Are you a ruminator too?
I have paused mine a bit.
I’m a professional ruminator; one of the best in the field. I do my best work at night. Oh, I go to sleep just fine. It’s that wake up to use the bathroom and boom, there it is.
It can be about anything- replaying, rewording, regretting, or future tripping. You might expect with that, I would have seen the recent northern lights the rest of the world saw. Nope. Between clouds and actually sleeping, not a one—except on social media in the morning.
Today I offer a little gem that has paused my night shift job. I hesitate to bring up the whole gratitude thing with Thanksgiving ready to fling us into the holidays like a trebuchet. It can feel the gratitude thing is over commercialized, while for others it instills guilt when so much of the world suffers.
Its name is G.L.A.D. When I wake at night before the gate opens for the usual visitors I turn my mind to GLAD.
Focusing only on the last 24 hours:
G: name something I’m grateful for in the day
L: something I learned- some days its large, others miniscule
A: something I accomplished-again, inconsequential is still learning.
D: (this is my favorite) some moment of delight. One day it was being the toilet paper fairy and handing TP under the bathroom stalls because I snagged the only stall with TP. Another day it was a quick smile.
I am sure this works much like ten deep breaths or counting backwards but for me it engages my brain in something useful. Ruminating is a worthless pastime.
Some nights I’m back asleep before I get through it all. Is it foolproof? Oh no, but effective. If you give GLAD a try, let me know how it goes.
This'll teach me to wait on your posts. I just had such a night for the first time in months and could have used this trick. 😁 Grateful for you. (not sponsored)
I actually have a list of sleeping tips for this very problem. I am adding GLAD to my list. Thank you, my friend. I’m grateful for you 🙏.