A few weeks back, I had come across an image, a statue, of the Buddha, sleeping. There was something about that particular, exact imagery, that taught me...how to be, where to be in my mind and heart, how to be safe, how to rest. It was joyful, breathful, peaceful, so sweetly right with no pressure. Like an oh, that's how we are, where we are meant to be, when we sleep. So Nomad, I tried to find that imagery to post here for you, but I was not able to find it. So, that must not be the imagery that would speak, to you. But if you google buddah sleeping, you will find so many images, Nomad. One of them will be yours, will be that image that helps you remember how restful, refreshing, sleep feels.
It was a statue of the Buddha on his side, knees gently curled, crooked arm under his head, eyes so gently closed. Just to think of it now brings that same breezy relaxation of spirit, even when I am awake.
There is a book titled ~ something about Buddha, sleeping. You can find it, and the imagery that attends it, on Amazon.
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I am very sorry your child was in danger, Nomad. I am deeply sorry that happened, to you and to her. However hard we have worked for detachment over the situations our children create for themselves, their victimization by someone else changes everything.
The primal Mother is there, and awake. It is a different kind of pain, a different kind of fear for them, a different kind of railing at fate, than the kind we have grown familiar with. So we are in a new territory. For a time, we are lost in the confusion of it.
Just lost there.
Even if we are holding it together in the day, what we know and how scared we are and how angry and confused, it comes out in the night.
I don't know how we do it Nomad? But I do know that in time, we learn to remain present to it ~ present for the phone call that tells us it happened, or that tells us it happened again. How we do that kind of standing up, that kind of impossible remaining present has to do with how we love them. It is something like the need for that kind of presence being what is required, we find it, somewhere within us.
The Serenity Prayer can help break the worry chain.
That is all I know.
If you are able to nap during the day, do it. The way I see it, if we are not able to sleep well in the night, then a nap in the day will be better than nothing.
I've heard it said that 3 a.m. is a time when, all over the world, there are so many women awake in the night. Somehow, that comforts me when I am the one up at 3 again.
If you need to be alert the next day, try some Nyquil night cold medication, or Nyquil Zzzz.
But that can be only for when you must be alert and functional the next day. You will come through this. When you do, you don't want to need sleep medication as a matter of course.
They say bedtime rituals help us, too. If you don't have one, now would be a good time to begin.
Sarah Ban Breathnack's Simple Abundance is an excellent tool for changing our mindsets from that rushing, worried space to one of gratitude before sleep.
It helped me too to understand that whatever was happening here, my child's journey was her own. And whatever else was happening here, I am her mother. That I am upset at what happened is correct. It is also just what it is, nothing more.
And somehow, I came through that time.
Little older, little more fragile still, but we all came through that time.
Relaxing music, a fluid, flexible determination to do this thing, that helps with the helplessness of it, with the helplessness of what happened and with the helplessness in not being able to sleep when we are so desperately tired. They say yoga will stretch the places we hold tension, releasing us deep down where we cannot feel it.
I would say that is true.
That is all I know to tell you. I am very sorry this is happening.
Cedar
