Your journal prompts for this week:
When in my life have I felt "on the edge,” dominated by overwhelm?
What, if anything, tends to trigger these moments, and how do I tend to react?
Now that I have perspective, what would I have told myself in these moments to help me move past them?
In the future, if I'm feeling on the edge or like I'm caught up in the swirl of negative thought patterns, how might I be able to help redirect myself to more stable or neutral ground?
Just a few months ago, I was the most sleep deprived I had ever been in my life. It was my first few weeks as a mother, and I had yet to get more than 3 hours of consecutive sleep at a time. And Carsey would have these days when she would refuse to sleep, going 6 hour stretches without even a short nap. If she did this during the day, it wasn't as big of a deal, but when it happened at night, when I hadn't yet slept at all or maybe had at best 1-2 hours, it truly rattled me. And on one particularly bad night, I was unraveling. Not wanting to get mad at the baby, I went into another room and did a deep, silent scream. I clenched my fists, opened my mouth wide, and screamed without any sound.
In that moment, the person I was yelling at was God. Yeah, I know that doesn't totally make sense. But here was the awkward logic in my sleep-deprived brain:
God made it so women had to go through the emotionally and physically intense process of carrying a baby and birthing a baby.
Then he made it so the baby is immediately 100% reliant on the woman for survival with milk she produces from her own body.
Then this dude tortures these moms by giving them milk supply issues, burning, bleeding nipples, and depriving them of the one thing that would help them most of all: SLEEP.
As I contemplated this, I was silently screaming, "Why, God? WHY??"
Once I (barely) got myself back together, my husband put on some soothing music from a sound healing playlist on Spotify, and I fed Carsey for what felt like the hundredth time in an hour. I was trying to breathe and relax, but inside I was still so frazzled, so tired. I stared at the TV screen that was scrolling through the Spotify app with tears in my eyes. When I saw the current song's title and artist name, I had to double check I hadn't fallen asleep and was dreaming, or even hallucinating—but I wasn't. There it was, staring me right in the face.
The title of the song: "Tonight will be different."
The artist's name: "I Need God."
I just stared at it and thought, "Well played, God. Well played. I hear your message loud and clear."
In our difficult or darker moments, it's easy to think we are trapped, that we will never escape our current situation, that this is how it will be forevermore. For me, it was much too easy to spiral: "What if she doesn't go to sleep all day? What if I never sleep again?"
And underlying it all: "What if I can't DO this? What if I just can't handle being a parent to a newborn?"
But as the title of the song so appropriately reminded me: tonight will be different. No two nights, two days, two minutes, are exactly the same. What isn't working or going smoothly now might work great tomorrow. The current moment doesn't solidify or even necessarily predict the next one.
In these moments of anxiety and overwhelm, I realized I needed to change my perspective, to stop assuming permanence with something as variable as the sleep habits of a newborn baby. And isn't this true of life overall? Whatever situation we are in could change tomorrow—for better or worse. And in the end, simply surrendering to the moment, letting it be what it is, rather than spinning about how to fix it or change it, feels much better to me.
This isn't to say that I get this perfect every time now, of course. Even after this realization, I still struggle and spiral at times over her sleep or some other conundrum, but my husband will remind me, or I will remind myself, or time will simply show me—this is but one moment, one night of many moments and many nights to come. It is not permanent.
You may not have a child and relate specifically to this experience, but I'm sure you've had moments in your life when a situation or circumstance has sent you into a negative thought spiral. You've had moments when you feel pushed to your edge, wondering if you can handle any more. I invite you to consider one of these moments and what you would tell yourself now that you have some perspective. And if this situation came around again, how might you handle it differently, or at least, how would you treat yourself differently in that moment?
Perhaps in these moments all you need is a gentle reminder that tomorrow will be different.
With much love and gratitude,
Marcy
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