I’m really tired right now. And not just because I spent most of the night being hit in the face by my baby.
Usually, when Jake wakes up crying at night, the family engages in a practiced shuffle. Mike and I drag ourselves out of bed. He heads for the daybed in the office while I gather up Jake, who snuggles against me, warm and almost worth the interruption in REM sleep. We tumble into my bed together and fall asleep. At some point, I rouse myself one more time and return him to his crib. And I end up with a great expanse of warm duvet and pillows all to myself. Which can be nice, but often not as nice as sleeping deeply for a full night next to my husband.
The concept, as much as Mike and I have rationalized it, is that we don’t have the heart to let Jake cry himself back to sleep, and we both lack the fortitude to comfort him back to sleep in any position but horizontal on our bed. Who can blame the guy for wanting to be held if something awakens him at night? we tell each other. As long as I put him back in his crib again once he’s back asleep, he doesn’t get the idea that our bed is his bed, at least in theory.
We should know better than to try to outsmart a 15-month-old.
Jake’s plan last night was clear, and it made me pretty angry, I have to admit. He was plainly fighting deep sleep because he knew with it would come a return to his crib. Hence, just as we were both drifting off, a flung arm would smack across my face. Or a chubby foot would find purchase in my gut. Or I’d slowly lift myself up, preparing to remove him from the bed, and his thumb would shoot into his mouth for a frenzied round of self-comfort that warned against any attempts to move him.
I tried to give him the message that it’s not so great spending all night with Mommy by rebuffing his attempts at cuddling this morning, assisting him into a dry diaper without a touch of sympathy for the howls of unfairness this activity generates, and withholding his juice bottle until after we were out of the warmth of our shared bed. Perhaps I was not employing the clearest logic, but I was a bit sleep-deprived. Which is not the optimal state for dealing with a toddler sent into hysterics by his mother’s refusal to give him a morning cuddle.
All was well by the time we went to school. One yogurt-smeared breakfast smile and I had to give him the hug we both needed. Still, I’m tired.
Okay, so one night of sleeplessness I can deal with. What I’m really tired of is revisiting this sleep issue over and over and over again.
Find More Energy by Inviting It In
I stare with red-rimmed eyes into a future of children piling into our bed at night until they’re old enough to pile into someone else’s. And I find myself despairing. I don’t want to spend years and years and years getting just a week or two of uninterrupted sleep with my husband before finding myself yet again dealing with the sleeplessness of motherhood.
And with such thoughts, my mind spins out one sleepless night into a lifetime of them, and I’m feeling my body react with panic. I feel even more tired, unable to cope, pushed over the edge by forgetting to put the sheets in the wash before starting my yoga practice this morning. (How will I ever get all the laundry done today? And what crisis awaits if I don’t?)
Panic, without a doubt, is a kind of self-generated energy. I imagine some kind of perpetual motion spinning top that spins faster as it generates more and more of its own energy. (I have been unable to locate an example of such an object on the internet, which surely means it doesn’t exist, but you get the idea.) The more I panic, the more I feed the panicked energy, and the greater my panic becomes. Sleepless nights!!! A whole lifetime of them!!! Children that are your responsibility FOREVER!!!!! It gets scarier and scarier.
Needless to say, if all this panicked energy is self-generated, it’s depleting my energy for other tasks like, say, getting on with my day.
And it’s not just panic. It could be anger, hurt, any kind of emotional energy. If we feed it, it grows. But since it’s self-generated, it all comes from inside. And if we think of ourselves as separate beings, completely reliant on our own energy, it becomes a zero-sum game. Whatever energy is feeding our panic/anger/hurt, it’s taking away from the energy we need to conduct the rest of our lives.
The best way out of this cycle is to recognize that we are not self-contained machines. There is energy all around us — the same energy that is inside us. Think, for a moment, about food. It’s not just about pleasure; at bottom, it is energy. Energy that comes from other living matter. We eat it, our bodies burn it as calories, we are able to live.
So, too, there are more subtle forms of energy surrounding us, according to yoga teachings. In an asana practice, we try to dissolve the feeling of separation between ourselves and the world around us. And in doing so, we often find we have more energy to carry us through the practice than we brought to class.
So, too, as tired as I am, if I redirect my thoughts toward the energy around me, I bear less of a burden. I no longer deplete some finite reserve of energy through my panic. I find myself able to sit down and write about what I’m feeling semi-coherently. And, as a consequence, the wheel of panic starts to slow, wobble, and, eventually, come to a rest.
Ah, rest. What I wouldn’t give for some. But in the meantime, a gentle yet energizing yoga sequence really helps.
A Sequence to Invite the Prana
Prana is energy. As simple and as complex as any western scientific concept of energy.
Only in yoga there’s an easy way to appreciate prana. You breathe.
That’s it. If energy is all around us waiting for us to notice it, one way to get it into our bodies is to breathe.
Wait, you say. I breathe all the time and I’m hardly a bundle of energy.
Ah, answers yoga, that’s because you don’t breathe consciously. Spend a few moments appreciating the air as it enters your nostrils. Feel it fill your lungs. Breathe deeply, as if you are drinking. You will, without a doubt, feel clearer, more awake, and, yes, energized.
Then try the following sequence. It is designed for low energy days — and frequently leaves me ready to continue into a higher energy asana practice. But it is delicious all on its own. It works out the kinks of a tired body, gives you a little massage, and introduces a little extra energy into the rest of your day.
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