The Sleep Dilemma
Week 100 – February 12, 2022 – A Second Post
I will admit, I am in a dilemma. Of course, inspired to write a second blog post this week because I find writing as an exceptional way for me to make sense of what is. What I find about writing is, answers emerge from the flow of text (or making text). Also, I have created another extension of my make-work contraption to access my blog via app, Bluetooth keyboard, and iPad. I put this all together so that I can continue to blog, think, and contribute to the digital community.
Blogging has ironically been my safe line to extroverting my thinking during the pandemic. The pandemic has be strangely isolating and there is always something within me that believe that I can just adapt. There are limitations to how one can adapt, but I also believe that learning takes patience and time (one of the First Peoples Principles of Learning) and learning involves exploring one’s identity (another First Peoples Principles of Learning). Learning is experiential and holistic and lots of what we learn and understand are from the land and people.
Living and introverted life as an extrovert has been challenging and my pure excitement to connect with people is evident and sometimes over the top. That said, I am learning more about being introspective and spending time doing the tough work from within, I believe that the pandemic and my #pandemicreflections has made me a better person and I hope I will continue my work on this pedagogical journey.
Now onto my dilemma… SLEEP. I have been juggling life, research, and teaching. I don’t think that my lived experience is unique, but what I am realizing is REST and PLAY are integral to my success as a researcher, writer, and educator. It has definitely served me in the past to work all hours to get things done. I would lose sleep and sacrifice my physical and mental health to achieve goals and what I think is expected of me. As a result, my spiritual health suffers and lose sight of what’s important.
This week and last… I’ve been focused on sleep. I did not do that well a couple of weeks ago. I may have went to bed at a reasonable time for 2 out of 7 nights. Last week, I went to bed at a reasonable time most nights with a couple of early mornings to get things done…. but not all things got done (like marking papers and providing feedback in a timely manner). As a result, I wondered is sleep was worth it.
I woke up this morning, as a pushed the snooze button, I CHOOSE SLEEP. And so I did. I know that sounds like an unusual request to self, but I have to take deliberate action to sleep. Although I had a pretty descent record of sleep this week (admittedly, not 8-hours per night), I still wanted (and needed) sleep. My body is tired and is asking me to do something else to make this lifestyle of academia sustainable.
What I am learning from my mentors is, follow my passion, my joy, my love. I call this MY JAM. I spoke about this many times in previous blog posts about thinking or believing that my jam was listening to other people’s jam. I love going to Circle Craft in Vancouver to listen to the artists and entrepreneurs about their product and passion. If I was honest with myself, now looking back, I think I just wanted what they had, but never knew what my jam was or would be. I had no idea.
I am beginning to understand what my jam is. I think other people can see my jam but I have to realize what my jam is. It’s becoming more evident as I am embedded in the pandemic and defining what’s important to me. It’s not about achieving and doing what others expect from me (even though that’s part of the paradigm of academia), but I am driven about to trying new things and part of my work is not only to serve students and the student learning experience, but also tell these stories as well.
Knowing this will help guide me in my dilemma. I want to sleep. There is no question. I miss it. I love it. I can’t live without it. I just read in my Google search that people of my age should be getting 7-9 hours a night of sleep to lead a healthy lifestyle. OK. I have a goal. And I do feel way better cognitively, physically, and spiritually. I’m not 100% but I will get there. I want to return back to daily walking habits. That routine has been on and off due to the weather and the demands of work. I have recently given up eating meat and I feel really good. That was a step in the right direction.
As I listen to and read more about Atomic Habits by James Clear, I am reduced to the quality of my habits and routines. Writing on a daily basis and reading regularly are other aspects I want to do and bring into my way of being. I am also delving more into my interests and shift thoughts of intentions and plans into ACTION. I just listened to a beautiful presentation by Dr. Shawn Wilson who said that Indigenous knowledge is about relationships with everything and practice LOVE IN ACTION.
I love feeling inspired and as one of my mentors and friends said to me… research is ME TIME. I really get that. What nourishes me on the inside is in service of others. I am learning and will continue to learn on how to make this happen for myself and find a balance within my dilemma between sleep and work. I feel that I am getting closer to a solution to the problem and that each step I take is in the right direction.