“Snake!” I yelled. The over-sized green mamba swung its head to look at me. No one else in the 7-11 seemed to care.
“SNAKE!!” I yelled louder, holding my left foot in the air as if I were the Karate Kid preparing my crane kick. Sure, that would take down a green mamba. Again the patrons ignore my pleas and debated Cool Ranch over Spicy Nacho Doritos.
Why was no one as freaked out about this as I was? Why was the green mamba single-mindedly focusing on me? The mamba U-turned and reared up its head. I darted its head at me, trying to strike while I batted it away with my foot. It dove again, this time connecting with my flesh.
Tap tap tap
Something sharp and cold poked my forehead, but I can’t say it’s what I expected from green mamba fangs.
Groggily, I opened an eye to see my 5 year old standing in front of my fully dressed in a pair of pepto bismol pink shorts and a turquoise blue shirt with sparkly dinosaurs all over it.
“Mmmprg. What time is it? Is your lady bug green?” (Lady bug is actually not a lady bug at all but an OK to Wake alarm clock that looks more like a little green alien than a lady bug).
“I think so. Lizzie is awake too. Can we have breakfast now?” I hear my husband stir and shift out of the bed.
Oh thank goodness. A free pass to roll over. This is unlike me. I’m generally an early bird. I prefer waking up before the sun, before the kids, and having that moment to myself to do whatever I want. It’s like starting the day with a gold star because you know you did something good for yourself.
But instead of that scenario, each night this week I go to bed jittery and alert and every morning I awake feeling as though someone squirted Elmer’s in my eyes.
Jet lag is a bitch.
My family and I flew back to Uganda last weekend from the US. It was relatively direct as far as African travel routes go, but still , there’s nothing easy about 36+ hours of travel with two little kids. Despite my efforts to shift my body to its new schedule, my brain is just not wanting to cooperate. I’ve found myself staying up into the wee hours without a single yawn urging me to bed. I end up working out at 11. Skimming through marriage therapy texts at midnight. Meal planning at 1am.
So back to this morning. My husband lured my daughter away from my bedside with promises of warmed banana bread for breakfast, and while I could have taken that opportunity to attempt to resume my dream, I didn’t.
Instead, in the words of Anna (of Frozen II fame), I did the next right thing. Which in this case was to drag my butt out of bed and jar myself out of my groggy stupor.
But how was I to function in this state? My head slowly scrolls through the information I accumulated over the years about behavioral change.
State. I need to change my state. I need to think opposite thoughts and do opposite actions.
I chugged a bunch of water. Shook my head vigorously a few times. Eighties danced around my room while unpacking one of my still unpacked suitcases. And I frankly pretended that I wasn’t nearly as exhausted as I felt.
And you know what? It kind of worked. Go figure. As it turns out, the whole Cognitive-Behavioral paradigm of changing your mental state and your behaviors as a way to change your mood played out. Thanks CBT! Secondary credit goes to Alfred Adler for his ‘Act as if’ mantra.
While I was proud of myself for not caving to the sleep fairies, I won’t pretend that I felt like my toddler the other day after she lapped down her first DumDum lollipop (Flavor: strawberry. A reward for surviving her COVID test), but I was able to get through my day without napping. And that’s what it’s all about for me. Not napping.
Kidding. What I mean to say is that making these small changes in our day may not feel like much. They may not feel like something to celebrate or even something to acknowledge. But often, progress does’t come in big swoops and leaps. More often, progress comes about through those tiny little nudges that shift the needle ever so slightly towards our own unrealized potential. So when you notice yourself challenging your own status quo, make sure to give yourself credit for it. Maybe even a gold star.
Exercise: What small progress have you made in your own life? Did you give yourself credit for it? If you can’t thinking of something, what small step could you take right now?