It’s always darker at night.
The other night I had insomnia. It’s not an infliction that I get with any regularity. It has more recently popped up a couple nights a week for an hour or two on each instance. If I’m being honest with myself, it correlates with my coffee intake sneaking up. I had been stable at a 2 cup a day ration for awhile. The recent shift in temperature combined with my seasonal fatigue has me in an one-more-won’t-hurt lie.
My body usually lets me know with heart fluttering, eye twitching, fast talking that I’m in an over-caffeinated danger zone. Those controls must be on the fritz because I’ve gotten up to 5 cups without the signal. On those high octane coffee days, I go to sleep easily as per usual. I just don’t stay asleep for long. I wake up for the 1:30am feeding. As I lay there staring at the ceiling, my mind feeds my soul all kinds of ick. I have a frenzy of gray-tinted to very dark thoughts.
When do I have to get up? When will I fall back to sleep? When will I feel it’s enough? When will I let go of something not working? When will I realize that life isn’t always going to go the way I think it should but it will go the way it’s supposed to?
What is wrong with me? What makes me push so hard? What do I really want? What needs to happen for me to feel successful? happy? loved?
Why am I not married? Why am I not dating? Why am I alone? Why am I not a better person? Why am I living this life?
Should I quit my job? drinking coffee? gulping wine? Should I get a dog? a man? a couch? Should I run away to a new place and start over? Should I get up? Should I want something different?
Do I really need more sleep? more money? a new man? a new couch? Do I make the effort I need to in my job? in my relationships? in my life?
The questions aren’t nearly as dark as the answers. At night, I’m hardest on myself. When it’s just me laying there, it can’t be me lying there. I’m the only one that knows all the chapters to my story. Since I know what I did or what I said, I know why it is. This is my life. It reflects my choices.
My yoga practice has helped me in the late night what-if pondering that often turns to obsessive dismay. I believe regular self assessment and regrouping is a must in living an optimal life. I just don’t think the late night talk show in my head is the time for productive contemplation. Night is the time for rest and re-setting for the next day. When I’m struggling in a tizzy of mental garbage, I practice shavasana (corpse pose). I send all the toxic energy out of my mind and focus on nothing. I work to center on just the darkness without any thoughts. I let my mind be still and my body follows. Depending on my state of despair, I can urge myself back to sleep in minutes or hours.