Crisis of Sleep

Crisis of Sleep
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In January I finished two books in which the authors described typically depressing words in new ways. In The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit describes emergency as “an emergence.” She says, "if you look up the origin of the word you will be sent to the word emergence, and emergence leads to emerge: an emergency is a sudden emergence." And in Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton repeatedly notes that crisis means “to sift.” Let the useless fall away, she says, and you’ll be left with what is most important.

I tried to emerge and sift in January. I think January was my time to get my sh*t straight. To rebuild myself from the ground-up. I re-centered my life around healthy routines that made me feel good. I want (and intend) for February to be about getting and putting myself out there more. If January was about looking inward and doing (the) work on myself, I want February to be about giving my work and talents to the universe. I want to meet people, make connections, and experience things. But I also want to take myself on dates— writing, pampering, and even spiritual dates. I want to love myself and spread love to others.

Since writing this, I’ve had such a surge of energy. Creative energy for things to write, things to do with my blog (like make a totally new one and refocus my brand...ha), and how to make all of this into a career. Energy regarding self-care, ideas for places to go and things to try. And energy is great, but too much of it tends to make me shake. It makes me feel unstable, and vibrates me onto this other level where I feel fizzy and light and wholly ungrounded. I think that’s why I haven't been sleeping well this week.

I think it's for the same reason that (up until quite recently) I could never quite make it through the savasana at the end of my yoga practice. For those of you who don’t know, savasana is basically where you lay on your yoga mat for five minutes at the end of your practice, and do absolutely nothing but let all of the work you just did sink in. I’ve gotten a lot better at just staying on the mat and staying present, but every morning I still have to fight this restless itchy desire to get up and get to work.

I’ve been feeling similarly during the night. I’ll technically sleep for 8 (sometimes 9) hours, but this week it has been punctuated with frequent disruptions. I wake up at midnight, 3 am, 5 am, each time fully awake and ready to get up if the clock says 6. So even if I go to bed at 9:30 pm, by 6:30 am I don’t really feel all that rested. I feel ready to get up, because I’ve technically been in bed for enough time, but I don’t feel that I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

Finally, desperate, the other night I did a clarity spread tarot reading to figure out what was going on. This was my spread.

Basically, what I interpret these cards to mean is-- I move too much. And then, on Sunday, when I was faced with something of an emergency (a random, unyielding headache) I had the idea to do a year ahead spread to get clear on what my year was going to look like. And I got this glorious spread, the theme of which is pure creativity. What I'm trying to say is, amidst all of this crisis, I emerged. I feel clear.

That's where this blog comes in. After seeing that glorious spread, I felt so clear about myself and my creativity, and I decided that my old blog no longer fit that vision. So I made a new one. The Magical Realist. So another part of me emerged, and it's all because of this crisis of sleep.

-Fran

P.S.- If you don't understand why it's called The Magical Realist by the end of this post, you haven't been paying attention.

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