Puzzling It Out

I've been troubled by old, old, destructive thoughts, memories, and feelings this week. They loop inside my head. I get "stuck." My creativity suffers. My ability to do simple things like clean up or cook suffer. My ability to stay present to my surroundings suffers. Meditation becomes difficult because my brain bounces around more than usual.

So last night I pulled out a small puzzle. Sometimes putting a puzzle together can help me turn the junk in my brain around. I can, so to speak, sort out the colors, turn the shapes, put together the easy bits, then look at the details of my predicament to see if I can make them align.

I went to bed with things half figured out ... both the physical puzzle, and my jumbled thoughts.

Polygonal Tiger

Unfortunately, for the first time in many months, I awoke in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep, even after utilizing several of the techniques that usually help me do so. I got out of bed. Made a peanut butter sandwich. Warmed up some milk. Then ended up back at the jigsaw puzzle.

I was awake for at least 90 minutes in the wee small hours. As I continued to fill in the jigsaw blanks, my mind settled down. I managed to finish all of my midnight snack and three-fourths of the jigsaw, before wafting off to sleep.

This morning when I awoke, I was finally able to articulate what was feeding my anxiety. I talked it over with Dale, and came up with a plan of attack.

I like jigsaw puzzles more than I like the puzzles in my mind. They are easier to solve. I'm grateful that putting those cardboard pieces together is another technique I can lean on to help bring order and peace to my mind.