The other day I felt really tired towards early evening. And I let myself feel it. I had come back from the Universal Medicine Retreat 2013 in Hoi An, Vietnam a couple of days earlier and had generally been sleeping more than usual and been more willing and able to feel what was actually going on in my body. And here I was, on a Wednesday evening, sometime between 7 and 8pm and I could feel a quite lovely tiredness after my working day. There was no weariness or exhaustion, no stress or duress, just an easygoing tiredness. My body felt warm, it felt like me and it felt right, familiar and quite lovely in its own way. An early night was definitely on the cards.
Nothing much to write home about then – except for one thing: sometime between 8:00 and 8:30 I would have to check my emails again! I was waiting for an answer from interstate that would determine whether I needed to set my alarm or not for early the next morning to work on a couple of texts that had to go out before I went to work.
I did what I usually do as far as my evening routine is concerned, and then back to the laptop – within 20 minutes and a few more emails I found out that there was more to do than I had anticipated and that there were actually three texts, two of which had to be back the following day. So I decided to do the practical thing and set my alarm.
No big deal – until I checked in with my body again: I had already become aware of the fact that the warm tired feeling wasn’t there anymore. All I could feel was that my head had become the most prominent part of me. I also became aware of an anticipatory feeling of being rushed sometime in the future (tomorrow), plus a hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet these new deadlines. And somewhere lay waiting a whole barrage of thoughts about all the other things I had to do and somehow squeeze into the next day, and subsequent days.
In other words, I wasn’t connected to my body anymore. If I wanted to sleep and sleep well I needed to reconnect. I could feel that these thought processes / emotions were slightly above and ahead of my body like a bank of fog: it felt really strange but it was very real. And it felt cold. It was hard to believe how cold it felt. I had to keep checking: it was definitely cold. And I couldn’t feel the tiredness anymore, just this immaterial and disengaged, cold and somehow empty blur.
I was just about to go to bed, but how could I settle and go to sleep? I knew that my body must still be tired but I couldn’t feel it anymore. It was amazing to observe how my head was running the show and feeding me this weird and unreal state of disembodied, strained and cold alertness. Had I not let myself feel the warm and very real physical tiredness before, I could have easily fooled myself into believing that I wasn’t tired at all.
So I went to bed knowing this was not an evening for catch-up TV or other things. I needed to just get into bed and reconnect – I knew that my body must still be tired, but I had just lost touch with it and the tiredness.
What happened next? I just ever so slightly started feeling my body again; I was also aware of my expectation of meeting that warm and real tiredness again and then… I woke up an hour before my alarm went off the next morning and easily did all I had to do before going to work.
Big deal? Yes, for me it was a big deal – an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice.
But wait, there is more: I got my friend Katerina to read a draft of this blog and she wanted to know what happened after the semicolon and before I woke up the next morning!?
Well, it was just so simple and straightforward that I am nearly at a loss as to how to describe it. All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there. And before I knew it I had fallen asleep. Very simple and oh, so profound.
By Gabriele Conrad, Goonellabah, Australia
862 Comments
It can be such a strong pull, doing just one more thing and thinking that it won’t make a difference; I have also found that it does make a difference, to how I sleep, how long and especially how I wake up.
Thank you for sharing this Gabrielle, bringing this level of awareness to the body is truly supportive. I like how you didn’t give yourself a hard time when you felt the disconnection but honestly saw it for what it was, and made a choice to reconnect. The body is an awesome teacher.
This part about feeling the body versus being in the coldness of the head is quiet an experience to have and one that I can certainly relate to Gabrielle. I too have found a similar experience where I feel this amazing yumminess and am so ready for bed and sleep but then I override it and end up doing something that puts me in my head and gives me a ‘second wind’ so to speak – except this second wind always comes with a consequence of feeling more tired the next day. This might be one of the simplest lessons to take on board, but it is funny how it can seemingly be one of the more difficult ones to grasp and put into practice. Though in reality it is so simple, and the difficulty lies only in our minds and when we let our minds take over the decision making!
It is literally a different world when we start listening to and honouring what we feel. The body is such a greater marker of the truth of what we are feeling, it is just learning how to really pay attention and honour that that requires dedication, but is absolutely worth it.
How often are our beds a place to drop into at the end of the day in exhaustion? A safe haven when it all gets a bit too much to handle. Bringing a routine calls us to become more responsible in the part we play with the levels of care and quality of living we bring each day. It is great to read that bedtime can be “me time” without the added pressures felt in the day.
There is so much our bodies can share with us when we tune in….and when we tune out it is still going on but we have chosen a different awareness or focus. I mean that I love that you shared that the tiredness was still there but it had been overridden by the drive and need and that you can choose to connect back to you and your body so you can truly rest.
An amazing blog – I know the feeling of going to bed with your mind still running at a million miles an hour, and truly restful sleep is a million miles away. What your describing is so simple and yet I have implemented a bed time routine of connecting back to my body and I find I am asleep so easily and quickly.
Thank you Gabrielle, a beautiful marker of inspiration – knowing now that all of what we do is felt or disengaged from the initial feeling – and so , we have lost the true purpose from who we are; which is allowing, accepting and appreciating all there is, like you shared, has brought you right back into place.
It is so simple catching the moment where the body communicates what is needed in that moment but the interesting challenge is the challenge we can go into when the head gets involved and brings in all the old patterns and habits we have been nurturing to avoid what is true. My way of winding down was to watch TV and rush a round getting everything done at night before going to bed and found that I would be waking every hour and then still tired the next morning. I have now changed my evenings so that I can go to bed earlier and do not watch TV or try to cram in as much as I can and have found this has changed my quality of sleep. Staying connected to the body makes the difference to how my day and nights are and allows for more stillness and harmony.
We all know deep down when it is time to go to bed as the body send us signals loud and clear. It is often the methods of over riding that leave us in comfort of wanting a little bit more to end the day that play out in the quality we live the next day.
Yes Gabriele, the simplicity of just listening to the body. There is so much intelligence in simplicity
This reminds me of the significant importance to take stop moments during the day to check in with my body. I can easily be overrun by thoughts and feel like a body-less head walking around. When the mind takes over, or when I allow the mind to be my initial guide, I leave behind the wisdom of the body and everything it is connected to. I often remind myself that the mind cannot feel, it is a functional tool that can be very well used but is not the lead.
I’m so wrapped I found this blog – exactly what I needed to hear! Not in the sense of sleeping and waking up, but in the reconnection and disconnection of the body and mind. So often I TRY to reconnect when I know I have disconnected, and it never works. And then comes the merry-go-round of being upset at myself for disconnecting and having the expectation of what it feels like to reconnect again. I love how you spoke about the trust of knowing your body is still feeling and simply allowing space to feel whatever is there, without conditions.
This story shows that indeed seemingly small things can take us away from the unwinding to a good night sleep. So many people are suffering from insomnia unnecessarily, while really honestly looking at what we do at night before we go to sleep already helps a big deal.
Great sharing Gabrielle. Very inspiring how you observe the change from feeling the warmth in your body to this cold fog where you managed your self into. Just by attending to some emails, seemingly a small thing we can do. It also shows how cold “the head” is.
Many of us do not fully realise that sleep is an ‘activity’ and in order to get the most out of this replenishing process we need to first surrender to it. Sounds simple and in-truth it is but not so when we live in a perpetual propulsion forward, always a-head of ourselves, pumped full of stimulants such as coffee and sugar from the day and always fretting about what comes next. That is, we spend all day fighting ourselves in the sense that we are not providing our physical bodies with supportive foods and movements that then affect the quality of thoughts we allow in. All this pushes us into anxiousness and drive and we then wonder why it is we can’t sleep well at night.
Sleep is indeed an activity and not this numbed out state of oblivion; you demonstrate that one thing leads to another once we are a head of several heads ahead of ourself, chasing our own tail.
Ah yes, I know this space well…where the head hijacks the body and takes it on a ‘joyride’ until we come to our senses and wonder where on earth are we? Well exactly, we are no longer on Earth but orbiting in the mental realm far removed from the body that grounds us. Although in this space it feels we will never return to safe ground, especially once the anxiety and anxiousness of ‘what’s to come’ kicks in, as you have so simply shown us Gabriele, it only takes a simple choice to surrender back to the warmth of the body and feel once more where the stillness of our true self lies.
A joyride indeed, once the head has hijacked the body – but not for the body and our sense of wellbeing and settlement.
This is simple and profound. We can totally trust that if we allow it, the body will know just what to do. The body does not put aside the tiredness like the mind does. It is beautiful to have this trust in the knowing of your body. So worthwhile to ponder on.
When I used to work night duty one of my favourite feelings was to get into bed. But I did it in way that I would feel my body and then let go. Such an exquisite feeling and even now I use this, even though getting into bed feels very different, when you haven’t been up all night.
There is such a big difference in the quality of your sleep when you go to bed honouring yourself and when you drop into bed in a tired heap. With the later you wake up feeling exhausted and like you haven’t slept.
Last night I went to bed at 8:30 having gotten out of rhythm and going to bed after 9pm, I couldn’t believer the difference getting to bed that little bit earlier made, I awoke at 2:38 ready for the day – which I never do! I was refreshed and awake, really extraordinary that being more in the rhythm of respecting my bodies need for rest early had such a major impact on waking.
This is so interesting and I often am doing exactly what you describe of checking emails etc and it is true I just get more and more disconnected from my body and end up racy and abusing my self with thoughts of what needs to be done.
We do need to stop and feel, as this allows us to reflect on where we are. If our body is tired or exhausted, we need to understand why and how we have got there. We need to reflect on our movements to be able to understand what choices did we make that led us to this point. If we have no stop moments we would not understand that we would need to change our choices in order to honour our body.
Thank you Gabriele, the message in this blog is simple and yet so profound, as you say. Living in a way that truly honours my body is an absolute game changer that supports me in all areas of my life and has a flow on effect to everyone around me as well.
Thank you for pointing this our Gabriele, our bodies communicate very clearly at all times when we need to lovingly call it a day and disregard of these messages can lead in the motion and drive of the day to often missing out on the healing quality of a good night sleep.
I enjoyed reading about the awareness that you brought to what supported you to go to sleep. Often its just something we do and don’t think about. I can’t really recall how I go to sleep, there is just a point where I am awake and then I wake up the next morning, it has supported me to look at the quality I am in before I finally nod off.
I have also found that I can be just about semi-conscious about lots of daily and so-assumed mundane recurrences and that it is only when something really sticks out that I sit up, take notice and do something about it. I am at present focussing on bringing that stance to everything I do and everything that happens – definitely a work in progress.
Awesome to feel and read what you share Gabriele as it shows that when we stop and observe our body we create markers that support us to come back to what is true. Nothing more and nothing less just simply feeling what is true in our body and surrendering to it.
It can be very easy to see why we override those natural message of our body, with lots of opportunity for distraction and plenty of tools to do this with, even the contents of a busy mind. I don’t know that it’s not about using technology but definitely what we place our body into as we use it. Awareness is the key and that’s the beauty of what you shared Gabriele, your observations of what you were observing in your body. The difference was stark and a clear marker for what is supportive and what isn’t
Great to come across this today as I have been going to bed too late just recently and it is because I have allowed those thoughts to get the better of me. Today I have a headache. My body is finally saying enough is enough. Now I have to treat myself with more care, an epsom salts bath maybe instead of my usual shower and a recommitment to myself and living the love that I know I am.
This warm lovely feeling of tiredness you describe is something we can feel at the end of our day when we are connected to our body. Your blog shows us how easy it is to disconnect from that lovely feeling in our body and go to our head and boom we get this what some people call ‘second wind’. But as quickly as we can disconnect from our body we can also very easily and quickly reconnect to our body again, it is just a matter of choice. How we choose to move and express through the day affects the quality of our sleep.
Your blog highlights just how easy it is for us to let the mind override our body’s natural signals with a force that leaves us in an entirely different state of being. This is particularly evident when it comes to acknowledging and honouring the body’s tiredness at day end.
Sleepnessness is essentially a state of being that comes from being overly connected to things outside of us – in other words in truth it results from being disconnected to what is most important – ourselves, and that includes our body. It is time we realised that our being is made up of our entire body and not defined purely by what we think.
Hi Gabriele, I loved this blog and what I loved about it was not so much about sleep but more about how powerful observation is, particularly observation that holds no judgment.
I also really like how you have brought our attention to the fact that truth is a warmth that emanates from our body, whereas all that is not true is void of this warmth. Deep down we all know this as evidenced by our expressions such as a ‘cold, hard intellect’ and the like.
As a society, we are living one step a-head of ourselves and leaving our bodies, and hence our innate wisdom, behind. In order to truly evolve back to our former majesty, we need to re-connect how we move with who we are. When body and mind are in harmony in this way, the true path forward will be seen once more.
What a great dissection of how we use the busyness of our minds to override the wisdom from our body. By putting these movements under the microscope such as you have Gabriele, we can really feel the step-by-step process we use to negate the truth of what we feel in favour of ‘getting the job done’. The problem here being that if we override what is true simply to execute a task, then the quality with which we execute it becomes vastly reduced. That is to say, we forfeit bringing our all (our love) to all that we do and settle for a greatly truncated version to complete the work at hand. What you have showed us is a way to be minutely aware of the seemingly subtle process in place to sabotage living the fullness of who we are so that we can return to living simply, truth-fully and lovingly. Thank you.
Thank you Gabriele for your recipe for repose and restorative sleep. Feeling the natural tiredness in the body, the impact when we choose mental activity, recognising the effect of the choice but not allowing further mental activity by berating yourself for the choice but trusting your body to surrender to sleep and waking restored and alert to meet whatever the day presented.
I find it fascinating how when Gabriele Conrad became anxious in her body, her thoughts instantly changed. This shows me the very real connection between our bodies and the thoughts that we have, and that no thought happens just by accident – that they are in fact the result of a choice of quality we allow to be present in our bodies. And this gives us not only great power to determine the thoughts that we subsequently allow, but also to choose the quality of life that we live.
I find this fascinating too Shami. All in the choice. The action has not even been carried out in the sense that we don’t even have to act on our thoughts to feel their true impact on our body. Even just the thought alone is enough to change the state of the body as with that thought comes the energy that brings that state of being
Our Bodies do know exactly what to do .. they are super responsive to rhythms and movements and everything is there for us… we just have to listen , and feel , allow this innate wisdom to guide us
You have summed it up so beautifully, Monica – it is never about chasing after what has been and trying to get it back, it is about feeling what the body is communicating in every moment.
Within this blog is one of the best tips EVER…… and it can be an approach we take at any time of day. No berating for being separated, not trying to re-connect, watching out for the expectation to feel a particular way, and simply putting ‘feelers’ out and exploring what can be felt, in the body, in that moment. Pure gold Gabriele.
I really like it when you write about “watching out for the expectation to feel a particular way”, a dead giveaway that what comes next is not going to work but will lead to disappointment and frustration and even further away from the truth of the body.
It’s so easy to be fooled by the head, it has run the show for so long. I have thoughts like, I’m tired but I need to wind down by watching something or by reading this book. It’s not true. As you say Gabriele, it’s just knowing that that tiredness is still in my body and allowing myself to connect. That going into reproach is just another way the head has of taking us away from the true feeling body.
I know those thoughts too Amanda, especially if I have been on the computer just before I go to bed. In those moments, it is the willingness to be with ourselves and even the willingness to simply be with our bodies, an openness to being connected without the pressure to re-connect as this blog reveals. Those ample moments I go looking for distractions are also opportunities, to be honest that I am looking outside of me to fill myself and I must be absent or empty of myself in those moments.
Reproach is lethal, like the sting of a scorpion coming over from the back and, as you say, a sure fire way of keeping us in the head and away from the body and its moment to moment communication.
We are delicate and super sensitive, I agree. Everything else is just part of the layers we have accumulated and put over the top to shield ourselves from what we think might be coming at us. And for some of us that can end up being a veritable fortress.
I know this experience too Gabriel, of being tired and then something gets triggered and I am wide awake. I have also read this blog before but this time, I was struck by how delicate and sensitive we are and how easily we can waiver. This is not an excuse but an invitation to return to being with the body, without this, any analysis of ‘being out’ and asking ‘what took me out’ is useless. It is perhaps too simple an answer for modern medicine but it has to be one of the best kinds of medicine available.
The awareness of the two different perceptions of her body temperature that Gabriel makes reference to here is important. Thank God for warmth- without it, one could be numb to the cold and not know what missing. In the warmth there is ease and surrender and when cold we start to shut down.
Warmth is heaven-sent, the first thing caring people envelop us with when we come out of the womb and a constant reminder of our delicateness and the need for deep nurturing.
There is great and very practical wisdom in your blog Gabriele about being honest and staying with honesty even though choices were being made to take you out of your body. It shows how powerful our feeling is and how the truth is there in our bodies of how we need to live and ultimately if we have a foundation of knowing that, then it will prevail. You have offered a great example of how life can be simple even though our past patterns of behaviour do not make it easy.
Yes, it is the momentum of our past behaviours at the expense of our body that need to be undone, step by step. Simple but it requires dedication and consistency and just becomes a part of everyday life.
Cold Alertness that can be productive and get loads done in a cold, hard way or a warm tiredness that knows it’s not the energiser bunny and can bring a greater quality when lived and work in rhythm. What this blog highlighted to me this time around was how simple and loving the messages from the body were, and how cold and unloving the mind was. Just because we don’t meet the minds expectations when working with the body does not mean the body is at fault and we should ignore it. What if the mental drive was the ill and not the body just being awkward or failing our drive and needs? What if we don’t need to do all the things the mind feeds us that we have to do? Thank you Gabriele
Yes, exactly the point – the mind can easily drive us to do things that go totally against how the body actually feels; the question is only as to what we align to and allow ourselves to be motivated by.
Gabriele, there is much of value in this simple blog – you describe very clearly what happens when we get caught in our heads and you demonstrate how we are so easily fed thoughts that are not ours but we can think they are unless we do, as you did, “observe how my head was running the show and feeding me this weird and unreal state of disembodied, strained and cold alertness.” I love how you also “gave what was there permission to be there” rather than being hard on yourself which would just take you further away from the body. By allowing ourselves to be where we are we stay with ourselves instead of projecting forward or backward to where we think we should be or to what we think we shouldn’t have done.
Great summary of a very simple process of connecting back to the body and its messages, thank you.
Exactly the same for me Alison! The nights when I override the feeling to naturally go to bed earlier than normal and end up just doing ‘one more thing’ usually end up with me feeling tired the next day and not waking feeling fully rested. In contrast the nights I honour what I feel in going to bed (and even with the same amount of hours sleep) – I wake up refreshed, much more energy and I find there is a natural space that is created that allows me to complete all I need to do (plus some!) without rush or stress…
I love how simple you made this Gabriele. Without doing battle and without giving in…just connecting to the degree possible… I needed to read this tonight, thank you.
You are not the only one – I sometimes forget and need repeat doses of this medicine as well, especially when it comes to not doing battle but surrendering to the wisdom of my body.
Love this reminder to honour how we are feeling, lately I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed with work that I needed to complete and this has impacted my wind down time and quality of sleep. Your blog is what I needed to read today to remind me of listening to my body and the wisdom it speaks – definite early night for me tonight!
Good point – as we override the feeling of tiredness we keep depositing into our exhaustion account and sooner or later those debts need to be paid.
Yes Gabriele, and the bigger the debt, the harder it is to pay it so we find it hard to stop the momentum of doing because we will then feel how exhausted we are. It becomes a vicious cycle which is hard to break and is often only broken when we are stopped by an illness or a disease. And then we tend to blame the illness for the fact that we can’t keep functioning rather than seeing how we have created it by our own choices.
Gabriele this is such a gorgeous account on sleep you have written, to check into this connection you have described here with myself is one of the keys to the quality of sleep we have. Many a times in our busy lives and never perfect or ideal daily schedules, I have had to say no to a lot of the distractions that are either self-made or would enter (no surprise) around the time I am preparing for sleep, and if there was something I really have to deal with (and these are often as well), then just feeling the connection with my body when I lay in bed is what this blog has reminded me about, that the connection with my body is always there, and it is this connection that supports me in all circumstances.
It is so simple really – wherever we go, our body is with us, ready to support us and to let us know what is needed and what we would better do without. We then have the choice to either listen or not and deal with the consequences of either stance. End of story.
I love that there were two pathways, one to ignore the body and focus on the deadlines and pressures of the next day (and perhaps not sleep well), or the other which was to focus on the feeling of tiredness in the body, keep it simple and just take care of you – which also took care of the work in the long run!
Its your comment about how the head can take over as the pre-dominant organ, the one with the loudest voice that can take over from how we are actually feeling. I’ve felt this so often and its possible to get completely lost up there, for days or weeks! But as you say, it is so simple to just reconnect to what is going on everywhere else / somewhere else and the emphasis shifts with no great problem, and then everything feels different.
I have found that too; it can be easy to get lost and check out completely at times, but the more I connect the sooner I realise that I am ‘out’ and it now feels very uncomfortable and alien even. And to think that I used to get so very lost in my head and the mind’s acrobatics and consider it normal, even have sleepless nights because of the mental activity. A world of difference to today and a way to live that I don’t want to swap for anything.
I can really relate to that feeling of overriding my tiredness. I generally feel and know when I am tired and when I need to be getting ready for bed, but there is still an almost childish part of me that wants to stay up longer and get more out of the day, especially when I have a long day at work. And I find myself plugged into the internet looking up things that I tell myself need to be looked up now, but the reality is that it could wait until the next day. This is basically a form of self sabotage as it certainly doesn’t aid me in falling asleep immediately, it actually does the opposite and gets my mind racing. So thank you for this blog Gabriele and tonight I am going to challenge yet another destructive pattern 🙂
“Childish” is a good word for this kind of petulence that wants to have the last word; it only gets it if we don’t step in but fall for the tantalising short-term goodies that apparently come with sabotaging our winding down rhythm.
So interesting how distractions seem to come along prior to bedtime, these are great lessons to not get pulled away from our gentle rhythms before sleep. Having had many sleepless nights indulging in ‘what if’ scenarios or just the fact of not creating a gentle, rhythm to my bedtime routine. As you share Gabriele ‘thoughts of tomorrow’ are sleep deprivation tatics at full play.
Yes, uncanny how these thoughts about what else we could possibly do can come in just before bedtime – how does that happen? How come the great timing? Where do these self-sabotaging thoughts come from?
What a great sharing of just how one can listen to our bodies. Listening, connecting, but as you say, when you don’t reconnect, not to beat yourself up either.
I love how you have described the physical feeling of being connected to and listening to your body Gabriele. You have shown true responsibility in using your awareness to return to what you could feel to be true and in return, your body woke you up allowing all that was needed to be done. A beautiful blog, thank you.
Thoughts of tomorrow are such a spoilsport – and the worst thing about them is that I then wake up with exactly the same thoughts in the morning, far far away from where my body actually is in some imagined or feared future scenario.
Yes Gabriele we definitely know how to set ourselves up. I know for myself that in the evening I can have completed my day, my body is ready for bed, there is nothing more i want and then in an instant I pick up my phone to check if there are any messages. Of course there are and then the next thing happens; I allow myself to react to one or two of the messages and gone is my easy going with my ready to go to sleep. And I and my body knew I should not check my phone in the first place.
Checking our phone – what a disaster that can turn out to be! And not just in the evenings, anytime really when it comes from an emptiness or the “not knowing of what next to do and so I might as well” is what I have found.
What I have noticed if I ignore my times of going to bed when my body gives me my signal which is usually around 8pm, if I stay up distracted doing something, I will feel over tied and struggle to have a restful sleep and wake up feeling more tired the next day. I really have to honour my sleep times and winding down ritual to support a restful night sleep.
This is a beautifully written and flowing blog Gabriele. I know that feeling of getting into bed, I read a couple of lines from a Blue Book, turn out the light and before I know it I am awake ready to start my day. At other times I become distracted and I have a restless sleep instead of the one I felt I could have had if connected to myself instead of thoughts of tomorrow.
“Big deal? Yes, for me it was a big deal – an amazing experience of the truth of my body and the disengaged coldness of an otherwise different choice”.
I agree Gabrielle it is a big deal to be able to feel and listen to our bodies. Your blog is a lovely gentle reminder to honour our bodies and our nightly rhythms. At times it is so easy to dip into our heads and practical doings!
Thank you Gabrielle.
Let me put it slightly different, if I may – the big deal for me is to feel how much there is to feel when I choose to not numb out to it.
Gabriele, thank you for sharing your experience. When we listen to our body we know not only when we need to go to sleep, but how we need to take ourselves to bed too. It is also amazing how much our body is able to relay to us the more connected we are with it.
I have felt that too – it is like the more we let ourselves feel, the more we actually feel. It is never-ending really.
Yes, I have found this also – the more I feel the more I feel, it just keeps getting better.
I can so relate to your comment Alison. I am learning to listen to my body and support myself lovingly to go to bed when I am tired. If I happen to have to work past my usual bed time, when I choose to accept this and not go into overwhelm or resentment, I get it done easier and faster, and find I can still easily fall asleep afterwards.
Thank you Gabrielle for a great blog, so simple yet profound. I often find when sleep time comes my mind is looking for last minute things to do. and this takes me away from really feeling what my body is telling me. I love your statement “All I know is that I wasn’t telling myself off for having lost the connection and I certainly didn’t try to re-connect. All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there. I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there.”
I’ve experienced this too Alison…. Feeling I’m tired and then before I know it I’m caught up in activities resulting in the early night I’d planned not being so early at all! What I’ve found is that when I override my body this way, I usually feel more tired the next day and can also be hard on myself for overriding… In contrast, when I honour what I feel in my body, I wake up far more refreshed and all the things I feel I need to complete get done in a much quicker period of time. I find its great to have this marker, and that the body is always a marker we can come back to.
Hi Gabrielle, on re reading your blog I am reminded about how easy it is for my mind to take over and how it has such an impact on my body and that this is something that happens so often that I am not even aware that it is happening.
First great step – awareness of what we are actually doing to ourselves feels like a true starting point and launch pad into things to come. Without that awareness we would never know that there is a grander way to live.
If more listened and connected to their bodies and not overruled the clear messages given I feel sure the intake of sleeping pills would drop big time.
The pharmaceutical companies mightn’t like that, though – as long as we don’t take responsibility for how we are living, our lifestyle choices will keep making us sick and sicker; at the same time, the regular consumption of sleeping pills without addressing the real cause of the problem will just keep sky rocketing.
Thankyou Gabrielle. What a lovely reminder of the importance of listening to the wisdom of our body when it is telling us we are tired and need to start settling ourselves to sleep instead of letting our mind wind us up with the anxiety of our future to do list. A future that we actually need quality rest and sleep if we want to do all that we do with any quality and integrity.
Yes, I totally agree – what are we actually bringing to our work and the task at hand when we are tired and worn out to start with?
We all need enough sleep so we feel rejuvenated and have the vitality to do all that we need to do to the quality we want to do it in. I have pondered on and observed my sleep patterns since first reading your blog Gabriele and it has now become undeniable to me despite making some changes to my sleep habits already they have not being enough. On top of this accumulated sleep debt I already have I continue to feed it by not getting enough sleep everyday. This pattern is keeping me trapped in a vicious circle of exhaustion. I now need to fully commit to clearing and healing this debt to nourish, rebuild and support my body and my connection to it which in turn will support my expression in and how I live my everyday life.
That makes sense – a case of being the patient and the doctor at the same time as we all know what is truly right for us and what is not.
Good point, without the connection to our body the mind can and will tell us anything that suits its agenda = not stopping, being in perpetual motion and thinking non-stop.
So true Gabriele – it can be easy to find ourselves wrapped up in what we are doing at times at the expense of feeling the connection to bodies when we make life about doing rather than simply being.
“A kind of dread, a pall of anxiety and nervous tension” – I appreciate how you have described this terrible feeling that is so easily pulled in from a yet to be lived future which is now loaded with a heavy-hearted sense of anticipation and in effect, lived at least twice – the present moment in its heaviness and the actual event itself. That feels absolutely crazy and strikes me as a huge expenditure of precious energy.
To listen to the body or to override the clear messages we are receiving, it pretty simple to listen to the body but how often can we ignore it. I know I am learning to honour my body more and can feel the difference this makes to my energy levels and my level of connection with myself.
Great to read this again and feel the parallel with my own behaviour when I know I am tired and ready for bed but I just hold out for that one last thing and – bam! I’m propelled into that ‘hint of potential overwhelm and a real pressure around the assumed possibility of not being able to meet ….new deadlines’. I then take that to bed and the moment I wake up – or perhaps a couple of split seconds after – that same feeling comes over me and fills my entire body. A kind of dread, a pall of anxiety and nervous tension. This is a great reminder that we don’t switch off our emotions when we go to bed at night. We merely put them on pause. That in itself is enough to make us think about how – in what state- we prepare for our sleep, as it’s how we will also be experiencing our next day.
I know that feeling well Cathy, of waking up and finding whatever I had not dealt with the night before is waiting for me as the first thought the next morning… and logically this must have affected my sleep throughout the night.
I will not be suprised if most people recognise this Gabriele. that we feel very tired, ready for bed and then suddenlybthe tirednes is gone. So important what you bring up to look what made this change? What did we do that we arme suddenly that active again? Which stimulance we use to keep us going and why we do so?
There are so many stimulating ways that kickstart us back into mental activity and an internal raciness, a very long list indeed. Another indication of how much we have invested in the mind and its incessant distractions and apparently so convincing stories. And all that at the expense of the body we live in.
I have had this sensation, when I have put my children to bed about 7pm, some time I just feel sleepy, I have began to let go of the day with them and yet I will get them in bed and some times over ride this feeling to go and ‘do’ something, Once this has happened the sleepy gentle feeling is gone and a slight racy busyness comes in and yes “I have fooled myself that I am not tiered” Practicing how to come back from this and regain what the body was communicating with us is wonderful. It is great to find a way to rekindle this letting go and sleepiness, because this was what my body was asking for, rest, recuperation and nurturing.
To put the foot on the gas when the body is clearly signalling that it is time to wind down does lead to a ‘racy busyness’, I can relate to that. A good question to ask might be why we allow this to happen – do we feel we have missed out on something, are we in fear of what tomorrow will bring or does the day feel incomplete? And if it does, what is it that feels truly incomplete, is it something in us that we didn’t attend to or put enough focus on?
And yet such a simple experience can indeed be quite profound, as the millions and millions of people who have difficulty sleeping, and indeed cannot sleep without taking some sort of medication Understand . so could it be that is a matter of reconnecting with oneself and one’s body and not allowing the minds busyness to take precedence that could be the answer to so many people’s nightly battles.
I can certainly remember trying to get to sleep and hating the train of thought that I had welcomed at first when getting into bed; my experience has been that the more I think, the more I think and then it is really hard to stop and get off that train. And there is certainly no connection to the body anymore at that point.
My favorite sentence in your sharing is “All I did was trust the knowing that my body and the tiredness had to still be there.” The moment we trust everything is OK, life is taking care of. And the fact, that we don’t have to look for anything, there is a knowing in us, we just have to access it.
I agree, we do know exactly what is going on and where we are at, we just choose to not know – if we do.
Great post Gabriele. For a long time now I have been overriding my tiredness with being on my ipad everynight before going to sleep. I go to bed early, but I know that often, I actually need to be asleep sometimes up to an hour before I actually switch off the lights. I know that keeping myself so engaged with a screen before bed does not help how I wake up in the morning, always so tired. Throughout the day, I think about how nice it will be that night and how this time I will just lay myself to sleep, no screen time! And yet, there it is again, I get to the evening…and out of nowhere I suddently have this second wind of energy, where I think I can get away with spending an hour on my ipad writing emails, etc. It doesnt work. I override my tiredness so that I don’t have to feel it…I don’t know why I do that, because instead, it’s waiting for me in the morning. Doesn’t make sense.
Is it possible that there is a belief that you will miss out if you don’t engage with electronic media when it is time to wind down and go to bed? I have found that this so-called second wind is really just an accelerated version of me that thinks I’m getting something done that will put me ahead of the next day and its anticipated workload. That feeling of elation and delight feels like it might be based entirely on nervous energy and anxiety – do you agree?
That is education right there Gabriele. I often get these little conversations and have often felt fear at how I am going to get it all done, I think the trust comes with knowing that if you honour what you are feeling your body will come to the table and support you. If you override it then it simply can’t, not as a punishment but because it is working so hard to deal with the anxiety whilst it is supposed to be working on rejuvenating.
In my experience the body is definitely there to support but we can so easily get in the way with “these little conversations” that then end up fuelling our anxiety and ever more thoughts.
Yes, anxiety and nervous tension are a huge drain on our body and on top of it, it feels absolutely awful.
Being honest about how we feel is so important “So I went to bed knowing this was not an evening for catch-up TV or other things. I needed to just get into bed and reconnect – I knew that my body must still be tired, but I had just lost touch with it and the tiredness.” Just knowing that it was a night to sleep and not be busy or watch TV is so supportive. I know I have often overridden how I feel and so felt so much worse the next day. And this choice builds up and causes health issues and stress, alternatively listening to our body honours our own rhythm establishes a foundation that is so much more supportive.
‘I just put a few feelers out, felt what I could feel, which was quite subtle, and gave what was there permission to be there.’ Taking time to surrender and connect back to our body and how it feels offers us a great opportunity to choose what will support us in the next moment.
After reading your comment Anne and feeling what my body is really stating so clearly (and not over rule that message) is to now switch off my computer and have a warm bath and gently prepare myself for a healing sleep.
Sounds good to me! A great prescription for a great night’s sleep.
I am sure this has been a great lesson for you Gabriele, and for all of us. Most of us know the feeling of being rushed pressured, or on overwhelm of how to fit everything in to an already busy day. I loved how you described the connection you had, then the mental activity and the loss of that connection, and the cold feeling. What I learnt from your experience is to not ignore these things but not give into them, we have the power to reconnect and accept what there is to feel. I personally feel empowered by what you have shared Gabriele.
Great point – ignoring something doesn’t make it go away even though it might feel like it short-term, but it will invariably come around again even if under a different guise and with different stage props.
I agree Bernard. Having been a world class ‘doer’ all my life I still find it hard to slow myself down and allow myself to value what my body is sharing with me. What you have offered me Gabrielle is the understanding that this may still arise yet there is a choice to acknowledge it but to know that it can’t have the dominant say if I keep things simple and gently focused on allowing my body the space to become steady again.
That feels so important Gabrielle, not trying to re-connect, but actually be with whatever there is to feel and stay with that (not wondering off with our mind). Incredible powerful what you have shared. I instantly felt that I was letting my head go funny with a subject just when I was reading your blog, all I did was just being in the moment and not giving attention to those tension-ful thoughts, step by step the thoughts got less active and become less on the surface, I came to realize that it is how much power I give to those thoughts – that make them look strong and real , while in fact they are not. Cool experiment , I am up for more. Thank you Gabrielle.
I have found that too – whatever we give attention and focus on gets stronger and more prevalent. We actually need to feed it, whether that is with mental energy or with actions.
Awesome Experiment Danna…I totally agree. I also love that Gabriele just allowed her thoughts to be there, but didn’t give in to them. I know this is something I find difficult…letting one thought merge into another, and then another.
Certainly a worthwhile experiment for me to give a go.
It is so easy to be taken out of the connection that we have with our bodies before going to bed if we involve our selves with stimulating matter. I have lately realised the computer is one thing that does this and allowing myself about an hour before going to bed to wind down and nurture myself through the connection I have with my body is a beautiful way to enter bed and sleep.
Computers are a big one when it comes to being disconnected from our body and what is really going on; we are so used to giving the screen and what we do our full attention that is it very easy to check out, thinking all the while that it is just ‘light duty’ and won’t matter – but then we find out that it does, especially when it is time to wind down for bed.
And wake up in the morning!! I have a very very strong habit of spending my wind down time looking at a screen. It’s been an awfully difficult habit to break. I would very much like to give it another go…if I can begin to wake up in the mornings not feeling tired….what a miracle that would be alone!
This is such an accurate depiction of what can happen when we let our mind run the show – and go off on tangents! This can happen at any point in the day, but is most evident at night when we go to surrender deeper to sleep. This feeling at night time will be a marker for me, and a reminder to not let things run off during the day either. It places unnecessary strain on our bodies, so no wonder we get exhausted! Thank you for sharing your wisdom Gabriele.
It’s so true that letting the mind run the show will deplete the body and stop us from feeling what is true and what we really need to do to be well. I have done this so often and didn’t realise that I had stopped feeling my body and my body’s gorgeous messages of truth. Instead I allowed myself to be convinced that I could rest while watching tv, which is a nonsense and stimulates so that there is no rest.
It’s such a clear account of what happens. Thanks Gabriele.
As you say, there is no true rest when we are being mentally stimulated. and Just being supine doesn’t mean that we are truly resting; we might be relaxing and enjoying the fact that we are off our feet, but deeply resting asks us to connect to the body and get very still.
Yes Gabriele feeling the stillness in the body is a great marker as to the quality of sleep we will have.
This is so lovely to read at the end of your sharing, that you didn’t judge yourself, instead you trusted yourself, that the tiredness must be still in your body. Wonderful – that is very inspiring.
I have those evenings where I don’t unwind properly and when my phone is a huge distraction. I notice it straight away when I lie down. I am all racy and with many thoughts. What helps me is to not blame myself or put myself off that i should have done it differently. This kind of bashing myself is even worse than the fact that I did not unwind.
Yes, I have found this as well – it is one thing to get something wrong and it is totally another thing to then go into self-criticism; the sane alternative really is to note what is not working and move on from there.
A key word here is ‘subtle’. The fact that Gabrielle was open to the subtleness of what her body felt like in amongst the cold fog without any personal judgement or criticism, is what makes this blog so tremendous.
I so agree Shami – Gabriele really nailed it to a ‘t’ ,the simplicity of it is really awesome.
Hi Gabrielle, I just loved your sharing, how beautiful to not beat yourself up, or go into the trying to connect but allowing what was there to be there. All so very simple, thank you.
Thank you Gabriele for clearly showing us how easily we can override the feelings of our body and go into our heads.
What was beautiful to read was your dedication and loving choice to honour your initial body’s message to go to bed early. And in doing so you woke up earlier than expected and all that was needed to do was accomplished with no need to stress or rush.
Overriding the body’s messages can easily become (seemingly) second nature when we are not connected to ourselves; we ignore them and then ignore them some more until they have to scream and shout a lot louder and possibly even have a medical label attached to them.
I have been finding myself needing longer sleep for the last few days, and was pondering about the quality of sleep I am allowing myself. As I type this comment right now, in the afternoon, I am feeling that I am actually already preparing myself for the sleep this evening. It was perfect to read your post today. Thank you, Gabrielle.
Its strange how when we go into our thoughts and head that the tiredness our body felt can seem to disappear, your blog shows me the importance of staying connected too and honoring my body, when I’m winding down in the evening before going to sleep.
Awesome to re-read your blog again Gabrielle, what stood out this time was the coldness you experienced, I to feel this when I’m tied sometimes and disconnected, its like a deep inner coldness in my bones, as my body feels warm on the outside, something for me to feel into what it is, thank you.
Yes the urgency of tomorrow has struck me on many occasions too Alison. Its funny how quickly our heads can come up with everything and anything to not listen to what the body really feels. Its just about being more aware of our bodies feelings and letting the niggling little thoughts to not run the show.
I really love this blog. Your relationship with your body is inspirational Gabriele. I love the way you describe how you reconnected with the the truth in your body before you went to sleep as I could feel there was great tenderness in your approach.
Your blog for me Gabrielle is such a beautiful reminder to not look for expectations or outcomes; to let life flow without the mental energy that can so easily creep in.
Sleep for me can sometimes be a dig deal so I valued and appreciated your wisdom and you sharing your experiences.
It is great that you expose the subtle change that becomes not subtle at all, when you decide to check your emails and lose connection to your body, and then there is only the mind present there. I sometimes wish I could do things and not change my state of being, I could eat things and not change my state of being, or check emails or indulge in emotions or hold on to my past and not change my body and how it feels, but it actually changes, it does, and I need to recognize it as you do in your blog. And then choose to reconnect, simply.
I guess it is like the teenager that i was, thinking that I can do whatever I like and get away with it…If I love my body enough, and the way I feel is so yummy I don´t want to lose that for any fantasy, any indulgence, or any pleasure…then I look after my internal environment so well that whenever I feel i lose that warmth that you talk about, I let go of the rest and come back to that because THAT is like being home.
Great summary of what it feels like to reconnect and appreciate the natural warmth of the body again; and I love the way you describe the rebelliousness that can take over and make us think that everything is going to be okay and that we can get away with things when in truth – we actually can’t and we don’t.