49 Comments
author
Jun 15·edited Jun 15Author

I owe you all an apology for ragging on y'all asking me for video essays. Even I enjoy watching me tell these stories! it really is different! damn y’all were right, my bad!!

Expand full comment

Great tips -- thanks.

Here's something I do in the morning that doesn't help me sleep but gets my day started in a good way: If I'm feeling big emotions, I try to feel them as deeply as I can for as long as I need to. After awhile they naturally diminish, and the love that is me just kind of takes over.

Also, taking naps in the afternoon, even if I don't actually sleep but just rest, seems to help me.

PS - I love your hand writing!

Expand full comment

this essay found me at a time when fever forced me to confront things about myself i had been avoiding. weirdly enough it was a psychosomatic fever related to seeing Les Miserables in person for the first time. sleep has been so hard to find lately i won’t get into the crazy shit, but your writing is wonderful and makes me believe that a better world is possible ♡

Expand full comment

Thank you so much for this

Expand full comment

God I have been in such a pervasive and shameful thought loop about pacification and responsibility and this really helped shake me out of it! Thank you so much ❤️

Expand full comment

"Did you know you never outgrow finding relics of yourself?"

Absolutely fantastic way of thinking.

Expand full comment

Another great newsletter! If we were at a coffee shop reading, you'd hear me snapping every few sentences. I love the down-to-earth, realistic tips on sleep and how you connect them to just movement work and resistance overall, especially the emphasis that doom-scrolling helps no one.

Expand full comment

This is a blessing

Thank you❤️

Expand full comment

Rock on with your bad self for taking a rest! Having finally started to recover from Covid fatigue (3+ months worth) I know how hard it is to accept your limitations and I didn't have people's livelihoods hanging on me. Do it in your own time while being kind to yourself if possible. You know, easy stuff.

Expand full comment

Holy shit this is revolutionary. Coming from a stressed college student with OCD, learning to rest has been HARD and I still have no idea what I’m doing. But I’m getting there. These are the best tips I’ve ever seen, and as an aspiring therapist, I hope I can spread them one day :) thank you

Expand full comment

Thank you <3

Expand full comment

This somehow managed to remove more of the shame I feel for using medicative thc than any therapist or health professional (or even my own words, to previous patients before I became ill) ever could.

Thank you as always, will take all the tips in stride as I take my steps a little slower - and stop when I need to, rest.

Expand full comment
Jun 16·edited Jun 16Liked by ismatu gwendolyn

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been reflecting a lot lately in my own writing on how expieriencing poverty has fundementally altared my psychology and life expierience. The part where you spoke about having a job that demands disordered sleep really moved me. I used to pull consecutive 12 hour shifts from 7-9/10 am and still to this day feel disregulated. I really love your work, It's so helpful to say these things out loud.

Expand full comment
author

word. I have a really similar experience getting chronic disordered sleep from the work toll of surviving poverty. I hope you’ve had good sleep!!!

Expand full comment
Jun 16Liked by ismatu gwendolyn

On "being read to, that shit is lovely": I have the luck, THE INMENSE LUCK to still be read to some nights. My partner and I started our relationship recomending books to eachother. We were so excited to see how the other would react to these reads, that we started rereading the recomendations together, on calls🖤✨

So when he was reading Stormlight Archive (which has a beautiful depiction of a suicidal ideation recovery journey. I've cried about it a million times, as someone on that journey as well) I read some chapters to him, and he read some chapters to me. And when I was reading Lord of the rings (I know, very much bad on race🙃. But also GORGEOUS human connections, friendships that I instantly romantizice 'cause someone has to detox of nuclear family society and A LOT of love in many shapes) he read some chapters to me, and I read some to him.

Now I see how high quality that time was for us.💖

Gotta bring that back.

Expand full comment

I know it's the smallest sentence to comment on but "love and grief are the same thing" is BEYOND true.

Researching about Palestine I found a video of a native american woman who encouraged those grieving about Palestine to realize their grief is love that has nowhere to go. I think I heard you say it later too.

Two weeks ago, on monday, my hairy brother died. A dog that had spent with me since eleven years ago, when he was 2 and I was 11. It broke me.

Later that day, I felt it. It hurt cause I love him, and I can't and couldn't do anything about it (not in this case). So I took that love and cared for my (human) brothers, for our other hairy brothers (dog and bunny), for my mom (his favorite human ever), for my partner, for all those who he loved and all those who loved him. And I ended up thankfull to feel that grief. Cause it HURTS, but I don't want to ever stop loving him, so I better start doing stuff with that love.

So yeah, that single sentance, is my favorite right now.

I love love and I love grief.

(Now I'm gonna walk Momo, I'm gonna take breakfast and I'm gonna go back to sleep cause I've been up since 5am because of migraines and I need to rest)

Love🖤

Expand full comment

Dam it's hard to stay up when listening to someone listing all the reasons you should sleep in detail. I ended up actually getting ready for bed to this essay.

Expand full comment

same, theres strong irony in hearing this at 2:30am😭 it is truly such an impactful and gorgeous essay though!!

Expand full comment