When the Witching-Hour Grabs Me by the Throat, This is How I Respond

by | Apr 11, 2021 | Anxiety, Dying/Death, Health anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person, Parenthood transitions | 28 comments

It’s Saturday night. I feel something tighten around my throat, around my soul. I don’t name it right away, slipping into the amnesia of “everything’s fine” and forgetting to slow down enough to notice the wisdom of my body, the messengers embedded inside even the subtlest of symptoms. The body’s communication system never fails to amaze me, and I’m equally surprised by how easy it is to ignore it. With all the years of doing inner work, it’s bewildering to me that I don’t register my body cues as loudly as a screaming child. But I know why. I know that we’ve all been raised in a disconnected cultured, one that prizes the head and mind and intellectual cues far over the body’s. I don’t berate myself, but feel wonder and curiosity at this phenomenon.

Before I go to sleep I do my regular bedtime ritual: Gazing out at the apple tree in our yard who stands majestic and steady, full of reliable comfort and ineffable guidance. I look up at the night sky, the blackest black patterned with shimmery silver stars. I raise my arms above my head, breathing deeply and imagining that the dark and the stars and the tree are entering my palms and traveling down my arms and torso, into my belly, down my legs and into the soles of my feet. An elixir of stars. A potion of apple-blossoms not yet budding on the trees. A bowl of delicious darkness. Invisible mothers surrounding me, holding me, guiding me into sleep.

But somewhere between 3am and 3:30am I awake. I can feel that I’m not going to fall back asleep; a pulsing energy, a subtle vibration sends electrical currents up and down my limbs. I get out of bed quietly so as not to wake up my husband and go downstairs. Cat greets me, fellow creature of the night, blinking up at her human mother and perhaps wondering about this intrusion on her sacred sleep.

Again, I gaze into the darkness. But this time I don’t feel comfort. A small river of worry enters my system, that familiar intergenerational habit that has been handed down through the generations of mothers and says, “If I worry enough I can prevent bad things from happening, and if I let go of worry and choose trust, I’m tempting fate.” Here’s what my witching hour worries sounded like that night:

Our older son, our younger son, flying, oh no, school anxiety, social anxiety, loneliness, friendship, math stress, covid stress, birthday approaching, turning 12, turning 17, no rituals, is my throat scratchy?, do I have covid?, my nose feel weird…

…and so on.

The thing about the worries that arise at the witching hour is that they all feel so real. Of course, all worries and intrusive thoughts feel real; that’s what makes them challenging to deal with. But there’s a particular conviction that arrives in the middle of the night, at least for me, bolstered by the telltale and classic anxiety thought, “If it’s coming in the middle of the night it must be stemming from my intuition/unconscious, which means I’m probably tapping into something true. Maybe my son shouldn’t fly tomorrow! Maybe I’m having a premonition!”

Most nights, however, I’m able to catch the thoughts by the tail and channel them in another direction. Instead of indulging the thoughts, I tiptoe back into bed and drop into another space: the space below thoughts, and even below feelings. The space of soul with imagination at the helm of the inner ship. This is what I imagined:

I send my worried like boats down the creek. I place each worry on a leaf-boat and imagine it surrounded by light and the wisdom of ancestors who sing and dance on the banks. An owl hoots, and a mate returns the call. My worries are held in the web of nature that resides only in trust. One by one, I watch my worries float downstream, held and guided, until at last I sink back into sleep.

I’ve shared in several posts, including this one that I wrote over eleven years ago just before our younger son turned one, that worry is the work of motherhood. If we’re to be sane at all as parents, we must actively work with worry, otherwise it will do a workover on us daily. Like all manifestations of anxiety, working with worry is a practice, and when we hone the practice over time – hundreds and hundreds of choice-points when we name the habitual response and send our minds and souls down another pathway – we can come back to center more quickly.

Worry is, fundamentally, a misguided attempt to control the future. The worry-brain believes that if it worries enough it will prevent bad things from happening. It’s one of those mind-glitches that feels true because we’ve indulged it thousands of times, but it’s not true. The hard truth is that we have control over very little in life, and we certainly can’t control the future. I hate this part of life more than anything else, but when we love deeply we risk deeply, for embedded in loving is the possibility of loss. And, at the core, this is what we’re trying to control and protect against: the fact that we can lose the people and creatures we love most in the world. In my opinion, it’s a highly faulty plan. But it’s what it is.

So we choose: to jump on the worry-train and reinforce the faulty belief that worry is keeping our loved ones safe OR to send worry along the riverways and into the stars, to recognize that at the core of worry is the magnificent love we carry for others and life itself, and that when we can tap into the depth of that love the tears arrive, and the gratitude, and the joy. Imagination, prayer, poetry, gratitude, nature: these are all expressions of love, and one thing we know for sure is that love is stronger than fear. I can choose to dwell in fear or I can choose to dwell in love. I choose love.

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28 Comments

  1. Sheryl,

    Thank you, as always, for your warm, cozy, words of wisdom. I found myself awake last night in tears amid a nightmare that my partner was mad at me but was instantly comforted by my kind, wise, inner self, that that moment was just a flare-up from my subconscious that something else inside me needed attention (as well as my partner sleeping peacefully next to me) – reality is sometimes the sweetest medicine. I am in the middle of a couple of life transitions (work & wedding/engagement time!), so that dream was enough of an explanation that some journaling is super necessary, and I will be using your post as inspiration.

    Thank you again. <3

    Reply
    • A beautiful reflection, and I hear your loving inner parent solid and clear at the helm of your inner ship! Sending blessings as you transition through work and wedding, and YES to the cue that some journaling is necessary :).

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  2. Whenever I am going through a life transition the 3am wake up calls pay me a visit. Not nearly as intense as they once were around getting married and having babies, but they still happen. I am generally a worrier by nature but have worked hard for many years to essentially dismantle and rebuild the systems that I relied on growing up… Trying to worry my way out of situations.

    I can relate as to how the worries feel so real in the middle of the night. Somehow I fall back asleep and can usually see the worry with more clarity when I wake up in the morning. Thank you for bringing this to the light and sharing another tool for the toolkit.

    Reply
    • Thank you, Alyssa. I, too, find that worries mellow out in the light of day.

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  3. Sheryl,

    Your work is such a cornerstone for me. I’ve been extremely anxious, sensitive, and overflowing with intrusive thoughts for as long as I can remember. Your words continually guide me to that warm, safe, place of cathartic tears that is a respite from the storm. My journey has been so, so challenging and my anxiety relentless. But I’m slowly learning a new way of being and I’m so so thankful for your guidance. ❤️

    Reply
    • I’m so glad you’re here, Julia, and that my words could be a balm of comfort and support through the sometimes rough seas of life.

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  4. Thank you so much for this post. I am at the threshold of many transitions – to recognise this has only become possible after reading your blog posts and reflecting on them quietly afterwards. So I have learnt to love myself through the worry and fear that come up again and again – that look so real and urge me incessantly to do something…the worry as a mother is most insistent and your own worries that you mentioned in this post brought a smile to my lips. As I bring attention to the love in my own heart and realise how little is in my control, I breathe deeply and send my own worries on their little boats. Thank you again.

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    • Beautiful, Sandhya. Yes, the mother-worries are both universal and painfully personal at the same time. I’ll meet you on those river-boats :). x

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  5. Sheryl- I am a “lurker” of your reflections over many years- and it always strikes me in how I decide sometimes, on instinct, to read through all of your words, and just how ineffably aligned with my own experience they are.
    Thank you for your open-hearted, vulnerable and fearless reminders of being true to our sensitive souls.

    Reply
    • Thank you, Alyce. I’m glad the words spoke to you today :). x

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  6. The other day I heard Seth Lyon say that the best way to sabotage an internal experience is to worry about it.

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  7. “””And, at the core, this is what we’re trying to control and protect against: the fact that we can lose the people and creatures we love most in the world. In my opinion, it’s a highly faulty plan. But it’s what it is. “”” Wow! This has been my fear and it comes up occasionally. The reality that any any point I can lose loved ones or my cats. This is what seems to trigger me right back into the place of thinking is life really worth it if we are meant to lose so much at any given time. What would you say is the “work” needing to be done to ACCEPT this part of life?

    Reply
    • It’s multi-pronged, Darlene, but I think at the core it’s learning to trust that we can handle grief and also growing a consistent and meaningful spiritual practice.

      Reply
  8. Thank you for yet another beautiful and intimate post. Your words are always so full of compassion, for yourself, those around you, all of us.

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    • This hits so close to home for me. 🙂 I’ve been having worry-at-night times recently — and really, probably for most of my life! It feels so good to have solidarity in this and to have you put words to it. I appreciate the term witching hour. 🙂

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      • Hi Jamie! I feel the same way. I feel most anxious at night time, when there is nothing to distract me from the thoughts.. for me, it’s hard to lean into something that I don’t feel safe “feeling.” I think there is something blocking me from finding what the true emotion behind the worry is

        Reply
  9. What a beautiful post, Sheryl. I struggle a lot with being stuck in the headspace, trying to think my way out of my problems or predict future catastrophes. I think most of us do.

    However, this weekend I finally cracked open – I cried, I shared myself vulnerably with my husband. It’s amazing how the vibrancy of life comes rushing when this happens. It’s like life going from a black and white film to color – I read poetry, wrote in my journal, and felt my creative spirit come alive again.

    Reply
    • BEAUTIFUL! This:

      “It’s amazing how the vibrancy of life comes rushing when this happens. It’s like life going from a black and white film to color – I read poetry, wrote in my journal, and felt my creative spirit come alive again.”

      It’s the magic of the vulnerable heart.

      Reply
  10. Oh I know the throat tightening so well! And the pushing away of it… I absolutely love the idea of ‘sending my worries down the river on a leaf boat, with the wisdom of my ancestors lining the banks…’ – it’s such a beautiful image and one which I shall try, the next time I find myself on the hamster wheel of thought 🙂

    Reply
  11. Like many other readers I identify myself with what you share. It’s refreshing and reassuring to know that my internal experiences are shared, that I’m not the only one that experiences this. Your posts remind me that my experience is valid, sacred and real.That there is nothing crazy or wrong with the way my emotions or worry can take over sometimes. I feel a sense of support, love and acceptance in reading these articles and comments. It reminds me that these experiences can be managed and the inner conflict and worries can be released in a loving and sacred way. Thank you for you vulnerability and allowing others to experience it with you. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Thank you for sharing your experience, Veronica. I find that there are few balms more healing than the realization that we’re not alone with our struggles. x

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      • How would you describe the difference between inner work, and ruminating? I only ask because I find myself in rumination a lot, and I think it’s partly because I feel I have inner work to do and my mind is telling me I have to “figure out” these thoughts or this anxiety. Is it accurate that the inner work needed is to let go of the “over thinking” and “over analysis”?

        Reply
  12. sheryl, I’ve been with my boyfriend from a really young age. i’ve never been on my own. i feel like i want to leave him to know what it’s like to be on my own and to know who i am out of a relationship. but i also don’t want to leave him because he’s my best friend and i wouldn’t want a life without him.
    i asked a friend for advice and they told me to leave because they married their high school sweetheart and ended up resenting them for missing out on themselves – ending in divorce. after the divorce they said that they were happier than ever because they could finally find their true selves. I feel like i want to leave , except that i don’t.
    What should I do?

    Reply
  13. How can I be sure that what I’m experiencing is really relationship anxiety?

    Reply

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