My cats Moo and Q  have been driving me crazy at night ever since I got back from Sedona. Actually, it’s been for longer than that, but maybe the 10 days of blissfully uninterrupted sleep has made me notice how annoying it is to be woken several times a night by a cat meowing at my door.

The problem developed when they were wee little kittens.

They were way too crazy at night to sleep with when they were little. Not only would they get into everything in the room and make lots of noise, but they also would attack toes and faces while we slept, so they were always eventually kicked out of the bedroom when we went to sleep.

When I inevitably woke up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, Q would be waiting for me by the door. She’d be adorably affectionate, purring and rubbing against my legs. She’d even follow me into the bathroom and try to jump on my lap for cuddles. Since she’s not an overly cuddly cat during the day, I was suckered in by the show of affection. I would pet her and tell her I loved her and probably said a lot of really dumb things.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was being woken by her teeny tiny meows that were barely audible. As a kitten, she barely squeeked. Someday, probably when she was a teenager, she found her voice and her meows were now loud enough to jolt me out of my dreams. At this point, I found it far less cute, but I was still too much of a softy to punish her. I would just tell her to stop. Sometimes I would chase her. Sometimes I would spray her with water, but nothing seemed to deter her.

I’m pretty sure she would put her face right down into the crack of the door and HOWL!

Unfortunately for women every where. A cat’s meow sounds a lot like a baby’s cry. They manipulate our weakness for poor helpless infants. Sadly, many men seem immune to the sound.

I could hear these meows right though my ear plugs and white noise machine. Sometimes it got so bad that I would hear phantom meowing while I was trying to fall asleep.
On Friday night, she got me up 6 times. Sadly, I just couldn’t really get mad at her (I told you, I’m a sucker). She just wants to be with me and the only reason she can’t is because her brother meows if he’s in the room while we’re trying to fall asleep.

That’s right. One meows when he’s in the room with us. The other meows when she’s outside it.

GAH! Silly part Siamese cats. Sometimes I wished I didn’t love them so much and I wasn’t such a pacifist, because I felt like doing them harm would feel so good!!!!

You can see I was getting a little desperate.

A turning point happened the other day when I read the phrase “What we resist persists” and something clicked.

I realized that in many ways I was resisting them being in the room out of  sheer stubbornness. I wanted to know what might happen if I decided to welcome them into to room instead, shifting my perspective.

I also realized that I had been begging them to ‘Stop meowing!’  In my sleep deprived haze, I forgot the primary rule of manifestation. State what you intend to create in the positive, not the negative.The universal laws of manifesting work like computer programing. You can’t tell a computer not to do something. You can only tell it to do something.

When I commanded “Stop meowing!”, all it and they (and the universe) heard was “Meowing!”

I changed my language to the positive desired outcome.

” Be quiet, kitties and you’ll get to stay in the bedroom!”  I may have also said please. Good manners never go out of style!

So on Saturday night,  after setting my intention to “having  quiet, undisturbed sleep” and having a small talk with my cats, I kept the door open and went to sleep.

The only time I heard a meow was when Jeremy kicked Moo.

Fair enough.

I make sounds when people kick me too.

This new arrangement has worked beautifully so far. I have hear the occasional meow, and been stepped on once or twice by a cat, but by and large I’m getting far more sleep.  I’m also shaking my head that it’s taken me 2 years to figure it out. I’ll leave you with another strange picture of my dear, sweet, strange cats.