Do you spend your late evening hours eating, drinking, watching more TV than you’d like, wasting hours on the computer….? What’s your vice in the late night hours? The hour of the wolf, some have called it. This is usually a reference to the time of the night when all the “noise” or action of the day is done and we’re left with our thoughts, anxieties, disappointments……basically, what is there to be noticed in us if we’re not distracting from it.
The 1968 horror movie called Hour of the Wolf stated the following as their tagline: “The Hour of the Wolf is the hour between night and dawn. It is the hour when most people die, when sleep is deepest, when nightmares are most real. It is the hour when the sleepless are haunted by their deepest fear, when ghosts and demons are most powerful…”
That’s quite a grim statement. But let’s not forget it’s for a horror movie. But what we can take from this is the depth and intensity we expect our inner experiences to have. So much so that without even thinking about it, we’re taking part in some kind of avoidance behavior.
Avoidance behavior
Many spend their days being quite productive, interactive, engaged, etc. But when the tasks of the day are done and one is left to just “be” with oneself in an unstructered, non-task-oriented way, one can feel lost.
And many choose to take up this unstructured time with some sort of a behavior that they usually regret. Whether it’s not good for them or it’s keeping them from using their time in a more meaningful way, it’s almost always keeping them from being tuned in to their own experience.
tuning in to yourself instead
What could you be noticing in yourself if you stopped distracting? Even for just a small portion of the time. Chances are what you’d find wouldn’t be anything close to the intensity or fear the horror movie ad speaks of.
More likely, it will be an unfamiliar experience to you. Allowing yourself to stay tuned in, becoming mindful of what you’re noticing, without judgement, can be a rich experience. It may be totally new to you and unsettling in that it feels so unknown to you. You may not even know what to do with yourself when you are feeling and noticing these new, unfamiliar things. But it’s the most rewarding path to knowing yourself more deeply, discovering yourself and your potential.
Try it
Write about it
Draw about it
Talk with someone about it
And then have a wonderful, peaceful, deep sleep.
Good night.
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