body wars

**disclaimer: i have written this on 1/4 of my normal amount of sleep. so expect nonsense. if it isn't nonsense, then, hooray!

i'm in such a state of war with my body right now. but, oddly enough, not the "usual" war. food? exercise? no, no, no. right now we're fighting about sleep, energy, and, well, my well-intentioned plans.

as much as i love and value impulsivity (impulsiveness, perhaps?), i'm a born planner. it's how i'm able to workout, do yoga, write grants, publish papers, teach fitness and academic classes, attend workshops and conferences, go out with special interest clubs and friends, make dinner half of the evenings, and (sometimes) see my billy. fitting my life into my life is quite complex. so, even though billy has done a pretty good job of fostering lessons about how to fly by the seat of my pants, i still have a planner full of plans.

so, here i am, wondering what to do when my body rebels in a way it never has before. despite traveling internationally quite often, i never seem to have problems sleeping. i sleep when it's night in my current city; you know, like you're supposed to!

i don't know what happened, but even though i didn't sleep on the 27 hours of flights home, i haven't been able to sleep appropriately since returning. i arrived home late friday evening. friday night i tried sleeping, but didn't fall asleep until 930am. at 530pm, billy woke me up, suggesting that i should get up or i may not be able to sleep later. those 8 hours were the best, deepest sleep i had ever had. but, when billy woke me up from the nap, i thought i had only been asleep for 30 minutes. since i was still exhausted, i wasn't worried about sleeping later, though.

billy and i went for a run, showered, had a lovely sushi dinner, and began planning our vacation. then, i went to bed. not to sleep, but to bed.

here it is 5am, and i'm still awake. i wouldn't be very worried about this whole craziness, since it's the weekend, and i'm actually being pretty productive in work catch-up... except for the havoc this non-sleeping is having on my plans!

i changed my life around in order to get back from berlin by friday night so that i could do my second anusara yoga immersion saturday-wednesday. i've now missed the first day of the five day immersion, and am seriously worried about what is going to happen tomorrow. i'm worried about whether i'll get my immersion, i'm worried about the money i've paid for it, and i'm worried about when i would ever carve out the time to re-do this immersion if it was required (because of missing part of this one).

and, yes, i'm aware that all this worry is quite likely keeping me awake right now. i'm just not sure what to do about it. i've yoga-ed, i've breathed, hell, i've even blogged about it. (ps: amazing post-travel practice by my favorite anusara teacher: elena brower!) ...my body just isn't listening to a word i've been telling it.

it's frustrating when other people don't listen to you. but when YOU don't listen to you?! that's pretty much the most frustrating thing i've ever experienced. but here i am, living through it. breathing through it. feeling bad about not being able to keep commitments, but hoping that life (and ananda) will help me come out smiling on the other side of it.

what am i really learning, though? well, i suppose life is teaching me the lesson i hate the most: you can't plan for everything. (billy: did YOU plan this little lesson for me?! ;)

and so, as in yoga, i'm flowing. some days my body doesn't want to do a crow to headstand transition (meaning, i fall on my head, face, or shoulder when attempting it), and so, i try going to the wall or doing a different inversion. right now, my body doesn't want to sleep. so, i'm doing what i can. flowing to the next activity, trusting it will be the right one for this space/time/experience in my life.

and, scene.