What the body knows and the mind prevents

'Having a child is a momentous decision. It is to decide to forever have your heart walking around outside your body.'

Elizabeth Stone


How true is this? I am having an incredibly quiet, peaceful weekend as Maya and Lily are with my parents-in-law and Andy is on a stag-do and the baby is still safely in utero (though making its presence well and truly known!). Despite loving loving loving this time and space and peace to write and chill and do things I've been wanting to do for some time, my mind probably whizzes over to the girls every ten minutes or so, thinking are they ok? I wonder what they're doing? So yes, I need this time. But I still miss them, these little hearts pattering around outside my body.

BUT...having this quiet time gives me the opportunity to have eureka moments such as the one I had yesterday. For most reading this, I can't imagine this will sound like a big deal, but to me it did feel like a big deal. It's a notion that Guy Meadows from the Insomnia Clinic first instilled in me, but it didn't really 'click' with me till yesterday. Basically, it's that each and every one of us have the ability to not only sleep, but to sleep well. The body knows how to sleep - it is programmed to wind us down and give us that rest we need. But it's our minds that won't allow our bodies to do this.

I first started thinking about this as I was recalling a night about a week ago that I slept pretty soundly all the night through, something that is very rare for me. I slept through Maya waking up, I didn't go to the toilet (amazing at this stage in pregnancy!) and the early morning light filtering through the windows didn't even rouse me. Thinking about this yesterday, I realised that this is what I am ABLE to do. This is not out of reach, even for a hardened insomniac (!) like me. Not that I'm thinking or hoping this will be a nightly occurrence, but I think the best thing for me right now is to believe and trust in my body and it's ability to switch off like that...if only my mind allows it to.