Lauren's Shift: Insomnia to Trusting Life Again | Ep 17

Welcome to this insightful interview with the lovely Lauren Meikle joining us all the way from South Africa. Lauren opens up about her unexpected journey through insomnia.

It all started when she started teaching K-Pop dance classes…

In this powerful conversation, Lauren reveals:

• How her relationship to sleep started to change
• Why she had to step back from teaching dance 
• The resurgence of insomnia and its toll on her life
• Why she felt like she was losing her mind
• How chasing more things to sleep ultimately failed her
• What made insomnia the most challenging
• How a single word explained the whole thing
• What the path out of insomnia looked like

Lauren shares her story to provide hope for others going through insomnia.

You can check out even more gems from her in this wonderful interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPerp34TR9o

Subscribe to The Mind. Body. Sleep.™ Podcast:
Apple | Spotify | Google

Work with Beth:
👉 Learn About the Mind. Body. Sleep. Mentorship
👉 Start the Free Insomnia Course

Full Show Notes & Transcription HERE.

🧡 Please rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform!!

About Beth Kendall MA, FNTP: 

For decades, Beth struggled with the relentless grip of insomnia. After finally understanding insomnia from a mind-body perspective, she changed her relationship with sleep, and completely recovered. Liberated from the constant worry of not sleeping, she’s on a mission to help others recover as well. Her transformative program Mind. Body. Sleep.™ has been a beacon of light for hundreds of others seeking solace from sleepless nights. 

© 2023 - 2026 Beth Kendall

DISCLAIMER: The podcasts available on this website have been produced for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. The contents of this podcast do not constitute medical or professional advice. No person listening to and/or viewing any podcast from this website should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the content of a podcast without first seeking appropriate professional advice and/or counseling, nor shall the information be used as a substitute for professional advice and/or counseling. The Mind. Body. Sleep. Podcast expressly disclaims any and all liability relating to any actions taken or not taken based on any or all contents of this site as there are no assurances as to any particular outcome.

Mind. Body. Sleep.® with Beth Kendall is your trusted source for holistic insomnia recovery, blending neuroplasticity, nervous system health, and mind-body coaching to help you finally sleep again.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello and welcome to Mind Body Sleep, the podcast for anyone out there who wants to understand and recover from insomnia using a holistic perspective. I'm Beth Kendall, your host. Let's get started. Hello, everyone, and welcome to this very special episode where I am happy to be joined by Lauren all the way from South Africa, who reached out to me after my interview with Talia Cooper about a month ago and said that she wanted to come on the show and share her experience with Insomnia. So welcome, Lauren. Hi Beth.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Thank you so much for having me to honor to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Well, thank you so much for being here because I know it is much later for you in the evening in South Africa. So I so appreciate that you're coming on the show. And I know that you did a wonderful interview with Daniel over at the Sleep Coach School. And I'm going to post that YouTube in the show notes because there were just there were so many gems in that interview. But for the listeners today, tell us a little bit about how insomnia started for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah. So oh my goodness. I think as with anyone who gets insomnia and gets into the really deep trenches of that, it's you don't see it coming. I I didn't expect it at all. At first, my first really bad experience with it was when I started teaching dance classes. I was doing K-pop dance classes at the time. For anyone who doesn't know, that's like, you know, I think the K-pop song everyone knows is Sai Gangnam style. But uh there's a whole world of K-pop where people do K-pop dance covers and stuff. And I started doing that on YouTube, and a lot of people were asking me to teach them the moves and stuff. And I also had a lot of inquiries locally, so I thought, cool, let me let me start a dance school. Because I I had always been a dancer and it was like a dream for me to have my own dance school. So I I started doing that. And I think the night before the first class, I didn't sleep that well, but uh I thought, oh, that's to be expected because it's something new and I'm excited and nervous, so it didn't bother me that much. But as the weeks went on, I just I couldn't sleep at all the night before the classes. So the dance classes were on a Monday, and it was the Sunday night, which was already stressful for me because it's the night before the work week and everything. And we were living in a different city from where we were working during the day. So we had to wake up super early to drive, and then I would work a full work day and then do two dance classes back to back. So I guess I started overthinking that, and then I I just I couldn't sleep at all. I I would get into bed maybe at around nine or ten, and then I would lie there until when I had to get up at five in the morning, and it kept happening on the Sunday night, and then the rest of the nights I would sleep. So obviously, I'm I'm not too stupid a person. I was like, oh, this is definitely anxiety related if it's only happening on the Sunday. So I thought, what am I, what am I gonna do about this? So I went I went to see a doctor and told her about what was happening, and she just gave me this super heavy sleeping pill and said, take this on a Sunday night. But most of the time, even that sleeping pill wouldn't work. Like it would just make me feel almost high. And then then the next day uh when I had to go to go work and do the dance classes on that Monday, I would feel even worse because now I haven't slept and I'm like hung over from this freaking sleeping pill. And yeah, I just kept getting really bad. So I was I thought, yeah, let me let me move the classes um to uh a a Tuesday instead. Yeah, so then oh I would I thought maybe on a Monday night I would sleep better because I'm already into the work week and everything. And uh I guess sometimes it was better, but most nights then on a Monday night I couldn't sleep the night before the dance classes. And it it was just it was a it was a nightmare, and it's it's it's like I I felt like I had to sleep to have energy for the dance classes. So I mean I would every week, basically most weeks on zero sleep, like not even an hour or anything, like teach these dance classes. Thinking back now, you know, I got through it, but when you when you're in that that day, that day after no sleep, you you feel like you the world is ending and your body is heavier and everything is just so difficult. Yeah, eventually I had to um I stopped those dance classes because it's I was just like this is not gonna work. I don't know how to how to get through this in insomnia thing and it's it's destroying my life. If I stop the dance classes, then maybe I'll at least sleep. So it was sad for me because I really really enjoyed teaching the dancing, but I I wanted to sleep more. So I stopped the dance classes that was sad. But yeah, then the insomnia went away. So I was like, okay, so that was definitely an anxiety thing. And it stayed away for a while until I had my first child, my first daughter, Liana Rose. I guess when I was pregnant, you know, you have your odd sleepless nights because you know you've got a tiny human growing inside of you that wants to have dance parties at two in the morning and you'll use your bladder as uh as a function bag. And so yeah, but that's uh that was like to be expected. It didn't bother me. But then after I gave birth, they always say, you know, sleep when the baby sleeps. But I just I think the insomnia came back with such a vengeance after I had Liana. At first it was because like I felt like I I'm responsible for this keeping this human alive, and now I cannot bring myself to lose consciousness when she relies on me to make sure she's breathing and she's okay. So that yeah, I couldn't sleep at all. And this went on for like several weeks. I remember saying to my husband at the time, I feel like I'm losing my mind. I'm gonna end up in a straitjacket in a mental asylum. Like, you need to rush me to the ER. They're gonna have to put me in a coma just to make me sleep. Like it's so scary. It's like not sleeping if you literally believe you can't sleep anymore. It is it is absolutely terrifying. And yeah, and it's that started with that fear of needing to watch her to make sure she's okay. But then, but then I eventually just like even when I see I really convinced myself, no, she's fine, I can really relax now. Let me let me try and sleep. I just I couldn't sleep because I felt like oh, also because she had to wake up every three hours so I could nurse her. And I was like, okay, so she's she's sleeping for these three hours. I have to sleep now before her next feed. I have to sleep now, I have to sleep now. I kept telling myself that, and then of course I would still be awake after three hours for her to drink.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

The pressure, just the pressure of that, having to sleep now.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Yeah. No, you it is it is insane that pressure. And I mean, she would sleep, she was an absolute angel as a baby. She would have continued sleeping if I didn't wake her up. Well, the doctors said I had to feed her every three hours, so I'd wake her up, and you know, I put all this unnecessary pressure on myself, and it was just a nightmare. Eventually, my husband one night he said to me, Just you need to relax. So, like have a glass of wine or something. You're not pregnant anymore, you can have a glass of wine or whatever. So I had a glass of wine and I lay down on the couch while Leona was sleeping, and I actually fell asleep for like two hours. And I was my faith was restored, and I was like, I can sleep, I can't sleep. I was so excited. And but then the problem was I like I did with lots of other things later on, I believed I needed the wine to sleep now without some. I just like I needed to have this glass of wine in order to be able to sleep. But then sometimes it worked, but sometimes it didn't. So I was like, okay, let me try something else, and then it would be like Valerian supplements that I would take. And I was like, oh, that would quote unquote work, and then it would work until it didn't work, and then I was constantly chasing the next thing that would support my sleep because I literally believed I had lost my ability to sleep naturally. Yes. And most nights nothing would work at all. I would be up at like three in the morning, you know, Googling postpartum insomnia, and I found stories of other people. And most of these stories they just they have no happy endings. So I would just, it's just made me more depressed. And it was wine, it was malaria, and then I would do the channel tea, like C BD oil, these ridiculous these uh these uh blue, these Bluetooth, this Bluetooth sleep mask. It's a sleep mask with headphones.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

I have not heard of that one. That's new.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

Oh my gosh. Then there's there's this guy on YouTube, he's got like a million subscribers for his sleep meditations, and everyone's in the comments like, you have changed my life. I can't sleep your stuff. So when that didn't work for me, yeah, I was like, there is something wrong with me. Yeah, there's something wrong with me. If all the things that work for everyone do not work with me, I'm just listening to this guy telling this story about these fairies in the bloody forest and you approach this house and you slowly go down towards this river. I'm like, it's fascinating, but I'm not any closer to yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

And I I can so relate, and I know that probably anybody listening to this podcast will completely relate to everything you're saying because you're doing all these things, and everybody's like, oh yeah, this was the trick. This worked, and it doesn't even touch it. You know, for us, we're like, it doesn't even touch it. So I totally and then that is you do feel like, well, I must be the one person that just doesn't has completely lost sensibility. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yeah, no, that's it was it's I don't even know.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I know it's sometimes it's sort of like how do you even explain what it's like to go through this?

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah, the people listening to understand, and maybe they feel less alone because the biggest thing for me was feeling so isolated and alone. Yes. The the clock is like 1 a.m., 2 a.m. 3 a.m. I can hear my husband snoring, I can hear my babies like snoring, and I know everyone I know is just like fast asleep. The world's outside is asleep, and it's like like you said, I think in one of your emails in your email course, it's it's not so much a fear of sleep as a fear of wakefulness. Yeah. I think that's what you said once. It's like this crippling fear of wakefulness. Yeah, and that was that was terrible to that period with Liana. And I guess at that time it sort of resolved a little bit on its on its own. I don't I I don't know how. It's like it came in these waves sometimes, and there wasn't even any specific bad trigger. That was in January 2019, yeah. And then so she was wake up every three hours for several months, and then it was when she was around six months, so maybe around June, she started sleeping through the night and sleeping longer stretches, and everyone's like, Oh, that's amazing. You're gonna start sleeping better. Do you think I started sleeping better? I lost my ability to sleep again. So it's like that pressure now. Oh, um, my baby is now sleeping for nine hours straight. That means I have all this time to sleep. I must take advantage of it. I'm asleep, I'm asleep, I'm asleep. And that pressure again sent me into another spiral six months later. That time I actually I went to see a what do you call them? The sleep um sleep specialist. And oh my gosh, I feel like that made things so much worse. It was they they they put me on sleep restriction, I'm sure you know all about that. I would keep this diary. He's like, it's like, how many hours did you sleep last night? But like at night, while I'm asleep, yeah, no, I don't know. I'm trying to fall asleep, and now you're putting all this pressure on me and telling me I have to count my hours of sleep. I'm already like drowning in anxiety. Right. And now I have and most days my luck would be like zero, one, zero, two. I did it for like a few days, and then I was like, no, I am I'm not doing this. I never went back to that sleep specialist. He also told me I must only be in bed from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. with the sleep restriction. And sometimes like at 10 or 11, I would be so tired, I could feel my eyes closing, but I would force myself to stay awake because he said so, like doing these ridiculous adult colouring books and anything to help me stay awake until one. And then the second I hit the pillow at one o'clock, bam, absolutely wide awake, wired, unable to sleep. I cannot understand why sleep restriction is like they say it has this 90% success rate. I do not believe that for a second.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Well, good for you for recognition, like only sticking to that for a couple of days and recognizing it, you know, this isn't working for me. So that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I was I was like, I can't I cannot do this. I'm just gonna like I did before, I'm just gonna leave it and see if it resolves on its own. And again, it did. Don't know how, just sort of went away. I relaxed a a little bit and somehow it got better. That was yeah, still 2019, and it actually went away for a while. But I was still living in this constant fear of the next spiral, you know, because I still didn't understand how sleep works. I I I still didn't have confidence at all in my sleep. I hadn't resolved the root of my fear at all. I was just most nights falling asleep, but constantly living in fear of that next spiral, which did come again, that then the worst part of insomnia of my entire life was several months ago. I had my second child in February. Um, and surprisingly, after having her, I slept fine because I actually didn't this time listen to all the clashing advice everyone was giving, like wake her up every three hours to feed her, put her on her back in this ridiculous contraption and a certain angle and all these things. I didn't listen to anyone. I just did my own thing. Like she slept in the bed with me, and I just fed her on demand when she wanted to drink, and I was much more relaxed. And the insomnia didn't come then during that those first few weeks. I expected it to, I fully expected it to because of how it went with my first child, but it didn't come then, and I thought, oh wow, okay, I'm actually I'm actually okay. Um the insomnia seems to not be coming back. That's great. But then, you know, all it takes is that one tiny trigger, like not even a trigger, trigger. It's like the smallest thing. We had a friend come to visit us, and we stayed up staying up really late until probably like midnight. And then my my older child woke up in the night. I think she needed to go pee. And then my my uh like three-month-old at the time wanted to nurse, and there was just everyone chatting and peeing and nursing, it stimulated me. And then I couldn't sleep again after that 3 a.m. chaos. I think if I if I'd gone to bed earlier, not going to bed at midnight, if I had more than the three hours of sleep, I wouldn't have stressed out so much. But now that that night after, I was like, oh, I only had three hours of sleep last night. So I really, I really need to catch up tonight. You know, again, that pressure, pressure, pressure, you have to sleep, you have to sleep. And then that night I didn't sleep at all. And it's just such a dark feeling. I'm sure people listening know, like if you've been through insomnia before and it goes away and comes back, it's such a bitter, dark, horrible, depressing like cloud over you, like watching the sunrise and you haven't slept. And then I started to really panic. And you know, I'd never in my life had a bout that went on for this long. This went on for like a month where I wasn't I wasn't sleeping at all, or at the most, like one or two hours a night, like I would fall asleep and then wake up or jump awake an hour later and then not sleep again, or the other way around, it would take me hours to fall asleep and then at 4 a.m. I'd fall asleep until five. It was it was absolutely horrific. And I just thought this is it. Like I felt for all these years that I lived in fear of the next spiral. Um, it's like this is what my my brain's been warning me about, or like I don't know, I've been getting signs all these years that this was gonna happen. I told myself the story that I was gonna die and insomnia was gonna kill me, and it was it was terrible. Daniel once in his book, he said something this was so apt to me. He said, it's like the old lady who swallowed a fly. Like you, she swallowed the fly, and then she swallowed what the spider to eat the fly and then the bird and then the horse and all that. You can't see one night of bad sleep as just swallowing a fly.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Like I one bad night, I kept making it worse and worse and worse and making the problem bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until I was in such a state, after like a month of hardly any sleep, I was I was in a terrible state. I I I went to the doctor and she just put she told me I must take this SSRI, and she gave me more strong sleeping pills, and you know, again, none of it worked. I was convinced I was gonna die. Awful. It influenced everything. You know, I like to work out, I like to do my makeup and feel good about myself and enjoy my days, but I was letting this complete inability to sleep ruin everything. I would like mope around the house like I was ill. I would, I would, I would not get dressed, my husband takes the kids to school. I'm just wandering around in my dressing gown crying, like trying to catch up on sleep in the day, in between trying to get work done. It's uh it was really bad. And I literally I thought this is the end of my life. I never ever thought I would get out of it. And it didn't help that you get, I don't know who's that guy that wrote that book that says if you don't get eight hours of sleep, you're gonna die of cancer or something.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, I think it's Matthew Walker, Why We Sleep. Is that it? That guy.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I I think so, but it made me very angry. Yes, yes, it got so much worse. And yeah, I have serious health anxiety as well. And I'm a complete hypochondriac, and I I always think I'm dying from anything. So now I'm already struggling to sleep, and he tells me I need to sleep, otherwise, I'm gonna get cancer and die. So that just made it so much better. Um and you know, uh let me actually get to something positive now. This is leading up to when I I I found one of your articles.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

I know, I was gonna ask you, like, how did it like how did things you know change or shift for you?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Yeah, sorry, I have to get onto the the light at the end of the tunnel now, otherwise I'm gonna be rambling on for a half with so I had been googling for so many years for help and advice, and no one can help in any way. But I thought, let me just Google one more time. I'm sure I have a feeling this time something something's gonna be different. I'm gonna find something. And I Beth, I don't know which article it was. I must actually go in my history and look, but it was the first time I was introduced to the concept of hyper arousal. And speaking of hyperarousal, it was like I I got hyperarousal just seeing that that that work. It was like I felt like my brain lit up and everything just made made so much sense. Um all those nights when when I had insomnia, it's like it's like your eyes are closed, but they're actually wide open. It's like the only way I do you're just lying there looking at all the pretty patterns behind your eyelids if you're unable to sleep. And I said to my husband at the at the time, like I feel like I can taste and smell the adrenaline and cortisol, like that stress, that absolute high, high stress cortisol and adrenaline levels, and that fight or flight mode. And it's like like you said, and Daniel said also as if you're being attacked by a by a bear or a lion or something, and your brain does it's to protect you, makes you uh be completely hyper-aroused, and uh it just it made it made so much sense. I couldn't I couldn't believe that I suffered for so many years, completely unnecessary. Like it was thinking about that, it actually makes me a bit emotional because it was it was such a turning point for me. Like Beth, I don't know where that would be if I hadn't found your article. It led me down a very good rabbit hole then. Then I found your interview with Daniel, and then I started watching other people's interviews. And at the time I always wondered how can all these people focus so much on insomnia and talk about it. But now, I mean, I'm in that position. I can talk about it for hours, and I know that it's not going to affect my sleep at all because I understand hyper-arousal now, and I know exactly why I was struggling for so many years. And I will I will never let that happen again. And once you once you understand that's what's happening, then you can choose to not let insomnia have any power over you anymore because it doesn't exist. It's insomnia does not exist at all. It's it's something that we just create through hyper arousal. And yeah, I think it believes anyone can.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

Yeah, you know, I've heard so many people have this response to that one, hyper arousal. And I had the same response, and I'm like, how can this one word encapsulate the experience so well?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

But it does, it does, it's exactly all it is hyper arousal arousal, like hyper-aware, like on high alert, even if your eyes are closed, yeah, but it's it's like they're wide open, your heart is beating, you're sweating, it's your every single part of you, all your senses are on fire and around hyper aroused. It's exactly what it is. It just made so much sense as soon as I read that. And I was like, why? In all my years has no one ever talked about this.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Definitely. I I felt similarly, and I I hope that that word I well, it is, I think, moving into the mainstream a little bit more because it almost seems like it like confirms your experience a little bit or something, or it just explains your experience. And so I know you mentioned like that when you're going through something like insomnia, it feels especially scary because you don't understand why it's happening. And you know, once you understand why it's happening, it actually makes sense from a biology standpoint that the brain would be creating this hyperarousal based on the anxiety about not sleeping. And it's so, you know, paradoxical how that it's it keeps you awake, even though you want to sleep. So you've got, like you said, those fight or flight hormones coursing through the body. So it's, you know, but then once you understand what it is, tell me how that changed things for you.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So for me, it wasn't like immediate that I was completely healed, but I've I think it was it was exactly what I needed to hear. That that night, I actually ended up sleeping quite well. And the next few nights was sort of sort of on and off. But I obviously it's something, you know, understanding is just the first step. Then you need to start implementing it, uh, implementing it. And with sometimes when I would be trying to fall asleep and I would I would feel that anxiety kicking in and the heart beating and stuff, I would say, nope, this is this is hyperarusal. I understand exactly what you're doing, brain, and you can stop it now. I'm not in danger. There's no bear attacking me. If I don't sleep, it's not the end of the world. And then usually that's like the last thing I remember, and then I wake up in the morning. So it was a process of implementing it and sort of just welcoming the fear instead of instead of like um trying to fight it, because then it makes you more scared and you get more hyper-aroused. So every time I felt it coming, I would sort of just accept it and let it happen and talk to it and say, No, I know what you're doing, brain, and you can calm down. There's no bear, there's no threats or anything. So yeah, it was a slow, slow process, but um yeah, understanding and implementing it, it it slowly, slowly got better. And I I since I discovered that word and I've gone through the eating process, and I haven't I haven't been struggling at all. Sometimes it made me I sleep really badly because I have two children who wake up in the night, and I've got a nine-month-old who's teething, and uh got a four-year-old, almost four-year-old that is has been sick like twice in the past month. And then I was sick. So those normal life things uh make me have a bad night of sleep, but it's never because of insomnia. Yeah, never because of hyper around.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

And I think it is what eliminates it from your life.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

Keeps it from becoming, it's like when you have those normal sleep interruptions in life, they don't send you in the same spiral that they might have before you understood, right? Like it's it's it's it's just it's just sleep disruption versus what's happening, why is this happening? I don't understand why it's happening. So I remember when you were talking in your previous interview, you talked about making that conscious decision. Like once you understood what was going on and why you had insomnia and you were able to sort of start teasing things apart and pay attention to the like the story. And you talked about, you know, you made that conscious decision for insomnia not to rule your life anymore. And I just thought that was so powerful. And I'm wondering if you would expand on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Yeah, because I think I think it's um it's it's difficult because you you could make the decision, but your brain doesn't always get the memory immediately. But I but I just I carried on. I I I made that conscious decision because I was sick and tired of this thing controlling and ruining my life because I, you know, I had everything I've ever wanted. I've got a great husband, I've got two little girls. It's like this absolute potential dream life for most people. And it's like my brain was finding a way to punish me, and like I felt like I didn't deserve it. And eventually I was like, no, this is rubbish. I've worked hard enough to have a decent life. I I'm choosing to not let any anything take that away from me, including insomnia. Because I think insomnia it's I think it happens uh largely also because we people who suffer from anxiety, we believe we have less control than we do. So we we always believe some other force or something else is in control, our brains are in control and able to make our lives miserable. We we have more control. And I decided no, I'm I'm not going through this anymore. I I still want to uh get up, even if I haven't slept, I want to do my workout, I want to get ready, do my hair and makeup, I want to have a date night with my husband, I want to play with my kids, I wanna I wanna have a nice day, no matter how I've slept. And I I think choosing to do that also helped a lot with the insomnia going away because I think most people with insomnia, you spend every waking moment thinking about that that that night that's on the way. As the day goes on, you're thinking, oh, what am I gonna put in my bath? What am I, what am I gonna, what tea am I gonna make? What meditation am I gonna do? Then the sun starts setting and you get more and more stressed and stressed and stressed about sleep. But if you just stop focusing on it and just just let it be, you know, enjoy your life, go to bed, and if hyperarousal happens, you must just understand exactly what's happening, let it be, don't fight it off, and then that that's when insomnia ends, and that's how it ended for me.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Oh, that's so good. I I I love everything you said, and I I think sometimes just getting to that place where you're just like, you know, F it. I am so done with this insomnia, and you you kind of get onto your brain, you're like, oh, I realize I see what my brain is doing. And then that can be a good moment where you do just decide, okay, I'm gonna just, you know, you're gonna live your life and you're gonna enjoy your kids and make life bigger than insomnia. It's so good. I I have one last question for you that I ask all my guests at the end of the interview. But before we go there, I know this is a little bit off topic of insomnia, but I wanted to ask you because I know you're a copywriter, and I've been thinking about this question um since we talked about this interview a couple of weeks ago, because I've been watching the show Mad Men, the series, for probably the fourth, maybe the fifth time. And I'm curious if you the fifth time have you seen the show? I have not. I am ashamed. You have to see the show. And I I just have thought of you. And in fact, I um I went right before we um did this interview. I went and watched parts of your wedding video, which you know it is so stunning. And I've I've mentioned to you before, I just love your personal style. And your wedding video to me honestly looked like it could be a scene from mad men. So you have got to watch the series and let me know what you think whenever you have time. I know that you have two kids and life is busy, but I just think you would appreciate the show so much because you're a copywriter.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

I've seen it's it's very stylized, it's very stylized. Yes. Yes. I I've always wanted to, there's a lot of things I've always wanted to watch. I just I I never get around to it. I mean, these days, I mean my husband have been trying to watch the latest season of The Crown since like the beginning of the year. When does Season Life come up? And like most people probably can binge watch a show in like a week or two. It's taking us forever. And even I've been watching the last latest season of sex education and the last episode and trying to watch for about a week and a half, like watching it in little dribs and drabs, and then one of my kids uh wants something or refuses to sleep until like midnight, and then I'm like, okay, I'll go tomorrow. And as wow, I've been on the same scene for four days. Yeah, but it is on my list. I I know a lot of people have been raving about it for a long time since it first came out.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Yeah, I think you will love it, and you can just have it in the wings, you know, for for how many ever years down the road because it's such a classic show, but I think you'll love it because I think you'll appreciate the wardrobe and the sets and just everything about it. It just reminds me of you. Okay, so for the for the real last question, what were some of the silver linings that came from insomnia for you?

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Well, I think I mean it sounds weird to say I'm glad I went through it, but I I genuinely am because like especially because I had gone through insomnia so many times before, and even if it went away for a few months or a year or whatever, I was constantly living in in fear of that that spiral, and I never got to the root of it. So this last bout I had that was so horrific, where I actually got to the root of the problem and made it so that now I understand it. It's like I had to go through this how one more time, and then I never had to go back again. And it's given me such a deeper appreciation for life and the good things in life, because oh gosh, you know, there's so many scenes in TV shows when people joke joke about sleep. And if someone's had a bad night of sleep, it's like this comedy where someone's stumbling around stuff. But you know, anyone with a sonia knows it's more like a bloody horror movie if you're in the middle of that. Um, but you know, life on the other side of that, it's it's it, I'm just I'm so much more grateful for everything. And to be able to have gone from being a victim of it to being able to tell my story and bring hope to others, that's so nice for me. It's somewhere I never ever thought I would be. Like I said, I thought it was absolutely gonna kill me. So to be now better off, stronger, and able to help others as well, to be more grateful for everything. I yeah, I'm glad I went through it. And I think that is definitely a positive outcome of it.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, absolutely. So well said. Lauren, I I so appreciate you taking the time to share your story. And I really I think our stories become someone else's hope. So thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Oh, thank you, Beth, for the for the opportunity to share the story. And I really, really hope someone hears it who needs to hear it, and they can have some hope. It's not the end of the world and it's not gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yes, it it won't kill you. That's it, it feels like it when you're in it. And I have a whole blog on that actually. So, everyone, this is the Mind Body Sleep Podcast. I'll see you all next time, and bye for now. Bye, Lauren. Bye, Beth. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here today. If you love what you heard on today's episode, don't forget to hit the like button and subscribe to the podcast. And if you need more support with your sleep, join me in the Mind Body Sleep Mentorship. This three month one on one program will transform your relationship with sleep so you can get back to living the life that you love free from the fear of not sleeping. Head on over to bethkendle.com for more details. I'll see you next time.