The Stressful Stories We Tell Ourselves
I am now on Day 5 of following Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Sleep program. Last night's new exercise was on changing your story. I've written a little about this on Day 3's post, but I'll add some more now.
The idea of changing your story is not a new one to me. I have been using The Work of Byron Katie for about eight years and the Sedona Method for 3 or so, and nobody could do either of these techniques for long without realising that most of what we believe has little basis in fact. We react, not to what is actually happening, but to our story about what is happening. And this story is one we have built up over years - since childhood in fact. So a child who believes she is not good at getting to sleep (and that adults disapprove of her because of this) is likely to try to force change and to punish herself for not sleeping, and to go on doing this right into adulthood.
The saddest thing about this is that all it takes for beliefs to form is a misunderstanding. Or maybe the saddest thing is that even when we as adults begin to see through the beliefs, we can't always instantly let them go.
I've let go of many, many beliefs about many areas of my life and yet somehow I still have been carrying around and reacting to beliefs about sleep that really aren't helpful. Hale Dwoskin, who is the CEO of the Sedona Method says that the more we identify with something and the more it feels like who we are, the harder it is to let go. So I can see that somehow I've identified with not sleeping. It has felt like me.
Last time I read I Can Make You Sleep I pretty much skipped over the beliefs section - for two reasons. Firstly, because since I already use the techniques above, it almost seemed like it would be confusing to add even more to do. Secondly, I thought I already knew what my unhelpful beliefs were. Actually, now I think about it, there was also a third reason. (This is something I notice over and over, not just about sleep but in other areas of my lifliefs or stories, I thought they were facts. (This is something I notice over and over, not just about sleep but in other areas of my life.)
So last night, in my endeavour to do all the exercises it the book, I again read through the chapter What's Your Story? Then I began to write down some beliefs and thoughts I had about sleep.
I began to notice a recurring theme: many of the beliefs focused on that my challenge is not so much getting to sleep in the first place as staying asleep. And many of them were some variation of "I'm powerless. There's nothing I can do to stop myself from waking up in the night."
McKenna shares a few common beliefs about insomnia and it seems many people besides me tell themselves stories that are some variation of this, including "I can't change," or, "I've always been this way." One I've frequently told myself is, "I can change almost anything else in my life, but this is one thing that just can't be changed no matter what I do. I've tried and tried and nothing lasts."
McKenna's exercise for changing your story is similar to the visualisation exercise in that you imagine a scene and then imagine it getting further and further away. You also turn down the volume and unlike most of the other exercises so far, this one ends by turning the story around into something positive. I hadn't read the exercise through first before doing it, and by the end I was already thinking of encouraging things to say to myself before I read the final instruction.
So it seems to me that this exercise has a natural and logical flow to it.
Perhaps because questioning long-standing beliefs felt a tad challenging, I was still feeling slightly uneasy at bedtime - and I flicked forward in the book to the section on what to do if you wake in the night. McKenna says it seems that sometimes night time waking happens because the unconscious mind wants to show something to your conscious mind. He developed an exercise in which you ask the the unconscious commu There is an interesting exercise in which you invite your unconscious mind to share information. In his experience with clients, this often happens through symbols - similar to in a dream - and the person doesn't always need to understand the symbolism for tension to be released and the person to sleep.
Night 5 of Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Sleep Program
I fell asleep listening to the CD, but if you do that eventually you have to wake up and switch it off. I soon fell asleep again, only to wake 3 hours later around 3.30am.
After a while lying awake I decided to try the exercise I mentioned above. At first I felt irritated at the crazy thoughts that came into my mind, and then realised that bizarrely the message from my unconscious mind seemed to be to play me a routine from Strictly Come Dancing, in which professional dancers teach celebrities to dance ballroom and Latin. Then they compete for a "Glitter Ball." (I believe this show goes by the name of Dancing With The Stars in North America and I know it's also available for your pleasure Down Under, but do not know its name there!)
This night time foray into dancing wasn't enough for my tension to be released and me to get to sleep, so I tried the exercise again. Same thing.
Then I realised what it meant. The scene my mind kept coming up with was of a professional dancer who seems to me to talk himself out of winning every year. Then I understood what my unconscious mind was showing me! I was feeling fear of failure, of messing this program up in a very public way since I am blogging about it.
I got out of bed and wrote down that thought and a few others that had been whirring around in my mind. Then I went back to bed, listened to the CD again and went to sleep. I don't know how long I was awake since (apart from one look around 3.50 am) for the first time ever I followed the advice not to look at the clock.
So I was awake for a while in the night I have had more energy today, and I'm beginning to believe this program might just work.
The saddest thing about this is that all it takes for beliefs to form is a misunderstanding. Or maybe the saddest thing is that even when we as adults begin to see through the beliefs, we can't always instantly let them go.
I've let go of many, many beliefs about many areas of my life and yet somehow I still have been carrying around and reacting to beliefs about sleep that really aren't helpful. Hale Dwoskin, who is the CEO of the Sedona Method says that the more we identify with something and the more it feels like who we are, the harder it is to let go. So I can see that somehow I've identified with not sleeping. It has felt like me.
Last time I read I Can Make You Sleep I pretty much skipped over the beliefs section - for two reasons. Firstly, because since I already use the techniques above, it almost seemed like it would be confusing to add even more to do. Secondly, I thought I already knew what my unhelpful beliefs were. Actually, now I think about it, there was also a third reason. (This is something I notice over and over, not just about sleep but in other areas of my lifliefs or stories, I thought they were facts. (This is something I notice over and over, not just about sleep but in other areas of my life.)
So last night, in my endeavour to do all the exercises it the book, I again read through the chapter What's Your Story? Then I began to write down some beliefs and thoughts I had about sleep.
I began to notice a recurring theme: many of the beliefs focused on that my challenge is not so much getting to sleep in the first place as staying asleep. And many of them were some variation of "I'm powerless. There's nothing I can do to stop myself from waking up in the night."
McKenna shares a few common beliefs about insomnia and it seems many people besides me tell themselves stories that are some variation of this, including "I can't change," or, "I've always been this way." One I've frequently told myself is, "I can change almost anything else in my life, but this is one thing that just can't be changed no matter what I do. I've tried and tried and nothing lasts."
McKenna's exercise for changing your story is similar to the visualisation exercise in that you imagine a scene and then imagine it getting further and further away. You also turn down the volume and unlike most of the other exercises so far, this one ends by turning the story around into something positive. I hadn't read the exercise through first before doing it, and by the end I was already thinking of encouraging things to say to myself before I read the final instruction.
So it seems to me that this exercise has a natural and logical flow to it.
Perhaps because questioning long-standing beliefs felt a tad challenging, I was still feeling slightly uneasy at bedtime - and I flicked forward in the book to the section on what to do if you wake in the night. McKenna says it seems that sometimes night time waking happens because the unconscious mind wants to show something to your conscious mind. He developed an exercise in which you ask the the unconscious commu There is an interesting exercise in which you invite your unconscious mind to share information. In his experience with clients, this often happens through symbols - similar to in a dream - and the person doesn't always need to understand the symbolism for tension to be released and the person to sleep.
I fell asleep listening to the CD, but if you do that eventually you have to wake up and switch it off. I soon fell asleep again, only to wake 3 hours later around 3.30am.
After a while lying awake I decided to try the exercise I mentioned above. At first I felt irritated at the crazy thoughts that came into my mind, and then realised that bizarrely the message from my unconscious mind seemed to be to play me a routine from Strictly Come Dancing, in which professional dancers teach celebrities to dance ballroom and Latin. Then they compete for a "Glitter Ball." (I believe this show goes by the name of Dancing With The Stars in North America and I know it's also available for your pleasure Down Under, but do not know its name there!)
This night time foray into dancing wasn't enough for my tension to be released and me to get to sleep, so I tried the exercise again. Same thing.
Then I realised what it meant. The scene my mind kept coming up with was of a professional dancer who seems to me to talk himself out of winning every year. Then I understood what my unconscious mind was showing me! I was feeling fear of failure, of messing this program up in a very public way since I am blogging about it.
I got out of bed and wrote down that thought and a few others that had been whirring around in my mind. Then I went back to bed, listened to the CD again and went to sleep. I don't know how long I was awake since (apart from one look around 3.50 am) for the first time ever I followed the advice not to look at the clock.
So I was awake for a while in the night I have had more energy today, and I'm beginning to believe this program might just work.
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