Cecelia Baum Mandryk (00:05.678)
Hey, and welcome to Calmer Conversations. I’m not sure what episode it is actually, I’m Cecilia and I’m your host. So today I wanna talk about, today I wanna talk about insomnia. I’m gonna start that over. Hey, welcome to Calmer Conversations. I’m your host, Cecilia. Today we’re going to talk about insomnia. And just to be clear, we’re still in a mindset, mindfulness world.
And I think it can be powerful to talk about things like this, because this is what comes up in coaching, right? People who are in, either work with me one-on-one or are in my group, they come with real life problems. And some of them are, it’s hard for me to sleep, right? Or I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep. And there’s still a baby here, so you’re probably gonna hear some baby noises. She’s getting bigger and bigger, three months old now.
So a little bit more engaged and awake, we’ll see how she does today. Okay, so insomnia. Insomnia, and as with most episodes, whether you struggle to sleep or not, this can be helpful. I wanna be clear that I’m not a medical doctor. I’m not getting into medical reasons for why you’re not sleeping, right? So I’m not gonna cover different supplements that you can take or different things like that. We are addressing this specifically from a mindset and mindfulness perspective, which I think is…
something that’s a conversation that’s sometimes missing from areas like insomnia, right? Because while there might be things happening within your body, and I think it’s always important to check those out, there’s also probably something happening in your brain. And when something is happening in your brain that you’re not addressing, oftentimes no matter what you do from a medical side, you’re not getting the changes you wanna see. And sometimes people will come with me. So I’m gonna share, I’m gonna reference a client and this client,
had been taking medication for insomnia but forgot it on a vacation. And the vacation was gonna be a little bit long. They didn’t have a way to get the prescription again. And so they’re in coaching and they’re asking, okay, how do I sleep? So the first thing that I would do if you’re having trouble sleeping is I would actually get really curious with yourself about all of the stories you have about sleep, right? So for instance, even having the belief in the story that sleep is hard for me,
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (02:24.404)
is really detrimental if you want to sleep, if you want to get to sleep at night. And for you, that story, you might be kind of annoyed at me for calling it a story because it probably feels really true for you, right? You probably have evidence that you can back it up, but it is hard for me to sleep, right? And in the case of this client, not only was it hard for them to sleep, but it was hard for all the women in their family to sleep. So this was kind of like a family tradition, Hank Williams style, and Hank Williams Jr. style of
that she was carrying out, right? It’s hard for women in my family to sleep, and therefore it is hard for me to sleep. The reason why I want you to get really curious about your stories around sleep, so it’s hard for me to sleep, I need to be getting sleep, I need this much sleep, I’m gonna feel tired if I don’t have sleep, you wanna write all these down, all your thoughts about sleep, and we’re just gonna start to play with them.
And the reason why we’re gonna start to play with them is because the stories you have, the thoughts you have, create feelings in your body, create actions, create ways of being, and they create the results that you see in your life, right? So if you have the story, it’s hard for me to sleep, and you probably feel pretty confident that you’re not gonna get sleep, that it is gonna be hard. You probably feel a lot of perhaps resentment. You might feel…
I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what feelings you might be feeling in that moment. But you can get curious with you, for you. But the result is that you’re probably going to do things like watch TV in bed, or you might have coffee late in the day, or you might just do other things. Even just having the thought, sleep is hard for me. When you’re in bed trying to sleep, it actually makes it harder to go to sleep. So if you’re in bed telling yourself, even if you don’t do any of the other things, if you’re in bed telling yourself it’s hard for me to sleep, it is actually harder for you to sleep.
And your brain does this thing where it sends you confirmation evidence when you have beliefs. And so it will keep telling you how hard it is for you to sleep. And then it will be even harder for you to sleep. And this will become even more ingrained. And again, I know this might feel true to you. So I’m not gonna ask you to suddenly tell yourself, I’m the best sleeper ever, right? We’re not going the toxic positivity gaslighting route, but I want you to become aware of the stories that you have around sleep. This is super powerful. Then, and that’s outside of sleep, right? That’s like in the afternoon or like you wake up in the morning and you just kind of,
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (04:42.146)
you do a little brainstorm of all my thoughts around sleep. And then what I want you to do is I want you to, when you’re in bed, when you’re falling asleep, this is where when we’re gonna start to employ some of the more mindfulness techniques, right? So in the moment when it’s perhaps 2 a.m. and you’re awake again, or you’re not sleeping, it’s very common to fall into the story of it’s hard for me to sleep, I want
sleep. I need to sleep. I should be asleep right now. And all of those thoughts, while again they feel true and they can even feel like what you should be saying, what they end up doing is they start to create resistance in your body. So anytime you’re saying I should be doing something, I shouldn’t be doing something, this should be happening, it shouldn’t be happening, you’re creating resistance.
And anytime you create resistance, it’s really hard for your brain and body to change, to enter into a different place. It’s a really hard place to sleep from, honestly, because it gets your nervous system a little bit activated as well. And so one of the things that can be the most powerful in that moment when you’re not sleeping is to not tell yourself, I should be asleep, I want to be asleep, but to pause and say, I’m awake right now.
And what this does is it’s becoming aware of your current reality and it’s noticing it and naming it for yourself. And while this sounds maybe stupid or trivial or kind of the opposite of what you want to be doing, what you’re doing is you’re acknowledging reality in that moment. I am awake right now. Okay. Usually when we start to name reality as it is, we start to feel a little bit of relief, right? Okay, well, I am awake right now. Great. What’s happening in my body right now?
Maybe even why do I think I’m awake right now? Am I thinking about something? that like my brain is spiraling about the new job that’s coming up and I’m afraid I’m not gonna be enough. Okay, so I’m awake because I’m afraid. Interesting. What does the fear feel like in my body? So starting to get curious about what thoughts are there that might have woken you up or caused you to wake up. What’s happening in your body and simply instead of wanting sleep, instead of being in the lack.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (06:57.24)
than not having sleep, what you’re gonna start to do is start to be okay in the wakefulness. And I know you’re sitting there saying like, but Cecilia, I really want to be asleep. It’s two in the morning. I don’t wanna be awake. And this goes for if you wake up in the middle of the night or you can’t fall asleep. But what we’re doing is we’re trying to break down the resistance. We’re trying to make it safe for you in that moment. Instead of saying I should be doing something else or this shouldn’t be happening, we’re starting to say this is what’s happening. I am a wake-up
And you might even notice in that moment that you’re safe. Right? So I’m awake right now. I’m also safe in this moment. I’m not in any physical danger. Okay. And I might prefer to be asleep, right? If it’s helpful for you to say that at the end, that’s okay. But you might even ask, okay, maybe it’s okay that I’m awake right now. Maybe I’m safe in this moment. Maybe it’s okay. Maybe I can stop resisting the awakeness.
And then you can start to say, okay, well, if I was open to sleep, what would I be doing right now? And if I was, if could I be in the place where I can allow sleep instead of being in the wanting or the insufficiency around sleep? So we’re kind of switching things in your brain. You’re starting to be okay with being awake. You’re starting to accept that that’s actually what’s happening in your current reality.
And then you’re starting to go a little bit deeper and saying, okay, well, if I do actually want to be asleep right now, could I get to the place to say, okay, well, what would I be believing if I knew that sleep was inevitable? If sleep were easy for me right now, what would I be thinking about sleep? If I knew that I could fall back asleep, what would I be doing? And this is starting to become the person who sleeps, starting to become the person who it’s easy for them to either fall asleep or to go back to sleep.
and you’re starting to become okay with the person who is being awake, right? So there’s this funny thing that happens when we, for instance, you wake up in the middle of the night and you think you should be asleep, but you’re awake. And so instead of becoming okay with being awake, which is actually what’s happening, you start being really annoyed that you’re not asleep, which makes sleep even harder to come by. Versus if you accept I’m awake and you ask, okay, well, now that I’m awake, what do I wanna do? Do I wanna breathe? Do I wanna listen to a meditation? Do I wanna get out of bed and read a book?
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (09:23.768)
Do I want to write down some of the ideas that are coming up in my head? What do I want to do right now? And if I were a person who could fall back asleep easily, what would I then be thinking and doing? And so all of the work that I do with people is, I mean, first, honestly, like do get things checked out, right? When I work with people and they’re having trouble with something and I’m again, not a medical doctor, but we do need to check things out, right? For instance, if you have something going on physiologically in your body, it might be worth going to a doctor to see what they say.
And with so many of these things, you also should be looking to your brain to see what’s going on there. So what is showing up for me right now? What is coming up in my brain? Can I start to, instead of pushing against what’s coming up for me, can I start to accept my current reality? And accepting it, again, doesn’t mean complacency and doesn’t mean that like you’re never gonna sleep again. In fact, for many people, the very act of admitting that they are awake and stopping pushing against the sleep allows them to go back to sleep.
And what you’re doing, and as I was starting to say, what all of this work is, is we’re starting to become a different person, a different version of yourself, and so starting to adopt a different story. So if I go back to my client who had this whole family history of not sleeping, for her, it meant dropping the identity that the women, that it’s hard for me to sleep, right? And she had this double thing of like, all the women in my family have trouble sleeping, and so for her, it meant being different than her tribe, than her.
family, right? And that’s actually kind of dangerous. So actually, it makes a lot of sense why her body was having trouble sleeping. It wanted to be part of the group. Well, when you start to acknowledge that they’re actually it is safe to sleep, it’s okay for me to sleep, I can change my thoughts around sleep, suddenly sleep became a lot easier for her. And I’m not going to say that she was 100 % cured. And the last time we talked, she was, you know, in a place where she’s taking medication much, much less regularly. She was much more available for the sleep to happen on its own and it
did start to happen on its own. And she noticed when she got back into the pattern of thinking sleep was hard for her, she also did things that made sleep hard for her, like scrolling her phone in bed before she went to sleep, which then she stayed up later, which meant it was harder to go to sleep, et cetera. So really the steps, you break it down, getting clear on what your current story around sleep is and just noticing that, seeing if you’re open to any other beliefs around sleep, right? Like even just saying, asking yourself, am I willing for sleep to be easy?
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (11:49.134)
Could I drop the story that sleep is hard for me? Could I be okay with being awake? Could I stop fighting it? And asking yourself what might you believe if you were someone who could sleep? And in the moment when you are awake in bed, stop saying I want to be asleep, mentioning I am awake, checking in with your body, seeing how it feels, seeing if you can move into a place where sleep is more available for you. Okay, obviously this is like, I’m kind of giving a broad sweeping for everyone.
If you want to work through things like this, come join the Life Lab. This is what we do. We think about who are you becoming? I’m becoming someone who sleeps every night, right? And you might think about what is it worth for you to get there? What would that change mean? And for many people, even making the change from not sleeping to sleeping is worth being in there for a year if they can make that change. Because think about how much money you might have spent on mattresses and wine to get you to go to sleep and apps and all these different pillows and sheets and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But like if you’re not working on your head, if you’re not working on the thoughts, then it’s really hard to get there. Okay, baby says it’s time to end the episode. I hope that this was helpful. Come join me in the Life Lab. Change how you sleep and I will see you next time.
