Let It Be

I was out of action for almost two days on Sunday and Monday with a bug of some sort. My favourite form of medicine is sleep. It tends to get rid of most ailments. I find the bodies ability to fix itself magical. While it does it's thing though, and I tried to sleep, my thoughts tend to go awol. I wasn't knocked out for hours. It was closer to that broken, distracted sleep mixed with dreams that were all over the place.

I feel almost in control of most of my dreams. Like I am directing the story. The problem is the 'almost'. When I am anxious, my dreams will often hit dead ends or caught in a plot twist I do not like at all. They include various relationships - friendships, family, teachers, colleagues, and various other people that I have come across in my life. Normally the anxiety ends up revolving around some sort of misunderstanding. I feel like people just don't understand the truth. If they understood the truth, then everything would be fine. But the dream won't got the way I want it too.

Because I am typically in and out of sleep at these points, I sometimes catch myself. I tell myself I am dreaming. It is not a pleasant dream. Just stop it. But I feel like I am on the cusp of solving some momentous problem that will make everything fall in line. Just letting it be is hard. I dive back in.

After two days of various of these types of fights, I really didn't feel like doing my normal reading trying to understand the various conflicts around the world, and how we chip away at some of the big problems. I do think you need to make space for the mind to switch off. Two ways which, now that I have more time, I find really useful are cleaning and cooking. It is amazing how chores when you are busy, become pleasures when you have space. A lot of things increase in quality when you add space.

Yesterday I made BBC Good Food's Tomato Soup. Not rocket science to follow the recipe. With some music playing and lights on the Christmas Tree, it is much easier to let it be.