"I got so sleepy when Focusing it was almost like being drugged"
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Emily writes: "A part of me came up this morning which I have met many times before: a very sleepy part. It feels exactly like the scene in Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch of the West makes Dorothy and her companions all sleepy with the field of poppies. I feel almost drugged. Do you have suggestions for dealing with this when focusing alone? When it happens, it is hard to think straight."
Dear Emily,
In my experience, it's really hard to Focus with sleepiness. So we shouldn't try!
There are two things to do, when sleepiness comes while Focusing, because sleepiness comes for two reasons.
The first reason is physical. It's late at night, or you're tired, or you're very still, and your body finds an easy pathway to sleep. (I tend to sleep when watching movies at home unless I do something with my hands, like knitting.)
So if you sense that sleepiness is coming for that reason, then sit up, rub your hands together, stretch, move, open your eyes…. even stand up! Focusing can be done very well when standing. You even have more of a sense of your whole body that way.
One woman complained to me that she always fell asleep while Focusing. I asked her more, and I found out she that her Focusing time was in bed at night, lying down! When she began to try Focusing at other times of day, sitting up, she was fine.
There's a hidden benefit here: if you have trouble sleeping, try Focusing!
The Other Reason for Sleepiness…
…is that a part of you wants to avoid what you are Focusing on.
You might be sitting up in the middle of the day, not sleepy at all in the physical sense, doing Focusing with an important issue for you… and when you get to a certain place in your Focusing process, suddenly you are so sleepy it is like you are drugged.
That is no coincidence. There is something about being right there that something in you doesn't like, or fears, or fears might be going too fast… so sleepiness comes.
Saying Hello to the sleepiness typically doesn't work. But what you can do is say Hello to "something that is sending the sleepiness."
Something in you is sending the sleepiness for some good reason. We respect that. We won't try to push past it. But we do say Hello to it, and perhaps turn toward it.
When something in me "doesn't want to go there," I respect that. I don't go there. But I also don't stop Focusing. Instead, I turn toward the part of me that doesn't want to. I sense what kind of contact IT would like from me right now. Maybe it would like to tell me something about not wanting to go too fast, or what it is worried might happen if we go farther. I welcome that.
And when I turn toward the part that is sending the sleepiness, and respect its wish that I not go further right now into the place that scares it, I stop being sleepy. And sooner or later it trusts me and lets me go further. Amazing.
