The Voice
Sleep is healing – and beautiful.
Tucked away at my daughter’s place, I finally had a safe place to sleep the day away—except I have terrible sleep hygiene.
For as long as I can remember, whenever I took a Sunday afternoon nap, I would turn on the TV, my phone, or the radio to a program featuring someone preaching, and let myself drift off to the sound of a voice. One only needs to glance around a congregation on a Sunday morning to know that a good sermon can be wonderfully sleep-inducing.
So, when Cliff died and I found myself struggling to sleep at night, I returned to my Sunday afternoon habit—and it worked. I’d put on a boring preacher and fall asleep easily. But then, predictably, around three o’clock in the morning, I’d wake up—and a preacher would still be preaching.
Except it was rarely the same speaker I had started with. Apparently, YouTube automatically plays the next video, and the next—and so on.
One of the first nights in my new bed, I fell asleep listening to Kris Vallotton and woke up to Jordan Peterson. I have no idea how autoplay found him. I had heard of him, had even intended to hear him speak once, but I’d never sought him out or chosen to listen to him. How autoplay latched on to him, I’ll never know.
I still remember the first time I woke to the sound of his voice. It wasn’t particularly soothing, but his words were fascinating—meandering, thoughtful—perfect for drifting off again.
So even though I would never have chosen to listen to him on my own, I became addicted to his tornado of words. Perhaps it was because I found his swirling words matched my swirling mind.
“Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak, and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.” -—Jordan Peterson
Tucked away at my daughter’s place, I finally had a safe place to sleep the day away—except I have terrible sleep hygiene.
For as long as I can remember, whenever I took a Sunday afternoon nap, I would turn on the TV, my phone, or the radio to a program featuring someone preaching, and let myself drift off to the sound of a voice. One only needs to glance around a congregation on a Sunday morning to know that a good sermon can be wonderfully sleep-inducing.
So, when Cliff died and I found myself struggling to sleep at night, I returned to my Sunday afternoon habit—and it worked. I’d put on a boring preacher and fall asleep easily. But then, predictably, around three o’clock in the morning, I’d wake up—and a preacher would still be preaching.
Except it was rarely the same speaker I had started with. Apparently, YouTube automatically plays the next video, and the next—and so on.
One of the first nights in my new bed, I fell asleep listening to Kris Vallotton and woke up to Jordan Peterson. I have no idea how autoplay found him. I had heard of him, had even intended to hear him speak once, but I’d never sought him out or chosen to listen to him. How autoplay latched on to him, I’ll never know.
I still remember the first time I woke to the sound of his voice. It wasn’t particularly soothing, but his words were fascinating—meandering, thoughtful—perfect for drifting off again.
So even though I would never have chosen to listen to him on my own, I became addicted to his tornado of words. Perhaps it was because I found his swirling words matched my swirling mind.
“Life is tragic. You are tiny and flawed and ignorant and weak, and everything else is huge, complex, and overwhelming.” -—Jordan Peterson
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