Notes on Inner Weather

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how I’m feeling — not physically, but mentally. My mental state tells me my nervous system is in flux.

I wake up at night trying to solve all of the day’s problems. My sleep is broken most days, and I’m exhausted. I notice how often my thoughts turn negative. I also notice when they don’t — the days when my thoughts are lighter, when I feel capable, when it seems like I can accomplish anything. My energy is different on those days.

I’m working toward becoming more aware of this shift. Toward cultivating a steadier, more positive inner state — not so my problems disappear, but so I can move through them during the day and allow my nervous system to rest at night. To shut off. To release. To sleep without carrying everything with me.

Learning to release — and to believe that it’s okay to let go — has been a constant challenge for me. I learned to compartmentalize problems, to wall them up in my mind. If I didn’t fully process them, they couldn’t hurt me.

It took years, and many months of traditional Chinese medicine — acupuncture and herbs — before I began to understand the cost of that approach. The ways it affected both my body and my mind.

I’m learning now. I still wake with worry some nights. I still have to talk myself around. But I’m healthier in how I meet it. I’m learning to take care of myself — and to love the person I am, without fixating on who I think I should be, or who I imagine I should have been.