No Snakes in Bed
Just after midnight I woke up anxious. I couldn’t go back to sleep.
My mind was unhelpfully reporting that everything I am up to in life is not good enough.
My body responded with a faster heartbeat, shortened breath, tight chest. I tossed. I turned.
I felt physically hot, so I threw the blankets off me with a huff.
I lay there, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling. Still too hot.
Then I got a hunch.
I pulled off my bedding and dragged it out the backdoor and onto the grass. (Don’t worry, I put down a water-proof picnic blanket first.)
I was like a five-year-old going into her parents’ room to sleep.
I crawled under my comforter outside with my head on my favorite pillow and looked up.
Stars.
So many stars.
Stars and stars and stars.
So dark.
Right! New moon.
And now I live in a rural valley where they can really shine.
The cool breeze kissed my face. I felt the anxiety vanish and my heart swell.
I smiled.
I tell this story because so often I try to “figure out” my feelings. I focus on them. I indulge them. I try to find the cause. I fixate on them. And I suffer.
Lately, I’ve been experimenting with saying “No.” to stress.
This is a tricky “No” to explain because it’s not the same as repression or denial or avoidance.
It’s more like “I see you, Fear. I see you, Insecurity. I see you, Anxiety. I see you, I feel you, you’re not wrong, but I am choosing something else. I am choosing peace. I am choosing gratitude. I am choosing to be OK.”
For some people this might be easy. For me it is not.
I love the analogy I heard from Mickey Singer: If someone tells you there is a rattlesnake in the room, you’re going to focus on looking for it. You’ll be on guard.
If there actually is a rattle snake in the room, that could be wise. But if someone just told you that, it might not even be true.
In this analogy, the “someone” is the mind, and the “rattlesnake” is any threatening thought.
When the mind says “Watch out! Be alert! There’s danger!” I dutifully scour the world, my life, and personality for threats.
This is rarely (if ever) helpful, but it is especially not helpful in the middle of a warm summer night.
The most reliable way I know of to escape the tyranny of the fearful mind, is by getting into the body and letting it lead. Why? Because the body lives in the present.
The mind lives in the past and hypothetical-future. Even when the mind thinks it’s being present, it is drawing on past data to filter and project what it sees and how it interprets.
But the body is here now. By inhabiting my body, by feeding it with breath and truly feeling it from the inside out, I begin to reeducate the mind: “Check this out, mind. In this exact moment, I’m safe. No snakes here. I’m safe. I can’t know about later, but for right now, I am safe.”
When the mind starts getting the message, it starts to relax.
The night I moved away from my thoughts and followed my body, I found joy. I slept the whole night under the stars and woke up with the sun.
In the spirit of reinhabiting the body, I’m offering three more online breathwork journeys.
- Monday, September 15, 7:00-8:15pm ET
- Thursday, October 16, 7:00-8:15pm ET
- Saturday, November 15, 1:00-2:15pm ET