3 Insights That Freed Me From Insomnia | Ep 62

Beth spent 42 years chasing sleep.

Until one day, she realized the very effort to “fix” insomnia was the exact thing keeping her stuck.

What followed wasn’t another hack, routine, or bedtime ritual. It was a complete shift in how she related to sleep itself.

In this episode, Beth shares three transformational mindsets that quietly ended her lifelong battle with insomnia.

You’ll hear how ownership (without blame) restores power, why the fixing loop is a trap in disguise, and how living as if you’re already free creates the conditions for natural sleep to return.

If you’ve been doing all the “right” things and still feel trapped in the same old cycle, this one will turn everything you thought you knew about insomnia upside down.

Enjoy! 🧡

Mentioned Resources:

Ep #3. Dancing With Insomnia: My Story (Pt. 1)
Ep #4. Dancing With Insomnia: My Story (Pt. 2)

Connect with Beth:

 👉  Instagram 

Work with Beth:

👉   Learn About the Mind. Body. Sleep. Mentorship
👉   Start the Free Insomnia Course Here

Show Notes HERE.


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 - 2025 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_00: 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. I'm back with another episode of the Mind Body Sleep Podcast. If you're new to my world, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. My name is Beth. I'm a sleep coach for people with insomnia. And I take people from anxious, unpredictable sleep and the constant worry that you'll never sleep normally again to trusting that your body does actually know how to do this and it doesn't even need much help from us at all. And I mention this transformation because it's the exact one that I had. And today I'm going to walk you through the top three things that completely changed everything for me. Now, before I get going with the first thing, I want to lay a little groundwork because the first shift that I talk about might land a little strangely if you don't understand how I approach insomnia. So, insomnia, the way I define it, is a learned fear of not sleeping. Sometimes I call it condition hyperarousal, sometimes I say sleep anxiety, but basically I don't see insomnia as a broken sleep system. Although that's certainly the way it expresses. I see it as a collection of thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors that has led to an unwanted stress response that likes to show up right about the time you want to get some sleep. And this conditioned response really can take over your life. If you're listening to this podcast, then you might know exactly what I'm talking about. It is no joke. I did a two-part podcast series early on called Dancing with Insomnia that details my 42-year journey with all of it. So if you want to go back and listen to that, it's episodes three and four, and I'll link those up in the show notes for you. But insomnia really did dominate most of my existence. And I think on some level I went through it partly to create my mentorship. I definitely do see the whole experience as a major contributor to what is currently my purpose in the world. I feel like I understand insomnia in ways I don't hear a lot of people talking about. So with that understanding of insomnia as a learned response, this next part will hopefully make a lot more sense. So let's get going with those three things. The very first thing I did that ended my battle with insomnia was take ownership of insomnia. What I know that might sound a little crazy, y'all, but stay with me. It was actually during a practice EFT session with a friend that I had a huge realization. I realized that insomnia wasn't something that was happening to me. It was something I had unintentionally created within me. Not purposely and not consciously, but through a series of innocent misunderstandings and protective patterns, my brain had built up over the years. And again, if you're feeling a little bit offended by that, that's okay. I get it, and I'm holding space for that because I once threw a Kleenex box across the room after a doctor told me I had sleep anxiety. So, like I said, I get it. And of course, there was no understanding or education or empathy from this doctor. So all my brain heard was, you're doing this to yourself and it's all in your head. So that didn't go over too well. But taking ownership of insomnia really was my first step back towards freedom. Because taking ownership of insomnia meant it no longer owned me, it gave me back the power. So let's go a little deeper into this. I realized during that session with my friend that I had quite successfully, I might add, created a seriously undesired outcome. And because I had unintentionally created that outcome, I knew I could create a different outcome, which is exactly what I did. Now, nowhere in that process of ownership did I blame myself for having insomnia. And I think that's where this message gets lost because people with insomnia tend to be incredibly responsible and self-aware people. So this message often gets received through a lens of blame or shame. But ownership is not the same as fault. Ownership installs agency, fault removes it. Ownership signals safety to the nervous system, fault says I've done something wrong. Ownership opens the door to change while fault closes it. There is so much I could say about these two states of being that it really does deserve its own podcast. But taking ownership of insomnia was the single biggest energetic shift I experienced that got the whole thing rolling for me. Insomnia was never my fault. And it's not your fault either. I believe we're always doing the best we can from whatever realm of awareness we're in, or at least I certainly was. So that was the first shift. And with that, something amazing started to happen that led to my second big shift. The next shift I had was moving out of the fix it orientation. I no longer felt the need to fix myself or my sleep because what I understood during that session was that the constant drive to fix my sleep actually had a counter intention, or what I call a true intention. And the true intention driving the need to fix my sleep was the belief that I was somehow broken, that I had lost my own ability to sleep, that I didn't have the same sort of brain or sleep system as everyone else. But taking ownership of insomnia or realizing that I had unintentionally programmed myself in this way pretty much scratched the record on that broken belief system. So I no longer saw it that way. In fact, the idea of trying to fix my sleep seemed a little silly because there was never anything wrong with me in that department, anyway. 99% of the insomnia advice I was implementing was keeping me stuck because it was keeping me in the loop of fixing. Every time we're fixing sleep, we're teaching the brain there's a problem. That's the invisible message back to the mind, which of course just leads to more anxiety, more hyper-arousal, and more insomnia. I was doing all the work, right? All the sleep hygiene, all the meditations, all the multitude of things I did for sleep. And I do mean multitudes, but nothing was shifting because I didn't understand how the mind works. The problem with all of this was that there was a counterintention in my focus. By fixing my sleep, I was feeding the belief that I was broken. And that sends a really mixed message to the unconscious mind. It's always going to read your true intention first. So stepping out of the fix it orientation was the second thing I did. And that naturally led to the third shift, which was basically living my life like I didn't have insomnia. So what do I mean by that? Well, on some level, I really didn't interpret insomnia as something I had anymore. I no longer identified with it the same, even though I didn't start sleeping better for several months. But from a broader perspective, I also view the human experience as a conscious creation, right? We're all creators. I don't believe we're just the passive recipients of our circumstances. I think we all have the ability to actively shape our reality. Now, for most of my life, I was just living off my own default programming. I had this really intense belief system that there was something seriously wrong with me, and there was no one out there that knew how to help me or fix me. And in some respects, I was right because I don't think I would have found anyone out there to fix me. First, because I wasn't broken, and second, because I was the fix. I just couldn't see it at the time. So for all those decades, I was living out insomnia's vision for me instead of what I wanted for me. Everything I did or did not do was filtered through the lens of how it was going to affect my sleep. I was 100% living on insomnia's turf. But once I realized I was essentially living out a self-perpetuating loop in my brain, I put a new destination in the GPS. I started living out the vision I wanted for myself instead of the one that insomnia had going on. And very slowly started creating the life of someone who didn't have insomnia. And I think that the difference between living in the fixing orientation versus the creator orientation is huge and something that gets missed a lot because they are very, very different approaches. The creative orientation is generative, right? It's focused on what you do want because that's the address in the GPS. The fixing orientation is focused on the problem, getting rid of, eliminating. You position yourself against what you don't want. So that's where your energy is going. I believe it was Carl Jung who said something like most problems in life aren't solved. You just create a new you who doesn't have that problem. And that was definitely the case for me. Because my focus wasn't going towards the problem anymore. I was much more in service of the creation of my life rather than in service of fixing my life. So let's recap the three shifts that ended my battle with insomnia. The first shift was taking ownership and realizing that insomnia wasn't something that was happening to me. It was something my mind had learned and could just as easily unlearn. The second shift was stepping out of the fixing orientation and letting go of the idea that there was something physically wrong with me. From that point forward, whatever I did became a way to support my sleep versus a way to fix it. And lastly, the third shift was living life like I didn't have insomnia and creating the life I truly wanted for myself versus the one I had been living for insomnia. Now, I want to be clear that these shifts did not happen overnight. Oftentimes they were so subtle, I didn't even realize they were happening until I looked back in time. And I think that's how real change tends to happen. It comes when you're not looking for it. And it's usually at a very unconscious level. But what I really want you to take away from this episode is that if it's possible for me, it is absolutely possible for you. Thanks for joining me. This is the Mind Body Sleep Podcast. I'll see you all next time. 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.