The Insomnia Reversal Mindset

Sleep takes place with the body, but the creation of transformation starts with the mind, in particular the mindset. 

If you have been struggling with insomnia far too long, turning loose from it is more about the mindset than the sleep. 

In Episode 7, I'll breakdown the difference between the two mindsets used to achieve sleep, how  one is not inherently wrong, but how the other is  appropriate for breaking free from insomnia. 

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:05

Welcome to the art of falling asleep. I'm Derek Lacey and insomnia coach. I created this podcast. Insomniacs could have a space to come and feel guided. I feel like I know you could share some concepts that I wish people had shared with me concepts that integrate sleep with every aspect of your life, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I believe sleep is not mean any other sleep exercise are the August artifact in the sleep is your canvas. And I want to help you express yourself using the insights from my sleep coaching practice and my own journey out of insomnia . And by sharing transmissions that help you bridge the way you experienced life, better sleep

Speaker 2 1:05

Episode seven. I can't believe it's already episode seven, which I know is a very episode, seven thing of me to say, but nonetheless, when I started this podcast, I really couldn't imagine what I would be talking about by this point. So I was a little worried, even when I started to prepare for this episode, I kind of struggled with what I wanted to discuss, but you know , the reality is sleep is all I think about. And it's really that I think about it so much that it sort of feels like going to your refrigerator when you're going to cook dinner, opening it up and having all the shelves in the food on the shelves, just kind of collapse and land on top of each other and then having to pick out your ingredients. So having so much on my mind can be an organizational challenge, but you know, I think about it so much because I'm obsessed with what makes it work and where it's gone wrong for so many people and perhaps where it's gone wrong for you. I struggled to fall asleep and stay asleep for 37 years. So yeah, you can say I'm a little fixated with what went into that. What caused my insomnia and then what healed it. And I know you're interested in hearing about what healed it, so that, that you could perhaps try some things yourself and that's the high I chase making more sense of sleep, helping you make more sense of your sleep. It's what I love. And I it's, it's become my purpose in life. I see kind of how it ends for me. You know, like, like looking for the, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is like me looking for, if there was such a thing, there's not because the pursuit of sleep is all about the pursuit. It's not, it's about the learning process. Nonetheless, I feel like there's going to be this sense of euphoria, like kind of crossing the line of a sleep enlightenment. And at that moment, I'm just going to be lifted into the clouds, giving the little parade wave, looking like one of the BG brothers, all cool with my long hair and white shirt with ruffles and a leather vest, knowing that this is why I came to earth. So , um, I I'm, I really have an obsession with why it's a mystery and why it can be so challenging to accomplish something that's so primordial that is so deserving of everybody, regardless of what your lifestyle is. You know, I really don't. I really don't think it's fair. You know, the punishment does not fit the crime is what I'm trying to say, that you can do something to prevent sleep from happening, but then have to endure the suffering that comes from that. It just feels like it would be more fair if they took away our Chucky cheese tickets or increased our utility bill or the deal should be like, all right , you ate like crap today. You were on your phone right up until you went to bed without blocking light. I'm still going to let you sleep. But when you wake up, you need to go do some community service. You need to go plant a tree, he'd go , go feed some people, right. That just seems more fair. And of course, it's even more unfair for you, the insomniac who hasn't done anything intentionally to get in the way of sleep, you know, it's just the stress of life, your past experiences, maybe past life experiences, but you know, that's, that's, that's what we're dealing with. And I'm committed to figuring this out and where this is all going. Is that up until now in these episodes have been mostly sharing a concept each episode, at which point you can take that concept and, and then you're left with that. Either being helpful or just interesting, or maybe neither, but perhaps down the road, it will come in handy. And so there's this sense of trying that I usually shy away from , um, I'm a , a big advocate for the opposite of trying. However, if you're sleep deprived and you desperately need sleep, of course you need to try some things out. But I just pictured people, listening, trying some sleep concepts and then being like, okay, now what? This hasn't solved my problem, but I'm not trying to solve your problem. I'm trying to, as I've promised, let you feel understood and guided so that when it's time to solve your problem, if you have one, then you know how to do it, or you're just that much closer. Now, if you're listening to this, if you've been listening to this and insomnia's not the story of your life, then maybe this episode isn't for you. But if your story is insomnia and you want to rewrite that story, then listening to me, just share concepts is going to feel incomplete. And to me that's unfair because that's the slave trap. It's the try this. And if it doesn't work well, I don't know what else to tell you trap. It must be your unique problem that can't be solved and sorry, I pretended to understand who you are, but , um, we don't, we don't deliver to that zip code, right? And that doesn't feel good to an insomniac because that is the struggle. That's it right there not feeling understood, feeling like nobody can help you with your challenge is the problem more so than the sleep. And that's the inspiration behind everything that I do. The podcast, my coaching is to create a space, a place where you feel guided and understood, like it's your cave, your woman cave, or your man cave and trying things to sleep is part of the process you need to sleep. And so you need to do whatever you can, but there's a difference between trying and then the trying mindset, just because you try something because you want relief. It doesn't mean that you have the trying mindset. And this is where the rubber meets the road. When it comes to reversing insomnia, because in a trying mindset, what happens is that in order to sleep, as a means to an end, you'll do something. But the thinking that goes into that doing is, well, hopefully this will help me start sleeping better. And then things will slowly change. I'll gradually get better sleep. And I won't have worry about this problem anymore. I won't have to do anything radical in order to re to resolve this. But when you are trying to , to sleep better in the short term as a means to an end, but you also realize that you need a longterm plan to ultimately be successful with your sleep. Now you are in the insomnia reversal mindset, which is, which is just a more empowered place to be. It's a place to be. That makes a difference. So I wanted to kind of intervene right here. If you are an insomniac, listening to these episodes and just, just invite you to think about the two different mindsets and your relationship to trying with me, I'll give you an example. I was in the trying mindset for decades, and it wasn't until I entered into the insomnia reversal mindset that the trying I was doing actually made a difference and felt different. So here's how, you know, here's one way that you can probably resonate with that will tell you if you've been in the trying mindset before, and that's where you actually try something, whether it's a new product or a technique, and it actually works and you begin sleeping better for a period of time, but your life doesn't change. Have you ever experienced that? Where you're like, Oh wow, I've been sleeping so well, but I actually don't feeling different. And I don't know if this is the right analogy here, but it almost feels like getting a, you know, a hundred on a test that you were given the answers to when you sleep from the trying mindset, you're not taking credit for the success that came from that. Whereas in the insomnia at reversal mindset, you made some changes that were integral to that sleep. Therefore you take responsibility to it and you get more confident from it. So I feel like it offers limited service to you for me or anybody else to constantly be feeding you ideas for falling asleep, without addressing the mindset that is being used as you apply those ideas. Cause then they're just tricks. And any trick, it gets old. This is, this is what a mindset shift with the sleep means. When we struggle to sleep, we are identifying with there being an emotional problem or perhaps a physical problem that is mechanical in nature, right? Like I used to think that if you did a scan on my brain, there was going to be a hamster on a hamster wheel in there. And it's like, Oh, okay. That's and you, it that's what was going on. I thought I smelled something funny, but the way that relationship between physical, the physical nature and the emotional nature of sleep works is that, you know, it's , it comes down to us being human beings that have brains that allow us to make decisions. Sleep is physical. It takes place on a subatomic level below the cell below the atom . But the things that go into setting your clock at a certain time are not physical. You are a human being with a brain that allows you to make decisions. And every day that you wake up, you can decide whether or not you want to go to work, whether or not you want to volunteer to help people, or whether you should Rob a bank. The choice is yours. Every single day. You can, you can wreck so much havoc right now, right now I can give you 10 minutes and you can do something and probably make the news. That's how much power you have in choice every single day that you wake up. So what sets your sleep clock is a combination of all your decisions, which lead to emotional reactions in ways to thinking, and ultimately the behaviors that follow from that. So it's a little ironic because yes, sleep is super emotional, but it's not bedtime emotional as much as it is daytime emotional. But the seduction is that the seduction from the trying mindset is that sleeping will then change the decisions and the behaviors and the emotions that we're creating your insomnia. When in reality, if you sleep without changing those decisions first, then nothing's going to be different as it relates to your life. And the story that you've been telling yourself about your life and about sleep and the insomnia will take over again from the insomnia reversal mindset, there's a mindset shift. And then you have to contemplate things that can be very challenging. They can be very triggering. They force you to take deep breaths and then contemplate running the other way, because it just doesn't seem fair. And it probably is unfair. And this is the shift that takes place because regardless of it being fair, you say, I'm going to meet the mindset where it needs me to be. And you believe things like it doesn't matter how much sleep I get tonight. This is what I'm going to do tomorrow to set myself up for sleep tomorrow night, regardless of how I feel in the morning, or you look at yourself in the mirror, you look at your insomnia in the mirror and you say, I know that you are trying to guide me towards something better. And for that, I thank you. I will never regret you. I respect you. I even adore you for this, but as much as I appreciate you, it's not your time anymore. It's my time. Here's my offer. Even if it looks like the world is working against me every single time I try to fix this thing, I'm going to be convinced that it's actually working for me. I'm going to massage everything that happens in front of my eyes to make it look like it's doing me a favor. I, I tried everything to sleep swear. I really did. I tried everything. But as soon as I told myself that I could change my insomnia into something else, by changing how I thought and what I said. And by changing the decisions that I made with my body, it was a matter of moments. Not weeks, not days, probably minutes before I felt the claw of insomnia let go of me. I was on the highway the other day. And that 80 song turned me loose. Came on, turn me loose, turn me loose, turn me loose. I got to do it my way. Oh, no way at all. I never thought it'd be singing on this podcast, but such a good, such a good hook. And, and I thought like it was, it was a metaphor for the insomnia reversal mindset. That's what the mindset is. And what that looks like in real life is that you get, let's say, we'll call it only three hours of sleep. But you feel like a different person because you felt responsible for the three hours and not pissed at the five hours that you didn't get. That's the thing I call sleep confidence, which is the best supplement in the world. Without that sleep competent mindset. Then after three hours of sleep, the story that you're telling yourself is not the story that changes your life. It's the story that keeps you in the same pattern. So my story, my story is not asleep . Story. My story is a mindset story. It's a , an insomnia reversal mindset story. This is how life changes as sleep changes. When the sleep comes from the changes in your mind, then your mind is going to see the world differently. And then you're going to feel responsible for your sleep. And after five hours of insomnia in this mindset, sleep is going to feel better than eight hours fields from the trying mindset. And this is how you never look back. I could spend the rest of my life trying to be an insomniac. Again, I'll always identify as an insomniac that ink isn't gonna come off the tattoo. But as far as the patterns that take place in an Insomniac's life, that ain't that shipping coming back. It's impossible. So let me pause because I want you to feel understood and guided always, if this sounds a little too, I have the tiger for you right now. That's okay. That's okay. The first thing I want to introduce you to is that it's really helpful to know which mindset you are in so that you aren't in the trying mindset, but thinking you are in the insomnia reversal mindset, the insomnia reversal mindset is not measured by how badly you want to sleep. It's the thinking that's being used and where that change is coming from is the change coming from what I'm doing to sleep, or is it what I'm doing to influence the decisions that are affecting how I sleep? That's the difference. And we just don't want to confuse the two. And if it's not your time, that doesn't mean that the process isn't beginning right now, so that maybe it's your time in one year from now or three years from now, wherever you are is fine. But being aware of the difference will place you closer to the more effective mindset. But if you are ready and you feel like this is your time, and you recognize that you have not tried things from this mindset before, and especially if you are not sure how to get into this mindset, then let me help you. I can help you get into this mindset and actually establish the perspective that there's no way to fail at this. If you'd like to have a momentum creating conversation that sets you on a path to reverse your insomnia, please go to Derek Lacey coaching.com. Send me a message until then half grade sleep [inaudible] falling asleep podcast has been brought to you like better sleep starts with blocking blue light. Nothing better than the unnatural lights coming from your electronic devices tells your brain that it's daytime and the pineal gland doesn't release the melatonin. You need this in some cases, this is the only thing preventing people from falling asleep to learn more and start blocking blue light immediately go to Dawn dot. I use the discount code for more information on how to sleep better. Please visit Derek Lacey coaching.com.