What a viral wellness video, an ancient Ayurvedic practice, and thirty nights of belly button rituals taught me about my mother—and my own guilt Press enter or click to view image in full size Photo by Slaapwijsheid.nl on Unsplash The wellness corner of the internet had been screaming about this for months. I stumbled across Barbara O’Neill’s video at 12AM —which, given what it was about, felt like the universe being pointedly ironic. I was awake. My mother was awake. We were both, in our different time zones, staring at ceilings that had nothing useful to offer. My mother is 83. She hasn’t had a genuinely restful night in longer than either of us can clearly remember. She falls asleep easily enough — it’s the staying asleep that defeats her. She wakes at 2am, then 4am, then gives up entirely around 5, rising into another day already exhausted before it begins. Her osteoarthritis doesn’t help. The discomfort is a quiet, persistent alarm clock her body never agreed to set.…