Message From Elephant Seal: Sleep

Rest, renew, and repeat is the cycle of Earth and Northern Elephant Seal bids you to pay particular attention to the first R of "rest".

This individual Ambassador, Oliver, offered up this riddle: " It is so much easier to ask us (what our sleep cycles are) than to attach all sorts of electronic gizmos to our heads that measure what you want them to measure and thus leave out everything that you don't want to measure which, of course, IS everything."

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23970-sleep-deprivation
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/elephant-seals-take-extreme-power-naps-in-the-open-ocean-180982035/

Transcript

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I'm Lizanne Flynn. I'm a master healer who holds space for any Earthling as they reunite body and soul in their planetary experience. I am a bridge for relationships between beings of all species so that 

the heart bond becomes stronger, deeper, and more loving. I serve in the roles of animal communicator, medium, and medical intuitive, and I use the tools of shamanic journeying and soul retrieval 

to support all Earthlings in their recovery from past trauma. I'm certified as a Reiki Master Teacher and as a canine massage therapist. This is the Animals' iView podcast.

I am partial to naps these days and I always have been and I mean naps of all sizes although there is something to be said for naps that go on for too long. I know you all have seen those memes. The

ones that feature a bleary-eyed human with super bad hair peering at the camera with a caption like - "I went to sleep at 2 pm and woke up at 9 am - is it still Tuesday?" sort of thing. Because my body 

has been known to have a sleep hangover and no doubt yours has too. Where you wake up and initially your body feels refreshed and you're alert and then shortly after when you begin to move about

and become aware of a fog of sorts, a hangover where the rest of the world seems to move a bit faster than you are and there's a slightly dull headache feeling and well, it's all downhill from there.

Versus perhaps what we humans refer to as a power nap of say 15-20 minutes duration where you wake up, are surprised that you've only been asleep for 15 or 20 minutes because your body tells you

that it's refreshed and raring to go. Then again, some of that depends on how sleep-deprived your body is, and as I've said recently to a few expectant parents, there's a reason why sleep deprivation is

defined as a form of torture. Because just like food, water, and exercise, sleep perhaps is the fourth pillar of what a physical form on this planet needs to not only survive but thrive as well. From our

frenemy science on sleep- your body is left at risk for developing high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, for feeling the effects of a poorly moderate nervous system so that you're both extra sensitive

and perhaps more prone to feelings of depression. And the list goes on. With babies, having had personal experience with this, it gets better as they age from infanthood, crashes again when they 

become teenagers and with curfews, gets better when they move out, crashes again when they begin to have children of their own - well, you get the picture. And that's not to say it's just parents

who are continually sleep-deprived. I think all connected families in human experience go through cycles of sleep deprivation based on relationships with each other, with their own life and soul path

progressions, all of it. It's not at all uncommon for humans to say - Oh, I just want to come back as Cat and nap the rest of my life away! Because we are envious of such beings who seem to be so

at ease in their environment that they do sleep 23 of 24 hours a day. Just look at what they pack into that 1 hour, though! Are we doing the same?

And are we also doing the same by honoring and listening to what we may perceive as the demands of our bodies. One of the most profound messages I've ever heard from the Universe as I may

have mentioned here before was - Listen to your body and all will be well. Which, as I've said before is a fairly sweeping and rather bold statement for the Universe to make, and even more so to think

that I'd go along with it. They know me too well fortunately or unfortunately and of course, that's the whole point. For many years with the MS and perhaps you yourself with a chronic something your

body may have, I don't listen and more accurately I choose to ignore it. Humans are really good at that, right? Because we perceive that in order to stay on top of the heap, species-wise, we've got to do

more, spend more, think more - just more. This goes against the very grain of the planet Herself because it's not about the more all of the time - it's about the rest, renew, repeat. The Earth rests during

seasons where there is no more or at least that we can see because so very much is going on underground in terms of recycling that what was. The Earth renews and sets about regrowing or renewing

the cycle of production because it's part of the cycle and that is being honored - it's not the point of the whole cycle, it's part of the whole cycle. The Earth then repeats this cycle of resting after the

growth has stopped and the bodies of the beings who are at the end of the growth cycle are at rest once more and of course, this includes our bodies. Over and over again this balance and partnership

of unified seeming duality perpetuates and has for millions of years. Other species honor this cycle and - a new word for you - rematriate themselves to their Mother generation after generation. Are 

we doing the same? Or are we just focused on ourselves and the quantity/quality of more and are we ignoring the very vehicles that tell us how we are be-ing in every single moment? These days

with the MS I think I'm doing a better job at listening to my body and honoring its needs. So that if a nap feels essential and my body is becoming overly fatigued, I'll step away from my desk, head to

my easy chair, put the footrest up, gather up the blanket that's nearby, and close my eyes. You may say - well, Lizanne - my job just doesn't allow me to do that? The Animals would say - you can't

afford to burn the candle at both ends and you get to choose which end you're going to light first. Humans everywhere - myself included - have such FOMO courtesy perhaps of social media that may

cause us to keep the candle lit at both ends and again, you get to choose. Will you choose to listen to your body so that all in your world will be well? What have you got to lose?

Years ago my youngest son talked about his sleep cycle and timing so his body got enough rest and that he felt refreshed in the morning and ready to go about his day. I'm certain there were some

FOMO on his part being 20-something at the time and yet he still had the discipline to follow through with that and to his benefit. We also have the thief of joy which is the comparison and being herd

animals, we like to try to fit ourselves into certain molds of I get up at 5 to go jogging, then I'm at work by 7 not taking lunch until about 1 and often I squeeze in another workout at the end of the day

and then I might work again until midnight or so. I know that's an exaggeration perhaps and yet maybe for you, there's some truth to that, and hey, if your body communicates back and says - all is good

then that's your place. It's when we ignore the body when it says I'm under so much stress and while you think the extra workout is helping it's not because it's too close to when I'm winding down for

the day and so aaaggghhh! That's perhaps what your body sounds like when it's screaming. And even when the body screams at us we give it the message that something is "wrong" and needs to be

"fixed". I have yet to work with an Animal who reports that a - they feel terrible about something that's "wrong" with their body and b - even in the cases of terminal illness, that they want it above all

to be "fixed". They have such a wonderful relationship with their bodies and come to think of it - because they're nudging me in that direction - they know beyond a shadow of a doubt when they listen

to their bodies all is in fact, well. With everything in their experience and because every other species is listening to their bodies as well, that everything in the collective of unified duality on this

planet is also well. They see it as something so straightforward that it appears to humans to be breathtakingly simple and the focus on the first word, it does take our breath away. Because we think -

how can this "be" possible? How can one just "be" rather than do and accomplish so much? Come to think of it we usually say "Take a nap" or when asked what we were doing - "Oh I was napping" or

"I had a nap". One in the past perfect tense, right? The word "had" and the "ing" ending is the past progressive tense of "was". Even the "take" implies ownership and seems to be specific to napping

whereas we don't usually say "I took a good night's sleep" - we say "I had a good night's sleep". More accurately, the Animals say, it would resonate more to say "I followed my body to rest" in all 

cases. And maybe there's something about the lack of consciousness that we don't like because it makes us more vulnerable or so we perceive coupled with the fact that while we have knowledge 

about why sleep and rest are vital to the overall functioning of the body in all species, our species alone is fearful about controlling the body's need for the rest part of the cycle. 

Among other Animal species Elephants used to be believed - keyword - to be the penultimate champion of not needing sleep in that their bodies can survive on about 2 hours of sleep, Koala on the

other end needs about 20, we've talked about the Cat need for 23 and our own species is survivable on about 7 hrs of sleep per 24-hour cycle. In a unique non-coincidence, it is the northern Elephant 

Seal who

can also get by on about 2 hours of sleep deep under the ocean which when contrasted with how much they sleep on land up to 10 hours a day is really significant. And they spend about 7 months out

of each year at sea so these super deep REM sleep cycles where they sink to as low as 2500 ft under the ocean and stay that way in naps that last as short as 10 minutes before they surface for

air. And then sink again into what the NY Times article title referred to as "power naps". I'm fairly certain there are no nap hangovers among the bunch although maybe like you and I and speaking only

for myself - they occasionally wake themselves up mid-snore! While they're out at sea feeding themselves they are of course prey to Shark and Orca and don't have the ability to have unihemispheric

sleep like Dolphin or Seal does. Where one half of their brain sleeps while the other half stays awake and on the lookout for the aforementioned predators. Elephant Seals sleep like we do where the

whole brain isn't available to their 3rd dimension and what science would say is shutting the brain down completely. It does make me wonder what kind of dreams do Elephant Seals have? Interesting

right?! And even more so their flexibility of spending over half of their time in the ocean feeding and watching out for predators on 2 hours of sleep to the other 5 months of the year on land and sleeping

on average a bit over 10 hours per day. Where, having fed themselves their primary objective switches to mating, molting their fur, and non-coincidentally, losing up to half of their body weight. 

As the Elephant Seal starts to dive down toward the bottom of the ocean, at some point they stop swimming and their bodies start to glide and where their brain activity starts to slow. Researchers

attached noninvasive monitors to the heads of the Elephant Seal and collected data over a period of 5 days to get a sense of what their sleeping habits were. And yes, as Elephant Seal comes up to the

surface, its prodigious pro-BOS-kis - meaning big nose is what I see first along with two luminous eyes. They wink and me and turn over to offer me a flipper handshake and introduce themselves as

Oliver. Fair enough! Oliver says - "you're right, of course, it is so much easier to ask us than to attach all sorts of electronic gizmos to our heads that measure what you want them to measure and thus

leaving out everything that you don't want to measure which of course, is everything." I'm thinking Oliver means energy and he nods his head in agreement. Overall his energy feels a bit sleepy

as if he'd just woken up from a rather deep REM sleep and in his energetic scan of my own body makes note of its fatigue, the MS, and grumbles at a bit that my discipline is lacking. Leave it to an Animal

to call it as they see it - true enough, Oliver - true enough. And yet there's no animosity with his information, only compassion for my journey on the planet as he knows I hold with compassion his own

journey within me. He continues "Each species must follow their specific design" and alludes to my "form follows function" perspective for the design of species' bodies on Earth. "Some of us need to

sleep more and hunt at night, some of us need smaller amounts of deep restorative sleep, and others of us can be woken from a seemingly deep sleep by the crinkle of a cheese wrapper!" He chuckles

to himself and I grin with him as he's referring, of course, to Dog. He uses Dog because he knows that's a physical form with which most humans are familiar and comfortable and naturally, humor would

be his mode of communication because he knows that works well with us. Oliver continues "Your species is chronically sleep deprived and those that need sleep the most may very well be those who 

are charged with the most important task of all - care of other bodies." He's referring to doctors, nurses, first-line responders, and the like as well as new parents. And with the latter, it varies so

widely across the world about which countries are cognizant of the need for the rest, renew, and repeat the cycle for new parents, and within this country, the lack of parental leave is also based on 

privilege and affected by your socio-economic status. Like other species, he cannot reconcile how we treat each other and how we have such disparate lists of options for our needs. "No Elephant

Seal would ever say to another Elephant Seal "You've had enough sleep, I need more than you and you don't get to have the sleep time on the shore that I do." He continues - "all physical forms are

considered to be the same, in a sense, and are to be guided by the instruction manual of the body that rests deep within every cell of that form. To go against that is simply" - and he pauses for a 

moment, looking at me mournfully - "madness". Oliver then reaches up his flipper once more and sinks slowly from my sight. I'm left with a pungent mix of seaweed, fish, and curiously enough a feeling

of relaxation. So that I might become more disciplined and follow my own body's need for naps, consistent bedtime, and better sleep habits as my physical form dictates. He's right, you know, this

Animal Ambassador of Elephant Seal - to not sleep in any way we can including naps seems folly to all other species. And rather than deny ourselves what we think is a luxury in a given moment may

just lead us closer to all being well. To quote from Shakespeare - Not poppy, nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou owest yesterday. And at least, that's how Elephant Seal and Shakespeare see it. 

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Tune in in two weeks' time where I'll talk about the energy of Crystals and their need, not their demand really, to be understood and why the energetic size of them, does not really fit all. 

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