SLEEP

Man, I love sleep. I'm trying not to sleep so much lately, though. For a bit last year I was in a depressed state. I couldn't really wake up and when I did all I wanted to do was go back to sleep. I didn't feel like I had anything going for me. I felt stuck. I felt like I had no direction. And honestly, I still have similar thoughts. But the energy behind it is different.

I woke up today at 6am to have breakfast. I had a meeting scheduled at 10am and it was for a project that I've been struggling with. The work itself hasn't been difficult, but it's been an emotional and mental showdown within myself. I wanted to have breakfast early so that I could watch a sermon to help me get centered and realign myself before getting sucked into my inclination to center work itself and all the worries and concerns I had. The plan was to have breakfast and watch the sermon at 6, start work by 7 so that I would have progressed for the meeting at 10. I did have breakfast at 6 and I did finish the sermon by 7. I continued praying about it, though. And I really got into it about what my concerns were and what my motivations were. What was interesting today was that I fell into a nap. Almost like a nap was approved. It was a little before 7am, so I set a timer to nap for 12 minutes. I set the intention to be in meditation, but to let myself fall to sleep if that's what needed to happen. And while I was in that in-between state, I could see that I was playing into some old patterns of thinking and old patterns of behavior. Upside-down! I wanted to rush into the work and figure it out, but mostly because I worried for selfish reasons: concerned about how I would be perceived, concerned about having all the answers, concerned about coming off as dumb. None of my concerns really had to do with whether the work I was presenting was helpful or not. Additionally, I was holding on to this notion that I had to know. I wasn't accepting any grace for the missing pieces in my understanding. I wasn't giving the team enough credit to believe that they do have the best intentions and that they do want to work together for the best possible outcome.

Now, this is all a seemingly polished presentation of what happened. I didn't wake up at 7, I continued to adjust my alarm time. Ultimately getting out of that napping state around 9:50am. In all that time I kept wrestling with what to do with the time. I didn't want to sleep because I tend to do that as a form of escape. But like I said, upside-down! This time, the work was the escape. I actually would have been wasting more of people's time by rushing through it and trying to figure it out on my own. I would have been doing the team a disservice to try to present as more confident than I actually was without giving myself or them the chance to explore some of the questions I had. Who knows! My questions might have even been irrelevant. My questions might have been things that they needed to consider, but hadn't. The meeting for this project ended up getting cancelled. And I'll continue to pray about it all.

After work, I worked out some and then went for a walk. I got home, showered, read, and then had a late lunch. And guess what I did after that. I napped. I know that I want to be doing more. I know that I will get to do more. And I'm so grateful. And I'm excited. And I'm nervous. And I'm happy for the prospect of being busy again. But today, I am grateful for sleep. I'm grateful that I have the time and the space to rest. To really let my mind and my body take time to exist without producing, without performing, without planning. I'm grateful that I can trust you with my existence. God, thank you♡