Sleepless /Psychology of Possibility

From an early age, I’ve often had times when I had trouble sleeping. After some heavy fire and brimstone lectures, and the occasionally visitation story from the nuns, I’d find it hard to sleep as a child. I can remember praying that some saint or the Blessed Mother wouldn’t enter my bedroom at night.

Adulthood posses it’s own challenges in the sleep department-worrying about bills, health issues, crying babies, being a caregiver, trying to get work done you didn’t have time for during the day, shifting hormones and at times staying up all night because it’s just plain fun. Last night was one of those times I wasn’t sleeping well, and I wasn’t enjoying it.

When I can’t sleep, I hate lying in bed for too long. It irritates me and just compounds the problem. I’ll get up and read (my father always did this), watch a PBS special that I missed 10 years ago but in general try to relax as much as possible so I’ll drift off to sleep. I avoid the computer as it’s a stimulant. However, last night, I made an exception.

Earlier in the week, I had been looking at the work of Dr. Ellen Langer. In her book, “Counter Clockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility,” she wrote "....so we should open ourselves to the impossible and embrace a psychology of possibility. The psychology of possibility first requires that we begin with the assumption that we do not know what we can do or become. Rather than starting from the status quo, it argues for a starting point of what we would like to be. From that beginning, we can ask how we might reach that goal or make progress toward it. It's a subtle change in thinking, although not difficult to make once we realize how stuck we are in culture, language, and modes of thought that limit our potential...When faced with disease or infirmity, we may find a way to adjust to what is. In the psychology of possibility, we search for the answer to how to improve, not merely to adjust."

Using the idea that what I wanted was the possibility of sleep and not obsessing, I decided to check out UCLA’s Mindful Meditations Awareness Research Center (MARC) website. I found a section on Mindful Meditations. I wasn’t sure if this would be at all helpful, but figured I’d try one of them. It was seven minutes long and after I was done, I turned off the computer and went to sleep.

While Langer’s work is something I want to blog more about, particularly after I’ve had a chance to read more of her work, I definitely connected with the concept of the psychology of possibility.