How I envision as my personal poppy field
Remember Dorothy in the poppy field in The Wizard of Oz?
She is so close to Oz that she can see it – she is so close to getting what she wants – and suddenly, she just has to. take. a. nap.
In the movie, the magic poppy field is all the Wicked Witch’s doing but in your life, the bewitching doesn’t have such a convenient source. Damn.
You walk right into the poppy field on your own two very lovely feet.
You go to sleep right when you need to be most alert. Most resourced. Most on your game.
Isn’t that fascinating? You are close to getting what you want– you can see it! taste it! smell it! — and then you lie down and go to sleep. Everything grinds to a halt. Sometimes for a day, a week or 10 years.
Why do you go to sleep? Who cares? Okay, that’s flippant but so often why leads us into a big dead end. Let’s talk about what to do. Here are a couple of solutions I use with myself and my clients to stay out of the poppy field::
Get familiar with the very first whiff of poppy
How, when, where does the sleepiness start? Not meditating in the morning? Calling someone negative and complaining together for an hour? Checking email every five minutes instead of writing? Stalking your former lover on Facebook? Hitting the bakery? Signing up for yet another class? Staying up really late and getting exhausted?
The sleepiness starts somewhere. Do not TRY to stop the sleepiness or get into a war with it. Instead, focus on the moment the sleepiness started. Write down what you notice. Write it down.
What made the poppy field so attractive?
What was going on before you walked in to the field? Were you asking yourself to do too much too fast? Not taking care of your minimum requirements for self-care? Trying to go it alone without support? Not checking in with yourself first to see what you know to do next bu asking an expert instead? Write down what you discover.
That’s all for now.
Wait – aren’t I tell you some snazzy wake up solution? No. Because one HUGE WAY you and I keep falling asleep is by running to find a solution instead of staying with our experience.
Which, in a way, is a solution:: staying awake with falling asleep!
Get curious and whatever you do, stay on your own side.
Make sense? How do you stay awake? I would love to hear!
