts away was not enough at this time (sometimes it is.) I needed to give a little light and understanding to why they kept presenting themselves... Like a child having a little fit. It's possible to ignore, to not give it much value but it's something more for the parent and the child when the parent acknowledges whatever pain or confusion the child might be feeling that is causing the behavior and then watch the behavior change much more quickly thereafter.
I drifted back to sleep. I had many lucid dreams for about 3 1/2 more hours and then the dogs woke me up with their barking. I was grateful to have done that in the middle of the night. I have experience of not doing that and the result is hours and hours of a very active brain in the middle of the night...