My concept of time, as well as my sleep patterns, have become totally distorted. Someone posted a lovely photo on facebook the other day that said, “Happy Thursday!” I wrinkled my brow thinking, is it really Thursday? I thought it was Saturday. I double checked the date on the post against the date on my computer and sure enough, it was Thursday.

Sleep has gone wacky as well. Since it gets dark so early now, my eyes droop and I finally give into crawling under my cozy aubergine duvet no matter what the clock says. I have a tendency to crawl into bed a couple of hours after dusk, which often happens to be around 7 or 8 pm. Gone are the days of being the twilight artisan who stays awake until the wee hours of the morning after writing a new piece of music or editing a series of poems.

The past few nights, as droopy as my eyes became, sleep eluded me. I laid in bed watching the night sky through my window as the stars made their rounds visiting everyone on earth. The other night, my mind was all a chatter. None of my usual tricks worked. I knew the only way to pacify it was to get up and do something active.

At 3am, I finally acquiesced. In the pitch dark, I pulled on some comfy clothes and stumbled out of the bedroom. Before I knew what I had done, I had pulled everything out of my one and only closet. Because it’s my only closet, you can only begin to imagine the array of things strewn across the floor of my one bedroom carriage house.

At this point, I was a woman possessed with clearing the inside of the closet. If I wasn’t fully awake by this point, the sting of vinegar to my nose brought me fully present. I washed down the walls and shampooed the carpet. Then placed the air cleaner inside before tackling the mess of clothes, shoe boxes, luggage, backpacks, artwork, wrapping paper, cleaning supplies, old Amazon shipping envelopes, and an array of other unmentionables. One would think there was an expanding back wall to this closet by the amount of things it held. By this time the sky was turning pink and a new day was dawning. It was time to toss what no longer serves me and reorganize that which still does.

I couldn’t help but consider the metaphor of clearing out the dusty corners of our closets as it relates to the clearing of our minds. By 3pm, a mere 12 hours later, my closet had been totally reorganized with everything laundered and smelling sweet once again. I must say, if I had placed this on a to-do list, my mind would have gyrated over it for months, rather than just getting it done. I chuckle at how much we can accomplish while sleepwalking in the middle of the night.

The following night, sleep came easily. I immediately dropped into a very deep sleep. Until. . . I awoke screaming! My whole body trembled as I recalled the dream that jarred me awake in such terror. I share with you this dream:

[I was playing some kind of board game with a group of people. Since I wasn’t interested in the game, I left and went back to my room to spend some time alone. As I was laying on my bed, I saw a young boy enter my room. He began licking and nibbling at my body. I noticed he wasn’t human, but had some strange animal like ears. I told him to let me alone, but he kept at me. I tried to yell but was frozen with fear, unable to even take a breath. I finally said to myself, “I either do this, or I will perish.” So I mustered all my courage, inhaled a deep breath and screamed. The scream was so loud it woke me up in a tremor, shaking with fear. When I opened my eyes he had disappeared. I lay there with my eyes open for a very long time, afraid to close them. I finally had a little chat with myself, repeatedly saying, “I Am Safe, I Am Safe.” Eventually I was able to fall back into a peaceful asleep.]

This was the first time I had a fearful dream in very long time. I wondered if this had to do with nefarious beings as overlapping timelines are in the process of dissolving. But that did not feel quite right. I recalled the metaphor for cleaning out one’s closet, which I had done the night before. So what was I clearing? Since it’s all my energy, what was my energy doing? What was it trying to tell me?

Ha! I finally realized it was my human mind that was so fearful. My human mind that is unable to shut down, always chattering away, always feeding on my energy. How threatened it becomes when I choose to leave the games of the world behind to be alone in the quiet with my Self. It was not my own fear that had me terrorized, it was the fear of my human mind. Its fear of walking away from the rest of the world to be in solitude. Its fear of me wanting to walk away from it. Its fear of death.

Well, NO MORE! I am no longer worried about not fitting in with the norm. I am no longer in fear of losing my mind. I am done allowing my human mind to eclipse my own inner wisdom and influence my actions.

This morning, as the warm rays of the sun touch upon my heart, I am able to embrace my human mind with love and compassion. I can assure it that it still has a place in my life, but it no longer needs to be burdened by running my life. I am asking it to support me in a whole new way. It is no longer in the driver’s seat attempting to avoid anything that has harmed me in the past. Nor attempting to fix or avoid the future. Instead, we are living in the moment. Instead, we are trusting the wisdom and guidance of our Soul. We are forming a new team that knows and trusts that all energy is in service to us.

Today is a new day. All is well and I am open to new potentials that go way beyond the fear of losing our minds.

*

~Sharon Lyn Shepard~

Artwork by Annelie Solis