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Ups and downs are totally natural and normal — just as all human being have difficult days from time to time, all human beings have difficult nights from time to time as well!
Setbacks are part of the human experience. It’s how we respond to them that matters!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you for sharing! Would you like to share any specific values you’ve identified that are important to you and might help you practice being kinder to yourself?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, Fady! Not checking the clock during the night can be one way of moving away from the struggle caused by all our efforts to control what cannot be controlled (like sleep)!
Since there’s not usually much we can do with the information that comes from knowing the time during the night, we probably don’t need to bother collecting such information anyway!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
I like to acknowledge them first and then, as part of the process of opening up to them, I see if I can tease out any important information from them.
With practice I have found that — for me — most of the time I feel anxious, my brain is trying to remind me of things that are important to me. It’s working hard, doing its job, telling me or reminding me of what matters.
For example, when anxiety shows up I start by acknowledging it — “I am feeling anxious” — and then I try to listen to what that anxiety is telling me. What is my mind trying to warn me about? How is it trying to help me?
If, for example, I am able to connect the anxiety to an argument I had with someone I care about, perhaps my brain is reminding me of the importance of that relationship, or pointing out that perhaps I didn’t speak or act in a way that reflects who I am or who I want to be during that argument.
If the anxiety comes from my brain telling me that I won’t be able to do what I had planned or that I might make a mistake, perhaps it’s reminding me of the importance of what I do, what I had planned, and the role those things play in the kind of life I want to live.
I’ve found that this process can often make it a bit easier to “appreciate” and experience difficult thoughts.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Noel!
So…with more attention on the important things in life, the worries become less prominent? I’m sort of expanding my attention away from those worries rather than focussing on diminishing them (which would take focus on them, just want I don’t want to do)?
That’s pretty much it — the less tangled up we get in trying to fight or avoid certain thoughts and feelings the less of a focus they become and the less of our energy and attention they consume.
As we focus more on doing things that matter — even in the presence of difficult thoughts and feelings — all those thoughts and feelings can start to lose their power and influence because they are no longer drawing us into an exhausting and distracting battle and they are no longer controlling our actions.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thank you all for sharing! It’s amazing how difficult we can find it to be kind to ourselves, right? It’s another one of those skills that can often be helpful to practice and develop!
For anyone reading this, please feel free to share how you are practicing being kind to yourself when going through the AWAKE exercise — it would be good to hear some more “real world” examples of this!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
My pleasure 🙂
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing! There’s so much great stuff here and what wonderful support, too!
In terms of “WWMD” (what would Martin do) 🙂 :
I think that whenever we have a decision to make, it might be helpful to ask ourselves something like this:
“Does [action] reflect who I am, who I want to be, and the life I want to live?”
If it does, great stuff!
If not, perhaps we might be getting pulled away from the life we want to live as we try to control things that our experience suggest cannot be controlled?
I hope this helps!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for sharing, Evie! What would you say you’ve learned over the past couple of weeks that might prove to be especially helpful whenever a difficult night chooses to show up again in the future?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Thanks for the great question, Irina!
I’d invite you to think back on when sleep didn’t seem like an issue in your life. Were you following a specific plan back then? If not, and you were sleeping well, what might that suggest?
It sounds as though your experience is telling you that you cannot permanently control what your mind chooses to do. That you can sometimes temporarily distract yourself through effort but that, sooner or later, your brain will do whatever it chooses to do anyway.
So, with that in mind, perhaps what might be creating a struggle that’s making things even more difficult is attempting to control what your experience tells you cannot be controlled.
If trying to fight or avoid panic or a racing mind (or anything else your mind chooses to do) is something that doesn’t work, why continue to try?
Sleep can happen regardless of what we think about. Problems tend to happen when we try to fight or avoid certain thoughts or feelings. When we try to control our uncontrollable minds.
All these attempts usually require a lot of effort and attention and can get us tangled up in a battle with our minds — and sleep is probably less likely to happen if our brain thinks we are at war!
We’ll be exploring all this in a lot more detail as the course progresses but I hope there’s something useful here in the meantime.
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
I’m not familiar with NDSR — from my understanding, it’s a form of meditation. With any activity such as meditation or yoga, how helpful they are probably depends on “why” we are doing them.
If we are doing them in an attempt to make sleep happen, protect sleep, control sleep, or get rid of certain thoughts and feelings, we might be setting ourselves up for a struggle since — for most of us — our experience tells us that none of that stuff can be directly or permanently controlled.
If we are doing them because they are enjoyable, they are aligned with our interests and values, and they help us be the person we want to be, then the last thing we want to do is remove such activities from our life in an attempt to protect or control all the stuff that goes on inside us that we cannot control (like sleep, what we think, how we feel).
The only thing that reduces sleep drive is sleep. What tends to make sleep more difficult are all our attempts to make it happen on our terms!
Is there anything useful here, Irina?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Perhaps it might be worth exploring other activities you might find more appealing to engage in before you go to bed? Not with the intent of making sleep happen, but with the intent of giving yourself the opportunity to do something interesting/enjoyable/meaningful at the end of the day?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Welcome aboard!
It makes complete sense that you have a lot a resistance to painful and difficult emotions and thoughts — not many of us have any desire to experience them!
As you’ve probably found from experience, the more we try to fight or avoid our thoughts and feelings, the more difficult they can become, the more of our attention (and energy) they can consume, and the harder it can be to live the kind of life we want to live.
It’s great to hear that you are continuing to do things that matter — they are all actions that you can control! When it comes to moving away from that resistance to certain thoughts and feelings and becoming more skilled at responding to them in a workable way, that is just as possible — and it often requires ongoing practice!
This isn’t easy and you are not alone!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
I don’t think there’s any need to set a limit — with a limit you might start putting pressure on yourself to make sleep happen within a certain amount of time!
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
Hello Fady!
You mentioned that you are implementing techniques and they serve to reduce anxiety.
I think it’s important to emphasize that none of the techniques shared in this course are intended to reduce anxiety or to change your thoughts and feelings in any way. As your own experience probably tells you, thoughts and feelings cannot be permanently controlled.
The techniques explored in this course are intended to help you move away from struggling with nighttime wakefulness and the thoughts and feelings that can come with (and after) it.
With less struggle, this difficult stuff can consume less of our energy and attention and have less power and influence over our lives. And, with less struggle we also — as a bonus — create better conditions for sleep to happen.
You said that when you wake at 2:00 AM you struggle for hours — what do you do when you wake at 2:00 AM that causes that struggle?
—If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.
The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.
