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Whatcha got for me?
For the last month, I’ve been waking up between 3 and 4 a.m. every morning.
Every. Morning.
No exceptions. I’m getting a cosmic poke in the ass to do something. I’m just not sure what.
The late, great Wayne Dyer told a story about getting up and listening to what the universe has to say.
Do you find yourself regularly waking up around 3 or 4 a.m. each night? Next time this happens, remember this poem from Rumi and don’t go back to sleep.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep. ~ Rumi
These hours before dawn are when you are close to Source, and a great time of inspiration and creativity. Put your feet on the floor, get out of bed, feel the morning breeze, and listen to your inner thoughts.”
I’ve woken up in the middle of the night through a lot of years, but I never got up and listened. The thought that I need to get up and write passes through my mind every day that I wake up early.
Alarms are easy to ignore especially for people who are lazy and like to sleep. Which is me.
I can write when I get home from work (but I usually don’t). I can write on the weekends. Which I do, but isn’t productive because of my husband who likes to sit in the office with me and playing “short attention span theatre” with Youtube videos. (How’s that for a great excuse?)
Cosmic 2×4
Today, I’m listening. Today I got up. I am writing. I’m far from home on a business trip and yesterday was grueling. I was looking for at least a little extra time to sleep.
Are you happy Universe? I couldn’t ignore the invitation today, could I?
Before I went to sleep, I turned off my 4:15 alarm (which I set when I travel) and set my normal 6:00 alarm. I woke up this morning, at 3:33 (what the hell is it with 3:33 exactly? Must look that up). (yeah…haven’t done that yet and I love Woo)
3:33. My lazy ass is not getting up at 3:33. No. Nope, not going to happen.
I dozed back off…yaasss… The alarm screamed again and I thought, “Okay…6:00 a.m. … showtime…and got out of bed.
It was my 4:15 alarm. WTF?
The alarm complacently showed that it was not set but was cheerfully alarming anyway. I shut the 4:15 off and opened the clock program on my tablet. Not set. Not a single day of the week was highlighted. The alarm wasn’t even set for the time it should go off.
Again, WTF?
I laid back down, flipped the covers over me and snuggled back in. The occupant of the room above me started walking back and forth across the floor. I swear he’s wearing heavy-duty tap dancing shoes. Door slams, kids carrying on, more dancing from above.
Fine! I’m up! Coffee made. I’m up already!
I sit down at my laptop, log in and … the time flips to 4:30. On the dot. Wow.
Ok. God. I’m awake. How can I help you this fine morning?
The space between my ears remains silent.
Well, not actually silent. The voice inside my head seldom shuts up unless I’m meditating and even then it doesn’t rein in easily.
Still … silence … just the tinnitus associated with too many concerts, too many hockey games, and too much music cranked at astronomical levels while driving.
I’m beginning to feel like I’ve been stood up.
So, being that I’m awake, I guess I’ll just do a stream of consciousness.
God, the Universe, or whoever is waking me up, it would have been really nice if you’d emailed me with an itemized to-do list or gave me some kind of a reason that you thought 4:15 was a fine time for me to get up.
Next time ‘k?
So, here goes:
Stream of Consciousness
I was without a full-time job for almost a year. I swore I was not going to go back to a regular 9 to 5 job. I’d been in corporate environments for more years than I want to state (it’s over 25 though, so do the math … ).
The corporate world was always good to me, though sometimes not good for me. The company I was with decided that they no longer needed my services and laid me off last year. Booyah!!!
After about six weeks having gone out to all the lunches I could with my stay at home mom friends, after I’d had drinks with other ex-employees of the big company I worked for, after I took care of all the appointments I’d been putting off because I was too busy at work, and after cleaning my house from top to bottom, I looked around and realized that I now felt like I had to justify my existence.
Never had to do that while I was working in corporate America. My job is wheel in the mechanism to help make a profit.
I have a blog, a reason for existence. I write. I paint too (but that’s a story for another day). I could follow my muse (muses). I had time for my hobbies and interests. I didn’t have to get out of bed on cold mornings and drive into work. I had enough severance from ex-company that I really didn’t need to worry about money. My husband and I could live fine on one salary.
My plan was to monetize my blog and make enough to live on and write both for it and for me. I dove in with all my will and started making traction with it. Pageviews, comments, the engagement was climbing slowly but surely.
Then I went to the dentist, dropped in on the co-workers who had made it through the layoff and found out that the project I was working on and walked away from when I was laid off; had completely stalled. Six weeks and nothing had been done. No traction on it, nothing.
One of the vendors that I’d worked with offered me a part-time job. The project wasn’t making traction and since they were a big part of it, they were worried about getting paid. So I became a contractor to a company that contracted with the company I’d worked for.
My co-workers were glad to see me and the project started back up.
So then I was working part-time and working on my blog. The blog and the writing suffered. It wasn’t fun if I had to try to make a living out of it. The feeling of being lighter than air while I put words on “paper” was gone.
My desire to work on the blog suffered. I again had too much to do during the day to want to work on the blog at night. The weekends were filled with projects with my husband. The evenings were filled again with TV. My lazy ass was happy but the rest of me wasn’t.
After a year of struggle, because blogging and writing were no longer fun, I went back to the big company that let me go. A position for my next logical career move opened up and I jumped on it.
Writing is again a release valve and becoming fun again. There’s no pressure to monetize my blog. I don’t need to feel like the Whore of Babylon trying to sell things to my list.
“Leap and the net will appear” isn’t for everyone and that’s okay.
I’m writing again and feel like I’m flying! I’m feeling joy at where and who I am again!
I guess that’s why you woke me up at 4:15 and got my tail out of bed at 4:30 again. (but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work every morning…)
Gratitude.
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