Checking ‘In’
Updated: Aug 8, 2018
So how is this farm wife doing this extremely rainy fall? …. I feel oddly calm and serene. My husband and I logged in many hours watching Harry Potter on the evenings we would usually be busy out in the fields bringing in the harvest. We are also getting all kinds of odd jobs done that never seem to be done in the fall…. so really it’s been great! ….So then why is it that I have been waking up nearly every night at 2am for the past 2 weeks? Each night I wake up, I start to meditate and before I know it my alarm is going off.
Last night when I woke up I was fed up!! What the heck?! Why can’t I just sleep my usual 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep? What is flicking my toe at 2am? What is it that is so darn important that it requires my attention at this ungodly hour? Now anger has set in mixed with a little bit of fear. My heart is pounding and I am wondering what could possibly be bothering me.
Now I’m pretty good at feeling my emotions and acknowledging them… as long as they are happiness, joy and peace! Anger and fear I’m not nearly as good at 😉 Meditation has really helped me see things more calmly and peacefully but it doesn’t make these “undesirable emotions” go away. But wait…. what if there really isn’t such a thing as “undesirable emotions”? What if they are simply lessons waiting to be learned?
I’m extremely good at distracting myself or running away from anger and fear. Often a good old shopping trip will do the trick. Nothing like a new pair of shoes to take my mind of what may be bothering me!
But the kicker is… until I acknowledge my emotions they don’t go away. They just wait there on stand-by until I give them the time they want. “What you resist persists”. Ugh! I really would just like to get on with being happy and carefree!
So last night at 2am I decided to welcome my anger and fear in one fell swoop with “WHAT IN THE HELL AM I SO SCARED OF!” Once I opened the door I was bombarded with all kinds of thoughts:
“What if we don’t get the crop off?”, “What if the yields are low”, “What if the crop sits in the field all winter…. until spring 🙁 “, “What if grain prices tank?”, “What if we can’t pay the humungous farm bills that will be trickling in all winter?”, “What if this sore throat is a grain dust allergy? Some good farmwife I am!”, “What if I lose my voice again and can’t start my classes next month?” “What if, what if, what if…..”
I just let them pour thru me until 5am. But then… silence came and with it a deep sense of peace. And then I slept until my alarm at 7am and felt like I got a full night’s sleep. I still realized that any one of those scenarios could still play out, but what made more sense to me was that I was going to be okay, my family was going to be okay…. everything was going to be okay… All these emotions were no longer holding me hostage because I was finally giving them the time of day. Or in this case, the time of night they were asking for! Essentially all these fears had no grounding but as I was ignoring them they were gaining ground in my subconscious imagination.
It is likely that this 2am visitor has tried to visit me during daylight hours but I just chose to ignore it like I’ve become accustomed to my entire life. But things have got to change? This chick really wants her solid 8 hours sleep back… so I had better open that door during business hours so all those emotions can check in and I can learn what I need to learn. And with that…. everything will truly be okay.
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