If you go to any classes about the 3 Principles you will often hear people talk a lot about ‘State of Mind’ and ‘Levels of Consciousness’. What they mean is that we are all going in out of moods all the time and this effects how we see the world and our lives, and this is completely natural. So to explain ‘Levels of Consciousness’:  if you imagine a lift on the outside of a high storey building  and  on the bottom level all you can see is what’s directly in front of you, for example the grass and the trees surrounding the building. As the lift rises to different floors you begin to see more and more, so the tops of the buildings, the surrounding area etc, etc. This is similar to our state of mind. – At the bottom the lift you just see the crowded thoughts in front of you and they seem very real and very compelling. As you rise in the lift you see more and more of the bigger picture and thus gain more and more perspective, so that the thoughts from the bottom of the lift don’t seem so compelling any more. The lift can stay on a floor or move up and down.  Sometimes you can be on the bottom floor for a while maybe a few days or longer. Sometimes you can be up and down the lift at different points in the day, depending on how much you are taking your thinking seriously at any given moment.

Someone once said to me ‘lack of sleep’ is a state of mind and I really didn’t get it because to me it seemed so real that it must be an exception to the rule. Now I’m not so sure…

It’s now almost 3 months since the baby was born and he is still waking up on average about 2-3 hours a night. So I have been observing the effects the lack of sleep is having on me and it’s really interesting. Sometimes I can function completely normally and sometimes I’m a complete mess and struggle to do the most basic things without getting myself in a tiz. But is that any different to how I normally and without the lack of sleep from having a baby? I’m beginning to think not.

I am going in and out of my thinking all the time except that sometimes with lack of sleep the thinking I get myself into seems more compelling or real especially about really non-important things.

For example last week I had to take my son to school for a settling in session with the group of children in his class that he would be starting with (cos they are staggering the class start dates according to age). That day I was feeling really not with it at all and I ended up taking him at the wrong time so he was with much younger group. I didn’t realise until the day after and then I started to judge myself for it and thinking how silly I was and what would the school think of me etc etc. – In the past I would have agreed with this thinking and let it drag me down but this time even though the compulsion to go with it was there I didn’t believe it enough to let it stick around for long.

The next day I got myself in a complete pickle about choosing the design of a baby sling – I knew the one I wanted but was paralysed by procrastination because I was thinking about whether I should take what my intellect was telling me was the sensible option rather than the one I really wanted. I even had several nonsensical conversations with people about this, resulting in me changing in my order and apologising to the person I was buying it from for being indecisive and not making much sense. – Yes you could say these actions are someone suffering from nappy brain and lack of sleep but I’m not so sure.

People  who know me know I’ve always had a tendency to be let’s face it a bit shall we say scatty/spacey – one of my nicknames since school was ‘Planet Janet’ – I think that says it all! With the lack of sleep maybe I could judge myself and say I’m taking this to a new level of spaceyness but maybe it’s just how I always am. – Going in and out of my thinking and acting accordingly. – It’s just that because I’m aware I haven’t slept I have a bit more perspective on it so see it as less real and less compelling, so maybe this is a great learning opportunity as well. Maybe just maybe? After all I’ve just written this after the worst nights’ sleep or lack of it I’ve had in a long time. – Judge for yourself?