Sleepwalking Through Life

Have you ever been so exhausted that you felt asleep even while awake?

That was me at 19. Picture this: Classes at Scottsdale Community College by day, stocking shelves at Walmart by night, afternoon and evening rehearsals for As You Like It.

I was preparing the role of Rosalind, the most extensive female role in the Shakespeare canon in terms of line load and stage time.

Can you spot what was missing from this packed schedule? Sleep.

In one caffeine-pill-fueled rehearsal, the director gently gave me a note: one of my speeches was sounding “by rote”—memorized and repeated without understanding or meaning.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. In my real life, I was missing sleep. In rehearsal, I was asleep; sleepwalking through one of the most gorgeous monologues I’d ever have the privilege to speak.

Going through the motions, phoning it in, sleepwalking… this is no way to truly live.

Are there areas of your life that are rote?

What would happen if you woke up to the meaning?

I’ve devoted my days to teaching a meditation practice which facilitates awakening to both a rich inner life and a splendiferous outer life. The practice gives us deep rest, the kind that dissolves the exhaustion that comes from stress, overwhelm, and doing too much. When I catch myself living by rote, or being mentally and emotionally far away from an activity, I see it as an opportunity.

The opportunity is to choose: I can either sleepwalk my way through my days, or wake up to the splendor and banquet that is this inner and outer life co-existing, infused with layers of meaning, connection, and Oneness all at once.

Any actor can repeat memorized lines. But an actor who is awake to the meaning has an unmistakable impact.

Let us be those kinds of actors in our own lives. Awake to the beauty, the pain, the madness, but above all the pleasure of playing our parts as if we were anything other than One.

(Want to wake up to a life you love? Consider learning Vedic Meditation. Learn more here. https://www.jameyhoodmeditation.com/)