The morning after is an unpredictable time. After a night filled with dreams about meaning and possibility, I awoke before dawn and sat up in bed. What did I do? Did that really happen? The warmth of the duvet and the sweet memory of dreamtime lay a calming hand on my shoulder and brought me back into the embrace of early morning sleep. The perfect fleeting kind of sleep that you succumb to between those magical 9 minutes of the snooze button.

But no alarm other than my internal clock pushed open my eyes again. Not with music but with questions. What does this mean now? How does this affect such and such? How will you ever do blah blah blah? The thoughts were colluding to turn wakefulness into fearfulness, to take over before I had even begun this beautiful new day.

I understood. I had changed things up on my old ego yesterday. He had been settling in to his time-honored tradition of non-committal ambiguity building through contemplative complexity and fabricated tension. He was feeling like he was back in charge and I took that away from him. I gave him a hug and coaxed him back to sleep. I mean really, the sun wasn’t even up yet. That didn’t last long.

I could see that we were going to have to break the seal on the night’s ephemeral nest and go into the day. Like a puppy seeing a bag of treats, my mind started shooting out all kinds of juicy thoughts with the hopes of getting back in charge of things. Rational arguments gave way to voices feigning deep concern. Reason upon reason to change my mind even tried to use historical precedent to make its case. Though well-crafted with decades old strategy, it could not stand up to a feeling, that had also awoken.

This feeling, emergent from the depth of dreamtime, was ancient. It reverberated at a frequency harmonic to the great moments of my life, moments when I made clear choices. This feeling simply moved me to orient toward the unknown outcome as my north star. It called out a reminder that the truths emerging after a choice, are the truths that have really shaped my life.

This ancient message did not use the shock and awe approach to engagement. There were no trumpets blasting divine revelation in the face of over-intellectualized egoic incapacity and self-judgment. It was strangely gentle. It was firm yet familiar and was an offering not a demand. It was an invitation. I needed just to calm my puppy-mind and allow its voice to continue. So I put the little barking critter in a hot bath and took some deep breaths and opened my heart to listen. As the thoughts calmed and grew quieter, they gave way to memory. They gave way to possibility. They gave way to excitement of being on the leading edge of a life.

What practice can I use to stay in conversation with this ancient voice? What are the ways I can show kindness to my thoughts? How can I honor their value of discernment, but not succumb to their demands or control?