Body Brain Chat Sleep Technique

Imagine having a heartfelt conversation with your body, acknowledging its daily efforts and listening to the messages it sends you. This bonus episode offers a transformative approach to improving your relationship with yourself and enhancing your sleep quality. Building on insights from episode 115 about stress and cortisol's impact on sleep, (click here to go there)  we introduce the body-brain chat technique—an innovative method that encourages gentle, grateful dialogues with your body. I have found this approach so calming that I often drift off to sleep before even completing the ritual!

Join me, Sally, on a journey of self-acceptance and healing, particularly when grappling with chronic pain.  I've discovered that when I utilise the power of accepting and being grateful for what my body can achieve, rather than succumbing to anger and frustration, the effect is noticeable in my body and in my thoughts and behaviours.  Shifting perspectives not only aids in healing past traumas but also highlights the path to a more peaceful and accepting relationship with ourselves.

This episode also emphasizes the transformative power of self-love and self-acceptance. We explore the struggles of self-sabotage and negative self-talk, often intensified by external pressures and perfectionist tendencies and highlight how approaching oneself with softness and grace can inspire a ripple effect of change and acceptance in those around us. 

Connect with me on social media to share your experiences—everyone deserves self-love and worthiness, and your insights could help spread compassion to a wider audience.

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Transcript

Technique for Self-Healing and Better Sleep

Speaker 1 0:00

This is Reverse, reset, restore, and this is a very special bonus episode where I'm going to walk you through an amazing technique that can help you restore your relationship with yourself and your ability to sleep. If this sounds like something you need in your life, you have come to the right place. My darling Stick around. Change comes from within. Hi there, my name is Sally and this is a bonus episode that ties to episode 115, the impact of stress on sleep, why cortisol ruins your rest and how to get those much needed Z's, which was episode six in our six part series on the fight or flight hormone cortisol. In that episode, I offered 10 tips and techniques you can use to help create new habits to improve your relationship and ability to sleep. In this episode, I'm going to walk you through a technique I've created that has massively improved my sleep hygiene. It's a technique I talked about briefly in the previous episode, adding it as an 11th tip. As promised, I'm going to walk you through this technique and hopefully you'll find it helpful. I call it the body-brain chat technique because that is what you do. We're going to take some time to talk to our body first and then our brain. I'll successfully utilized this technique to the point where most nights I don't even make it to my brain conversation. By the time I'm halfway through my body talk, I've already fallen asleep. Now don't expect this to be an immediate result for you. This technique, just like anything, requires consistency and practice. But if you keep at it night after night, you'll probably have the same results I do Falling asleep and staying asleep more often than not. So if sleeping is as elusive to you as it has been for me for longer than you can remember, I encourage you to give this a real go. What have you got to lose? Or maybe the better question is what have you got to gain? Ideally, you'd be listening to this as you hop into bed for the night and kind of follow along, but it's no problem to just take a listen now and hopefully it will inspire you to give it a go when you next hop into bed. There are no hard and fast rules or things to say. I'm just going to give you an example of the types of conversations I've had with my body and my brain to hopefully give you an understanding of how you can uncommit this for your life.

Speaker 1 3:04

Let's begin Imagine that I'm lying in my bed. Okay, and you can imagine too, hi, body, I just really wanted to spend some time with you. I want to tell you thank you so much for everything that you've done for me today Legs, the way that you carried me and you moved me around and you got me to where I needed to be. I just am so grateful for the work that you put in today, the way that you kept me going, that you lifted me up. I feel incredibly honored that I was able to know that I could stand strongly and firmly and walk because you were there supporting me and what I needed to achieve today. What a beautiful thing to have two legs that work. I'm so grateful for my legs and for my feet and Arms. I haven't forgotten about you. I thank you so much. I know I made you do some heavy lifting today. You had to move things around and you were lifting things and putting things away. I just want to say thank you for the strength and the tenacious way that you just give me the ability to move and function every day. Body, you are just so loving to me. I want to support you so much. I'm so grateful for everything that you always show up for me every single day, no matter how I'm feeling, no matter if I'm in a bit of pain, you still come through. We still, together, soldier on.

Speaker 1 4:37

And I just want to acknowledge the pain that I'm feeling right now, especially in my neck. I want to thank you pain, for being there, for using the language of the body to speak to me. I want you to know I'm listening and I'm going to ask you now what is it you're trying to convey with this pain? I can feel the tension all wrapped into all of the tiny little tendons and all the muscles, all the way up into my skull and all the way down, wrapped into all of the tiny little tendons and all the muscles, all the way up into my skull and all the way down through my shoulders. So I just ask you just to speak to me. Give me a word, give me a thought that lets me know what it is you're trying to convey. And while you're doing that, I just want to say thank you, nick, for holding my head up, for actually giving me the ability to move my head left and to move it right, to move it back and move it forward, and all the things that I forget, that you achieve every day for me just by keeping my head. Up and moving it around, and I often focus on the pain and the discomfort. But I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for always supporting my head, for always holding my back and allowing me to move, even in the midst of discomfort. I appreciate you. I am so grateful for you.

Speaker 1 6:12

No-transcript. I love you, body. I'm grateful for you, body, and I ask for you to forgive me for the moments today where I've been angry at you, that I've felt hurt, that I've felt betrayed. Because you haven't betrayed me, you still carry me, you still move me, you still support me. I love you and I honor you and I value you. And I feel that little niggle in my foot right now, that sort of numbness, that little zap of pain that's just sitting there in the heel, like the skin is being torn away. I love you. I love you, you are safe, it is okay. I thank you for your language to speak to me in the way that you can, and I just send love to that part of my body right now because you clearly need it and I want to love you. I want to say thank you, foot, for moving me around. You did a lot of work today. Every time I stepped around, whether it was walking to the grocery store or just walking around the house, you were responsible for getting me there, for getting me to A to B, and I thank you for that. I love you, I appreciate you and I want to honor your service today.

Speaker 1 7:37

Body, you do amazing things for me and I take you for granted, and sometimes I'm really cruel and really mean to you and I feel that there's like this competition or there's this battle between us at times for dominance, and I don't want to have that kind of relationship where I'm trying to compete or I'm trying to put my own will over yours or vice versa. We are in this together. You are my body and I'm your person, and, as I'm going to go to sleep now, I just want to give you a break from me. I want you to recognize that you can just have this time and have this moment, these hours, to rest and to recover and to maybe do some repairs. If there's things that you just don't have time for during the day because I'm keeping you busy with other things and focused on other things. This is your opportunity I lie here and I go to sleep, for you to do what you need to do, to recover, so that tomorrow we can get up and do it all over again. So it's a good time to have a break from me and from my neediness and for you to just do some repair work, and I'm going to let you have as much time as you need between now and when I need to wake up. There's no other thing that you need to do right now other than just rest and recover and prepare for tomorrow, and I want to thank you for giving us a great day together and for what's going to come tomorrow.

Speaker 1 9:20

Thank you, body, hi brain. Look at you you glorious, majestic, amazing thing. I love your creativity. You are so interested and fascinated by the world. You want to explore things and develop things. You're so articulate and you have so many ideas and thoughts. It's amazing. You're just incredible.

Speaker 1 9:42

I know that you want to have that conversation and I really want to have that conversation with you too. I know we've got to have it. I know we've got to talk about it. It's been whirling around in my mind all day and I know that you think, oh, she's lying down here. This is the perfect time to have this conversation and I know that you think, oh, she's lying down here. This is the perfect time to have this conversation, but it really isn't. It really isn't because I want you to have a break from me, just like you're having a bit of a break from the body. Obviously, hopefully, you're going to keep doing what you need to do to keep me and body going and keep us alive, but this is your time to just do what you got to do to restore and repair and recover and prepare for tomorrow as well.

Speaker 1 10:21

So let's just put a pin in that conversation, those thoughts that are whirling around in my head. I hear you and I see you and you're important, but right now it's not going to do any of us any favors or any good if I sit here lying here desperately wanting to sleep, but having these thoughts just constantly whirling around in my mind, and you need to rest as well. You need a break from me, you need a break from holding that conversation. So let's just put a pin in it. Let's pick it up tomorrow. Okay, I promise I will give you some time and we'll just have a few minutes where we can go through that thought that keeps sticking there and try to come to a resolution on it, because it is an important thought and I know it's a scary thought and it's giving me some anxiety today.

Speaker 1 11:15

But I don't need to have any anxiety right now and me thinking about that thought actually going to solve the problem right now. All it's going to do is disrupt my ability from being able to sleep, which impacts, obviously, everything else. It is impacting the way my body's going to respond to me tomorrow if I don't get some decent sleep and it also means that that thought is just going to continue to control the narrative right now, and it doesn't need to. It's not that important. It's a great thought, but it's not me. It doesn't represent who I am. It's just a thought and I want to come back to it and we will return to it, but let's just do it when we've both had a chance to rest and to relax and to just get a little bit of time out just to be who we need to be for ourselves.

Embracing Self-Acceptance and Healing

Speaker 1 12:12

I know that thought has been churning around, but I also want to acknowledge that it's not something that I can solve right now around. But I also want to acknowledge that it's not something that I can solve right now. It's not important enough for me to say that it's more important than sleeping or getting some decent rest. I love you. Thought I'm gonna respect you. We'll have that conversation in the morning or at some point tomorrow, I promise you.

Speaker 1 12:35

But right now you can just be quiet, because my body is going to sleep now and my brain is going to do what it needs to do to just chug things along. But it's going to rest as well, because this is the time when all of us body, brain, spirit, whoever it is that makes me this is the moment, this is time for us to just have a little bit of a break from each other and just find restorative rest and sleep. I appreciate everything that both of you have done for me today and I can't wait to wake up in the morning and see how we work together and function together tomorrow. But right now, let's just say good night and I'm gonna lie here and I'm gonna give in to that feeling of sleep, knowing that it's gonna make me feel better, knowing that it's going to make me feel better, knowing that it's going to give my body an opportunity to heal and recover and knowing that it just gives my brain a little bit of a down time so it's not distracted by all the thousand things that I keep thinking throughout the day and all the anxiety and all the worries or fears or insecurities all of that Right now it doesn't matter. It's not important. All that matters right now is that I give myself that freedom and that permission to rest. I'm just going to give in to that wave of sleep that's just drifting over my body. I greet it like a warm, loving friend as I say goodnight to mind to body and I say hello to the beauty-redeeming features that come with sleeping. And there you go.

Speaker 1 14:36

That's just an example of the type of thing that I do most nights with my body and with my brain, hopefully giving you a little bit of an understanding of the concept of it. What you might notice and feel a bit scared of or uncomfortable with and this is perfectly normal is that language of speaking to your body with love and acceptance, even when it feels like you really are at battle or at odds with each other. And I get this. I live with chronic pain and some days I don't do this practice. Some days I actually give in to that screaming voice. That is chronic pain and always impacts me in a negative way even stronger when I don't allow myself some grace to practice these types of techniques. And when I do this and make it a habit, make it part of my routine, I notice that inevitably I always had much better days. The next day I feel less disconnected to my body, I don't seem to have as much screeching pain hanging on.

Speaker 1 15:48

So it's this really interesting thing that I've done is treating myself as a bit of an experiment here and going what can I do to really broker some peace or to come to a better understanding, instead of just being so viciously angry and full of rage with this body that feels very broken and feels very useless to me at times is to remember how much it still allows me to do, how much it still allows me to do, how much I can still achieve because I am so fortunate I still have the ability to do so much with the body that I have, even in its current condition. And I know that there are other people who are far worse off than me, who have lifelong disabilities, who have pain that really does prevent them from being able to function very well at all, and some of those things, some of those situations, can't necessarily be changed right, but I think the point of this is to come to a place of acceptance of where you are right now, with what you have and how your body is and the responses it has to things, instead of being angry about it. Being able to come to it from a different point of view, from a different place. And if we can come to our bodies or to our past experiences, our trauma, our difficult circumstances that we may have had throughout our lives, if we can come to that with some love and some acceptance, I think that we then really smash wide the doors of opportunity for us to really begin healing those places within ourselves. And this is part of parcel of what I'm trying to achieve here.

Speaker 1 17:42

I have and again, my trauma is pretty minimal compared to a lot of other people and their traumas and their experiences. But we're not looking at other people and comparing. Okay, we're looking at ours. We're looking at our own life situations and our own personal circumstances, and if there are areas in your life that are blocking you from being whole, from being healthy, from being free, you have the responsibility to do something about that. And not just the responsibility because it's your life life the responsibility because you deserve it. You deserve to be healthy and whole and happy and free. You deserve to know what it means to walk with dignity and with self-acceptance and with love. We all do, and if you don't know how to do that yet, it's never too late to learn. I promise you it is not, and this is a practice that I forget to do some days because I get so caught up in everything else going on around me I get caught up in world politics, I get caught up in family situations, I get caught up in the thousand things that can impact us in our daily life that I forget to go back to the root of me and loving myself.

Speaker 1 19:05

And because I am a recovering perfectionist and people pleaser, it is really easy for me to take that on board and to internalize everything and make myself is the problem right, and what happens is I victimize myself, I self-sabotage myself, I treat myself like shit and garbage and I start to believe these little false narratives that pop up in my head, the stories I tell myself, until it becomes this destructive cyclone that just swirls around, making my thoughts, making my beliefs, making my pain amplified, and then, when I have a moment of clarity. Oh shit, I haven't been doing the things that I know that are going to bring me some healing and bring me some hope and bring me some healthy ways of looking and being and doing in the world. I can then stop the carousel, get the heck off of it and put into these practices and I immediately find that I have instigated a new, healthier pathway to living and being and doing. And this technique here that I've developed. It's taken time. It has really worked for me and I really hope that you take the time to try it and see if it works for you or a variation of it.

Speaker 1 20:33

You can come up with your own variation of what might work for you, but you need to be willing to give this a go and you need to be willing to come to yourself with softness, with love, with self-acceptance and say I am enough, I love you and I'm worthy of love. I am worthy of looking after myself, of having self-care practices, of loving who I am right now, here in this moment, no matter what I think I might look like or how I feel about myself, or what my body pain might be even trying to tell me. None of this matters if I don't come to a place of self-acceptance and grace and love. And when we can do that for ourselves, I tell you, my darlings, I promise you, when we are in this place where we are practicing self-love and self-acceptance, a lot of that crap that we hold on to it just goes away. It really does. It just drops off like chafe in the wind because it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 21:49

And when we learn to love ourselves and value who we are, that begins to spread out beyond ourselves. It goes into our families and the relationships we have, it goes into our workplace, it expands beyond our own horizons and eventually can cover the world. And if we had a lot more people who were self-appreciating and self-loving genuinely, because a lot of the anger and hurt and everything that we see actually comes from a place of fear and self-rejection. When we reject that rejection, when we embrace ourselves, we open ourselves and the world up to be a better place. It's possible. It's possible not just for your life, but for the lives of those around you and the lives beyond you. It's like this ripple effect. Right, we don't see the wave that starts out in the ocean a mile or 10 miles away or whatever, that eventually ends maybe as a little tiny nap on the shoreline, but there's something out there that's triggered, that, that moves it forward and moves it onto the beach.

Speaker 1 23:04

And that's how I think, if we practice this self love, that's what we can do. We have the ability to expand beyond ourselves, to trust in ourselves, to move beyond our own little situations with real, genuine affection for who we are and our place in the world, and we can change the world. That's my hope for you, that's my hope for me, and I hope that you feel just as inspired and encouraged hearing this as I do talking about it, because I know that if I can do this for me and you can do this for you, we can inspire change and self-love and self-appreciation and acceptance in other people too. Let that be the ultimate gift that we give to others, to the world, but mostly to ourselves. I love you. I'm grateful that you're here.

Speaker 1 24:04

I'm so thankful that you've taken a moment to listen to my weird technique. That has worked for me. If you like it, if you try it and you feel like whoa, this has made a difference in my relationship with myself, please. I would so love and appreciate your thoughts or your experience. By adopting this technique into your life. You can DM me through my social media sites, which is Facebook page, instagram threads. I'll probably get a Blue Sky account there shortly as well. Leave a comment on the YouTube channel or on the podcast platform that you're listening to. If it allows you Anything that you can do, that can just let me know if this has worked for you. Would be an amazing and encouraging thing for me to hear as well. Have an excellent day, have an excellent sleep. Sleep, love yourself. You're worth it.