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October 23, 2020 19 mins

We all want to find out what's at the root of the problem, and taking that journey can be one of the most satisfying processes of the human experience. 

But it can also feel like a  hostage situation when finding the source of "that thing" feels like the only way you'll ever be able to sleep. 

I have made it my case since I reversed my own insomnia and started coaching that yes, achieving "resolve" is a wonderful tool for overcoming insomnia, but it's not the only one, and in the meantime you can still sleep. 

One of the keys to being able to do this is making distinctions with shame, shame the ally or shame the obstacle and being able to exercising the obstacle out of your body. 

In Episode 8, I will share a simple concept for making peace with shame. I do hope you listen and I do hope this episode helps you feel better on your journey. 

https://www.dereklaceycoaching.com/post/episode-8-eliminating-shame-from-falling-asleep

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to the art of falling asleep.
I'm Derek Lacey and insomniacoach.
I created this podcast.
Insomniacs could have a space tocome and feel guided.
I feel like I know you can sharesome concepts that I wish people
had shared with me, conceptsthat integrate sleep with every
aspect of your life, physically,emotionally, and spiritually.

(00:29):
I believe sleep is not mean anyother sleep exercise are the
honest artifact in the sleep isyour canvas.
And I want to help you expressyourself using the insights from
my sleep coaching practice andmy own journey out of insomnia.
And by sharing transmissionsthat help you bridge the way you

(00:52):
experience life, better sleep.
Welcome to episode eight.
I couldn't wait to record thisepisode because after

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Listening back to the last episode, I just, you know,
I had this feeling of, Oh, thiswas, this was kind of gung ho
like motivational and kind ofmasculine, um, not a bad way,
but in a way that I just wantedto get back to the delicate

(01:28):
nature of, of falling asleep.
And for those of you that mayhave felt maybe like it wasn't
for you, because I was talkingabout mindset with insomnia.
When you start substitutingthings in that that could be
used for other, other mainstreampurposes, you know, there's the
money mindset, there's the havea better relationship mindset,

(01:50):
how to get really good foam onyour cappuccino mindset.
I mean, there are a million ofthese fricking mindsets, so it
could feel like you're using amainstream approach for a very
fingerprinted, personalizedsituation.
And even though I think theinsomnia reversal mindset that

(02:11):
I'm sharing is, is prettypersonalized.
It's not the same as other typesof mindsets yet.
I get how it may not feelnourishing or it could lose its
charm.
So I wanted to come back andreally get back into what you
might be experiencing on asubconscious level.

(02:32):
In my experience of insomnia,where things really made a
difference for me is when Istarted to get some closure in
that gap between what I'mexperiencing subconsciously, and
then what is real andsubconsciously what's happening
over and over and over again isyou're going through this

(02:53):
continuous process of trying andwhat feels like failing.
And each time you do this, youexperience fear and anxiety,
which everybody resonates with,but the part that's unnoticed is
the shame.
And there are several reasonsfor this, for one with emotional

(03:16):
insomnia, there is likelyalready a blockage coming from
somewhere in your past.
That's being stored as stuckenergy in your sacral chakra.
So you may already be resonatingin the frequency of shame while
not being able to do somethingthat other people are able to do

(03:37):
as easily as like walking andtalking.
So shame, you know, shame issomething that happens naturally
from comparison.
The other day, I was listeningto a podcast and the host was
introducing his guest who hadthis like, like extraordinary
biography.
He was the first person to flysolo across the Atlantic and

(04:00):
also sail solo across theAtlantic.
And he'd written a couple ofbooks and just released an album
and had a successful businessand had a, an accent from a
country that is like by inviteonly.
And he just sounded like areally unbelievable person.
And while I was trying toappreciate all that, this person

(04:23):
had done, all that I could tellmyself was that I sucked.
And this is me comparing myselfto a very unique individual and
feeling shame from that course,this person had a, you know, was
born into different place, had adifferent upbringing, a
different type of education,just a total different
fingerprint than me.

(04:46):
So if I'm feeling shame fromthat, what is it like when I'm
comparing myself to somebodywho's well to everybody, it's it
feels like who is able to do thething that's on page one of the
human owner's manual.
I would say that it's probablyimpossible not to feel shame

(05:08):
when you don't sleep as theworld around you sleeps
effortlessly.
And yet so many people don'tsleep, but you get the sense
that most of the people could,if they want it to.
There's just a very smallpercentage of people I've
gathered that seemed to doeverything possible to sleep,

(05:29):
but still can't, some peopledon't sleep because they just
don't follow the rules.
And, you know, I, I talked to alot of these people and after a
short conversation, it's like,okay, um, dude, you gotta get
the espresso machine out of yourbedroom and sure enough, right
there, like, Oh, I'm getting thebest sleep ever.
So you may have an underlyingissue.

(05:53):
You may have something somewhereon your timeline that's or
intense, and that you may noteven be aware of.
That's likely the case.
You don't know where it comesfrom.
So there's this thing that youunderstand is your biggest
source of resistance, but it'scompounded over the years by the

(06:18):
shame that you've gathered inthe process of trying to sleep
and then not being able tothere's this layer of shame that
is strictly related to sleep andnothing else.
It has nothing to do with yourbig underlying issue.
But the truth is that there isnothing to be shameful about
because if what happened to youwhen it happened to you, or if

(06:44):
somebody experienced life fromthe set of eyes that you
couldn't help, but experiencelife, their experience of sleep
would be no different.
This stuff is personal.
It would be impossible tocompare you going to sleep to
anybody else.
It would absolutely beimpossible.

(07:04):
As a matter of fact, I think ifyou haven't been able to sleep
and somebody should applaud youfor that, for what you've gone
through and survived and beenable to manage, I think it's
really impressive.
If insomnia is your story, it'svery likely that shame is a huge

(07:28):
part of that story.
But look, shame is a sensitiveword.
I'm very mindful of the factthat nobody likes to be told
that they're experiencing shame.
I know it doesn't feel good tosomebody to feel like they're
being diagnosed with shame.
So I'm not, I'm not doing that.

(07:49):
I'm just bringing this up as aconcept.
This is what I love aboutconcepts.
Because if you contemplate theidea that you may be
experiencing unrealized shame,and it feels better to address
that, then it will register withyou intuitively and that this

(08:09):
way of thinking and approachingyour bedtime routine could only
help.
And if it doesn't feel good,then this episode never
happened.
Nothing to see here.
But if it feels nourishing, it'slike the infomercial.
But wait, there's more.
If it does feel better, this isa real opportunity to heal

(08:37):
because when you can address theshame that simply comes at the
cost of trying to sleep better,sort of like the cost of doing
business, when you can dressthat shame, it's only there
because of something you haveyet to identify and can't
explain, then you can get to aplace where you don't have to

(09:00):
fix that big, mysterious problemthat has always felt like it
needed fixing for you to feelcomplete.
So much of my life.
I walked around thinking I hadto figure something out if I
ever wanted to sleep again.
And not even, not even that,when you carry around what feels

(09:22):
like a big shadow, it's like, nomatter what you experience in
life, you could be having thebest day ever.
When somebody asks, Hey, how'syour day.
And you're like, Oh, I'm havingthe best day ever.
And then like, you kind ofmumbled to yourself.
Yeah, it's a good day.
But I still have this thing,this thing that's following me

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Around.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
So it's like, it never feels safe to just release
and enjoy a moment.
When I tell people that they canhave what they want without
figuring out what's at the rootof their problem.
They're so amazed that theydon't even know what to think

(10:08):
because most people with chronicemotional insomnia are walking
around.
Like I was for years thinking,I've got to figure out this big
thing, or I'm going to deal withinsomnia forever.
But you don't.
I mean, you may, you may have towhere you may want to deal with
it.

(10:28):
Healing is beautiful and yourlife is probably going to feel
more meaningful.
If you are in constant rapportand building intimacy with this
thing that you might beexperiencing as a block, it just
doesn't have to deprive you ofsleep.
It doesn't have to be part ofthat formula.

(10:51):
So again, I'm not knocking thehealing of the root problem.
It's just that the more timethat goes by the more open I am
about not needing to know what'sbeen at the root of my insomnia
so that I can sleep.

(11:11):
And I'm pretty open about, aboutthis now that I have no idea.
I have a million guesses as towhat was there all my life that
still likes to peek its head outevery once in a while.
And as I'm going to sleep, youknow, it says I wouldn't go to
sleep.
If I were you I'm aware thatthere is something unresolved,

(11:36):
but I have learned how to becomemore intimate with that thing
and live with it through theconcept of companionship and
with the idea of being in theprocess of resolving it and not
needing to figure it out so thatI'm not paralyzed by it.

(12:00):
And that I would say is the, isthe concept that is at the
foundation of my emotionalrelationship to sleep is that my
sleep can co-exist with a partof me that is unresolved and
that begs me not to sleep.
And that there's no shame forthat.

(12:21):
With this concept, nothing hasmore influence over my sleep
than my conscious mind and mysubconscious mind, even though
it wants to be a nuisance, oncein awhile, doesn't have control
over me.
But I'm also getting to thepoint.
I want to be really open aboutthis where yeah, personal growth

(12:44):
is fun and there's always growthto be had you never stop
growing, but maybe there's amore existential process that
I'm going to need to go throughin order to come face to face
with what I don't understand.
I really crave coming face toface with that.
I'm ready for it.

(13:06):
I may need to go through somekind of ceremony, you know, a
plant medicine ceremony toreally feel like I'm resolved in
a way that the corporation of mymind, body and soul craves
resolving.
But in the meantime, I know whoI am.

(13:30):
I know what I want, what Ivalue.
These are really important.
Things that have been reallysatisfying and that's enough for
me to sleep.
That's enough for me to put the,I can't sleep part of shame to
rest, even though all the othershame that might linger in my
body, energetically has not beenresolved.

(13:55):
So what I want to leave you withafter that share is the concept
that you can get better at yoursleep too, by surrendering to
the fact that you haven't doneanything wrong and that your
experience of sleep shouldn't beanything but exactly what it is.

(14:16):
And that's it.
Point blank

Speaker 4 (14:19):
If

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Trying to sleep better, feels like your
full-time job and you stillcan't do it.
It's not because you're doingsomething wrong.
It's just that there's thisthing, whatever it is, there's
this thing that happenedsomewhere sometime.
And if it weren't for that thingor the combination of things,

(14:43):
then you would be asleep.
Have you ever done something andthen picked it apart to see how
it could have been different hadgone another way.
Like if you make really goodtime on the highway and then
you're like, Oh, I would havebeat my personal world record if
not getting pulled over by thatcop and getting a ticket like,

(15:05):
Ooh, I would have slept eighthours straight, but the
neighbor's car alarm went off.
There are some things that youjust can't control.
So you kind of inherentlyunderstand when you call those
out that you shouldn't takeresponsibility for not

(15:27):
accomplishing what you wouldhave accomplished.
If not, for that thing, theshame that you might be
collecting from not being ableto sleep, it's kind of like
opening up your mailbox andfinding a bill that sent to your
address, right?
But it's got somebody else'sname on it.
It's got the name of the personwho lived in your house before

(15:49):
you moved in.
But instead of forwarding thatbill, you might take it inside
the house and start stressingout about how you're going to
pay it off.
When in reality, that's not yourbill.
It was not meant for you.
And it's only there because ofsome misunderstanding.

(16:12):
When I get that thing, when Iget that bill in the mail, that
little nudge that says don'tsleep, you really shouldn't
sleep right now.
And then me, when this happens,sometimes the life coach for
insomniacs, right?
Like I'm a, I'm a sleep coachand I can't sleep.
And I start feeling shame fromthat.

(16:32):
I remember, ah, duh, I would beasleep right now if it wasn't
for that thing.
So I'm actually doing thisperfectly right now.
And then I can call out thatthing, whatever you are, whoever
you are, what ever year orlifetime you came from, you live

(17:00):
in the subconscious world and Ipay your bills.
I feed you.
You're dependent on me.
So good night.
I'll see you in the morning,quit jumping on the bed, brush
your teeth, close your eyes, goto bed.
And that's the way life works.
That's the way the humanexperience works.

(17:21):
There's a hierarchy between theminds.
There's the conscious mind andthe subconscious mind.
And that's why you can sleepdespite your big thing.
So the concept here is you canstill sleep despite whatever may

(17:42):
have happened on your timeline.
And in the meantime, justunderstand that if you aren't
asleep and you want to be asleepand you're doing everything else
correctly, that you would beasleep if not for that thing.
So any shame that's hanging outafter last call, it doesn't have

(18:06):
to be there and you can exerciseit energetically out of your
body.
Find that new frequency andwithout realizing it, the next
day will come.
I hope that happens for you soonand often, and as always have

(18:27):
great sleep

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Falling asleep podcast has been brought to you
like normies glasses, bettersleep starts with blocking blue
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In some cases, this is the onlything preventing people from

(18:58):
falling asleep to learn more andstart blocking blue light
immediately go to Dawn.
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Use the discount code for moreinformation on how to sleep
better.
Please visit Derek Laceycoaching.com.
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