. . . lately, so badly. Many ideas, lots of God-given inspiration and fortification in this, the latest leg of my life journey, and a lot of dreaming and hopeful anticipation as well as some trepidation about all the decision-making in my near future, yes, all of this swims in my blurry mind, like koi in a murky pond. But the glittering flashes of silver and orange don’t stay still long enough for me to articulate the detail of any one individual thought-fish, much less connect any of them to another. I believe it is because I am so very tired. It’s as if the back of my brain is a black ocean of dizzying fatigue and the waves wash forward over my consciousness perpetually, leaving no dry clarity on the sands of my cognition. My mind is darkened, slow, heavy, yet constantly swirling. I am thankful when my duties and my children cause me, even for just one moment, to get my head up out of that black ocean and into the nourishing, bright sunshine.
My biggest challenge with the fatigue is the state of mind, the attitude, the crankiness that automatically accompanies the presence of the black waves. I am not as willing to answer my childrens’ precious questions, I am not as willing to play, I am not as willing to go into depth with their school subjects, I am not as willing to prepare healthy meals. Hold on, that isn’t the right way to put it, I am willing to do all of those things, but my flesh is so weak!! Can I transform the accompanying features of my fatigue? Do I hold the power to attach kindness, mindfulness and intention to my tiredness? Am I able to still put my childrens’ needs above mine when I am this worn out? Can my sleepiness be a signal to trigger thoughtful creativity, rather than emotional reactivity in my daily dealings? (My dad recently pointed out that “creative” and “reactive” are such similar words, just move the “C.” And if we can take the time to see [C] before we react, maybe we can respond to our circumstances more creatively. Brilliant, I know.)
Current brain science says that I do have that power. It’s called Neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the power that attention exerts over the more automatic functioning of the brain. The act of choosing what we attend our thoughts to transcends our automatic brain function, and the coolest part? If we consistently make the same choice in response to a certain stimuli (in my case fatigue) our brains will actually create new pathways! They will rewire so that the thoughts or intentions we choose with our conscious attention becomes our automatic response to that stimuli! I got this info from The Mind and the Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz. Further, in How God Changes Your Brain, Newberg and Waldman state that they found that when we focus our thoughts on God, we are working in the part of our brains where compassion develops. They found conclusively that thinking about God makes one more compassionate.
I’m thinking that if I meld these ideas, if I focus on God more and more (He isn’t ever far from my thoughts already, but I could use some more intention in those thoughts), and I try to redirect my automatic response to my sleepiness to thoughts of my Lord and His attributes and taking those on myself . . . WIll it be a POOF! kind of scenario? Like, POOF! Despite my exhaustion, I’m still the mother/teacher/food preparer I want to be? Or better yet, POOF!
I’m a better mother/teacher/food preparer than I’ve ever been AND I still get to be pregnant! The funny thing is that if I simply prayed and asked the Lord to help me to be more disciplined, patient, present and creative in my responses to my kids, despite my fatigue, I think I would have pretty much covered all of the neuroscience bases, in that simple prayer! I am still thankful that God supplies me with information that I find interesting AND that declares the glory of His creation AND that inspires me in my Great Endeavor (mothering and everything that goes with it).
Well, here it is I suppose, the new post I’ve wanted to add. And it came from a murky koi pond, no less.
And a photo for the photo ones:
My camera was on 20x zoom to capture that little guy. How come his eensy-teensy body can send a clear and beautiful song out further than a camera can clearly capture him from?
And the books I mentioned:
