Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing
how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it,
we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live.
The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only,
it's 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. The statements and
opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC.
All content is provided as is and without warranties, either express or implied.
Kelly's struggle with insomnia began after the birth of her first child. What started as one
sleepless night quickly grew into panic filled evenings and anxious days. The harder she tried
to make sleep happen through medication, supplements, holistic remedies and strict routines, the more
elusive it became. Sleep timed into an obsession and every decision seemed controlled by fear of
another difficult night. Things began to shift when Kelly discovered that her body wasn't broken,
it was the exhausting fight with insomnia that was fueling her struggle. She started to let go
of rituals, loosen her grip and give herself permission to live more freely. At first,
she worried that these changes might just be more sleep efforts in disguise. But with reflection,
she realized the difference was in her intention. Instead of chasing sleep, her actions were now
serving her life. Kelly also transformed her relationship with thoughts. Rather than identifying
with them or trying to push them away, she learned to notice them as experiences she couldn't control.
Stories and sensations that didn't have to dictate her choices. With less resistance, they lost
their power. When she became pregnant again, insomnia returned, but this time Kelly approached it
differently. Instead of getting pulled back into an endless and exhausting battle, she leaned
into acceptance. She reminded herself there was nothing she could do to force sleep and gave
herself permission to rest, watch a show, or simply allow the night to unfold. Slowly the fear
eased, her days opened up again and sleep returned on its own terms. Today, Kelly no longer measures
progress by hours of sleep, but by how little influence sleep has over her life. She's free to
live her life and sleep takes care of itself. Sleep is, once again, effortless.
Okay, Kelly, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.
The pleasure to be here, honestly. When did your sleep problems first begin and what do you feel
caused those initial issues with sleep? November 18, 2023, to be exact, was the first night that I
just woke up and I just couldn't go back to sleep. My son would have been, he was a couple of days away
from turning three months, so I had just had a baby. I had a really traumatic pregnancy. I lived in
the hospital for a month with him. He was early. I was the first time mom. There was just a lot of
factors that I just had. I had a really difficult postpartum first three months. One night, like I said,
my husband had been, we had been taking turns with the baby so that I could get some sleep,
which we'll get into later. But it was very important to me to get some sleep, like too important.
It was my turn to get some sleep and after a couple hours, I woke up and I just couldn't go back
to sleep and I just spent the rest of the night like viciously trying to get myself back to sleep,
which like everything I know now, but so clear now how much that does not work. But at the time,
it was like, yeah, I think it was midnight when I woke up and then I just spent the rest of the night
panicking. I remember like this clear as day. It was awful. And yeah, the next night was the same.
I spent the whole day panicking about sleep. Obviously very tired and I, right then and there,
all of the sleep efforts started. So hardcore. I did a million things that day leading up to like
when I was going to go to bed. That was going to help me sleep and I didn't sleep at all that night.
Not a wink. And yeah, that's where my story begins.
So were you at home at this time? Is this after you're back home from the hospital?
Yeah, we had just started getting into a pretty good routine. Like we would take turns.
One of us would have the baby for a few hours and then we'd switch. And so I was home.
He had the baby in our bedroom. And I was in the nursery like we just flip-flopped.
I was on like a little bed we had made up on the floor. And yeah, I was at home. And it was a place
that, you know, up until that point, I really looked forward to going to bed. I couldn't wait to get
in there and get my like three, four hours of sleep. And oh, yeah, I still remember it so well.
Just like the feeling of waking up and seeing the clock. And just I'd never experienced something
like that. Like maybe, and maybe I had like maybe I had to sleep issues in the past like that.
But never like with the weight of having this like newborn to take care of when the sun comes up.
So it was like actually, it was like I had a couple more hours left and then it was my turn.
So it was like I had all this pressure on myself. Like you've got to sleep. You've got to sleep.
If you don't get some sleep, like how are you going to take care of your baby?
The stakes felt higher. Was more important. So attached to sleep happening. Oh, yeah.
I was putting so much pressure on myself to sleep. Like people say, I think it's the worst advice
that you can give a new mom is to sleep when the baby sleeps. At least for me, it was the worst.
Because I put so much pressure on myself too. I come to think of it that day before I had
taken a nap. Like I probably an hour, two hour long nap, which is really not like me. I was never
a napper. But then I had the baby and it's like sleep when the baby sleeps, sleep when the baby sleeps.
So I remember my sister-in-law came over to watch my son and my first time L.A. down for a nap,
I couldn't sleep. And I was like, well, what's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? And maybe I'll
nurse him again. And that'll help my anxiety. I won't worry about him. And then I'll try again.
I kept trying and trying. And finally I did. I took an hour, two hour long nap and looking
back at that. I don't know. I wonder. I was woke up and couldn't sleep. My body had I slept for
a couple more hours and my body was like, we're going to go. But at the time, it didn't make sense to
me. I was like, I'm exhausted. I should be sleeping until the alarm wakes me up. And I think that's
another thing that contributing factor is I had a cesarean with him. And so my body was healing.
And so I was sleeping like lights out. And then I think after I had healed, it was like a little
different. Like, maybe that's just my theory. But it was something that I thought about a lot
of the time was like, now that I'm healed, like my anxiety is taking over. Like before it was like,
my body needed the rest and needed sleep. But now it was like the postpartum anxiety. It was maybe
like overriding. I don't know. I had all kinds of theories that went on for months and months.
As I got deeper and deeper into the pitch of insomnia that I was in.
We became really difficult. And no matter how hard you tried to make it happen, it didn't happen
as you wanted it to. So that was more trying, more effort. And then when you sleep, didn't respond
the way you wanted it to, that's when all the other stuff can show up, right? Like the
or the anxiety, the confusion, the difficult thoughts, the feelings. And then that just piles on
top. So it's not even only about the sleep anymore or the insomnia anymore. It's all the stuff
that comes with it. And in turn, because we quite rightly identify this as a problem that we
want to fix, it also seems to take control of so many of our actions too. Right? Our actions
start to become quite often less about things that really matter to us, doing stuff that we care
about, that we enjoy this meaningful and it becomes more about preparing for sleep, protecting
sleep, trying to avoid anxiety or thoughts about sleep, trying to change what we're thinking,
and it just, anyone, even people that aren't familiar with this process, just listen into that,
can get this sense of how it can just take over. It just becomes the number one thing,
which makes it also much more difficult. Absolutely. Anyone of my friends and family can
think back to that time in my life and would agree that I had quickly become obsessed with
sleep. Yeah. It was extremely difficult. I was all I thought about, and here I was, and I had
this new baby, and I love on, but I day in and day out was just, yeah, I was like riddled with fear
about going to bed, getting sleep, how much sleep I would get, and it just evolved. It started
like that, and then it just evolved in so many different ways of seeking solutions, but yeah,
the obsession never led up until I found you. It didn't. It makes complete sense why we would
obsess, for example, about this, or why we would really go to a lot of effort to fix it,
because we quite rightly identify it as an obstacle, as a problem, so we want to fix it.
It would be really unusual for someone to be seeing it, talking with me, being, especially
as a new mother, telling me that, yeah, sleep wasn't showing up, and I was like, hey, yeah, whatever,
I don't care. I don't need sleep. I can still be the mother I want to be, live the life I want
to live without sleep. Nobody is like that. So it makes sense. The reason why, in response to
sleep not showing up, as it always has done for you in the past, and the fact that it just
became so much more of a focus for you, I think that's human, and it makes complete sense. That was
things turned out for you, and it's a lot easier for us now looking back on that, and for you to look
back on that, and identify that, yeah, maybe it was the extra effort, the extra focus that kind of
fed into it, but at the time, it makes sense that you were giving it that effort and that focus.
It was a problem that you wanted to solve. One thing you touched upon was you said it evolved,
like this kind of new relationship that you had with sleep or being awake, and the stuff that comes
with it. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I'm in recovery from alcoholism. I'm
sober. When I first found out I was pregnant, I really wanted all natural pregnancy and birth,
and had that sort of plan, and once fast forward to the sleeping issues, I quickly went to medication.
I had a cesarean with my son, and I didn't even take painkillers. I took some Tylenol,
like I was that strict about it, and so I think that really is very telling for how desperate I was
because within days, I went to the doctor and was seeking any kind of medication they could give me,
and so that was the first evolution of me trying to solve my sleep problems and gosh,
it was medication, and they tried to give me antipressants, and I was really on the fence about
doing that. I started with some antihistamine, like anti-anxiety meds, and that briefly worked
for a little, but then of course they stopped, and so then I went down like a holistic path,
and I don't know if maybe evolution of it is not the right word, but it was just so many different
avenues that I found myself going down, and those are all, again, additional things that I would
obsess about, as opposed to being present in my life, like with my new baby, it was first,
it was medication, and then it was like the holistic path, like I had my yoga teacher come over,
and she played sound bowls for me, and did, we had all these oils, and you name it, I tried it,
and so that was my thing for a while, and I was doing weekly therapy, and all kinds of,
I had natural tinctures and stuff, and then I'd have another bad night, and it was like maybe
that's where the evolution part comes in, because it was like each time I found a little bit of a
solution, and then I had yet another bad night, it was like I would get deeper and deeper into this
place of darkness, because I just felt so doomed, like I just felt so hopeless, because it would be
like this glimmer of hope, oh the medication is working, but I knew deep down, like I really didn't
want that, and so I'm like, oh okay, it was always the holistic path for me, it was, it's my postpartum,
and all these things that I'm having issues with, that's really where the answers lie, and then
I'd have another bad night, and it was just like, like I said, just deeper, and so it started November,
December, January, February, by the time February, a couple months of this went by, like I was so like
bad off, I would say, like I was so depressed, and just so, I mean I found myself just feeling like
unable to enjoy my life really, and my son was almost six months old at that point, and of course
there were good days here and there, like there were good days here and there, where I would have
a good night of sleep, but I have a journal that I can look back on, that even on those good days,
I would journal obsessively about, okay, I had a good night, there's hope, it was just all
consuming, it was all consuming, and then again, another really bad couple of nights in February,
and I just like completely threw my hands up, and I went and saw like a regular doctor, and I asked
for like some hardcore medication for me, and that's when that started, and so that was like my
next level of, and I started taking out of hand, which for me is somebody like in the sober
community, but you don't do that, but I was like, I was desperate, and yeah, I started in February,
and it was just a roller coaster ride, the rest of the way.
I get the impression that one of your superpowers is problem-solving, you're an exome problem-solver,
you were trying a lot, you were fully committed to fixing this problem, and it's unfortunate,
the insomnia is probably the one thing that doesn't respond well to that superpower, it's like
the more attention we give it, it's like turning on a valve of oxygen for it, it just gives it
more life, it gives it more power, more influence, and it becomes more difficult, and like you
touched upon it, not only does it become a bigger focus, it gets more power and influence,
it's almost like how we might sleep from night to night, absolutely predetermines the quality of
our day, each day, so like you said, we might notice there are some good moments,
but then we're still going back to, yeah, but it would be different if I'd have got a certain amount
or a certain type of sleep, or that good moment only happened because sleep happened in a certain
way, sleep doesn't just become one part out of the million different aspects of our life, it becomes
the predominant part of our lives, absolutely, 100%, it's exhausting, even thinking about it,
it's so accepting, it's not a fun way to live at all, you'd obviously tried so much to address
this problem, when you came across my work, after you'd already tried so much, what kind of
resonated with you, what made you think this is something different I haven't tried, or this is
something that I might get value from or might be useful for me? Believe it or not, like leading up to
finding your podcast, I was actually afraid to admit that I was struggling with insomnia,
I was always labeling it as something else, like it was my postpartum anxiety, it was this, it was
that, so I had never had the courage to even search solution for insomnia, like even the doctor I
saw suggested cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, and I was no, I just need my baby to get
older and sleep through the night and then I'll sleep, so that particular day I had a series of
difficult nights and I remember I just went out in the morning and it was like rip it, like I just
threw my hands up and I like searched insomnia podcast and the first one I found was you talking
to Emily and she, it was just like, I was listening to someone talk about my life, like she, her
insomnia started after she had a baby and like she tried medication it worked for a while and it stopped
and it was just like I got goosebumps, like listening to it and I just felt like somebody was like
shaking me and was like, and I can remember her talking about the letting go and the like living
her life in spite of how her night went and I always knew deep down that one day I'm gonna have
to learn to live, like my son's never gonna stop waking me up or at least not for years and so
I was like, I just knew I was gonna have to find a way to deal with the fear of waking up
because by that point like I had a really big fear of waking up in the middle and I had all,
which is inevitable and I knew I was gonna have to learn to overcome that and yeah for me when
I heard that it just was like a light switch went off and I was like, this is it, like this is
the avenue because it's like I was always addressing symptoms before
And I knew that it was like, I knew it was this year I had.
I don't know if that's the best way to word it.
But I knew I needed to get to the root of the issue.
And yeah, I just felt like that was the answer for me.
And that opened, that just opened the flood gates.
So I like, I think I spent a couple days after that
in contemplation and then like maybe two days later,
I signed up for your course.
You just encapsulated why I'm really so grateful
for people let yourself coming on to the podcast
because the podcast wouldn't exist
without guests being willing to come on.
And it can be so reassuring, I think,
to hear that when you're struggling, you're not alone.
The what you're experiencing is really difficult
and other people are experiencing it too.
And like you said, it can be remarkable how similar
everyone's experience with the insomnia struggle is
from person to person.
And when you're trapped in that struggling,
you really think that you're alone
that something is uniquely wrong,
that your sleep system must be broken, that there's no way out.
And then you hear someone describing all the same concerns
that they had, all the things they tried that tended not to work
or didn't get them the results they wanted.
That in itself can just be so powerful.
And then to hear how these individuals move forward
and away from the struggle is just so powerful.
And like you said, it doesn't create a magical transformation,
but it gives you that sense that you're not alone,
you're not unique, you're not broken
and that there is a way out, there is a way forward,
no matter how difficult your current circumstances are
and often they are very difficult, but there is always a way out.
- I completely felt like I was alone up into that point.
I had researched people struggling with like temporary
postpartum insomnia, but I think I realized at that point
my son was a, he was a year old and I was still struggling
and I think I finally accepted, okay,
this is probably a little bit more than postpartum insomnia.
And so hearing her, yeah, I think I remember I sat down
on the stand and I just like sobbed listening
to her tell her story because I just, yeah,
I didn't know up into that point that they were other people.
And like you said, like how similar our stories were,
like I was blown away, I couldn't believe it.
And of course, I went on to listen
to almost every single podcast you've done
and in doing so, you find that it's unbelievably similar.
The qualities and the things we go through,
like most of them are onset, like by different things
or triggered by different things,
but we all seem to respond the same way,
which is just fascinating, fascinating.
- And is that response, right?
Like we touched upon earlier because it's human nature
when we identify a problem, we try and fix it.
We look for a solution.
And it's just that everything else
pretty much in life responds well to effort
and problem solving and sleep is just that outlier.
So it's so easy for us to get tripped up by that.
And then when effort and problem solving doesn't work,
then we completely understandably
get really concerned by that.
One thing you mentioned when you listen
to that initial podcast with Emily
was you come to this realization
that it was time to face the fear, was the phrase you use.
And you said that you're not sure if fear is the right word,
but what the impression that I got from
when you were talking about that was
it was about this idea of trying to reduce the power
and influence the sleep has over your life.
For example, by still doing things that are important to you
and by consequence of that, I think it also comes down
to lowering your resistance to insomnia,
lowering your effort to get rid of insomnia
to make sleep happen.
That can often be quite a scary thought
because then we can become worried
what if things get worse?
Because my sleep is like this now
and I'm trying so hard to make it happen
and it's just not happening for me.
If I now try less, then what if things get worse?
And perhaps that is often the source of the fear.
Did you identify with any of that?
- Yes.
And I do think that at that point,
I was so ready for sleep to be less important to me
that I almost like with ease,
I would say started giving up some of my sleep efforts.
So in a way, like I understand what you're saying
and it makes perfect sense.
And I think I was doing that all along in the past,
but then like once I heard her and heard her success,
like I was just so ready for sleep to be less important to me.
It was of course, yes, very scary.
The idea of like perhaps getting less sleep.
And in my case, like giving up the medication,
like there were lots of things that were very scary for me,
but I was so ready.
I just, I felt like a prisoner
and I just wanted my life back.
I looked at other people around me
who didn't go about their days talking about sleep
and thinking about sleeping.
I just wanted so badly to have that.
So yes, and now it was a bit of both.
If that makes sense, so you knew that changing your approach
would be hard, but at the same time,
you knew that what you were experiencing now
was hard as well.
But by making a change,
by making changes to your approach,
you were given the opportunity for things to change.
Absolutely.
And like I mentioned before,
like it's a part of being in recovery,
like quitting drinking is not easy.
It's the scariest thing in the world.
But I wanted my life back.
So it was like, I fell into that category for me too.
It was like, I just, I knew it wasn't going to be easy
that I was so done with living the way I was living.
Yeah, it was almost green.
I think I almost immediately started having
little bits of success,
like just by letting go of the many restrictions
that I had placed on myself up into that point.
I spent that, I spent so long doing all these little things
that you hear other people mention on their podcast.
Like I couldn't have any light in my room.
I had to be in bed by 730.
They were all these things.
I never watched TV after I put the baby to bed.
Like I never ate past like a certain time.
And so it was very freeing for me to let go of those things.
And just trust.
Like I had to start having some trust.
It was all fear before that.
Everything was just fear.
Like fear driven, fear motivated.
What I did and didn't do was driven and motivated by fear.
And in addition to the medication I was taking,
I was also like, I ritually, or every night,
I took a very specific amount of these supplements too.
So like it was a loaded like bedtime routine I had.
And like I immediately stopped taking those.
I knew they didn't work, but I was afraid.
Like I didn't want to stop
because what if it was helping me sleep that night?
But I just knew, like I finally was like, oh my gosh.
Kelly, what are you doing?
Enough.
- Even before the sleep changes,
or even before you might notice,
you're getting more sleep or sleep is changing in any way.
As soon as you start to break down those rules
and those rituals, it's just freeing, right?
You're having to do less.
And by consequence, you're also feeding me in some of your less.
You're not giving it all those supplements.
You're not giving it that action of turning off the TV.
Your actions are now serving you again,
or they're at least more likely to be serving you.
I mean, you're reducing the power and the influence
that it has over your life.
- And those things, like I say, that it was so freeing
and I did it immediately, but it was scary.
I remember one of the first nights laying on a couch
and like watching a movie.
And I was very anxious the whole time.
Like watching the clock get later and later,
but I just reminded myself like, this is just part of it.
And it's not like that now.
It was then, but it's not now.
- So you'd mentioned that one of the first things you do
was just to start identifying those rules
and rituals and just breaking them down,
giving yourself permission to do stuff
that you wanted to do without letting sleep
be the kind of main concern
or the main priority in your decisions and your actions.
As you're working through the course,
now you're able to look back.
What were the other changes that you made
that you feel particularly helpful?
- I think I mentioned before,
like I had some pretty quick success in the beginning.
So by the time I got to like week two
and a sleep window, very brief success,
like a week of success.
But for me, that was pretty monumental.
But by the time I got to week two
and the sleep window was suggested, I was like, huh.
Maybe I don't even need that.
But of course, like in time, I proved that I did.
And once I started implementing that,
it was scary and it was difficult at first.
But that became really helpful in the beginning for me.
I think like especially the getting out of bed
in the morning at the same time became helpful.
Gosh, so many aspects of the course were helpful for me.
But I also remember not checking the clock.
That was huge to gosh.
I used to like, I was crazy about how long the stretch
of sleep I was getting work and then to just remove that it was such a weight off my shoulders and
I think and that lasted for months like wanting to look at the clock like even on my difficult
nights now I still go back and forth with should I look should I not like but it's one of those
things that I remember it got easier like I had all the clocks blocked out for a while but again
like I don't do that anymore but those two things were really helpful for me so many of the
like just talks about our thoughts and like how we can't control them are still like
mantras for me in all aspects of my life like not just sleep even on just like regular bad days
and we have as humans we experience like disruptive unpleasant like thoughts and it's so helpful
for me now to be able to just be like I find myself doing it often I'm like that was an interesting
thought but I don't like like I identified with my thoughts before like I was my thoughts like I
I was this living breathing walking thought about sleep and that's all I was like and so like the
process of going through the course and there's so many reminders in the course about just that
they're out of our control they're not they don't define us and yeah so that kind of goes in mind
with to be awake exercise like just identifying like thoughts and I still I do it almost every time
I find myself like awake and not falling back aflood it's just it's more of just a natural practice
for me now at the time it was like I wish I could find the right words it was like I think you
even mentioned it it's just like anything else like with practice it just becomes so much easier but
then I really felt like I was like it was doing it was still like effort for me and now it's
become more of just like part of who I am if that makes sense it does make sense and one thing I
remember when you're working through the course was a lot of the concerns that you raised with me
were related to the intention behind your actions I might just knocking down a whole bunch of
sleep rituals and rules and now I'm just replacing them with something else with all this other stuff
which is a completely understandable concern and it's helpful that you raised that because then
we could explore that further and we could really focus on what your intention was when you were
making these changes when you were making taking this new approach for example the sleep window
of having an earliest possible bedtime and it consistent out bedtime in the morning regardless
of how you might sleep from night to night if our intention behind that is to somehow make a certain
amount of sleep happen or a certain type of sleep happen then it's probably not going to be helpful
because the true intention there is really it's a tool that is intended to help us move
away from chasing after sleep because when we're chasing after sleep we're more likely to do
things like going to bed earlier staying in bed later and it comes with some bonuses too like
the consistent out of bedtime means that we have that opportunity to be out of bed and live our
lives do stuff it ensures that we're going to be out of bed and building up some sleep pressure
during the day and then we're not necessarily going to be going to bed when and I when there's not
enough sleep drive to happen but none of that stuff's going to make sleep happen it's just things to
help us move away from chasing after it and the same for example with the awake exercise which is
just about acknowledging the presence of being awake of wakefulness acknowledging the presence of
the thoughts and the feelings that can come with that and practice in building skill in allowing
that stuff to exist with a little bit less struggle because if our intent behind that is to get rid
of certain thoughts and feelings or to make ourselves fall back to sleep again it's not going to do
anything for us but if our intention is the right intention which is to build skill in experiencing
this stuff with less struggle less resistance then we're more likely to get something out of it.
I'm so glad you said that because that like intention part was so tricky for me like my problem
solving insomnia brain was so sneaky and like I did find I found that to be like really challenging
that it reminds me the three good things exercise was something I did every night and I that's when
I started rediscovering the like getting sleepy feeling and I remember like there would be nights
when I would do the three good things and I wouldn't get sleepy and I'd be like oh no and so I felt
myself treating that as a sleep effort and it happened with so many things like the awake exercise
the sleep window like I found myself like you said like almost treating all of these new tools you
gave me as a sleep effort at one point or another and like it just took a lot of time and practice
to eventually move away from that but yeah for a while there was definitely and it's like you said
it's like I was calling myself out on it but still doing it because you're just you just want
to sleep so bad it's hard to not sleep it's hard I have so much empathy for anyone experiencing it
and obviously gone through myself so I have compassion for myself looking back at that time
like I was it's just like I just you want to give yourself a hug and of course you want to sleep
of course you want these things to make you feel sleepy like you're just a human like of course
you want to sleep but yeah it is so much about the intention and I think it's just it just takes time
it took a lot longer than I thought it would which ended up being another obstacle for me later
down the road because I had all these expectations of when I should be better and yeah I was a whole
other part of it I'm glad that you mentioned that you're able to look back on this with some
compassion for yourself and as you know from working through the course compassion and self-kindness
is an important aspect of the course as well we explore that in quite a lot detail because we can
be really hard on ourselves when we're going through this difficult stuff and all of our efforts
don't seem to be getting us closer to what we want to be and when we are harder on ourselves
it rarely makes things any easier so I think it's important to be able to reflect back
on our history with compassion but also to be kind of to ourselves in the moment as well
when things are difficult and I think I might have already touched upon this but
the fact that you shared the confusion or that kind of conflict between these new actions are
these efforts am I going to just be getting more tangled up here it's a real strength because it
gave us that opportunity to dig a bit deeper and to kind of reestablish what the actual intention is
because when it comes to sleep really what do we need to do nothing it's nothing but when we are
struggling with sleep we can't understand this concept of doing nothing right we need to do something
because sleep isn't happening what we're looking to do here and this is where it can get confusing
is we're looking to do something that's more workable to the struggle that we're currently tangled
up in so when we are really struggling we want to do nothing but we're not really sure how to do
nothing so what we're doing was you work through the courses we're looking to replace the actions
that just create more struggle with actions that can help us build some skill in doing nothing I
guess is the best way to do it in terms of not having to fight with the wakefulness when it shows up
not having to fight the thoughts resist the thoughts try and change the thoughts get tangled up with
the thoughts and that requires some action because we're so entrenched in the struggle with them
but all of this stuff is really the ultimate goal is to get us to that place of where we feel like
we don't have to always intervene when sleep doesn't happen as we want it to when some thoughts
and feelings show up do you know I'm on the right track here based on what your experience
was at the time and now you're able to look back on what your journey has been
no absolutely it was such a hard concept for me to wrap my brain around finally I just like
said more workable approach I had my I got I was doing better for months and then I had my relapse
if you will I found out I was pregnant again and I'll just re-triggered all those feelings and it
wasn't until that second time that I I picked up this new mantra which sounds almost negative
at first but for me it's been really powerful and it's just that there's nothing I can do about it
there's nothing I can do I repeat that to myself so much not in a harsh way but just in
a totally just like hands up there's nothing I can do about it if I can't sleep there's nothing
I can do I cannot force myself back to sleep so I started watching reruns of the office it's
one of my favorite shows I've watched it from beginning to end so many times and I just was like
I will just watch it again and I would just watch episodes in the office then I just it was just a
letting go that took it just took a long time and yeah one of the lovely side effects of pregnancy
is in Famia. So there's I
have nights often where I can't sleep and I'm just like there's nothing I can do and I don't like it
but I just I'll watch the office I'll watch some friends and I just remind myself like
and sometimes I harder than others sometimes I'm full of feelings and I'm really not happy
about the fact that I can't sleep and acknowledge those feelings and it's just there's nothing
I can do with that. And with that approach of less resistance, more acceptance, it doesn't
necessarily mean that because you're accepting wakefulness you're happy that you're awake. It's
not about that. It's not about pretending that you wouldn't write much rather be asleep. It's more
about just accepting that you can't control this. There's nothing you can do to make yourself
for sleep. When sleep still doesn't show up, you're out of bed in the morning going about your day.
How was the way you responded to that night affect things the next day or affect the
power and influence that the night had over your daytime life, for example? I just I don't even
think about it anymore. It's like I have a bad night and I'm say I'm up for a couple hours
in the middle of the night doing whatever I feel like doing other than fighting. I just yeah,
I don't even think about it the next day. It doesn't occur to me. I remind myself of that at night.
I'm like this isn't gonna bother you tomorrow. It's not something you're gonna think about. Whereas
before I was like tortured by those hours I spent awake, I don't know if that answers the question.
It's just it's freeing. It's I just can't force like acceptance. It's just something like in my
case like I couldn't force it. It's just something that had to come with time and as it's as a result
of letting myself go and do whatever else I feel like in the middle of the night or at the beginning
of the night or early in the morning, whatever time it is that I'm not sleeping then it's just it
just frees up like of energy. I'm not it I'm not as exhausted either like I used to be so exhausted
and I know that there's been times in the last few months where I've gotten a handful hours
of sleep like maybe a four hours of sleep whereas like a year ago that would have just wrecked me.
Would you say that the difference in energy levels can be partly explained by the fact that there
is less of a struggle less of a battle going on during the night. So the very little sleep might
still be same but because you're not swinging the sword all night and riding on horseback through
that battlefield maybe there's a little bit more energy left over left in the tank the next day
so you're not feeling quite so exhausted. Yeah absolutely it's emotional like it's stress
it's energy like whenever we're I know for me like those nights of just battling and being so upset
like that's an exhausting way to use your energy like and that's part of your 24 hour day right.
So you're in bed you're not sleeping and you're I was a wreck during those nights like I'd wake
my partner up cry get angry like you name it I went through the motions of the struggle
that for so long and so yeah it's absolutely just reminding myself on these nights that I'm
at least resting. It's yeah you can serve way more energy you're not nearly as wrecked as I say
and we are we're amazing like humans are amazing. I do believe sleep is important and of course
like it's important it's our time to restore but my like understanding and my beliefs like about
what we really need and like how well we can function are completely different now than they were
like when I first had my son like I was like I said I was just so stressed about how much sleep
I was gonna get and now I've witnessed myself like live and do incredible things like on very
little sleep and be fine on Christmas Eve I may be slept three hours the night before and I got
up the next day like I took care of my son I made appetizers desserts I wrapped a bunch of
presents like I went over to my in-laws house like I did all of the things I went to the grocery store
twice like you name it I did it that day just stands out to me and I was fine like I didn't I felt
a little I didn't feel my best of course but I did it and I wouldn't have like emotionally been
able to do all of those things had I not gone through this process and just rediscovered like how
resilient and like capable we really are and I will mention that was Christmas Eve it was very
soon after that I started doing a lot better again so that was like about a month after I found out
I was pregnant I really was struggling again with sleep and that was right around the time that I
like really started leaning into letting go and just I was finding my way of doing other things
and like that particular night I woke up at 2 a.m. and I couldn't fall back asleep and I was just
like I'm just gonna get up and I'm just gonna live my life and it was yeah like I said it wasn't long
after that I really started noticing myself really improving and have been ever so before you
found out you were pregnant again you you were noticing progress you noticed that things were
improving you're sleeping a lot better you were perhaps measuring your progress at that point
based on how you were sleeping and then when you found out you were pregnant again and sleep
became difficult the difficult thoughts and the feelings all started to show up
then it felt like oh there was no progress after all because now the sleep isn't happening as
I want it to happen and that in turn creates our confusion or now are my back to square one
what do I do next when you reflect on progress now it's less to do with sleep itself
which can be helpful because as you know from experience sleep is out of your control so using
that as a determinant of progress can be a little bit tricky but you're measuring progress based
on something else now it's more to do with am I doing the stuff that matters to me am I
preparing the appetizers on Christmas for example would you say that's accurate what would you say
were helpful markers or measures of progress it's so accurate I'm so grateful that you
understand what I'm trying to say it's so accurate I was one thing that really stands out to me like
my initial success and I was doing pretty well for several months is that in the back of my mind
every time I had a difficult night I was always I had like a time frame on things because if you
listen to your podcast like at the end people say oh about six months after the program I stopped
thinking about sleep something like that or three months or some people it was less some people
it was a year so I was always like I was counting the months so let's say I started your program in
August and here it is it's October I'm like okay I still have a couple more months I need to go
and then I'll be good if that makes sense and so I was really like I just had this like time frame
on myself that I was almost unaware of until I had that opportunity to reevaluate how I was
processing and like handling sleep issues when they would arise and so after that second
experience of like really struggling with sleep which lasted but it was it was really difficult
for probably a five or six weeks I've noticed that I don't do that anymore I don't gauge
whether or not I'm at the end of this because what's true for me is that I have difficult nights
maybe more than your average person I don't know I assume I think genetically I've always been
a little predisposition to sleep issues but there's just not that that like gauge and that like
marker for me anymore it's just yeah it's so much less about doing and just like living
now it's less likely or it's not as able to pull you into a struggle when sleep doesn't happen
as you might want it to happen before if that happened it would really throw you around it will
create a lot of confusion draw a lot of your focus your attention your energy towards it whereas
now if a night goes not according to plan it's still something that you acknowledge you're not
pretending otherwise but it's just it's lost so much of its power and influence over you it's not
drawing you into a struggle your bedroom isn't a battleground anymore and you're better able to
just live the kind of life you want to live do things that matter to you independently of whatever
might happen from night to night absolutely it's interesting to me that the two can exist together
like I can have these really difficult nights and I still have this life that I enjoy
like independently of however I slept that night and that's all I ever wanted
and I yeah before before this like second like relapse again if you will I think I was way more
still wrapped up in how I was sleeping. And Mikey said, like, measuring my
progress like that way, then I realized it took like going through it again to realize
like how much I was still judging my sleep.
It's not, it's just not really about that anymore.
I think that's evidence of just more of your own character strengths as well because it
would have been so easy for you to just throw in the towel when you found out that you're
pregnant again and you experienced that sleep disruption to just be like, no, this whole
new approach that I did actually get good results from wasn't helpful for me because
otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.
But instead you, you paused and you reflected and you were willing to explore some more.
You reached out to me and we did some digging and I think it came down to exactly what you
mentioned, the intention behind directions from night to night and day to day and holding
yourself to some kind of arbitrary timeline of where you should be or where you shouldn't
be or what you should be doing.
I'm not doing your experience and I'm not experiencing and that was when we had that
discussion about how helpful is it to pin all your markers of progress based on something
you can't control like how you might sleep from night to night and perhaps it's more to
do with the amount of power and influence this has over you how the level of control it
might feel it has over your actions like, is it insomnia controlling your actions?
Are they your actions serving sleep and insomnia or your actions serving you?
And I think like you've shared that's really what helped you get back on track was not
holding yourself to specific timelines, not using sleep itself as the kind of marker
of your progress and all of that came from that real breakthrough came from your own willingness
to explore this not to just throw in the towel because sleep didn't follow this beautiful
upward chart of just ongoing constant improvement which we all want to happen when that be
night exactly but is very unusual is something that I've never seen at least.
I think still I look at my partner he's like one of those people that he just when he
wants to he rolls over goes to sleep like wakes up doesn't matter how late he sleeps and
for so long I like compared myself but like we can't do that we can't compare like we're
all unique and we're all just different and we all sleep so different that's another
thing I really realized been going through your course and reading the forums some people
wake up six times and I like I'm one of those people some people don't like and I just
just it is what it is and it's not that big of a deal it's like we're just all unique.
Yeah and that is a great point but is that comparison factor again right I mean we always
compare ourselves to other people and other people to other people I think that's human
nature and again when it comes to sleep it's probably not that helpful to compare how
we might sleep to how someone else sleeps but there's a little insight there so you for
example you talked about how well your husband sleeps what does he do to make that happen I've
asked him finally one day I did ask if he's like I don't know I grieved he does nothing and
it's possible to get back there it is it's been amazing for me to even witness my own
transformation I'll still get like tripped up every now and then like thinking I don't I used
to spend so much time laying there like trying to fall asleep and I don't do that anymore but
every now and then if I lay down and I'm not too sleepy I'm like huh maybe I'll get back up
until I am sleepier but every night I never feel so it makes me I just fall asleep and what a
wonderful thing it is I think that's important to mention too that this can be a really good bonus
side effect when we reduce that resistance when we die all back that control agenda trying to
make a certain amount of type of sleep happen of course it doesn't guarantee that sleep is going
to sharp as you want but it quite often creates better conditions for sleep to happen so overall
there's a bonus side effect the more we practice this approach of doing less resisting less we do
usually notice that sleep does improve because we're creating better conditions for sleep to happen
because we're not in a war zone at night we're in a place where there's less resistance there's
less effort there's just more openness and more flexibility to what shows up one last question
for you about timelines because I know it's something that everyone is eager to make progress
in a certain amount of time and I always get questions if we're not supposed to make progress
within a certain amount of time why is your course six weeks long why do I get six months of
access that must mean that things are going to be better in six weeks problem solved at six months
try and emphasize that the real practice just begins when someone finishes the course because
it's about ongoing commitment to walk of action and that doesn't mean there's never going to be
struggle it doesn't mean the sleep is going to be perfect there's always going to be ups and downs
there's always going to be learning opportunities and opportunities to practice what you learn
how long would you say it took you to feel as though you'd left the struggle behind
so that regardless of what happened from night to night it wasn't like your bedroom was no longer
a battleground it wasn't a place you feared going you could live your life independently of what
might happen from night to night six months I'd say I feel like I just one day realize that daily
I wasn't thinking about sleep I still access your course for months when I could and yeah like
I have mentioned already like I still utilize so many of the tools and I still have difficult
thoughts come up like I said like it's not me as a part of pregnancy like it's not something like
that I'm just like cured but yeah six months and I don't feel like a prisoner to
sleep anymore at all I feel yeah like sleep is just one of those things that I do however much I
get each night is just a minor detail and because in some your isn't just about what happens at
my it's also about how it affects our days how would you say seeing where you are now based
never think that you've learned an experience how would you say that your life has changed now that
you've got this different relationship with sleep and the thoughts and the feelings that can
show up when it's not happening as you might want it to this whole process has helped me so much
circle back to that word like evolution like I really view this as something like I had to go
through to like level up it has helped me become a better mother partner friend just I don't think
I realized before how much of a control freak I was until I went through this process and it has
helped me so much with just letting go of things that I can't control it's a constant daily
reminder for me like with my son too like just becoming a new mom like I stressed so much when he
was young about like when he would get sick or not sleep through the night there's so many things
that fall into this category of things we just can't control but I like I just see so much clearer
now before I feel like I was always trying to control these so many things that were out of my
control and yeah this process has really helped me just realize how much I was doing that before
and it's like gentle reminders like all around me all the time that like there's nothing I can do
about that so we just let it go and live our life the best we can my life my quality of life I would
say has improved immensely I don't even think I ever mentioned before but like I I got off all
of those the medication and I'm like to think that I ever needed it is again one of those things I
have so much compassion for myself for because this like process has been it has been anxiety medication
for me learning like tools and ways to just be so much more kind and gentle to myself when things
are difficult if someone is listening to this they're still really caught up in that struggle
within some new year and they're in a place where they just think there's something
uniquely wrong they're beyond help they just can't move away from that struggle what would you say
to them I mean I just want to give them the biggest hug tell them I'm so sorry like I know how bad that
hurts but my gosh if I can do it and I can get where I am so can you I promise like 100% I promise you
just have to trust the process if you're listening you've found Martin so you're you're there do the
program and have so much patience for yourself so much patience so much compassion and
you're not alone and it does get better it really does it just takes time and it's not going
to be like this forever I promise I promise thank you so much Kelly for taking the time at your
day to come onto the podcast your experience is going to help so many people thank you so much Martin
thanks for listening to the insomnia coach podcast if you're ready to get your life back from
insomnia I would love to help you can
learn more about the sleep coaching programs I offer at insomniacoach.com. And if you have
any questions, my email address is
[email protected]. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the
Insomnia Coach podcast. I'm Martin Reed. And as always, I'd like to leave you with this important
reminder, you are not alone and you can sleep.
PodcastTranscript AI