{"id":549,"date":"2011-06-17T00:39:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T05:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lightspiritcoach.com\/?p=549"},"modified":"2021-09-14T20:38:36","modified_gmt":"2021-09-14T20:38:36","slug":"lullaby-and-good-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/lullaby-and-good-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Lullaby…and Good Night…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Sleep, glorious sleep, why are you so elusive?\u00a0<\/em> For me, anyway.\u00a0 How about you?\u00a0 Are you getting enough sleep?\u00a0 Are you getting quality<\/em> sleep?\u00a0 I don’t remember sleep being so problematic when I was a kid.\u00a0 But, it does seem to be problematic now,<\/em> so it deserves my attention to make it the best I can.<\/p>\n

“Getting enough sleep allows you to feel more rested and be more focused.”<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h3>\n

No doubt.\u00a0 But I’m not<\/strong> getting enough sleep.\u00a0 Are you?\u00a0 What can<\/strong><\/em> I do to improve this important area of my life?<\/p>\n

The obvious answer is to get more sleep!<\/strong>\u00a0 Yeah, right.\u00a0 I know<\/strong><\/em> I need to get more sleep.\u00a0 You probably know the same thing.\u00a0 But you’re not<\/strong>, are you?\u00a0 Why not?<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh, for probably a hundred reasons or so.\u00a0 OK, I’m exaggerating.\u00a0 But, clearly, if it were easy to get enough quality sleep, we’d all be doing that, right?\u00a0 One of THE MOST IMPORTANT things I learned in grad school was this.<\/p>\n

“We’re always doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Credit goes to Dr. John McGowan for having repeated that sentence enough times during his counseling class that it stuck with me.\u00a0 And I am so grateful because it provides a compassionate view of the way we’re doing things.\u00a0 He didn’t<\/em> say, “And we can’t do any better.” What would have been the point of being a helping professional?\u00a0 It bears repeating.\u00a0 “We’re always doing the best we can with what we’ve got.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, if I go with what I learned from Dr. McGowan, somehow I must be in need of something I “don’t<\/em> got,” right?\u00a0 What is it that I might be missing?\u00a0 The first thing to recognize<\/em> is that it could either be internal or external.\u00a0 Internally, it might be something physical, such as feeling too hot or too cold, or having some pain that I’m not able to ignore.\u00a0 Or it might be something on my mind that is worrying me.\u00a0 It could also be something external, such as my old, in-need-of-being-replaced bed, or loud thunder or a dog barking or needing to care for a baby or a sick child.\u00a0 The list could go on and on and on and on…\u00a0 But you probably already know what your<\/em> reasons are.\u00a0 So let’s follow up on that.<\/p>\n

Acknowledgement and Compassion<\/h3>\n

The next question is, “Have you really acknowledged<\/em> all of those things that are making if difficult for you to sleep well?\u00a0 Really<\/em><\/strong> acknowledged them?\u00a0 Like a wonderful friend would do if you actually told them all of the things you are contending with on your path to sleep?\u00a0 They’d say something like, “Wow!\u00a0 That’s really a lot!\u00a0 That sounds really tough!”\u00a0 They wouldn’t say, “Buck up and deal with it!”\u00a0 But I bet you<\/em> are telling yourself that.\u00a0 Or perhaps you fluctuate between, “Buck up and deal with it,” and “Oh, there’s no hope; it’ll never change; I’ll never get more sleep!”\u00a0 If so, just tell yourself, “Oh, that’s right.\u00a0 I’m human.\u00a0 I forgot for a while there.”<\/p>\n

That’s the kind of compassion I’m talking about.\u00a0 The kind that recognizes that you do<\/strong> indeed have your challenges and that you are<\/strong> indeed doing the best you can with what you’ve got, and that<\/p>\n

You deserve compassion and TLC.<\/h4>\n

Just because.\u00a0 Just because you’re human, not to mention that we all function more effectively with a bit of compassion<\/strong>.\u00a0 So, perhaps you could offer yourself<\/em> some, or ask a \"\"<\/a>dear friend to listen and let you cry on their shoulder because it’s been really hard…\u00a0 Having that compassion can give you a bit of relief and can often help you towards figuring out what it is that you might<\/em> need to do to get more sleep.<\/p>\n

If you just jump to making a change, it doesn’t always stick.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 Lots of reasons, but one is that it’s important<\/em> to make sure that you<\/p>\n

clearly appreciate and understand the problem<\/strong><\/p>\n

so that you have a chance of<\/p>\n

choosing the best solution for you!<\/strong><\/p>\n

What works well for me may not work well for you and vice versa.\u00a0 In 12-Step meetings there’s a reminder to practice<\/p>\n

1) Awareness<\/p>\n

2) Acceptance<\/p>\n

3) Action<\/p>\n

They’re in that order for a good reason!\u00a0 You first<\/em> need to be aware<\/em> of a problem before<\/em> you can come to some acceptance<\/em> of it before<\/em> you can take appropriate<\/em> action<\/em><\/strong>, not just any<\/em> action, but action that is appropriate for you<\/em><\/strong> and for your situation!\"\"<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Next week I’ll take a look at possible slumber strategies. Perhaps this week you might practice awareness or acceptance of your sleep issues so that you are one step closer to taking the action that is appropriate<\/em> for you<\/em> to get more of the sleep that you may be dreaming of!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sleep, glorious sleep, why are you so elusive?\u00a0 For me, anyway.\u00a0 How about you?\u00a0 Are you getting enough sleep?\u00a0 Are you getting quality sleep?\u00a0 I don’t remember sleep being so problematic when I was a kid.\u00a0 But, it does seem to be problematic now, so it deserves my attention to make it the best I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,12,15,54],"tags":[2,4,6,33,53,40,19,14,16],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lightspiritcoaching.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}