What about “numbing” to help sleep? THC or melatonin or other natural sleep aids benefit by allowing sleep which is so important. But it also creates a bit of numbing, so relaxation can happen long enough for sleep.
Georgi: It’s horrible to lose sleep and it can feel like it threatens survival itself. The use of medication of all kinds can be a support to move through times of distress. Like the natural effect of numbing or dumbing in energetic contraction, drugs like melatonin and THC can help buy time and space to work things through. They can also help break vicious cycles of suffering in which sleep deprivation can exaggerate the core area of distress. Each individual must follow the compass of their own wellbeing and inner guidance in this. No-one else can tell you what works for you!
Natural sleep aids wash through the cellular membrane much more cleanly than their synthetic substitutes, which leave debris that clogs and confuses the cells’ receptors. But do remember that anything that works in terms of outer substance, only works because the body recognizes it from substance that the body itself produces.
For example, when we truly relax, a certain biochemistry follows, with sleepiness as the body will produce melatonin precisely for the purpose of comfortable emotional processing. This hormone is not born as a black-out but as a shelter for the twilight zones of experience. We have it to support organic processing, not to help us avoid it.
However, I would always lean against it, except in cases of pure mercy, and then I would view it as a short term strategy. This is because the belief that trauma or contraction held in the body and nerve system can be ultimately avoided through taking a pill is dodgy. Often, we are avoiding a conflict with our natural instincts and emotions (sexual, rageful), and this kind of vitality is so much stronger than any drug, So the combination can mess us up.
When we recruit numbness from the outside, it interferes with our natural protective systems (our natural numbing) and the process of finding holistic regulation. It gives a temporary sense of control at the expense of a long term state of submission.
Often, we turn to sleep aids as an antidote to other habits with substance. We believe we can discipline our brain chemistry, but this vastly underrates the chemistry of the whole body which is inseparable from the brain. The avoidance of helplessness, one way or another, will release itself through the realization of the quality of pure helplessness. It is full of the bliss of relief and there are ways to get there with far less distress.
Both Melatonin and TCH interact with the reward system of the brain. This system is delicate and highly responsive and is part of what we are trying to reclaim in relation to True Nature. For example, we are learning how to trust life, even if it involves death, and to feel the reward in that, or to be at peace even when there is a war going on, and to feel the reward of that.
The ability to move through a conflict is immediately answered by this biochemistry of reward which affirms the sense of fulfillment and new resilience. This further relaxes the nerve system, making the environment of the body-mind safer and more willing to sleep, (no matter what dreams may come). When we take an external drug, we disrupt this reward cycle which can then lead to a cycle of dependency on that drug. In confusing associating the reward of sleep with an outer substance, we lose power and direction.
One principle we have on our side when navigating suffering is the reclaiming and use of our natural rhythms. Circadian rhythms – (our natural rhythms of sleep and waking) can be disrupted by socially conformed rhythms, or sleep violation (trauma in which sleep was manipulated or disturbed). When we are able to work through such trauma and associated contractions, the benefits, and blessings multiply throughout the psyche with a direct impact on physical health and wellbeing. In addition, the emotional processing that takes place in the dream states or half-sleep is to our advantage, even when it is experienced as stressful.
