9:00AM
It happened. Somehow my body finally relaxed and I slept well. I feel so embarrassed to say that in these 35 days, last night was probably the only night that I slept well. OK, maybe two nights. Wow.
I was thinking about work yesterday and I think the challenge with thinking about work is that I’ll often come to a place where I think I’m not doing enough. That no matter how much I did during the day, it wouldn’t be enough. I discussed this before in the beginning of the book.
Yesterday, I said I wanted to emotionally connect with people. That, while I can’t control how people feel when they interact with me, I can somewhat control how I feel towards them. If not control how I feel, I can control how I act and what I say.
When I shifted my goal to focusing on connecting with people, I started to feel more free. When I focus on resolving conflict, yes, I feel motivated, but only when there’s conflict. If I don’t see conflict, then I almost feel stuck, wanting to search the world for more and more conflict, believing again, that I haven’t done enough. With connecting with others, I can almost always look back at the day and go, “Yeah, I connected with a lot of people today.”
Just yesterday, I called a good friend in Germany and wished him happy birthday. I spoke with a friend from Tanzania about troubles she was having in a relationship. I reached out to someone in Uganda who I had avoided for a while. I introduced my dad to a new game on the phone and listened to some of his thoughts on politics. I smiled at the person at the Wendy’s drive-thru. I’m sure I did more and I just can’t remember it.
Maybe it relaxes me because it’s something I do so naturally. It aligns well. Even in the part above where I recalled the different ways I connected with people, I’m sure there were more. I often don’t realize how much I do to be with people throughout the day.
This doesn’t mean I won’t focus on conflict—conflict is really me feeling less and less connected to the person. I guess focusing on the connection feels more forward-looking—more proactive, less reactive.
And overall, I think a lot of the sleepless nights (or full of sleep but low quality sleep) comes from simply not knowing what I will do the next day. What will I physically do with my body? Not having it clear in my mind, I search and search for the answer, and I believe that constant searching is what keeps the thoughts running through my head, through my throat, increasing my heart rate, tightening the neck muscles, spreading to the rest of the body, and leaving me a groggy wreck when the sun rises.
Maybe what I do is just connect with people. I reach out to people. I say hi. I listen to them. I share with them how I’m feeling. I imagine how they might be feeling. I say I love you. I say I miss you.
That sounds about right.
9:10AM
