I treated myself with loving-kindness and took another nap.
I think we all get a mental workout everyday that is not conductive to good living but having to navigate through a stressful, busy day. However, this is not really beneficial to us.
Good healthy mental workout deals with focus and control. By practicing meditation and being present in the meditation, one can develop control. When I taught Wholebirth Yoga one of the meditations we used was to help women to focus on the discomfort and just be with it without reacting. this meant just feeling everything, not adjusting their sitting position if it was uncomfortable, resisting itching their nose or anywhere else, noticing only. I know one of the hardest things for me is to resist scratching an itch. Many women told me that in their birth experience this exercise had helped them in the early part of labor to relax instead of reacting.
So I think I could take a cue from this learning and go back to noticing, but not reacting to things in my life that cause me stress.
Hello Sara,
ReplyDeleteI really like your statement, "I treated myself with loving-kindness and took another nap." If I had not been afraid of oversleeping, I probably would have taken a nap after listening to the exercise too. What helps me most is to listen to white or pink noise, i.e. a fan, the rain, or other soft noises, and try my best to relax.
When I was little the only ways to fall asleep were listening to music in the winter or the crickets chirping in the summer. I should try white noise. Did you know there's an App for that?!
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