Oh joy! My first full night of sleep after about 3 weeks of surviving on 3-4 hours per night.
This bout of insomnia has been particularly dire. I have recently realised that I am in the grip of a multi-faceted transition. There’s been no way of resisting it - it has been utterly overwhelming. It is one of those processes of nature that cannot be controlled and I have had to go with the flow of it as the Dynamic Feminine archetypal energy has taken hold. I am on the brink of moving from one stage of life, “the Mother”, into another, “the Crone”. This is a time of reassessment for me, where I am questioning what I want for the next decade of my life, what will take priority. It seems to be a time of my need to assert myself to a position of greater equality with others. I feel like I have something to say and I finally feel in a place to say it. It also seems to be a time of intense creativity for me, to the point of overflowing: I have a need to be creative. The creativity that is currently manifesting is my writing, and I am on a steep learning curve. Any point of stability I think I retain from the old life is rapidly disappearing and everything feels as though it has been thrown up into the air like the sticks in Spillikins. I can only wait to see how they will fall.
At the core of this upheaval is a loss of identity, which makes sense spiritually because I am letting go of one stage and moving into the next. What, or who I will be in the next stage of my life, is as yet unknown. All I do know is that I seem to want more of a say in the next stage of my life path than I have previously – and that is my Static Masculine archetype at play. Issues of death and growing “old” are also very much around and I wonder whether at some subconscious level it is difficult for me to sleep in case I never wake up again. The identity crisis is much more tangible and overt, as is the desire to be heard and to assert myself in the world more than previously. All of these things seem fitting for the new stage of development I am embarking on.
Who would have thought there was so much going on behind the mask of insomnia!
On the more practical here and now level, it is a struggle health-wise to be in this state of being. Given the work routines that we need to adhere to in current society, it is particularly difficult. My body wants instinctively to work in a more aligned way with nature, but my work routine does not allow for that. Consequently, consistent insomnia has resulted in a deterioration in my health in that as I become more tired, the less able I am in holding information in my head, the more irritable and intolerant I become, and the more clumsy and accident-prone I am. I usually incur a collection of injuries during my times of insomnia and this period has been no different.
My sense is that this level of disintegration had to happen to get me to realise the issues at play underneath the surface. Whilst I regard myself as a relatively conscious person, sometimes the universe still has to knock loudly at my door to get me to listen.
I would love to hear about your experiences, thoughts, feelings on the subjects of menopause, transitions, life changes, mortality or any other related issue.
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4 comments:
I admire your honesty regarding your inner- most thoughts and feelings! I am finding the 'menopause' years an interesting journey, at times seeming impossible to cope with. The internal thoughts and feelings at times overpowering, leading to an 'irrational' me that usually does not exists. I also have lost my father in this period, that does bring up my own mortality, also watching over the parent that is still here. There is so much more to reflect on and maybe having a 'journal' 'blog' would be beneficial to work my way through this 'questioning' period of my life. I wish you well.
Hi Indu
Menopause is not something I am going to experience first hand but changes of various degrees of magnitude do continue to happen to my body and I am coming to terms with these in a much healthier way than I used to. In fact, my attitude to change is, itself changing. So now I find it useful to regard any change in my body as one more part of my 'growth'. To accept that each time I feel that I am losing something ( eg flexibility, hearing, long sight, strength, 'good looks'...) and I am also gaining something from living this long (knowledge, experience, courage, patience, better relationships, deeper acceptance and compassion for myself...)
I dont wish to minimise your sleep problems but the way I get round mine is to meditate: To be mindful and to stop striving for sleep to come. This way, at least I rest peacefully and, as it happens, I do tend to fall asleep after a while. But there again I dont have hormones raging around doing their 'thing'.
So I wish you well with the sleep and the blog; Looking forward to hearing more
Take care
Iain
x
Dear SPS
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It can be a difficult time for many - I guess I have reached a position of feeling that "it could be worse." and being grateful for the symptoms I don't get & that plague others. I also can understand the mortality issue being around for you... I too lost my father last year... And I think that it is probably timely to be questioning such things. For me at least I feel as though I am entering the second chapter of my life and I want to utilise the experience and wisdom that I have gained in the first part to aid the second part. I feel that for me it is a natural part of the process - to be questioning such things.
Journalling, whether it is online or in a notebook can be very helpful in making sense of things as well as acknowledging what is occurring within. I wish you well in your journey, and feel free to contact me if I can help in any way.
Hi Iain
Many thanks for your input. I agree that you will not experience menopause in the same way as women do.... but as you say, you will experience changes in your being. For me that is what women go through only with a medicalised label. The set of changes women go through are very different, and in some ways can be very painful... (not to say that men's changes are not painful !).
I am glad to hear that meditation helps you in your bouts of sleeplessness. I find myself rarely worrying about the sleeplessness ... I tend to use the time for useful pursuits like thinking and creative endeavours. Of course I struggle the next day ... but that just means that I need to adjust my life to fit the needs of my body -rather than the other way round!
Thank you for sharing the process you use to be grateful for what you are gaining alongside the losses - that is very useful.
Keep well my friend. :)
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