For many of us, this is not a problem—
it is entirely impossible for us to sleep in till noon!
Either the world won’t let us, or we can’t if we try.
But for others of us with both the opportunity and the ability,
it may become hard to resist.
Hitting the snooze button may start off as an occasional treat,
but may progress to habitually turning off the alarm
and sinking back into la-la land.
So…
what do we DO if it’s seriously high time for us to stop sleeping in,
but we just can’t muster the will to pull ourselves out of the sack?
Let me offer you a kick-butt method.
You won’t like it, but it works.
Like Buckley’s cough medicine – ”the taste you love to hate.”
Are you UP for it ha ha?
Let’s DO this!
Enough is enough
There comes a time in everyone’s life when we have had enough
of our own nonsense.
I have had enough of mine countless times!
You have probably heard the phrase “Physician, heal thyself.”
Well, that is exactly what I have had to do
when I am mired in the self pity of a stuck situation.
I have had to give myself a dose of my own medicine.
And what, you may ask, is my medicine?
Well, like I said, it’s like Buckley’s, in psychological form.
An original and quite unpleasant concoction—made of words.
One of my clients told me that taking my medicine was
“like eating peanut butter with ground glass in it.”
( O, yum 🙁 )
But the man took it, and made major progress in his recovery.
And I can get myself out of bed quite promptly by swallowing the stuff.
A challenging question
I call a dose of my medicine an interpretation.
An interpretation is simply a question.
One brief question, custom-designed to interpret your situation and challenge you.
You write it on an index card, and read it several times a day.
The more often the better.
You don’t answer the question. You just ASK it.
(Ideally, aloud, to yourself.)
You take whatever problem you have and acknowledge that on some level
you want to feel sorry for yourself in having this problem.
Then you ruin the fun.
You ruin the fun by asking yourself why you want it.
You may rebel here, and accuse me of blaming you for your problem.
Actually, I am doing something quite different.
I am explaining (interpreting) the problem.
I am showing you that by challenging the wish, and laughing at it,
you lift it OFF you.
You reduce your own suffering.
An example of challenging a wish
OK.
Let me give you an example of how I gave myself my own medicine.
I keep notes of these applications.
I have right here with me a note dated December 5, 2019.
I remember the time well.
I was sleeping in, avoiding my work, laying around like a beached whale.
No good reason. Just in a good old incapacitated funk.
This went on for six days.
Finally I had had enough of my own BS.
I decided to create a custom-made interpretation for myself.
I did so, and took my own medicine.
Here is the note I wrote afterward:
“Cured myself of 6 days of incapacity, by giving (mainlining) the interpretation:
“Why do I want to be a freaking failure
when I could be a successful doctor and writer?”
I gave this interpretation to myself several times before I went to bed that night,
then woke up several times in the night, mainlined it some more in the morning—
and I was fine.
Had been very weak and slow all day and during prior days.
had full strength and energy all day on Dec. 6.”
I’m telling you, that interpretation tasted terrible.
But I just kept swallowing it, and it spoiled my pity party.
I didn’t sleep in any more.
How to create an interpretation that works
Every interpretation begins with “Why do I want…”
We are challenging an unhealthy wish, so we ask: Why do I want it?
Consciously, we all want to be happy.
But unfortunately we humans have unconscious wishes that are not healthy.
Wishes to be hurt and disappointed, to suffer and feel sorry for ourselves.
These wishes sabotage our efforts toward happiness.
Most of us are unaware of them.
I learned about them in my own psychoanalysis, and I have spent many years
developing a method to deal with them via interpretations.
The purpose of an interpretation is simply to spoil our unconscious wish to suffer.
Through exposing and challenging our wish, we ruin it.
Like stuffing a banana peel down into the gas tank of a car,
that wish just isn’t going to operate the same any more.
SO, if we want to stop sleeping in till noon, which is a form of suffering
that is candy-coated with self pity, we have to spoil our own pity party.
We have to take the fun out of it by showing ourselves how ridiculous it is.
To do that, we could create an interpretation that goes something like this:
“Why do I want to lie here like a beached whale, sleeping in till noon?”
You fill in “like a____” with words tailor made for you.
Here are a few other possibilities just to get you started:
like an Egyptian mummy
like a cadaver in a medical school
like the loser of the decade
like an over-the-hill boomer
You get the idea!
Now YOU brainstorm till you find the perfect words to challenge you.
The ideal phrase will make you say OUCH!!!!
and maybe even make you tear up a little.
But it will also make you laugh.
The best interpretation is tough and funny, both!
And if you really want to play hardball,
and deal not only with sleeping in but with all kinds of other self sabotage,
just use the interpretation that kicked my butt out of bed !!!
Why do I want to be a freaking failure?
It’s all purpose.
Apply it in your daily life and you will begin to rise higher.
You will demonstrate that this ridiculous WISH is being defeated
–not you.
QUESTION:
I would love to hear the interpretation you created, and the effect it had for you.
I hope you will write and tell me.
Dr. Hall