Tag Archives: stress

The Healing Power of Stress Dreams

08 Sunday Aug 2021

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I am tired.

I am so so so so tired.

I think I’ve been tired for a long time, between stress from the pandemic, and the stress of the past few months. Almost everything major in my life has been up in the air for the past few months – job transition, divorce paperwork, refinancing my house – and I said earlier this summer that if one of those things settles down then I’d feel better. Well, I’ve left one job and started another, and the paperwork for my house has been signed. My divorce documents are working their way through a seriously backlogged court system, but effectively complete but for a Justice’s signature. But I am still very very very tired.

In times of immense transition like this, I tend to have stress dreams. They’re super awful in their own way because they are things that could conceivably and realistically – if not likely – happen. Over the years I’ve had dreams that my partner has left me, stalked me, or tried to hurt me. I’ve had dreams of loved ones dying. I’ve had dreams that my house burned down in a fire, or was destroyed by a flood. I’ve had dreams I’ve been fired from my job, or had nightmares that I was back at a toxic work environment that I only now realize still haunts me in some less than helpful ways.

And what really really really sucks, more than having these dreams in the first place?

I get one of them, wake up (usually at 2:30 AM), stay keyed up for two hours, finally get back to sleep again… only to have another one just before my alarm goes off.

The weirdest part about them is that when I wake up, I realize they aren’t true… even if they potentially could be. In their frustrating real-life yet immersive-movie ways, they bring a sense of healing. They bring out a fear or a worry or a trauma that I can’t consider in real-time because I’m so busy hyper-focusing on what’s actually going on in the moment. For whatever reason, they give a voice to those little niggling doubts that there’s something lurking under the surface. Even if there really is nothing to worry about, I’ve got a healthy-ish involuntary sieve that filters out the little worries and lets me get on with things in my real life in an actually healthy way. They’re my healers, even if they hurt in the middle of the night. Because in vary short order, what’s caused them in the first place gets dealt with in the real world, and even if it’s not the way that I would prefer, it’s never ever ever as bad as my dream was.

So tonight, I will sleep like a baby who’s just started sleeping through the night, and tomorrow I’ll be able to face the world with a little less uncertainty and a little more determination. Those niggling worries have faded, and now I can tackle the real and practical issues in my world.

I’m a Real Runner Now!

19 Monday Mar 2018

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Today is March 19. It’s the last day of winter, which has felt like it’s had a hard time making up its mediorological mind. We’ve had weeks of frigidly cold temperatures, several large dumps of snow, and weeks where the snow melts and it feels like spring is just around the corner.

Now that spring is actually around the corner – according to the calendar, at least – I can claim something I’ve wanted to for years.

I’m a real, honest to goodness, winter runner!

What made it all happen? Was it my desire – voiced every winter when I stopped running as soon as the ground froze – to run year-round? Or when I started contacting running groups to network with other runners? Was it the purchase of layers of clothes or spikes for my shoes? Was it reading the facebook statuses of friends who ran in sub-zero temperatures and desperately wanting to join them?

It was all of these things and more.

For years, I’ve run with my guide dog during the spring and summer and autumn months. For years, it’s been an incredible journey. For years, it relieved my stress and my pain – from a sudden job loss to months of job-hunting to the death of a beloved pet. One day this past January, I was waiting for a taxi (which you do in -35C) and noticed a runner on the path. I wanted to stop them and ask what they used for gear, but I was cold and tired and didn’t want to interrupt their pace. Besides, I’d already purchased pants, a face mask, shoe spikes, and a bright yellow jacket that makes me visible for blocks; I think I wanted the connection more than I wanted to swap gear stories. I’ve been unable to connect with local running groups because of their location (too far) and their speed (FAR too fast). Unfortunately, I think for me, at least right now, winter running is a solitary pursuit. I want to continually challenge my body, to fly with Jenny down the streets of my neighborhood, to feel the burn in my legs and my lungs as I pushed myself to my limits. Even on my own, I wanted the fair-weather journey to continue. I’ve been sidelined by blizzards, illness, and injury, but those can no longer stop me.

I am a winter runner!

I realized I was a winter runner just yesterday. It wasn’t my fastest winter run (a 5K in February) nor the coldest (a -20C run in January that presented tiny ice crystals on my eyebrows), but I think it was my favourite. My shoe spikes cut through the layers of ice and kept me upright. My legs burned as they forced my feet to shove aside the wet, slushy snow. My toes got soaked when the ice cracked beneath my stride and unearthed an inches-deep and very wide puddle. It was a sunny late-morning that would later give way to clouds and more snow flurries, and I felt like the sun had come out just for me, to cheer me on and push me forward. I came home with freezing toes, burning legs, and pants that were soaked halfway to my knees. Jenny shook droplets of water from her hips to her toes, ran upstairs and brought down her tug rope.

I wanted more.

So, now that I have proven to myself that Jenny and I CAN brave the cold… I refuse to allow myself any more excuses. We’re getting out there, hitting the road, and nothing can stop us!