When I get an idea in bed, I write it on a sticky-note and go on to sleep. The next morning, I usually take the sticky-note downstairs and write the idea in my Morning Pages. I found an old sticky-note today, something I meant to write but for which I didn't have the time. I've got plenty of time now.

The note says:

The difference, lying in bed, between commanding "I have to get to sleep" and gently saying "It is time to rest."

I remember the feeling I had that night, lying in bed. It was late. I was tired, but my mind was racing, like it is most every night now. I looked at the clock, calculated the hours left before my alarm would sound, and told myself, "I have to get to sleep right now." I may have sworn at myself. That has been known to happen.

But then something caught me. I love when this happens. A warning light flashed in the control room of my mind. I opened my clenched eyes and let go the breath I had been holding.

"Rest," I whispered to the darkness. My wife was downstairs and the cat never listens, so I was the only audience for this. "It is time to rest," I told myself, my voice gentle and patient, as though I were talking to a child, someone I love.

I didn't fall asleep immediately. Life doesn't work that way. This isn't magic. Well, it is, but not that kind of magic. It's the kind of magic that eases the weight of anxiety by gently wafting it away.

I tend to yell at myself to change my behavior. Funny, because I had a sign in my classroom saying, No one ever changed my mind by yelling at me. The real magic was in the moment of realization that there was another way to go.

I can recycle that sticky-note now that I've written this. Although I'm tempted to stick it to the wall beside the bed, the dash of my car, the inside of my computer, or maybe just on my forehead, written backward, so I look at it every time I feverishly wash my hands and hope for the best.