Do you ever have sleepless nights?

When sleep is but a dandelion seed blowing in the wind

Soft. Simple. Still. is a place where, like gentle butterflies that land upon your hand, soft words will land in your heart for profound healing, stillness and simplicity. Welcome to a Soft. Simple. Still world.

Sleep envelops me
like a soft soothing blanket.

Not always though.

Not always.

Sometimes the nights have been long
very
very long

Sleep has evaded me lately
Like dandelion seeds blowing in the breeze,

exquisite to watch
yet just out of reach

and yet
yet

in those sleepless nights
the dandelion seeds do gently land

in another

soft
simple
way.

Photo by Marco Silva on Unsplash

I’ve recently had a round of sleepless nights

Do you ever have those?

It’s time for bed.
You’re really tired.
You get yourself ready and cosy.
You snuggle in.
You even feel a bit like an animal wriggling at first,
to make the bed just right
Your nest just right
Your hole in the dirt just right.

And then you breathe out
Ahhhhhhhh,
that sigh that releases the whole of the day
and the whole of everything else you may have taken to bed with you.

You close your eyes.
Your eyes are too tired to read
so you just close them
and,
as normal you hope to drift slowly into the the Land of Nod
the Land of Sweet Dreams and Deep Sleeps
where nothing will stir you except the call of your children
or the call of nature.

But then something happens…

You feel as though you are the Princess in the story of the “Princess and the Pea”…

Everything
I mean
Every.
Little.
Thing.
Seems to keep you awake.

Everything seems to bruise you
seems to make you wriggle
seems to annoy you

You feel the pea at the bottom of the 100 mattresses
and it doesn’t just feel like one pea it feels as though there are 100 peas pushing their way from the bottom to the top.

Each tiny pea wanting your time
your energy
your hand to reach down and take them out from their squashed space to be put somewhere else
anywhere else

Right now.
Right at this moment of rest and surrender
the peas are awake.

They don’t want to poke you
really they don’t.
They are just tiny green squashy peas…

Yet tonight you are so sensitive and that one pea feels poky and hard and metallic
and anything but soft and squashy and friendly

And so it begins…

The twitching legs.
The need to go to the toilet.

The sore shoulder that needs another pillow.
The need to go to the toilet again.

The mattress that is usually so comfortable yet isn’t at the moment.
The need to go to the toilet.

The concern for my partner
that if I wriggle anymore he will wake up.

The wind that normally is singing a lullaby
is now too loud.

The need to scratch my itchy foot.
The need to go to the toilet.

The need to pull the doona over me more.
The need to kick the doona off.

The need to go to the toilet
AGAIN!!!

Ahhhhh,
my body wants my attention.

It wants me to take off the 100 mattresses and look at the pea.

Sometimes the Moon calls me.
Sometimes She is the Shining One so full in her bright light above me
calling me outside, inviting me to look up.
Sometimes She is the Dark Crone calling me to step outside when there is no moon in the sky
calling me to embrace the blanket of her darkness and then to step into her cave.

I am used to waking up at the changing phases of the moon
Full or Dark;
The Moon has woken me for many decades,
We are old friends.
I am happy to wake at those times.

Yet lately it is not the Moon that is calling me,
and to be honest I don’t have any resources left in my inner container to be waking up or
NOT GOING TO SLEEP!

Why am I not going to sleep as easily as I used to?
Why am I finding the Pea so irritating?
What is the Pea representing anyway?

I look at the clock before I go to bed
it reads 10pm.
I look at it again
It now reads 1am.

Ok…I am semi awake.
I’ve not slept.
My eyes are closed yet they seem to be looking out at things
Moving this way and that

I am not worried that I can’t sleep,
However I am conscious that this is probably the third day in a row that I haven’t slept straight away and I know from experience that if I don’t sleep before midnight I wake tired and floppy
and if I’ve not slept properly for a few days in a row I am teary and extra sensitive.

Do I get up - which has worked before - and wander around, look outside, maybe even sit on the lounge for a bit? I know I don’t want to turn the light on. I am conscious that the darkness in the house is helping me stay in a semi sleep space where my body is relaxing even if my mind isn’t sleepy.

Do I give the Pea a name, find its real name? Which also has worked before. So I spend some time going through the things I am anxious about, naming each thing and seeing that part of my mind breathe out as I acknowledge the worries that are stuck under the mattresses.

Then I do something
without realising as I lay in bed.

I bring my awareness from out there
to in here
my eyes, even though they have been closed, go from looking around and being busy
to looking deep inside
into my heart.

As soon as I do that my energy slows down.
My body begins to relax.

I can tangibly feel it.
I can tangibly feel the noise around me (my sub/unconscious) slowing down.
Turning off.
I feel my eyes stop moving and close from the inside.

I keep bringing my awareness deeper
and deeper into my heart

deeper

and deeper

and deeper.

I feel that I am no longer a physical person laying in bed

I am my breath
I am my heart beat
I am my life force

I am breathing in
I am breathing out.

I am breathing in
I am breathing out.

It feels as though the stars begin to twinkle a bit louder
I hear a lullaby
a soft
quiet lullaby
that has no words.

It goes from out there
to inside of me,
it comes from out there
to deep in my heart,

it expands my cells
and radiates out with each soft
silent breath I take

a lullaby without words,
that holds me
and heals me

until I wake

refreshed.

Are you a light sleeper or a deep sleeper?
What do you do when you can’t get to sleep? What routines help you get to sleep?
What do you do to help you go back to sleep when you wake in the middle of the night?

Let’s chat about sleep and what helps us sleep better.

If you would like me to hold sacred space for you as you work through the Poky Hard Metallic Peas in your life - your stresses and anxieties, traumas and fears please feel free to reach out. I would be honoured to hold sacred space for your heart to come home…deeply deeply home.

Until we meet again,
In that space where deep healing and sleep resides

Blessed be,

Through storytelling we heal.
May you find my stories open doors within
that can soothe your heart helping you to create a soft simple still life.

Thank you for your support.