My Insomnia Solution!

I often wake up in the middle of the night with racing, repetitive thoughts and can't fall back asleep.  This leaves me tired and often more stressed.  I have been reading two books that seem to be helping with this problem.

 

The first book is Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, which is difficult for me to describe. www.amazon.com/New-Earth-Create-Better-Life-ebook I am reading this book with my husband, giving us lots of opportunity for interesting, thought-provoking discussions.  So far, this book describes how humans are awakening to a new way of being.  We don't have to be stuck in the drama and stories we've been telling ourselves our whole lives.  We can choose to see a healthier way.

When we first started reading the Tolle book, I woke up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts, but I was able to see how my ego was creating this drama in my life.  That realization was enough to help me step back from the drama and go back to sleep.  Unfortunately, we haven't been reading that book lately and I seem to have lost the ability to step out of the negative thought stream so easily.

The second book is Katie McClain's How to Tame Your Thought Monster. www.amazon.com/How-Tame-Your-Thought-Monster This is a book written for parents and children to teach them a new way of seeing events in their lives.  It empowers children (and parents) to see that there are choices in the way we view things.  These choices lead to actions and results in our lives being how they are.  If we want a different life, we have to choose to think about situations differently.  We are reading this book as a family and doing the activities together.  I have found the theory so interesting, that I've also introduced it to the college students I teach!

There are five parts of McClain's theory:

1. Circumstances - just the facts of any situation
2. Thoughts - We create thoughts in our minds about the circumstances of our lives.
3. Feelings - The thoughts we have create the feelings that we hold onto about our lives.
4. Actions - We take (or don't take) actions based on feelings that we have.
5. Results - The actions we take (or avoid) give us the results of our lives.

We have only discussed the circumstances part so far with the kids.  We spent a lot of time talking about the difference between fact and opinion.  J really struggled with all of it, but he stuck in there with us, regardless!

Last night, I once again woke up with the racing, repetitive thoughts about things that happened during the last couple of days and of course what I did wrong.  I was particularly obsessing over some feedback I was given about my Yoga class.  I just kept trying to figure out what I did wrong and how I could fix it while keeping my integrity.  And saying lots of discouraging things to myself like "Why am I so stupid?" "I should have known I wouldn't be a good yoga teacher," and "I'm too lazy.  I should be trying harder." 

I could see this type of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere and I just wanted to go back to sleep!  I tried just breathing.  I tried listening to my husband breathing.  I tried relaxing each individual part of my body.  But, none of it worked because the thoughts were so persistent!  

Finally, I thought of Tolle, which lead me to thinking about the similarities of McClain's theory.  Then, I thought, "Wait a minute!  What are the real circumstances here?" The real circumstances are that I received feedback on my class.  That's it.  All the other stuff is just thoughts I made up about the feedback.  Earlier in the day, I had discussed the situation with my friend Jess and come up with a plan of action.  So I just reminded myself that I already had a plan.  When the thoughts tried to come back again, I just reminded myself of the real circumstances and that I already had a plan of action.  I quickly went back to sleep!  Woot!  Woot!  I kicked insomnia's ass!