Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. I am so glad to be with you today. I am going to jump right into this episode because I think it's probably going to be one of my longer ones, so let's get going.
Today’s Topic: Understanding the Recovery Process
Today is all about the recovery process. Maybe you're someone who isn't sure what recovery means with this approach. Maybe you're someone who's wondering if you're on the right track, and maybe you just want a better idea of what to focus on in terms of progress as you move forward.
What I share today will hopefully bring some clarity around all of that. To give you a bit of a roadmap, first I'm going to talk about the definition of recovery or how I see it. Then I'm going to talk more about my own process and what that looked like back when I was going through it.
Lastly, I'm going to talk about 10 ways that progress tends to show up while you're on this path.
What Is Recovery?
What is recovery? I have really struggled with this word, my friends, because recovery or the word recovery to me signals that there's some sort of health issue in place. It signals that there's a defined moment in time where you're just recovered, but that is not the case.
That is by design. I think the word itself can create some pressure because we're like, is this recovery? Is this as good as it gets? What am I actually done? We don't really know how to manage our expectations because the word itself implies expectation. I have wanted to find a substitute word that I feel like encompasses this process a lot differently.
Alternative Words: Remembrance, Reconnection, Reclamation
The words I've come up with are remembrance, reconnection, reclamation. Just saying those words feels so different in my body, but if you're not already familiar with my work or how I see things, these kinds of words are kind of nebulous. They're not very tangible.
They're very confusing for people. They're like, well, what does that mean? The word recovery overall is just more universal and easier to grab onto, but isn't it kind of crazy that words like remembrance or reconnection are so unfamiliar that we don't even feel comfortable using them? I think that right there is very telling in terms of where we are with trusting our bodies. But if any of you out there can think of a word that captures the spirit of recovery without it implying that there's something terribly wrong with us to begin with, please email me immediately.
I would really love to hear your thoughts on this and find a word that is just a little bit more resonant.
The Reality of Recovery
Most people see recovery as this magical point in time where you never struggle with sleep again and it's all perfect and that's pretty much the end of insomnia and you're good to go, but that is not it. That is not how it goes.
Unfortunately, it is so much more messy than that. It's very, very up and down, cha-cha, back and forth, cha-cha-cha. The reason I really don't factor sleep itself into the recovery process is that I know many people who are sleeping quite well, but there's still a fear of not sleeping in place.
They're still not living their lives the way they really want to live it. They're still trying to avoid not sleeping. Sleep is still the main lens through which they view their life and that is not freedom, right? That is not freedom.
Freedom From Insomnia vs Perfect Sleep
On the contrary, I know people who don't sleep great a lot of the time, but they're not thinking about sleep. They're not worrying about it. They're not problem solving it.
It's not even on their radar much at all and this is a much truer sense of freedom. This is why I was free from insomnia long before my sleep came back online.
Why I Don’t Focus on Sleep Itself
Here's the thing and why I really don't look at sleep too much during this whole process is sleep by nature will always be effortless, right? Or at least I hope so.
I hope we can keep some state of natural order in the world because we wouldn't want it to be any other way because then it wouldn't be sleep.
What Are We Actually Recovering?
Getting back to the word recovery, recovery is defined as the act of finding or recovering something that's been lost and I think we can work with this. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but by looking at what we're actually recovering.
Like I said earlier, most people would say that it's 100% sleep, right? Beth, I just want my sleep back and of course you do and I want that for you too, but consistent sleep and freedom from this problem generally comes as a byproduct of several other things first versus a direct result.
What I Thought I Wanted vs What I Actually Wanted
I thought what I wanted most in life was sleep. I just wanted consistent sleep.
I wanted to be able to sleep like a normal person. I wanted to be able to live my life without having to think about it all the time, but what I really wanted was something even deeper than the circumstance of sleep itself.
What I really wanted was peace of mind, right? Equanimity, that state of indifference or neutrality that comes with knowing that sleep is something your body already knows how to do.
Peace of Mind and Trust in the Body
And while I do sleep very well, that is what I value even more than sleep itself. And it's basically where I'm at now.
I honestly don't have any tangible feelings about sleep. It's the same feeling I would have if someone were to ask me how I feel about blinking. I wouldn't know how to answer that because it's not something I wonder about or ponder about.
It's almost like there's this nothingness attached to that.
What I Recovered
So I recovered freedom the way I see it and I recovered a deep sense of trust in my body's ability to sleep. And interestingly, that trust is what allows me to rarely think about it at all.
So those are the things I want to help you recover because sleep can be variable throughout life, right? And there are things we can't control around that, but we can shape how our brains perceive those events and thus how we experience them.
My Own Journey Through This Process
I want to talk a little bit more about my own journey out of this because I know people sometimes are concerned when they hear that it took me about two years to get to the point where I felt comfortable saying that insomnia wasn't something that I struggled with at all.
And this is probably going to be counter perspective to what many of you think is possible. But I encourage you to take it for what it is, which is simply my own experience.
And please don't use this against yourself or as something to peg your own recovery process to. I just want to be honest about how I hold the experience today.
And it's very possible that these memories have changed over the space of time because I wanted to be able to hold that time in my life in a way that was going to propel me forward and keep me in a place where I can continue to help other people.
Not Suffering, Even Without Sleep
So even though it took me two years, I really was not suffering to any great degree during that time. Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, I had a lot of emotions, but I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't suffering.
In fact, I would go so far as to say that that first year of recovery for me was one of the most alive years of my life.
It felt very expansive in some strange way.
A Pivotal Shift in Perspective
And that's because I was just awestruck by what had occurred in my own mind around this problem.
And I go into greater depth about that in my early episodes called Dancing with Insomnia, and I'll put those in the show notes.
But I think you're lucky in life if you can have one of those pivotal moments where your worldview just shifts on a dime.
And I've had three of those in my life, but the one that was associated with insomnia was by far the most mind bending.
The Moment Everything Changed
And I honestly do not even have a good word for what I experienced at that time.
But I just remember that time stood still and I could feel my brain trying to reconcile what I consciously understood in that moment.
I literally couldn't speak and I still have a difficult time putting all of that into words, but I value and cherish that experience so much.
Progress Before Sleep Improves
And again, please don't use this against yourself because people sometimes think, oh, I've got to have this most people don't.
But from that point forward, I wasn't sleeping better for a while, but I was having many other changes that felt really hopeful to me.
And these are some of the exact same changes that I see in the mentorship all the time.
How Progress Usually Unfolds
So let's talk more about those.
Typically, what happens in this process is that sleep may or may not come back online fairly quickly.
For me, it didn't, but for many others, it does.
And like I said, that's really not the most significant aspect of recovery.
What's more meaningful is the relationship we have with sleep and the experience of insomnia itself.
And if I had to give this whole process a generalized arc, it looks like moving out of the fix it mode and back into the effortless trust that was always meant to be yours.
10 Signs of Progress in Insomnia Recovery
So here are some of the signs that I look for in my clients.
And some of these might be kind of surprising.
I actually had to whittle this list down because I easily came up with over 20 signs of recovery, but I picked out 10 that will hopefully give you a good frame of reference.
1. You're Not Thinking About Sleep as Much
So number one is you're not thinking about sleep as much.
So automatic thoughts like how did I sleep last night? What's tonight going to look like? What does this all mean might still show up, but they don't carry the same authority or weight that they once did.
I still had these thoughts for a while, but I saw them almost as an annoyance, right? Like some old habit my brain was doing.
So my brain was sending the thoughts, but I wasn't believing them.
So sleep starts to take up less mental space in your head and you're just not thinking about it as much.
2. Things Get Worse
Number two, things get worse.
Now, I know most people aren't going to see this as a sign of progress in any way.
That's okay.
But a lot of times when you start understanding a fear or getting closer to a fear, the brain pushes back, right?
It doesn't want you to take your eye off the ball.
So this can look like hyperarousal showing up in a new way or in a new pattern.
This can look like increased anxiety, especially as you start dipping your toes back into the waters of life that you aren't normally used to.
The brain thinks this is all a very bad idea and its job is to let you know about that, which just means you have a working brain.
And this is where I see a lot of people get tripped up and it's where you really benefit from having some support and guidance because you're going to think you're going backwards when you're really moving your brain forward.
3. Bad Nights Feel Less Catastrophic
Okay. So number three, bad nights start to feel less catastrophic.
So you might start noticing less of a reaction.
And this was probably the first and biggest thing I noticed in my own journey because the meaning I was assigning to those nights was so much different.
After having insomnia for my whole life, basically, I knew that my brain was probably going to have to open up that network many, many times to rewire what was supporting that hyperarousal response.
And I was okay with that.
In fact, it made sense to me, which is probably what made it so okay.
4. You're Not Working So Hard at Sleep
So number three is you're less working so hard at sleep.
So this is when you start losing the desire to problem solve it so much.
You realize researching is futile and you're not so interested in that anymore.
You start feeling more confident about the path you're on.
You also start seeing all the hacks and tricks and magical routines out there in a new light.
So maybe there's a part of you that still hopes there's some magical key and you might fall into that trap from time to time.
But there's also another part of you that is accepting that there isn't.
And that's because you are the magical key.
5. Sleep Hygiene Starts Falling Away
Number five, and this kind of relates to number four, but the sleep hygiene mantra pretty much goes right out the window.
You see how the answer was never more sleep hygiene and you can see how it keeps you stuck and how it even creates the problem.
So a lot of people just stop doing all the things they were doing before and that can feel so liberating, right?
As a coach, that's always kind of fun to watch because people feel this massive sense of relief at not having to do all these things they never did before when they were sleeping just fine.
6. The Way You Talk About Insomnia Changes
Okay. Number six, the way you're talking about insomnia starts to change.
A lot of times I know when my students or clients have had some kind of shift, right?
That they might not even be aware of because they're talking about the problem differently.
So the problem might still be there, but the way they're talking about it changes and their body language changes.
7. You Start Living Your Life Again
Number seven, you start living your life even when sleep isn't perfect.
So small, simple freedoms start to come back and it can be really, really small.
You might notice that you say yes to things that you maybe would have said no to before, or you may start considering them differently.
You start dreaming bigger, perhaps, because you're thinking, well, maybe I will be able to take that trip, or maybe I can say yes to that job, or maybe I can do more social things.
I can still remember saying yes to some sort of early morning thing.
I can't remember what it was.
And this was quite a ways down the road for me, but there was no consideration of sleep whatsoever.
And that really struck me because it felt so carefree.
So those are some really lovely signs that you're going in the right direction.
8. Your Identity Starts to Change
All right.
Number eight, your identity starts to change.
So you no longer think of yourself as an insomniac, nor do you even want to put that label on yourself.
You start to see the beliefs and expectations and thresholds that your mind has created around sleep.
And I really believe that this identity piece is some of the most important work that we do in this process.
And if that's something that interests you, I'm going to be doing a four-class identity series with my friend Michelle Bay, who's been on the podcast several times.
But we're going to be hosting a small container that helps you uncover what's holding up the identity of insomnia.
So we're helping you move from someone who has insomnia to someone who simply went through a difficult experience with sleep.
So this will probably be happening in late March.
So do keep your eyes peeled for that.
I am really excited about it.
9. The Emotions Around Insomnia Change
Okay.
Here we are at number nine, the emotions around insomnia start to change.
And I talked about this in the grief episode I did a while back, but the emotions around what you're going through and what you've been through may start to change or evolve.
So this might be some anger that starts to move in.
Maybe you're angry that the many doctors that you saw weren't able to help you.
There might be some sadness for how long you've had to live with insomnia.
And like I said, it may even be grief, which I talked about on the podcast.
It can also be increased happiness or awe or fascination.
Those were certainly new emotions for me around insomnia.
So I had all of these emotions in various shapes and forms while I was going through it.
And they were all part of moving me out of insomnia.
10. Trust Begins to Return
Number 10, and last but not least, you start trusting more.
You begin to see that nothing about you was ever broken.
You weren't weak or failing.
You were simply having a difficult experience and doing the best you could from the understanding you had.
Insomnia for me was the ultimate invitation into trust.
And in many ways, it's still teaching me that through starting a business and through helping others.
Closing Thoughts
So I do hope that these 10 signs bring you something tangible to hold in mind as you move through your own healing process.
As always, thanks for being here.
I'm Beth Kendall, and I'll see you next time.
