Imagination is a powerful tool. It’s like magic. You can learn how to use it to create peace and calm in your every-day life.
We have nightmares. Even looking at the bed and imagining sleep causes stress, despair and terror. Littles refuse to sleep. Sometimes we wake up from a nightmare and there is no way to get ourselves back into that bed, where terrible things seem to happen.
It is time for magic. A Ritual, to be precise.
(If you have experienced other kinds of rituals, please continue reading. This exercise is actually fun)
Definition of ritual: “A religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.”
To create your own ritual you combine some actions with some “magical” items.
You can find magical items by looking around and associating. Pick whatever seems to make sense to your imagination, something you can relate to either cleansing or sleep or whatever you are trying to achieve.
To chase away the spirits of nightmares we like to use ground coffee. We wave the container over the bed like it is some kind of incense. Makes perfect sense to us that nightmares flee from coffee… 😀 Find something that makes sense to you!
You can cover different senses by including sounds, smells, visual things and combine them with movements. Don’t shy away from a little improvised shamanic dance, if that is what is needed to return to sleep.
We have used “dream catchers” made of tennis rackets or laundry nets in the past. A certain perfume could cleanse your pillows (there are nice pillow sprays with a hint of calming lavender), maybe you can come up with a rhythm you can clap to chase away the monsters under your bed. Waving around with your arms, writing or drawing into the air, making some kind of noise and using magical items can all be important parts of your ritual. Do this until you feel that the air is cleared.
The more creative and the more crazy and downright silly, the better your ritual will work. If it is a long one, write it down until you have learned it by heart.
It is your bedroom.Nobody can see that you are doing weird things. But the Littles will know. They trust your magic to make things safe for them. They need the attention, they will feel cared for, they might have fun and they will be so absorbed in powerful magic, that they will forget about the nightmare more easily.
If you don’t have Littles, this is still for you. Try it. It does work small miracles.
Read more:
Negotiating Sleep (SystemWork)
(Quote from Oxford Dictionary)
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