How Kim Turned Nighttime Dread into Peaceful Sleep | Ep 43

Kim’s journey from being a naturally great sleeper to battling insomnia is a raw, real, and deeply inspiring story.

Always a champion sleeper, Kim faced her first bout of insomnia after becoming a new mom and experiencing a “perfect storm” of stress, hormonal changes, and personal challenges.

A fear of not sleeping took over, leading her into the insomnia trap where sleep became an effort versus just a natural biological process.

In this episode, Kim talks about:

• How letting go of rules turned out to be the best rule
• How reframing separate bedrooms brought her peace
• The magic of no longer postponing joy
• The mindset shift that transformed her recovery
• Her heartfelt advice for anyone still navigating insomnia

Kim’s story is a powerful reminder to embrace the moment, release perfection, and rediscover joy.

Because true healing comes from living, not waiting.

Enjoy!

Connect with Beth Kendall:

 👉  Instagram 

Work with Beth Kendall:

👉   Start the Free Insomnia Course

👉   Learn About the Mentorship

Full Show Notes and Transcription

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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 back to the podcast. Today I am most honored to be joined by another Mind Body Sleep Mentorship Alum. Welcome, Kim. Hi Beth. It's good to be here for you today. Really see you. Yeah, I'm so glad you're here. And you know, you emailed me a few weeks back and you gave me the most wonderful update. And just to give the listeners a bit of context, you joined the mentorship back in May of 2023. I went back and checked. And I know it's been a while. And I'm always going to be so grateful to uh people like you. I think of you guys as like my OGs because you came into the mentorship when it was still relatively young and there was no podcast, you know, or hope stories or anything like that. And it was just you taking a leap of faith and and trusting the process. But I was so happy to get your email and hear how things have been going. So why don't we begin with you telling us a little about how insomnia started for you and what that was like? Gosh. It's a long story. How long have you got? Yeah, no, I know. It's it's there's no such thing as a short insomnia story. So wherever you want to start is just fine.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Well, I think one of the things that really struck me was that my story is quite different from yours, I think, Beth, in that historically I've never had any sleep problems at all. So I remember my mum saying when I was a baby I was a dream. Um, and she'd put me down for for twelve. I mean, I'm not sure if it's true, but she'd put me down for 12 hours and I'd sleep straight through. And it was a bit of a running joke with my family that you know I could nap on demand and sleep standing up or wherever I wanted to, and my husband would always say, Oh, you know, but you're such a good sleeper. And so sleep growing up for me was never an issue, it was never really something I thought about, it was never something I really paid attention to, it was just something that happened very naturally for me. And June 2021, it must have been, um I found out I was pregnant and obviously overjoyed, very happy. And I ended this sort of strange, well, I sort of started to go into this strange world where people would ask me questions about you getting enough rest now because you'll need it when the baby comes, and all these sort of weird comments that I just really wasn't used to. And I was thinking, oh no, you know, is this going to be really difficult for me? Is you know everything going to change? Um, and then I had my little boy in when was it, May 2022? He was born. Um, I had quite a difficult birth with him, but we were getting on just fine, except for the fact that again, I just entered this world where sleep was the only thing that people seem to talk about. So I'd go into a supermarket and I would say, you know, people would ask me, How are you getting on? How's he sleeping? And I'd go to these mum groups with other mums, and people would say, Oh, are you sleeping? Are you getting any sleep? How's the baby sleeping? Yeah. And it was utterly bizarre for me. I mean, in ordinary day life, if you went into a supermarket, you wouldn't just start speaking to a stranger about how they've been sleeping before. And it was just a whole new world. And I started to, I think I started to panic, and I was thinking, you know, do I do I look tired? Do I look like I'm struggling? Um, have I got you know, knackered mum written all over my head? Um yeah. And it it's I think at that point sleep started to become a bit of a um a bit of a sensitive topic for me, I think, when it never really had previously. Now I was again managing just about okay as you can as a new mum, and you know, starting to find my feet, um, starting to get into a bit of a groove. I had been exclusively breastfeeding as well. So I think that all the night shifts fell on me and the sleep development did start to take its toll. Again, I was getting on just fine. Yeah. And then I I remember the day, I could put it in the diary. Um, it was May 2022, and I think it was a combination of things that actually happened all at one time. So my period came back after giving birth, which my hormones were obviously just absolutely wild. We hit the some sort of sleep regression with my son, so he was waking up every 45 minutes, and then just to top things off, we were given some really difficult news about my mother-in-law. So I think I I told you Beth, but it was really difficult. She was actually given a um a terminal prognosis, yeah. And then my mum was sorry, my mum was really unwell, and I remember thinking at one point that we might realistically lose her as well. And I think the combination of everything just hit at once, and it was sort of a perfect storm.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

And I remember going to bed one night in May, as I had done, my son lying next to me in his cot, my husband next to me, and I just sat there wide awake. And I was like, I just can't sleep. So I took myself off to the spare room, and I thought, you know what, I'll just, you know, come away and I'll catch a bit of sleep, and then everything will be, you know, feel better in the morning. But that night I think sleep completely evaded me, and I woke up and I was, I mean, I felt to be honest with you, completely broken. I remember thinking, on top of everything else that's going on in my life right now, I really need to be able to catch a break and to rest to be able to sleep. But for some reason, I just I just couldn't. And I think because my son was waking up every 45 minutes throughout the night, the the pressure to sleep just became too much. Yeah. And I remember speaking to my husband and saying, I haven't, you know, I haven't slept a wink, I haven't slept all night, what am I going to do? And he was like, just you know, don't panic, it's okay. You'll sleep well tonight because you've you know you've had such a bad night. And I remember speaking to friends and they said the same thing. Yeah. And I went to bed the next night, and it was again the same story. Yeah. And I just remember lying there feeling so scared, I think, absolutely helpless. And you know, we'd had this news about my mother-in-law, we'd had some concerns about my mum, and I'd just become a mum myself, and I was thinking, you know, this little boy needs me, I need to be able to sleep, I need to be okay. Yeah, yeah. And I think I wake up, but I didn't wake up, I you know, got up the next day, and I remember just ringing the the doctors and saying to them, Look, you know, I'm exhausted, I don't know what to do. Help me, do something, please. Like, I'm in a desperate situation, I haven't slept for nights. Yeah. I have a baby that's waking up all the time. I'm trying to deal with a lot in my personal life, like everything is just just too much. I'm I'm broken. And the doctor was very sympathetic and very understanding. She ultimately gave me a load of sleep in tablets. She put me on antidepressants. I remember saying to her, I'm not, I don't feel like my mood is like low, I don't feel depressed. Um, I don't think I need these, but I was ultimately in a situation where I just felt like I had no choice. I felt I had death, you know, I was desperate. Yeah. So I just took everything she gave me. I I mean I had a right cocktail of you know, different medications, sedatives, I took it all. And she said, I remember her saying to me, if you take the sleeping medication now, um, that will help in the short term. Then what will happen is once the antidepressant kicks in and you know things settle down for you, sleep will follow. But it didn't.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember I remember talking about this with you, you know, back, you know, back last year. And hearing you talk about this. Well, first of all, you know, I I think so many people are going to be able to relate to this perfect storm that you described, like having so many people fixated on sleep while you were going through, you know, your pregnancy, and then, you know, the stress with your mom, and then having a new baby and having to get up every 45 minutes, and then having that night where you didn't sleep, which I'm sure felt shocking given your background as, you know, kind of identifying as this person that can sleep, you know, standing straight up or can sleep anywhere, that was probably really, really scary. And it sounds like, you know, it's so understandable how this was sort of primed to happen for so many reasons that, you know, are so easy to see once you're out of insomnia, just in our society, how we can start like setting the stage for something like this. But when you're in it and you don't know and you don't have that education, that is so so scary. So it sounds like this was like that that night in May, the beginning of like where your orientation with sleep started to change into the efforting, right? Like starting with the medication. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

So you're right though, but the the background, I think that perpetuated things for me because it just reinforced to me that there was something now wrong with me. Right. Because if I was historically, my husband would say, you know, one of the best sleepers he'd ever known, and I couldn't sleep now. And I think you sort of conjure up this memory that for me sleep had always been perfect. And I think that's obviously not true. There's there has been times in my life historically where I've not slept, but the difference was I didn't have any fear around it, I didn't have any, you know, it didn't scare me. So I didn't, I didn't make a mental note of it. I didn't remember. I put it down to a bad night, I got up, I moved on, you know, sleep followed. This was different, and I think I was just convinced at this stage that there was something wrong with me. And the sleeping meds, I mean, they solved the initial problem in that they helped me fall asleep, but within a couple of hours I was wide awake again and I couldn't drift off. And I was thinking, I can't even sleep with sleeping pills. There is something very seriously wrong with me now. And I remember my friends saying to me, Oh, you know, go and stay, go and stay somewhere else, have a break from you know, being up all night, take your sleeping meds, have a night, catch up, you'll feel fine tomorrow. It just didn't happen. I just still, despite all the medication I've been put on, I just still couldn't sleep. And the antidepressants didn't help with sleep, they didn't do anything for me apart from make me feel I mean, slightly like a for me, they just made me feel slightly like a zombie. Yeah. And yeah, it was, I mean, I think I remember speaking to you about it.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

It was just horrendous. Yeah, I know. And it's like, oh, looking back, you know, first of all, how normal it is to have that kind of sleep, you know, to have sleep disruption when you're when you have a new baby and you've got stressful life factors going on, and you know, insomnia or not, people struggle with sleep. And, you know, starting the medication, I'm sure, like thinking, oh, this medication's gonna take care of it. And then having that hyperarousal sort of still showing up even with the medication. That's when the belief probably came on board. Oh, you know, there there really is something, there really is something wrong with my brain. And girl, I'm so, I mean, I lived in that, you know, I just had that myself. So I I know what that belief feels like. So you went the medication route, and then it was a year until about a year until you came on, came into mind body sleep. So what happened between then and and mind body sleep?

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Gosh, well, so I think we know both. I'm a lawyer, yeah. So I did the only thing that I know how to do, and that's problem solve, of course. Um, you know, we're taught growing up that effort equals reward. So yeah, I thought, you know what, I'm gonna use all my problem solving skills that I've been taught at university and in in my job, and I'm going to fix this problem.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Um, but little did I know that, you know, I obviously know it now, but I got caught in the insomnia trap. Um, and the more I tried to fix it, the worse I made the problem. But oh Beth, I I think I spoke to you, we tried I tried everything.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

There was probably a point in time where if you said to me I need to do 50 laps around the garden, stand on my head and do a headstand or a spin anti-clockwise whilst holding a glass of water every night before bed, yeah, you know, doing a chart, I probably would have tried it. Um I think I tried various forms of different medication. I ultimately decided to come off all my meds completely cold turkey, which in hindsight may have been about, I don't know, but that's what I decided to do. Yeah. Um at some point I was, I think I was convinced that having read the side effects of the antidepressant, that that might have been causing or perpetuating the insomnia. I went to the doctors and I had decided that perhaps it was hormones because that might have been the only thing that had changed since I'd had um my son. So I paid for blood tests to be done. I mean, they all came back as completely normal. And I remember just saying to the doctor, you know, incomplete, almost dead. What are you what are you gonna do? Like I can't just carry on like this, and they were just very blasé about it, you know. Well, not much we can do. I think um I tried every single supplement that I could get my hands on online. Anything that's had sleep or that would help with sleep, I tried. I read books about sleep, and I think one book in particular was I don't I don't know if you know about it, but it's a it's about how to optimise sleep for athletes. And I mean, it really was the wrong book to read at the wrong time because it was all about how to optimise sleep, and obviously I wasn't even sleeping at the time. Um, so for the moment I woke up, I needed to have so many minutes of sunlight on my face, I needed to eat a certain diet, I needed to avoid, you know, unnatural light in the evening. So if my husband put the bathroom light on just before bed, I would, you know, absolutely freak out. And I was just living in this world where as soon as the afternoon hit, the the fear, the the dread of bedtime, it was, I mean, it was awful. And I was at a point where my son was actually starting to sleep through the night, and I was thinking, you know, I'm not e I don't even have that pressure now of waking up all the time and he's sleeping, but I'm still not sleeping. I had a device that was meant to help me sleep. I paid a you know a lot of money for it, and obviously it didn't didn't do anything. And then I got to a place where I think it was the end of 2022, I decided to do CBTI, and I I did a course of that, and I mean it was slightly strange in that it helped because I was starting to sleep, but the fear, the conditions that I had placed on myself to be able to sleep were almost ridiculous. So I had a very strict sleep routine between certain hours, I wasn't allowed to nap at all, even if I hadn't slept. I wasn't sleeping in the same bed as my husband because just fear that he might disturb me at some point. If I woke in the night at all, which I was obviously doing quite frequently, or if I couldn't sleep, which was most nights to be honest, I had to get up and leave the bedroom. I wasn't allowed to spend any time in the day during um in bed or in my bedroom. I followed this schedule and my sleep did actually start to improve, but I still live with this fear.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Um, I wasn't going out in the evenings because I thought that anything that could possibly interfere with my sleep or disrupt it. So I wasn't really living any sort of life. I was just sort of living in fear and you know, in this weird sort of limbo state. And then I remember seeing a post on Instagram and it was one of your posts. And I think you said something about how you can still have be sleeping, but have insomnia. Yeah. And that really, I mean, that's where I was at, and that really resonated with me. And I think that's when I then took the the step and got in contact with you.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Yep. Yep. Yep. I think that makes so much sense. And, you know, I I say so often that sleep isn't the solution to insomnia, which, you know, doesn't make sense because of course that's what you know, that's what we're seeking is sleep. But then if there's still that background fear, you know, that's still kind of running your life, you know, you're not living life the way you really want to live it, which I think this is really where the moving back into trust piece comes into play, you know. And that's what can take some time. And that's really where I focused my attention with mind body sleep is just you know, creating a series of perspective shifts that will move you back towards that trust, you know, in a way that the brain will sort of uh allow it or accept it and move, you know, let go of these some of these survival patterns around sleep and back towards towards trust. So I'm so glad that you found uh my post on Instagram and me too. Yeah, delivering. So, okay, so you came in, you came in, you were one of my OGs. And and how how was that? How did that go? I remember talking and I remember you were I think you were not too sure, you know, or kind of like you were you were open minded and you were like, I'm willing. The sounds like the sounds right, you know. Um, but how was the experience for you? Or how was your recovery process?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Um well, I think initially when I started the course, I found it just completely liberating. I think you're the only person that told me that I wasn't broken, that there was nothing actually that I needed to do to fix my sleep, that I didn't have a problem that I needed to solve. And that was completely different to anything I'd been told by anyone else, or anything else I'd read. And that was sort of a first moment of ah, okay, this is different, and this makes sense. And going through the course and understanding why I had started the insomnia had started. I mean, looking back now and talking about the perfect storm, it makes a lot of sense, and I can see it from an outsider's perspective, but when I was in it at the time, I just I just couldn't see, I just couldn't see it. And so it was that first step, I think, and going through the course and understanding why it happened to me, it it just changed my perspective on everything, really, and it just felt completely it was such a light bulb moment. Wow, like it really, really hit, and I was like, okay, this this makes a lot of sense. So, you know, I have to trust what you're telling me and the process. Now I think the journey from that point onwards hasn't been necessarily straightforward. Um, and there's been you know difficult nights, speed bumps, all sorts of things along the way. But it's and it's not been it, it wasn't uh, you know, I know the content of the course, and then it it wasn't overnight that it just kicked in and I started to sleep again. It it didn't work like that. Yeah, and I think at points I I remember feeling frustrated and thinking, well, I I know all this stuff, so why isn't sleep following? Or what's going on here? And you know, or I'd start to have a period where I started to sleep again, and then a nice little bump would come along to or a little curveball to keep me on my toes and throw me out of the you know, recovery, and I'd email you and I'd say, Beth, you know, what do I need to do? And you know, you put me back on track. But there were times when I'd end up back in the Google track of, you know, do I need to fix it? But I think under your guidance, I mean, one of the first things we actually worked on, and one of the hardest things for me was actually undoing all the things I learned in the CBTI, um because they were the what a lot of the things that were causing me a lot of fear around sleep. So you saying to me, nap if you want to, I mean, historically, if I wanted to have a nap on an afternoon, I would have not thought twice about it. Yeah, I loved the nap. Um, you know, on a winter's evening, if I wanted to get comfy on the sofa, put the fire on, you know, have blankets, watch a movie. If I dozed off, I wouldn't have, you know, again, I wouldn't have thought anything about it. But after doing the CBTR, I mean I was in a place where after that I was, you know, it was 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, but I couldn't go to bed. And I remember sitting on the cold, hard floor trying to keep myself awake. So it's sort of unlearning all of those. Yeah. Taking the rules out of it, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Taking the rules. I mean ripping them up. Yeah, exactly. Just throw them right out the window.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:53

I know. I I know that really throws people when they come in, and and you know, a lot of people come from CBTI, and I went through that twice myself. And um, you know, it's it's got merits. I, you know, it helps people, so I I don't ever want to dismiss it or, you know, but it is it's much more rigidy, more rules. And then people come into mind body sleep, and I, you know, I say the only rule is there are no rules. So, you know, we don't need rules for sleep. We just decide. You know, we just uh we decide what we want to do. And I I love what you said about naps because that's such a common one. I've been wanting to do an episode on naps because that's another area, you know, you've got something like a delicious nap, which is such a wonderful thing to to enjoy that millions of people all over the world do on the daily. And, you know, there can be this sense that we're gonna be punished or we're gonna have to pay a price, or no, we're gonna we're gonna ruin our sleep. And, you know, I think just just taking a common sense approach and doing basically what you would have done before you had insomnia is always such a such a good guideline. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah. I think it was about maybe three, four months into the program, and my sleep actually had you know torn up the rule book and my sleep has started to improve. But there was a couple of things that were still probably holding me back, and that was that I wasn't sleeping in the same bed as my husband, and for me that was something I was wanting to do. Yeah. Um, and I was still a little bit reserved about doing anything in the evening which might disturb my sleep. And I remember speaking to you about both of them, and you said to me, with my husband, you know, rather than seeing it as a sleep effort, maybe we could reframe the way we think about it. And actually, for a lot of new parents and couples sleeping in separate beds at a time when you know, I have a young child who's waking up is actually a perfectly sensible and normal thing to do. I decided to give myself some grace, and I decided to go with it. And I was like, do you know what? If it has to be this way for now, it will be, it won't be forever, but I'll go with it. And then I think at that point as well, I had this realization that I was just isolating myself from a lot of people, and you know, I wasn't going out and doing things, and I just thought, do you know what? If I wait until my sleep is where I want it to be, then I don't know how long I could be waiting. Right. And that was sort of another, those two things happened around the same time, and that was a sort of another light bulb moment for me. And I realized that I mean I didn't go wild, um, you know, it but an occasional dinner date with my husband, a night at a pub with my friends, going to the cinema, all things I used to enjoy, like occasionally. I just decided that do you know what? I'm gonna start doing them again. And I my sleep didn't get better straight away, and I remember coming back and lying there and thinking, I can't sleep, I can't sleep. And then I don't really know what happened apart from all I can the only way I can explain it is for a period of time, I just stopped. I think because I was so busy, yes, I just stopped thinking about it, and then I had a moment where I was like, Oh, hang on, I'm not thinking about it, and actually I'm sleeping, yeah, or I'm going out and it's not taking me hours to fall asleep. Right. And it was sort of these few moments, and then again a few months later, I thought, oh, I went out last night and I got into bed and I fell straight asleep. And gradually, over a period of I think about a year, I just realized that I was going out, I was starting to sleep again. And it sort of slowly just these realizations, or my husband would say to me, Oh, you you know, you're not obsessed, you haven't asked me what time it is, or you're not ups, you know, you've not been checking the clocks, or you're not obsessed with how many hours sleep you've got, or we haven't been talking about sleep, and just these little realizations that actually things were a bit easier.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah. It's interesting how it is because I think it really sneaks up on you, you know. Exactly. It does. It's like you just realize, like, oh, you know, I I don't, I'm not thinking about that anymore. I'm not, I'm not like making a decision through the the filter of well, how is this going to affect my sleep? And you know, it's not this like you you reek a moment as much as like, oh, uh you just noticed you're living your life differently. And you know, I loved this part of your your email. You you wrote, it's strange looking back because I had to do things a bit back to front. Instead of waiting for sleep to improve before I started living, I had to start living first. And that that just really, I mean, that says it all right there. And that's a big part of the mentorship in terms of like helping people shift that focus first, because it's so normal to think, oh, well, once I get get over this, then I'm gonna do X, Y, Z, you know, and it's really just doing whatever part of, even if it's just X, just doing a part of X. That's what eventually it's it is it is the opposite. And I I love I love that. I loved reading that.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

It feels very counterproductive. Yes. Um, you know, if you break your leg, they wouldn't, you know, if you're playing football, they wouldn't say to you, you know, you need to go and start playing football, and then your leg will heal. Um so but yeah, it was just, and it's just those moments where you realize, oh, oh, I'm not thinking about it, and oh, I'm living my life, and oh, this feels quite nice. And yeah, I think then the final sort of step for me was going back in the same bed as my husband, and this for me felt like a challenge that I just didn't know if I could overcome, and I don't know why, because for 15 years I've slept in the same bed as him and he's never disturbed me, he's not a snorer, you know. I've never had any problems with it, and actually I, you know, I was thinking, oh, maybe I need to address this. And then out of the blue, I got an email, one of your emails, and it was a podcast about bed sharing. And it was, I think it was about 15 minutes, and I remember thinking, I'm going to listen to this, and I did, and I sent it on to my husband and I said, Can you listen to this? Because it explains so well exactly how I feel and why this is an issue for me. It's nothing to do with you or you know, it's just because my body is kicking up some fuss about it, it doesn't like it. And we spoke about it, and we said he was very understanding, he has been throughout this whole process, but he was like, When you want to, we can think about it. And I remember thinking, okay, well, we'll try it, but it's got to be on a day where we've got no plans the following day or the the day after that, and at a time when my son is, I know he, you know, when he's going through a good spell of sleep, he's not unwell, and there's got to be a sort of perfect time, and then I'll try and address it. And then I thought to myself, do you know what? Let's just give it a go.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Um, if it doesn't go well, you know, I can try again. Yes. Um, so it was a random Monday night, and I just said, stay in bed, don't go, like neither of us are going to the spare room, stay in bed.

unknown 32:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

And I remember lying there and thinking, okay, I can't sleep. But you talked about being the observer and observing what your brain was doing, and I, you know, I was okay, here we go. I understand what's happening, I know why your kids have a fuss. And then the next thing I know, I wake up and it was six o'clock. And I'd slept. You know, and then I haven't I haven't gone back into the spare room. And if I tried at any point previously to sleep in the same bed as him, and then I'd had a night where I couldn't sleep, I'd instantly gone back to okay, well, we need to sleep in separate rooms again. Yeah, yeah. But I haven't done that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah. That's that's so amazing to hear. And I I think what really helps that along, and what you you've done in this process of rejoining your husband is you you kind of let it be okay wherever you were in whatever happened. You know, it I always say we're going, you know, we're we're not, we don't need to do it perfectly, you know. And it's in that allowing of whatever happens that it it's easier, it's it's a it's a retraining process. It's like when we're okay with it, we're sort of teaching our brain that, hey, whatever happens is okay. We're we're not shooting for perfection. And that's what lessens the hyperarousal, you know. So I'm so, so glad that podcast episode helped and that you're you're sleeping with your husband again. And that's such a big one, you know, rejoining a bed partner is is usually one of the later things, one of the later things to go. So very common.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah, it felt like the final piece in the puzzle, really. Yeah. Um and I mean, I remember talking to people about it, and they were like, well, you know, if you can't sleep and you're just lying next to him, just enjoy being there. But I mean, at the time, the thought of sleeping next to or lying awake next to someone who was sleeping felt like utter torture. I couldn't think of anything worse. But now it's you know, if I can't sleep, I just enjoy just enjoy being there. But to be honest with you, Beth, I get into bed and I fall asleep. Yeah. Um and I obviously I wake up in the night, I need the toilet, you know, but I get back into bed and I go to sleep, or I just enjoy being there. Yeah, or I'm waking up occasionally by my son, but it it doesn't bother me now.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I could tell from your email that you're reaching that stage of where you realize like just you can't really ever fall prey to it the same. It doesn't mean like those fears don't ever show up. Like they they might show up for oddball reasons sometimes, but you just don't they don't you're more like, wow, that's so interesting, you know, that these these old fears would still kind of show up every once in a while, but they don't they don't really affect you the same, you know. You're not so close to them. Not at all. No, they don't have the same hold on me like they used to. Yes, exactly. They just don't have the same grip, you know. So so glad to hear this. And I was gonna say, like, what would you say, Kim, to you know, to someone who's still on the climb, if you had any any advice for them?

SPEAKER_00 35:29

Gosh, I mean, I think the first thing I'd say is I know how difficult it is. I know what it feels like to be in the depths of the desperation and how awful it felt. I think, I mean, it sounds cliche, doesn't it? And but ultimately hang in there because it I mean, mine's a prime example, it can and it will get better. Yeah, I think the best thing that helped me was well, a couple of things along the way that were quite big things were taking the pressure off, so going timeless at night, yeah, so not counting how many hours of sleep I'd had, and having no rules around sleep. But I think the biggest change came when I just decided not to postpone my joy. I just decided that I had to carry on living because either I was gonna, you know, sit at home and not sleep, or I was gonna carry on do the things that I like doing, even if I didn't sleep. Um, I think that mindset change and that it's like loosening again, loosening the grip of it over me is when that I started to see again, not not instantly, and it wasn't an overnight thing, but slowly, slowly things just got a little bit easier. And obviously there were bumps along the way, and you know, life's thrown up some difficult stuff for us again recently, but the sleep just hasn't, you know, the fear just hasn't cropped up in the same way.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. And were there any silver linings that came from having insomnia for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

I think I mean I always used to say to my husband, I want to go, I want to go back to the kim that could sleep and prior to the insomnia, but I think again, it sounds cliche, but it's a journey, isn't it? And it's taught me an awful lot. It's taught me really that there aren't any preconditions to being happy and living life. I think you get sometimes get caught in this trap that you need to be sleeping, or you need this needs to be solved, or you need, you know, a bigger house or a different job before you can be happy. But actually, you don't. And I think having a little boy is you know, he doesn't wake up after a bad night's sleep and say, you know, mummy, we need to stay at home today. He's like, come on, let's go to the park. You know, he doesn't postpone his joy, he just gets on, he lives in the moment, and I think that was really a silver lining for me out of all of this. It just made me realise that I don't need to wait around or do anything before I can just carry on living my life, really, and that's been pretty amazing to be honest. I mean, am I grateful this happened? I don't know. Ask me a year or two ago, and I think I probably would have said no, um, but in some sort of weird way now, I think I've learned a lot from it, and yeah, it's been difficult. And probably a lot, the journey's been a lot longer than I expected it to be. That first May, I thought, you know, give it a week or two and I'll be back and sleeping, and there I was two years later, and but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah, so well said, Kim. I really I really appreciate you taking the time to come on and and share your story with us. These hope stories are my favorite episodes to do because I know that they they will find the right people. So thank you a million times over.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

You're very welcome. And I mean, again, I was in such a such a bad place, but just looking back now, honestly, some it's just incredible, really, how far I've come with your help, Beth. So I thought I would update you and share the the good news.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

I you may be so happy. You those emails always make my day. So all the alums out there, if you ever want to send me an update, just know. I just I just love them. I just eat them up. I'm smiling from ear from ear to ear. So thank you everyone for tuning in today. I'm Beth Kendall. This is the Mind Body Sleep Podcast. Bye for now. 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.