Darkest Before the Dawn

Recently my son when through a challenging time with his sleep. He began to get really clingy at bedtime and would cry the ugly cry as soon as I tried to leave the room. This on the heels of months of him being happy at bedtime and even sending hubby and I on our way with a wave.

Things kept getting worse. In my desperate attempts to get him to go to sleep, I came up with all kinds of creative solutions. I tried letting him cry for a bit, then going to him to reassure him. I sat on the floor beside his crib and sang him songs until he got quiet. I slept on the floor. I brought him to our bed. And he just kept getting trickier and trickier. He’d fall asleep – but awaken in the middle of the night. Eventually we couldn’t soothe him at any time of the night or early morning – he was slipping deeper into his challenging moment, and mommy was starting to lose her mind from her own lack of sleep and the stress of it all.

Then I decided to sit with the discomfort. I let him cry one evening without going in. I had read the books, and the blogs, and even spoken to a baby sleep consultant. I knew it wasn’t as harmful as it felt. He just needed to learn the boundary that it was bedtime and he’d see mommy in the morning. He cried and cried and cried. Then went to sleep.

Only a few nights later, his crying had not only reduced, he was waving good bye when I left, sleeping straight through the night again, and for the first time in his short life he’s sleeping later into the mornings.

I need to emphasize this part. My son has been an early riser his whole life. Always up at 5:30am, if not earlier. Sometimes going through moments when he was up at 4 or 4:30am.

So not only did my current problem of his bedtime and night time sleep improve – we’ve found ourselves on the other side of this saga in an even better spot than we were in before it.

It got me thinking. Isn’t this always the way? As life falls apart, shit hits the fan, and things just seem to be spiraling downwards into increasingly darker places and spaces…. we are actually working our way towards the Light. Towards something even better on the other side.

Like the phoenix, sometimes it all has to crash and burn first, before something extraordinary can rise from the ashes.

This is Life. It’s messy, unpredictable, and doesn’t seem to move in a linear way forwards and upwards. It’s up, down, crashes, and soars.

So if you are feeling the darkness creeping in right now, whether it’s from a worldly thing like a challenge with a toddler, or a personal thing like a battle with your inner demons, remember this:

It is always darkest before the dawn. The darker it gets – the brighter things will be on the other side.

So take a deep breath, lean into the discomfort, and may you see the Light soon, my love.

It’s coming.

If you need a hand pulling out of the darkness, book a coaching session with me. You don’t have to do it alone.