Easy to sleep with…

I’ve been training my brain lately. I’ve been training it to let me sleep. Someone mentioned to me, that I might want to get some sleep now, in the months before our bundle of joy arrives πŸ™‚

No matter how late I get to bed, no matter how tired or exhausted I might be, I read. Well first I start by strapping on my camper’s headlamp, and killing all the other lights. I grab my book and get comfy. Sometimes it takes a couple pages, sometimes only a paragraph or two. I find that I have been crashing directly into a very deep sleep when I do this little routine. Another interesting thing, is that I do not wake up during the night at all.

On just a couple occasions in the last month, I figured I was too tired to need to do my reading, and I tried to skip it. Basically, I toss and turn, and become restless. For some reason I now am only able to achieve a nourishing restful sleep, after reading. I do enjoy the knowing that I have a method to employ, to help me with this important human activity.

Speaking of which…

If “I” can stumble upon this trick that elicits a specific response and desired outcome, then I have proved to myself that I am not a mere slave to my own brain.

See my mind/brain/noggin’ wants to continue the spin cycle as soon as the room goes dark and it has nothing to do but to think… So I simultaneously possess thoughts that I want to get real sleep, and thoughts of the kaleidescope of the craziness of the day. I experience the peculiar separation of two opposite concepts living side by side. I find it a little worrisome that in this particular instance I have found a solution by which the greater good is serviced by tricking myself into deep slumber.

There are other human experiences that I most certainly wish I could trick myself into. Even though the value of good sleep ranks high on anyone’s list, there are things I need even more.

I would like to have a method to trick myself into almost instantaneous cheerfulness. Self-motivation and maybe no-calorie intake hunger satisfaction would be cool. I would like to trick my brain into wanting to exercise or to wake up ready to tackle the day instead of dreading it. There are lots of things that ‘I’ wish, I could hogtie my mind into creating for itself, instead of the bad habits it currently seems to want to hold onto.

What a strange thing. I see the clear separation between me, myself and I. I rely upon the grey matter inside my egg-shaped skull, but it is yet my enemy at the same time. Straddling and struggling between the loosely leashed angry wild bobcat, and my spiritual soul that yearns for peaceful purposeful progress, I know which one wins more of my mental battles. I have the scars to prove it.

Anyways… there are lots of people who can give advice on this topic. Plenty of books are already written. I can probably sign up for a weekend intensive seminar series right now, that will ‘fix’ all these issues and more. Except, that I have already done tons of that stuff, and yes I still fight it, day-in and day-out.

The book trick is working for sleeping better. I wonder if the Good Lord will show me some more ways to train this feisty fleshy-ness that He sewed me up into, when he stitched my life together at that most fundamentally finite of moments.

Simple, predictable and true happiness is all everybody wants, right? It’s not too much to ask for? Is it? Maybe I should just appreciate the good sleep right now, and the other things will take care of themselves in due time πŸ™‚

I’ll send out prayers for God’s will to be done, and not mine. For you, for me, Amen.

πŸ™‚

Until next week, take care.

With Love,

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols


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