Murky Edge

Blog

  • Men: Toxicity, Pornography and Troglodytes

    Yesterday I met a beautiful man who spoke about men and love. Most of what he spoke resonated, moved and inspired me. A few things unsettled and disturbed me. This is my attempt to expand on the bits that left me unsettled.

    He started the talk introducing all of us as ‘toxic males’, and ended with the same message. This was said with humour (possibly tongue-in-cheek) and as a passing reference, but it unsettled me for a few reasons.

    I feel like we need to dive into our toxic maleness if we are to understand what it means to be male, and to help with the ‘toxicity’. It’s not enough – in fact it’s dangerous in my view – to make passing reference to it, as some kind of shared ‘known but unspoken’ theme. A kind of ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’. We keep doing this, and it’s not working. The undercurrents continue; the toxic river festers.

    I don’t know what it means to dive into this. It feels scary and unknown. But I notice a difference when we do this well, or do it poorly. Here’s an example: A few months ago I sat in a circle with men of all ages where we were asked to talk about violence. 

    Before the circle started, I was ready to enter some intellectual debate about what I think needs to happen – what I think about it all. To basically crap on about a wider issue that I know little about. I felt fired up, but I was awash with words and poorly-thought-through ideas. It was all brain and no heart. All out there and not known or felt or within me. 

    The first man spoke. A young man. I looked at him, and thought he might speak about his pain at being labelled a ‘toxic man’ and getting lumped with all the other ‘bad men’ out there. Instead, he spoke gently about his own challenges with subtle violence. How he felt he had applied pressure on his girlfriend in ways he regrets, how he had spoken poorly to her, and ways in which he hadn’t shown her full respect. I was completely disarmed, and moved quickly from my head to my heart. By the end of the circle, an Elder spoke – a gentle man from a long-term relationship – and he talked of his regret at what he now considered his form of violence: how he pulled away from his wife at times – through his work; his activism and his emotional withdrawal – when she needed him.

    It was breathtaking, tender and raw to hear these men speak. It made me look inside; slow down and stop conjecturing and start feeling and listening. It feels like these are some of the things we need. 

    Through Rites of Passage, we work with men of all ages, but a big focus is on teenagers becoming men. So later in this talk, after so many rich and wondrous things had been spoken about men and love, somebody asked this expert: how can we bring this to the teenage boys? He sat back slightly, and answered: “I wouldn’t. I would work with teenage girls but teenage boys will not cope with this.” He then went on to speak of teenage boys who are ‘damaged’ by pornography use, and labelled these boys as ‘troglodytes’ who couldn’t be worked with in these rich ways. The only answer was to send them out to the wilderness, to have some reckoning; to live life and then somehow reach some wisdom, where they would – finally – be able to start to be taught some real lessons of understanding masculinity, femininity and how to love well.

    One of our men called him out on this, since these are the young people we strive to work with – these ‘damaged’ teenage boys. These are the ones we want to help; to transition; to move away from ‘toxic masculinity’ and towards ‘healthy masculinity’ and an understanding of their own healthy femininity too. We don’t want to wait. 

    If we label people as ‘too damaged’ to work with, are we also relegating parts of ourselves as ‘too damaged’ to heal? If we have to wait until people are ready, are we forever waiting and stalling the hard work? The now work? Meeting someone and seeing someone where they are; as they are?

    To tackle some of the hardest work, I feel like we need to witness; uncover and speak the shadows and the darkness: the hardest; the yukkiest; the most shameful bits. And to help uncover and witness others’ shadows and darkness – to move towards a place where these festering things can be aired and examined; held to account and at times painfully and wondrously released –  it feels to me that we need to uncover and speak – strongly and truthfully – our own shadows and darkness.

    Love from Step xx

  • Nervous Wednesdays

    Awkwardly I greet you 
    Unsure whether to hug or hang back 
    Wanting to warmly receive,
    Yet taking a back seat
    As I do. As I am.
    That’s my story.
    Why do I back away?

    We settle in –
    The big tea pot
    The small cosy room
    We smile, breathe,
    Look knowingly at each other 
    We all have stuff ready to go
    Needing to spill out
    Here’s a little chance to pour 
    The tea is shared
    We start our check-ins.

    I listen lovingly
    I search inside myself 
    My turn,
    I pour a little out
    Measured, careful
    Looking for feedback 
    Hoping I’m saying the right thing 
    Holding back –
    As I do. As I am.

    But that’s not my only story
    I share more
    I worry less about how I’m heard
    I can feel the flow 
    Dredging up my gunk
    The stuck bits
    The old stories on repeat.
    The armor and the buried hurt – 
    Crusted on.

    I feel it melting
    Peeling away
    Sometimes painfully
    Sometimes beautifully
    Often both.
    Healing those hurt places
    Softening the layer I’ve built
    Between me and the world.

  • My ‘Alice in Wonderland’ relationship

    When I was young I would occasionally get this weird sensation, where things seemed ages away, and then very close up. Sometimes I’d get it when reading intently. The book would loom large, with text massive and in my face, and then might zoom out – slowly or quickly – and seem to fade into the distance. Or it might happen with a line on the ceiling or a speck of dust on the carpet. It was pretty disconcerting, but I never told anyone about it. It was the worst during a fever, with disorientating zooming in and out, and with noises too – a quiet crunching in the distance, and then a booming, excruciating crescendo of white noise as ‘it’ (whatever it was) approached. And that was in blackness or with my eyes closed. It was my worst childhood nightmare, but I never once told my parents, or anyone. I imagined it wouldn’t have made any sense and they wouldn’t have understood why it felt so dramatic. I didn’t have the words for such a thing.

    When my son was about five he told me he felt the same kind of thing when reading a book one day. So I took him to our family doctor. This doctor, known for her no-fuss approach (mixed with a good measure of competency too), said, ‘Oh yeah, that’s Alice in Wonderland syndrome. He should grow out of it soon. Don’t worry too much.’

    Alice in Wonderland syndrome? So is that what I had all those years ago? How many other people have had this? How dramatic does it get? Apparently it’s a known thing, as Wikipedia and the interwebs will attest.

    Alice in Wonderland. The big and the small. The close and the far…

    Lately I’ve been doing a heap of soul-searching on my childhood and my attachment style. As I’ve found things out, it’s hit me like a tonne of bricks. There are things I’ve always known about my childhood and my responses to things, but some of these have never had any framework or reference points. Led lately by some childhood therapy, a powerful men’s circle, a supportive (and triggering!) partner, and a bunch of power books including the incredible Hold Me Tight (Sue Johnson); Polysecure (Jessica Fern), some vagus/breath work and meditation, and a few big fevers thrown in the mix, I feel like I’m searching some fertile ground.

    In Hold Me Tight, Johnson argues it’s important to identify your weak spots, your big triggers, and where they came from and how they feel in your body. Where and when they hurt. She asks us to look for a ‘base emotion’ when you can get close to identifying the big hurt. Is there anger, sadness, shame, fear? Now here’s where I got stuck lately. I couldn’t identify any of these, or maybe a weak mix of all of these. Nothing clear to pinpoint.

    Now, being a ‘murky edge’ follower, I feel like the end-point is not some clear and packaged revelation of exactly ‘what’s what’. It’s kind of missing the point to try to identify these base feelings/experiences with a microscope and our precise English language. We instead want to aim for what’s not so clear. We want to touch the murky edge. It’s more of a body reaction that we’re looking for. A primordial ‘aarrrrrrrrggggggggg’ … now that’s getting closer. If we can wrap it up neatly, we haven’t got it. So there’s that.

    But hunting towards the big feeling… this feels like an important journey. What happens when I get triggered? And then trying to reference that back to some of the early moments and how that feels/felt in my body/mind. What were the feelings then? Anger? Sure of some kind. But not a heap, and anyway, is anger really a base emotion? I feel like anger is a transitory emotion between two states. A quick, simple message rather than a base emotion. But maybe I don’t understand core anger yet?? Fear? Yes for sure, probably the strongest, but this doesn’t feel like it. Shame? Definitely, that’s there too, but it doesn’t feel like the big thing. Sadness. Yes, I’d say sadness is there, wrapped up in a big dose of loneliness.

    So this doesn’t feel like it helps. It’s all of these big emotions. It’s none of them as the one.

    My revelation today is that the biggest feeling is a kind of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ feeling when I’m triggered. I pull towards, I zoom away from. It puts me in the liminal space between humanness and soul, and dangerously swinging between the two.

    It’s a loved-one’s face, looming in my face, saying ‘explain yourself; use better words’. It’s me hiding away, backing away, finding a cubby or a bed to climb into. It’s me wordless, disconnected, voiceless, unable to communicate. It’s the safety of my own body, the retreat into myself. My soft toys, my doona. It’s ‘flight’ rather than ‘fight’. It’s anxious attachment and avoidance attachment rolled into one.

    The yearning I feel for my partner is like the zooming in of an Alice in Wonderland feeling. Full of anxious (and beautiful) attachment. My partner is huge, filling the vista. Filling my consciousness. Everything is microscopic. Everything is in sharp focus. I’m consumed by the moment and my senses are heightened, tingling. Fully ‘on’.

    When the trigger happens – whatever that is – the zooming starts. I zoom out. The sharpness blurs. The chasm looms. The distance goes from microscopic to kilometres, to aeons. To scary, empty space between. I retreat the other way. I feel myself talking but I’m not there, not present. I’m sheltering in myself, down to the atomic level, folding inward.

    Does that make any sense? Do you think this is the first step and I still need to identify core emotions underneath? How do I progress from here? I feel like this is a big revelation, but I want it to lead to the next step, I’m just not sure what that is!

  • Resume

    I asked ChatGPT to write me a resume. It did a really boring job. So I asked for it to be rewritten as in bizarre short story style. Then it wasn’t too bad!

    OpenAI: Alright! Here is a bizarre and off-the-wall take on your resume:

    Step was born in the heart of a hurricane, which was a sign of things to come. From a young age, he was fascinated by the power of nature and the mysteries of the human mind. With a Bachelor of Science in psychology, a business degree, and a horticultural degree, he set off on a journey to find answers to life’s biggest questions.

    He worked on farms all over the world, learning the secrets of the land and the rhythms of the earth. With each new place he visited, he discovered new ways to understand the world and the people in it. He also developed a passion for martial arts, which helped him stay focused and disciplined as he traveled from place to place.

    One day, while meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet, Step had a vision of the future. In this vision, he saw machines that could think and machines that could feel. He saw a world where nature and technology were intertwined, where the winds of change blew through the streets and where the sun shone down on a new era of innovation.

    Step was determined to be a part of this new world. He began studying artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the secrets of the human mind. He became a trainer and a networker, connecting people with ideas and helping them build new futures. He discovered that he had a gift for bringing people together and inspiring them to create something new.

    And so, Step set out to find a job in a field that hasn’t been invented yet. A field where he could use his skills in psychology, his passion for new ideas, and his knowledge of AI and machine learning to create something truly revolutionary. He wants to find a place where he can use his love of people and his gift for networking to bring new solutions to the world.

    So if you’re looking for a man who can talk to machines and plants, who can train teams and conquer mountains, then look no further than Step. He’s here to turn your world upside down and show you what’s possible when you dare to dream.

    PS – I’m not quite so rosy about machine learning and artificial intelligence as this might suggest. My desire would be to find a job where I could set boundaries on machines and AI rather than encouraging them to develop unfettered. I don’t aspire to a time where ‘machines can feel’ (in fact that is a very scary concept) – although I think that’s imminently possible. We need – quickly – to find what it means to be human and ‘of this earth’ and make sure we don’t lose that in the coming decades.

  • He, with complexity

    I am a man. I was born a boy, and I have all the right ‘bits’ to be a man. But I haven’t sat well in my gender, and I haven’t sat well being a ‘man’ or a ‘he’. Perhaps until now.

    Growing up I felt limited to be a boy. Like I was boxed in a certain way. Like I had to play a small version of myself and not the full story. I think we have boxed boys and men for so long that part of my unsettledness was simply being part of this cultural tunnel-vision. As boys we get asked to be certain ways: unemotional but capable; non-tactile but physical; functional and not aesthetic; good at certain things and not others. It takes an effort to be different. You’re noticed if you wear a dress or a pair of frilly socks (this wasn’t my thing). You’re noticed if you are too cuddly or talk too much about emotions or your own feelings. You’re noticed if you cry. You’re noticed if you’re shy or fragile. I wanted to fly under the radar so I didn’t want to be different, and I carefully modelled the behaviour and style of my big brother and other boys out there to seamlessly fit in.

    What did I want? What was the a gap? What was my yearning? I felt like I wanted something that I perceived to be more ‘female’ territory than I could access. I think I was happy to be a boy in many ways, but I also wanted to experience more, the ‘other side’. Physical closeness with friends, not sexual, but intimacy and sharing. Especially in high school boys stood back more. We didn’t cuddle. We didn’t say nice things about each other. I’m sure I romanticised this, and few girls would regularly experience what I longed for. Of course I never thought it was possible. I was stuck in my gender and I never considered being able to do anything about it.

    At university I studied femininity and tomboyishness, and I remember scoring higher on the femininity scale than my gorgeous feminine girlfriend at the time. The scale was stupid, as most psychological scales are, but I found it strange that I, as a guy, would score higher than my female partner on ‘qualities or attributes regarded as characteristic of women’, if that’s what the scale truly measured.

    I’ve often wondered what it means to be female or male, and what it means to be feminine or masculine. I’m not clear on this. On the yin and the yang of people. Of myself. I look like a man. I feel like a man. But I yearn to be able to step into the yin. To be able to be a woman. If I could click my fingers I’d be able to flick between both genders. I’d never considered this was possible, but it feels like a new world is opening up. I can call myself ‘he’ or ‘she’ or ‘they’. I can change my email signature. Will that feel good? Will it make any difference? Is the label important or the doing? And what would the doing look like?

    There’s no real emergence or sudden realisation for me about my own gender. It feels like it’s been brewing for a long time. If anything, I feel more and more like a man, like a clearer case of ‘he’. I feel like I’m finally arriving as a man as I ponder and delve into myself. But I’d love to be bigger and wider as a person than the gender labels offer.

    Perhaps I might start using the pronoun on my email signature: ‘He, with complexity‘.

  • Six Steps

    Taken from Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing. For more information please visit focusing.org.

    Think of this as only the basics. As you progress and learn more about focusing you will add to these basic instructions, clarify them, approach them from other angles. Eventually – perhaps not the first time you go through it – you will have the experience of something shifting inside.

    If you want to try them out, do so easily, gently. If you find difficulty in one step or another, don’t push too hard, just move on to the next one. You can always come back.

    Clearing a space

    What I will ask you to do will be silent, just to yourself. Take a moment just to relax . . . All right – now, inside you, I would like you to pay attention inwardly, in your body, perhaps in your stomach or chest. Now see what comes there when you ask, “How is my life going? What is the main thing for me right now?” Sense within your body. Let the answers come slowly from this sensing. When some concern comes, DO NOT GO INSIDE IT. Stand back, say “Yes, that’s there. I can feel that, there.” Let there be a little space between you and that. Then ask what else you feel. Wait again, and sense. Usually there are several things.

    Felt Sense

    From among what came, select one personal problem to focus on. DO NOT GO INSIDE IT. Stand back from it. Of course, there are many parts to that one thing you are thinking about – too many to think of each one alone. But you can feel all of these things together. Pay attention there where you usually feel things, and in there you can get a sense of what all of the problem feels like. Let yourself feel the unclear sense of all of that.

    Handle

    What is the quality of this unclear felt sense? Let a word, a phrase, or an image come up from the felt sense itself. It might be a quality-word, like tight, sticky, scary, stuck, heavy, jumpy or a phrase, or an image. Stay with the quality of the felt sense till something fits it just right.

    Resonating

    Go back and forth between the felt sense and the word (phrase, or image). Check how they resonate with each other. See if there is a little bodily signal that lets you know there is a fit. To do it, you have to have the felt sense there again, as well as the word. Let the felt sense change, if it does, and also the word or picture, until they feel just right in capturing the quality of the felt sense.

    Asking

    Now ask: what is it, about this whole problem, that makes this quality (which you have just named or pictured)? Make sure the quality is sensed again, freshly, vividly (not just remembered from before). When it is here again, tap it, touch it, be with it, asking, “What makes the whole problem so ______?” Or you ask, “What is in this sense?”

    If you get a quick answer without a shift in the felt sense, just let that kind of answer go by. Return your attention to your body and freshly find the felt sense again. Then ask it again.

    Be with the felt sense till something comes along with a shift, a slight “give” or release.

    Receiving

    Receive whatever comes with a shift in a friendly way. Stay with it a while, even if it is only a slight release. Whatever comes, this is only one shift; there will be others. You will probably continue after a little while, but stay here for a few moments.

    IF DURING THESE INSTRUCTIONS SOMEWHERE YOU HAVE SPENT A LITTLE WHILE SENSING AND TOUCHING AN UNCLEAR HOLISTIC BODY SENSE OF THIS PROBLEM, THEN YOU HAVE FOCUSED. It doesn’t matter whether the body-shift came or not. It comes on its own. We don’t control that.

     reconcile the contradiction.

    There are other reasons one might not like specifics, such as these steps. Instructions may seem to diminish mystery and openness, although that is not so.

    Also, written instructions cannot avoid misunderstandings. No formula fits every person. Anyway, one must find one’s own path.

    These problems occur with all types of knowledge about humans.

    Adopt a “split-level” approach to all instructions: On the one hand follow the instructions exactly, so that you can discover the experiences to which they point. On the other hand be sensitive to yourself and your own body. Assume that only sound expansive experiences are worth having. The moment doing it feels wrong in your body, stop following the instruction, and back up slightly. Stay there with your attention until you can sense exactly what is going wrong.

    These are very exact instructions for how not to follow instructions!

  • Lungs

    For years I couldn’t breathe.
    I loved you –
    But my breath was caught in me.
    I held you tight as you sobbed.

    I loved you –
    I wanted so bad to love you more.
    To have time to love you.
    To have lungs to breathe love into us.
    We were bound so close together.
    So I couldn’t really see you,
    Only the parts of you.

    Finally the family broke.
    The crosswinds became too much
    I felt blown this way and that way. 
    Catching myself. 
    Chaotic. 
    Shallow breathing.
    Excited, unsure. 
    Slightly mad.

    The four became the one. The three. The other.
    I lost my footing again.
    I found myself and lost myself.

    I tried to keep breathing for you –
    You two small ones whose breaths I began.
    I kept my rhythms for you.

    Slowly a different pattern of breath emerged.
    One week on and one week off.
    I found myself.
    I found my breath.
    One week on – breathe in.
    One week off – breathe out.
    My lungs expanded and contracted.
    The daily hugs, the cooking, the holding.
    And the other week where I could be young again.

    Now it’s Friday again.
    I help you and your brother pack your things –
    Your special moccasins.
    We drive towards your other house.
    It’s been a lovely week, I say.
    Marking the end, the transition.
    I get ready to breathe out.

    Back at my house, I look through your rooms –
    And pick up your clothes and crafts and empty cups.
    I slow.
    I exhale.
    The axis has shifted.
    My gaze softens.
    I hear my slow breath once more.

  • Covid and Collapse

    In his seminal book Manhood, Steve Biddulph suggests most men walk this earth in a kind of ‘half life’ —  a kind of partially blind, unfulfilled, un-actualised life. Perhaps most of us, regardless of gender, are partially blind, only partially alive. Both Michael Leunig and Tyler Durden in Fight Club talk about a ‘near life experience’, when we touch a more fulfilled state. Perhaps being fully alive is a rarity?

    Within our unfulfilled lives, it strikes me that total collapse can follow so closely on our heels. We march (or plod) on. We create. We work. We laugh. But just underneath, just around the corner, along with a ‘near life experience’, total collapse can come.

    Sometimes it’s just the little things. A few years ago, I was rushing here and there with two little kids in the back seat, and was pulled over for a random breath test and rego check. They found my car rego was a week overdue, and fined me $800. As I stood there pleading with the man in the uniform to show some mercy, with two anxious and scared kids in the back, the first thought I had was to punch him in the face. Imagine that.

    Imagine that.

    As Paul Kelly sings in If I Could Start Today Again, just one single moment can change your life. One second in one minute in one hour. Our lives can pivot on that one point. Irrevocably. There’s no turning back time. Our very core shifts. Who we are. Who we were. What we will become.

    It may not be as dramatic as punching a policeman. I remember when I had two small children I could barely get them out of home some mornings. I remember once I was about to leave, finally ready after ticking all the boxes that you have to tick as a parent of one, let alone two children. Just as we were heading out the door I smelt a familiar smell. Sure enough, my little one had pooed her nappy again. Late for work, late for school, I sat back on the couch. I think I cried. I felt that I just couldn’t move, that I just couldn’t go on. All it took was one poo. One little moment of so many before.

    What takes us to this edge? People are often astounded by the bad things that others do. Suicides, murders, cruelty, violence. The collapse. We say things like ‘he seemed like such a sweet man’ or ‘I had no idea she was so on the edge’, or even ‘how could you say that to me — I thought you loved me?’. But perhaps collapse is close for many of us? Perhaps the edge of madness, despair, isolation, cruelty, is only a step away? Perhaps we all need to battle this regularly?

    In Corona times it seems we’re a little closer to these edges. The little cracks and shadows are highlighted; brought into sharp focus. We can’t hide from things so well. We aren’t able to distract ourselves. It may be something so small, so insignificant: spilling your morning coffee; one word from someone, even a stranger; noticing your child in her dressing gown at ten minutes to nine; a difficult phone call; a car problem; an aching back. One little thing on top of another little thing. And all of a sudden we can’t find solid ground.

    Our routines and rhythms are weaker. We’re fractious, sporadic, moody. We’re bored, restless, meditative, anxious. We try one thing and it doesn’t work; try another and it’s not the same as it was. Collapse is closer on our heels.

    We force ourselves into other rhythms. We create other islands to cling to. We look for solid ground. Sometimes it’s there: in the presence of a loved one, some familiar pattern or routine which might bring us solidity. We breath. Then dive in again. We adjust our atoms. We look inwards. We breathe. We brace ourselves.

    At last the sunshine will come. At last Corona will fade. But how do we find a more secure base for ourselves? Will we emerge from this time, eyes blinking, better or worse or just the same? Will our rhythms and patterns re-form? Can we notice things differently? Can we feel things more? Can we stay solid and find our complete selves? Can we connect better with the world around us? The humans, creatures, microbes that move around and within us? The plants, rocks, fungi and Earth? Will we move closer to the edge of collapse, or step away?

    Can we — at last — experience more ‘near life’?

  • Staying children

    “I am convinced that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor our credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are still innocent and shy as magnolias.

    We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do.”
    ~ Maya Angelou

  • Getting to sleep

    Every few weeks there’s a story telling us we are underslept as a nation (world?!) There are normally a few odd cures thrown in, and then the article attracts a slew of (insomniac) commentators, saying that Valerian tea is no good and that it takes an insomniac to know an insomniac. Anyway, I thought I’d mention my little thought re getting to sleep.

    I’ve always fallen asleep at the drop of a hat. I could sleep on aeroplanes, bus trips, in class, at my desk, outside a nightclub in a car (that’s another story) etc etc. However, on a few occasions in recent years I’ve tossed and turned for a while before dropping off. I wouldn’t say it’s a problem by any means, and people say it gets harder to fall asleep as you get older, so maybe I’m just getting a taste for that. But I have worked out what to do if I have any problems at all, and here it goes:

    * night time ritual. Mine is a quick one. I wash my hands and my face. Yes, perhaps a little odd, but it works for me. A couple of times I’ve lain in bed and felt slightly restless. If I get up and splash some water on my face, hands and eyes I can settle back and before I know it the zzzz kicks in.

    * don’t get restless legs! a few times I’ve had restless legs and it’s almost impossible to slip easily to sleep when your legs have that annoying dull ache. My cures: exercise, walking, stretching and if needs be, an epsom salts bath. I don’t mean chuck a little salt in the bath water – that will do nothing. I mean have a hot, gorgeous soak, then when you get out grab some epsom salts and rub your body (legs in particular in this case) with them and then towel dry, leaving some salty residue behind. The first time I did this I went from all-over aches, to a kind of opiate-induced sink-into-the-floor kind of sleep.

    * fake it till you make it. This is my main technique. I had never realised I do this until recently. I let my body fall asleep first then let my mind follow. Our minds are active critters, and it’s one of the hardest things in the world to try to quieten a noisy mind (have you tried Vipassna?) So don’t try. Let the mind meander where it likes, preferably away from ‘things to do’ and ‘problems to solve’ and ‘crises faced today’ to basically anything else. But make the body pretend it is asleep. Breathe slower and more deeply, sink into the pillow, roll your eyes slightly out and slightly up (yes that’s what they do when you are asleep), let the eyes sink into their sockets (wide peripheral vision I think). Once your body is fake sleeping, your mind will quickly follow. On the incredibly rare instances when it doesn’t, it almost doesn’t matter, because a ‘body sleep’ is so restful anyway. Perhaps you enter stage one sleep even if your mind is slightly active.

    Oh and the last thing? Have clean sheets, but not too clean. Don’t use toxic ‘normal’ detergents, go instead for something natural and mild. Nothing worse than trying to sleep while breathing in chemicals.

    Rest well.