Photo by João Ferreira on Unsplash
Have you ever had one of those nightmares where you think you’re awake and you try to move, but you can’t — sleep paralysis?
I’ve had a few of them.
I used to have them as a child, but the first one that I clearly remember was when I was living with a guy in my 20’s. I was asleep in bed and woke up when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I knew no one else was in the house. I tried to move, but couldn’t I was paralysed.
I could barely breathe with fear as the footsteps grew closer and closer. The handle on the door turned and the door was pushed open. Around the doorframe, a fucking clown slowly moved into view, holding me with its gaze. It was the clown from It, Pennywise, or similar. It was a clown. In my room. And I was awake and couldn’t run because I was paralysed. And it was walking towards me. I tried to move, to force myself awake and out of this nightmare and I couldn’t do it.
After having a few of these I came to realise that despite feeling the terror of having some clown, or hag or some other stuff of nightmares, walking up to me when I couldn’t move, I could wake myself up.
To wake up I had to relax. I had to let go of the fear. I needed to breathe, relax my body, let myself fall asleep again, and then I could wake up.
Have you ever tried relaxing and going back to sleep when your worst nightmare is walking up to you? Every voice in the chorus of your fear screams against it. It goes against all logic, but that’s what worked, every time. To wake up out of the nightmare I had to remember that it was a nightmare, and stop fighting it.
It doesn’t just work with nightmares either. Any sort of internal struggle stops when we stop fighting it and running away from it.
To stop feeling anxious we learn to stop listening to it.
To stop feeling insecure we see our insecurities for what they are.
To stop feeling afraid we eventually, become brave enough to walk through that fear.
To live a life of freedom, we face what’s keeping us constrained within ourselves.
We fight ourselves, by thinking that we’re not good enough, constantly changing, trying to be a better person, trying to fit in, make ourselves into what we think we should be. Doing what we think should make us happy, not what does actually make us happy. Denying ourselves what we want, who we want, how we want to live. We lie to ourselves, over and over again.
We build walls to defend ourselves and use words and actions and flawed logic to keep people at bay.
We run by not talking to whoever we want to talk to, by not expressing ourselves, by not being honest. And we run by telling ourselves stories of why it could never work, rather than stopping, breathing and finding out.
We run from our dreams and desires and bury our heads in an everyday life that slowly turns grey over time.
But, eventually, we need to stop. It takes effort to avoid so much and we can only do it for so long. Our brain grows tired of finding ways around the things that we want so dearly, because they don’t go away. They may grow quieter, but they never disappear.
And so eventually we slow down, weary of fighting and running; and we stop; and breathe, and face what’s coming our way. Then we can wake up.