Tag: swimming toward the shark

sleep, interrupted

Too much caffeine. Anxiety. A racing mind. An unresolved conflict. A suddenly remembered to-do. There are a million and one reasons why insomnia makes its way into the most intimate room in our homes when we are in our most vulnerable state and decides, unbeknownst to us, that tonight’s the night it will do its dirty work.

Ugh.  

More times than not, I am a really good sleeper, and I am grateful for it. I’m also a really deep sleeper. (Just ask the brother of the girl I babysat when I was a teenager about the time he had to crawl through an unlocked window because he forgot his key, and I slept through the repeated clanging of the doorbell.) 

I have definitely become a lighter sleeper as I’ve gotten older, but I still rarely wake up wide awake in the middle of the night. A la the Dos Equis guy, I don’t always wake up in the middle of the night, but when I do, I make it really count. 

I have tried all the tried and true solutions – keeping a notebook by the side of my bed to write down whatever recently remembered task has popped into my mind so I don’t lay there committing it to memory and worrying I will have forgotten it by the time I wake up. I’ve tried counting backward from 100, only to wish I had started at 1,000. I’ve tried the get-up-and-pee-in-the-dark method, the drink-warm-milk method, the read-myself-back-to-sleep method, the fan-favorite toss and turn method, the release-your-muscles-head-to-toe method, and the fuck-it-just-go-ahead-and-get-up method.  

Through the years, some of these tricks have worked from time to time, but none of them have ever worked consistently. So, I invented my own (at least I think it’s an original one, but if I have inadvertently borrowed it from someone, I apologize. And to that someone, I owe you a drink and a debt of gratitude).

Here’s how it works. (I prefer to start out laying on my back, but hey, you do you…)

First, mentally state your intention to go back to sleep. This step may seem unnecessary, but the thing is, if given the chance, our minds will crank up into runaway trains and do a day’s worth of thinking within a few minutes of darkness. That’s why this first step is crucial – you must first decide you are ready to back to sleep, commit to doing so, and give your body (and your mind) permission to drift off. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to begin. Maybe you’ll need all 10 steps, or maybe not. As long as you fall asleep, it’s working.

#1) Consciously will your body to become as heavy as possible. I don’t know about you, but if I tell myself to “relax”, it’s often counterproductive and way too metaphysical. Instead, telling myself to “be heavy” seems less challenging and like a real, measurable thing I can accomplish, no problem.

#2) Do a quick body scan from your head to your toes and notice if any of your muscles are rebelling from this exercise and still attempting to levitate you from your mattress. As you find them, release them. All of them. Even those sneaky ones that tend to fly under the radar. In your jaw, your tongue, your belly, your calves, your biceps – even in your eyeballs. Release everything. 

#3) Focus on where your skin meets your sheets (or your pj’s if you’re not a birthday suit sleeper like me). Feel the warmth of your skin. Relish your sheets, their softness. Stay here for as many moments as you like as you allow your body to sink deeper and deeper against and within your sheets.

#4) Shift your attention to your mattress. Notice if it’s soft or firm. If it’s thick or thin. If it’s smooth or tufted. Scan your mind’s eye across your mattress. See its stitching, its inner materials, its full shape and scope. Consciously become even heavier, and give your mattress permission to hold you. All of you.

#5) In your mind’s eye, scan the rectangular edge of your mattress all the way around. Then notice where your mattress meets its base. Maybe you have a box spring. Or an adjustable base. Maybe a bunk or a platform. Whatever setup you have, visualize your mattress resting on top of its base, and feel each of its layers beneath your body. Grow heavier as you rest more and more deeply into these trustworthy, capable layers of support.

#6) Visualize each of the four feet of your bed. Take your time assessing each corner. Get curious. Examine where each foot stands on the floor. Notice how the weight of your bed squishes your carpet or how the tile, wood, laminate, or concrete supports the bed’s weight without concern, without complaint. Sink your body even deeper into rest.

#7) Now visualize moving beneath the floor, descending inch by inch as inside a glass elevator going lower and lower.  If you live in a condo or apartment, visualize each floor of your descent. See the ceiling, the room, the floor. The ceiling, the room, the floor. Let each layer pass through your mind’s eye.  Keep going until you reach the very bottom and can now see the inner workings of your home or building.  See the pipes, the wiring, the joists.  Each well-designed and functioning part. Allow your body to feel even heavier. 

#8) Now take your perspective even lower, descending slowly until you reach the foundation of your home. Scan the vastness of the belly of your home, the structure that protects you year-round from sun, heat, wind, rain, snow, cold. Feel the concrete beneath you, sitting heavily upon the soil. Observe how the foundation of your home holds everything else above it, sturdy and strong.  Think of the years this foundation has been right here holding everything up, and the many years from now when it will still be here, steadfast, supporting this home. Still and strong. Allow the foundation of your home to hold you. Heavy, relaxed, and whole.  

#9) Move your perspective beneath the foundation and onto the soil. Feel the cool earth, dark and shaded. Feel how it softly, yet firmly, holds the foundation and the entirety of your home. Visualize the flattened earth directly below the foundation, and then scan the soil to the edges of the structure it holds, imagining in your mind’s eye how the soil slopes up to meet the crisp air. It is dark. Safe. Quiet. Still. Peaceful.  

#10) Finally, visualize each layer of support beneath your body, starting with the soil and ascending layer by layer, pausing on each one for a brief moment of gratitude. The earth. The foundation of your home. The structural innerworkings. The floor. The bed frame. The mattress base. The mattress. The fitted sheet. Your skin. The top sheet. The blanket. The room around you. The ceiling. The sky. Infinite space.  

You are held. You are safe. You are whole. 

You are held. You are safe. You are whole.

Give in to your drowsy dreams. 

Give in to comforting sleep. 

Rest well and renew. 

me? codependent?

I’ve been struggling to navigate several relationships that are very near and dear to me – relationships that have largely been a constant, forever and always, but are now at a chapter break. The change is necessary for the relationships to grow and adapt to the people who are growing and adapting within them. Yet, regardless of the need, change can be difficult, particularly when others in the circle want it to stay the same, with each person playing the same role they always have and with the unwritten rules in full effect that preserve the perpetual sameness.

And then there’s me, marching forward in the name of growth and progress, determined to convince the rest of the circle to come along with me, and if they won’t, convinced that I must drag them along behind me until they see the error of their ways. Neither approach is working (go figure), as good as my intentions are. No matter how much love I’m pouring onto these people as I push them forward, my efforts are only increasing the distance, devolving the relationship and leaving me exhausted. Fortunately, I learned something important about myself this week. Apparently, my tendency to feel responsible for these people’s choices and outcomes are signs that I may be… okay, that I likely am… okay, okay, that I am highly probably (and maybe most definitely) codependent. There, I said it.

“Codependence”: I always thought this term belonged in the context of romantic relationships, and applied specifically to one or both partners making excuses, or enabling, the bad behavior of the other partner often when chemical dependence was involved. I understood it to mean that the codependent partner’s identity is wrapped up in the other person’s problems. They are no longer two unique individuals in a relationship, but a singular unit stuck in an unhealthy cycle. There is truth in that definition, but as I recently learned, codependence can also be applied to non-romantic relationships within families, friendships, and pretty much all human connections.

I was watching Jen Hatmaker’s Monday video this week from her porch (Mondays with Jen), and she reframed codependence for me in a way that I am absolutely certain I was meant to hear right there and then. She said: “Codependence is more about control, about trying to control somebody else’s behavior, trying to manage somebody else’s outcomes, trying to work your way into somebody else’s choices, decisions and consequences, and believing in some WILD, MAGICAL way that you can control it, that you can solve somebody else’s behavior, or that you’re RESPONSIBLE for somebody else’s health, or wholeness, or responsibilities. It’s a real gauntlet, I’ll tell you that…

“The truth is that codependency ruins lives, and it’s not to say you’re not attached to somebody that’s making absolutely terrible, destructive, harmful decisions that are affecting you and affecting your home and affecting your relationship. It’s real. Our instincts to overcompensate come from a place where we are suffering or we just want the best for somebody, and we just don’t want them to continue to do this harmful stuff, but the bad news about that is it doesn’t work. That’s the bad news, and I’m sorry to tell you: You are not responsible for other people. You are not in control of other people. It is not helpful for any of us to absorb the shock of somebody else’s consequences or choices. It’s an awful system, and I don’t like it, and I don’t prefer it…” Then with major sarcasm but a completely relatable premise, she says: “… What I wish is that I could honestly control everybody. I should be in control of everybody in my life, I know what’s best, but it doesn’t work.”

Amen to ALL of that, sister! Jen goes on to quote from a book called Codependent No More, which I had never heard of, but it’s been around since the late ‘80s and is now in its 4th ed and has sold millions of copies. I guess I just wasn’t ready for it before now. As she quotes from the book, the key is detachment:

“‘…releasing, or detaching if you will, from a person or problem in love. We mentally, emotionally, and sometimes physically disengage ourselves from unhealthy and frequently painful entanglements with another person’s life and responsibilities and from problems we cannot solve…’ We allow people to be who they are. We give them the freedom to be responsible and to grow, and we give ourselves that same freedom. We live our own lives to the best of our ability and strive to ascertain what it is we can change and what we cannot change. And then we stop trying to change things we can’t.” (Hello, Serenity Prayer!)

I genuinely felt like Jen was speaking directly to me. Her words were an undeniably on-point truth that I needed to hear, and maybe you do as well. Right after I finished watching the video, my phone lit up with a daily motivational text from Womaze: “Reminder: You can care about people without carrying the weight of their worries.” I felt like God was wanting to make sure I was really paying close attention. I looked up at the sky in that moment and said aloud, I hear you! I’m listening!

While I’m sure it won’t be an easy read, I’m really looking forward to reading Codependent No More (aaaannnnd completing the workbook) and doing the work to dig deeper into this topic. I know it’s not smart (or healthy) to self-diagnose, but I do recognize that I often feel responsible for other people’s decisions and outcomes – and, generally, only with people I care about who are more than capable of caring for themselves. I do vividly remember my therapist saying to me several times when I was in weekly sessions: “… and then you need to detach with love.” So there is that professional inference to my codependent tendencies.

Acknowledging that they exist and working to overcome them doesn’t mean that I don’t, won’t or can’t care about these particular people anymore or that I don’t, won’t or can’t love them just as much as I always have. What it means is that I am learning to pause and recognize when my motives for influencing others are tied up in codependency and when my motives are authentically my own. That’s a distinction that I know I will need time and lots of practice to be able to define consistently, but I am so grateful that I now know what to call it. That’s step one. Now I’ve got to dig in and clean it out. It’s not anyone else’s work to do but my own.

What I know for sure is that I love these people, and I want them in my life, despite our disagreements and the different lenses through which we view the world, religious theology, American democracy, family communication and, sometimes, life in general. But beneath those differences, I trust that there are sufficient commonalities to build a meaningful relationship upon. I just have to learn how to let those differences breathe. Let them free. And let them be. In other words, detach with love so that our shared love for one another can cover the wounds and set the healing in motion.

you’re going to be okay

When children fall down, they instinctively show their vulnerability. Sometimes they show it through tears or verbal cries. Maybe the fall was painful (real tears). Maybe it surprised them or scared them (real tears). Maybe they sense an opportunity for attention (not always real tears). Other times, they just need to show us where on their body they fell so they can hear from someone else that they’re okay. However minor, they rarely just get back up and move on without some sort of external acknowledgment that: 1) hey, something unexpected happened to me over there, and 2) I’m going to be okay.

A mosquito bit the top of my foot last night, and I apparently scratched it in my sleep. This morning, I was putting Neosporin and a Band-Aid on it, and I had the urge to go show my husband. I’m in my late 30s and consider myself a fairly independent woman, yet here I was wanting to show somebody my boo-boo. I had to laugh, but then it made me think.

We know that one of the big reasons cognitive behavioral therapy (also known as “talk therapy”) can be so effective is because when we speak aloud our fears/anxieties/vulnerabilities/pain, it allows us to unpack the Big Bad Scary, and bring it down to size. When we can name it for what it is, we can process it and eventually move through it. At several points in my life, I’ve found myself stuck in one (or more) of the steps and benefited greatly from professional therapy by someone trained and credentialed to help me move forward in a healthy way. Journaling, prayer, even voice memos can be really effective pressure valves, but when it comes to the getting unstuck stuff, it’s not enough to just “get it out”. The real magic happens when that other human being is present with us, bearing witness to our pain. My husband, God love him, is a fixer by nature. Sometimes when I need to talk through something I have to tell him: I don’t need you to analyze the problem or propose solutions. I just need you to see me and hear me… and, if you’re feeling really generous, maybe hold me afterward and kiss my hair.

Am I self-reliant? Ummmm, to an extent. Do I also need to be validated from time to time? You betcha. And you do, too. So the next time you tell yourself that you’re “just being needy” maybe there’s more to it. Anthropologists say that we are naturally drawn to fire because our ancestors relied on it for warmth, protection, and community – in other words, for survival. Maybe the child-like urge to show my husband my Band-Aid was an evolved expression of something more primitive. Maybe we’re actually hardwired to share our pain – physical, emotional, psychological and otherwise. The truth is, no matter how old we are and no matter how lightly we land, there will always be healing power in those five precious words: You’re going to be okay.

coming in for a landing…

I have a recurring dream when stress peaks in my life. I am in an unknown building. I look outside the window to find dozens of tornadoes churning silently on the ground, moving wildly in all directions – some far away, some mere blocks from where I am standing, frozen and unable to look away, awed by their number and unpredictable movements. I am with strangers, and I am always the first to see the cyclones. I alert the group with me, and we run. I lead the way, as we wind deeper and deeper into the building, lower and lower.

 

I am all at once lost, yet somehow know the way.

 

We run as far as we can go into the darkness of a closet or under the bottom slope of a stairwell. We huddle together tightly and wait. I feel the tremor of impact. And wake up.

 

A quick Google search of “tornado dream” returns analysis ranging from fear, to lack of control, to destructive behavior. And I would tend to agree. I had a tornado dream last night, but this time, it was different. And I think I know why.

 

This time, I am in a house. I look outside the window and see a tornado so massive I can’t see its sides. It is less than 100 yards away, gray and gruesome, and packed with debris. I turn to the people inside. There are maybe 10 of us, all told. This time I recognize a few faces among the group. My summer intern and my parents. The others are strangers. I tell them about the tornado, and we begin our journey downward. We descend what must be three or four stories, with smooth, sloping floors and wide circular hallways. It gets darker and darker the lower we get. I find an underground room with a slanted back wall that goes all the way to the floor. We huddle together, me on top with my arms over everyone, and my face looking down on the web of arms.

 

This time it is silent, except for my mom’s voice as she counts slowly and steadily – a habit she does in real life to get through something she fears. I remember her doing this when I was a child as we drove over tall bridges or when I begged her to ride the freefall with me at Six Flags.

 

I feel the tornado begin to lift the house. It is surprisingly peaceful. I recall that it felt much like when a plane takes off, but it was silent. When Mom reaches the count of 10, the house sits softly back on the ground. We walk outside. It is now damp and dark. The storm has subsided. I say to my intern that I have always been afraid of tornadoes, but that we survived and I have conquered my fear. She smiles. I wake up.

 

Yes, there is stress going on in my life, but I am now dealing with it differently. I am learning to stand on the proverbial shore, rather than getting swept up in the current. My parents and my intern represent those that I feel are most vulnerable right now, that I feel most protective of as they navigate current situations. I still have a lot to learn about overcoming my anxiety demons, but I have come a long (long) way, and I believe last night’s dream was confirmation of my hard-won progress.

 

I am grateful and encouraged to continue this path of healthy growth, and to continue swimming toward those sharks.