How Gerry used mindfulness and self-kindness to move away from an endless struggle with insomnia (#52)

Transcript

Martin:
Welcome to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. My name is Martin Reed. I believe that by changing how we respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it, we can move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life we want to live.

Martin:
The content of this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. The statements and opinions expressed by guests are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by Insomnia Coach LLC. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

Martin:
Okay, so Gerry, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to come onto the podcast.

Gerry:
You’re welcome. Glad to be here.

Martin:
It’s great to have you on. Let’s just start right at the beginning. If you can just tell us a little bit more about when your issues with sleep first began and what you think might have caused those initial issues with sleep.

Gerry:
Well, it started when I was 27. I was in my, was it first year? No, second year of law school, and the year before was the first time that trying as hard as I could and not succeeding happened. In other words, I tried really hard, but law school, there’s a lot of really smart people in law school and my grades weren’t that great, and it seems to, in retrospect, have taken about a year to sink in to the point where the insomnia started kicking in. What I’m getting at is that I really started wondering if I was going to make it. No. No, I’m sorry, it actually started the beginning of third year when… Yeah. Yeah, I was actually almost barely on probation for academics, and so I thought, “Oh my God, I could get kicked out. I could fail at this.” And it just really rocked my world.

I grew up thinking that I had to produce to be worth keeping around, and when I saw myself not producing, I really wondered where that was going to be going. I was reminded often when I was growing up that you better toe the line or there could be really some serious consequences. I was threatened to be kicked out of the house and whatnot, so things really started to… I really felt like my world was starting to fall apart. I caution people though when I’m talking on the Insomnia Forum, because if they pick up on the fact that that was quite a while ago, and I guess this is a video, you can see I’m pretty far north of 27, I’ll be 72 here in a couple months, and I want to caution people to not think, “Oh my God, I’m going to be condemned to 40 plus years of insomnia.” That’s not the case at all.

I just happened to have some really serious childhood trauma I had to deal with and didn’t deal with it for many years, and so there was a lot of excavating that I had to do, so I don’t think anybody that is having a bout of insomnia ought to just totally freak out and think that they’re condemned to the rest of their life like that. In any event, that’s how it started. And then as it turned out, I graduated from law school and got a job and so on, and had some… Got kicked around like everybody does in life, but made it. I just kept plugging away and made it, but the insomnia, as we talked about in the forum, took on a life of its own. And so just because I graduated from law school and got a job didn’t mean it just went away. In any event, that’s how it started.

Martin:
Did you find that… Obviously you were going through a lot of pressure, there was a lot on your plate, so we often see some sleep disruption connected to that. Did you find that as you were working really hard to try to get through law school, do well in your career, were you also applying that same effort to sleep? Did you feel that you were putting pressure on yourself to fix sleep, to make sleep happen, or was that just purely this mystery byproduct of all the stress that you were under in other areas of your life?

Gerry:
Oh, I made sleeping better a big project. It took me a long time to get to the point where I realized that trying harder wasn’t going to work. Trying harder in law school… Well, once I focused a little better and used better techniques, the increased effort there helped. Not that I wasn’t trying hard before, but I think it’s clear that trying harder to sleep better just doesn’t work, but yeah, I went through the whole ball of wax. Over the counter medications, seeing doctors. Well, and certainly worrying about it, trying to think my way toward better sleep, trying to rationalize there’s no reason this should be happening.

It shouldn’t be happening. Yeah, I tried a lot of things and some of the things worked to some extent, basic sleep hygiene, don’t drink coffee at midnight and whatnot, but in retrospect, I since see it was a wasted effort in this, trying to make a project of getting to sleep. Building a house is one thing, you plan, you got to do the foundation and you got to put the framing, the electrical and whatnot, or hire people that know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t work here. That I know.

Martin:
And no matter how well you build that house, there might still be an earthquake.

Gerry:
Well, that’s also true. Yeah.

Martin:
It’s so interesting hearing you talk about that, that trying, how you made sleep a project, because I think our minds can really play tricks on us. We’ve all got this human brain that’s just wired to problem solve and to look out for us. Its main job is to look out for us. Any obstacles, any threats, whether they’re real, imagined, predicted, even in the past, it’s going to fire up to protect us and troubleshoot, and so when we’re experiencing some sleep disruption, obviously it’s going to fire up and look out for us and give us all these suggestions for things we can do. Let’s research. Let’s try a supplement. Let’s try a medication. Let’s try meditation. Whatever.

There’s millions and millions of things that we can try, and I think sometimes we can get a little bit bit trapped, a little bit caught up, a little bit stuck because we can try all these things and listening to our brain that’s generally guided us pretty well through life, so we’re listening to what it’s having to tell us. We try everything it suggests, and our experience might be showing that all these things we’re doing, all these things we’re trying aren’t working, but then our brain is still there being like, “Well, okay, do that stuff again, but try harder.” It runs out of ideas at a certain point, so then we end up putting even more pressure on ourselves doing these things, understandably, that our experience is telling us are keeping us a little bit stuck, but our mind is just like, “Keep doing it. Keep doing it, but try harder.” And then we put even more pressure on ourselves. Was that akin to your own experience?

Gerry:
Oh, very much so. Yeah, very much so. I don’t know culturally if it’s worldwide, I always thought… I read a while ago that this sort of thing can be a real kicker for Americans that think that maybe the positive side of the American mystique or whatever is a can-do attitude, which can be a good thing. Hey, we can get this done, or maybe I’m just talking about my older generation, whatever. But anyway, I was always brought up with the idea that, hey, we can get this done. And that’s true for a lot of things, but it doesn’t work here. In fact, I think it’s counterproductive because after a while I saw myself as a failure in terms of insomnia. I saw this thing as a monster. It’s way bigger than I am. I can’t deal with it. I’m beat, and that’s not a good place to be.

I found at times where I could lapse into a pretty serious depression. I had to deal with that. I had a serious psychiatric disorder as in got hospitalized for it. I checked into a 30-day voluntary inpatient for that, and that helped a lot, but it wasn’t like everything’s peachy keen after that. That was 30 years ago, but what I did find out was ways to recognize it happening, and when it comes to insomnia, what I find is that… And I can still do this, I did this early this morning when I woke up too early. I can find myself… It’s very easy to start going down that rabbit hole and real depressive rumination, and I am pretty well adept at recognizing it now, and I know that… I think that people that find themselves in that space and they just can’t seem to get out of it for a couple weeks and all they can think about is suicide or whatever, it’s definitely a time to get some professional help. But yeah, it can really do a number on you. It really can.

Martin:
Something you touched upon there is we can be really hard on ourselves when we’re going through this difficult stuff. That brain fires up again and starts telling you, “Well, maybe you’re not trying hard enough. Why can’t you fix this? Why can everyone else make sleep happen but you can’t? You are a failure. You can’t achieve this, you can’t do that.” And that doesn’t really make things any easier, does it? I think it takes effort and intent, intention, real intention to actually be kind to ourselves when all this difficult stuff shows up.

Gerry:
Yeah, I totally agree. I’ve been reading something about this idea of self-compassion and that ironically, a lot of people that are the more compassionate toward others are hardest on themselves apparently, the research is showing that the… Well, for example, today I find myself looking at the stuff on my plate, we’re doing this podcast and then I’m going to do a choir practice at 6:30. I’m lucky right now I’m retired, so I don’t have as many things on my plate, but still, even if I had more, I would think I would look at, okay, what do I absolutely have to do today? And then try to work with that and then even talk to people that I’m working with that, well, maybe I’m not sleeping that great, but let’s see what we can do. And I don’t feel like I… Well, like anybody, I’ve got a bunch… Even retired, I’ve got a bunch of stuff on a to-do list, but I’m not going to beat myself up if I don’t do a whole bunch of it today.

That said, I agree with you on your prior comments about don’t let the insomnia rule your life to the point where I’m going to… Oh, I’m just not going to do this, this, or any of those things because I’m just… Well, I have insomnia, therefore I’m just going to drop out of life. It’s a balance of not dropping out, but on the other hand, not working myself to the bone and beating myself up. Yeah, I think it’s just like if you have a really bad cold, maybe you can ease up and be able to have some chicken soup or something that maybe if you’re… I didn’t sleep all that great last night, or even for a few nights, to realize that, hey, I’m going to do the best I can. And that’s it. Just give it your best.

But yeah, just don’t beat yourself up. I did that for a long time. I’ve got to get over this. I’ve just got to do this, I’ve got to do this, and then actually, I had migraines even before insomnia, and they probably, for the longest time I didn’t get both on the same day, but after a while, and I think it was probably from beating myself up year to year to year and just getting worn out, after a while I started getting both at the same time and it just makes it worse. Yeah, definitely go easy. Yeah, I’m sorry if I’m rambling.

Martin:
You’re not rambling at all. It makes my job a lot easier because I prefer to hear my guests talk rather than myself, and I’m sure my audience probably prefers… They’re probably a bit tired of my voice too. If we reflect back on sleep itself, that struggle with sleep, what was an average night like? Was it difficulty falling asleep? Would you just regularly wake up during the night and find it hard to fall back to sleep? It was a combination of both? What was your actual experience with the nights like?

Gerry:
Oh, my typical one has always been early morning awakening. I generally just about always can get to sleep right away and then try not to watch the clock too much, but over the years, it looks like if I’d wake up after about four hours, three to four… Well, about four, maybe four and a half, and then not be able to get back to sleep. And last night it was a little bit more than that, I probably got about three hours, but yeah, it’s definitely early morning awakening, which I know is a clinical sign of depression. I think for me, I don’t see myself as really depressed anymore, but I think maybe… I’m not a neurologist or anything, but I suspect that there’s probably a neural pathway that got ground in there that some people are predisposed to whatever little ailment. Maybe mine is just predisposed to this. Sometimes it’s just not going to sleep, maybe it’s just a bad habit I picked up and I obviously rather wasn’t there anymore, but I don’t have to make a huge deal out of it.

And sometimes I can recognize that there was a situational insomnia, last night I woke up… Sometimes I’ll wake up and realize there’s really something on my mind, and last night it was a… I’ve had a couple of social events that got canceled just because of any COVID outbreaks, and I was just bummed out about that a little bit. And then you think, “Okay, well, I’ll resolve that,” but then now I’m awake and then… But I try not to… One thing I learned over the years is just don’t toss, and for me, I just don’t toss and turn and go, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I… Why can’t I get back to sleep?” And just staying there. I just get up and go downstairs and play guitar quietly and not wake up my wife, hopefully.

Martin:
It sounds like there’s difference in your approach there, so now maybe you’re doing something else with that time when you’re awake instead of tossing and turning.

Gerry:
Yeah, it went back and forth because I thought, “Well, gee, if you get too efficient, I might think, “Gee, this is my time. I think I’m going to automatically wake up now so I can have this quiet time.” But I don’t think that’s been an issue. Instead, for me, it’s been… I felt better during the day knowing that… Not to sound too accomplishment-oriented to an extreme, but well, I use the example of guitar.

For me, I really want to learn it, and I’ve found that to really get there, for me, there’ve got to be times when I’ve got to do it even though I don’t want to. And so if I can get some time in during the morning, great, and okay, okay, okay, if I didn’t get enough sleep and I do it, then fine. But I just feel better by say, here we are mid-morning, and I just feel better that I played earlier rather than just stare out the window and mope about how I can’t sleep and my life is shit and just spinning nowhere. And that would just make it worse, so I feel better just getting up and doing stuff.

Martin:
What’s the difference here? Back when you were still really tangled up in the struggle, how was your approach different then? You mentioned tossing and turning and battling with your mind, things like that. How would you respond to that wakefulness in the past, and how is that different to how you generally respond to it now?

Gerry:
Well, back then, for a long time, I think of all those years, slow learner I guess, but I saw it… Well, I was working, and so I had to keep my job, do the best I could to do that, and so I saw it as more of a endurance contest. And I was in my late 20s, 30s, 40s, and I guess had more energy than I do now, but I just saw it as something I just got to suck up and just get done. And now I find myself a little bit more easy going about it, and that’s not always the case. I can find myself reverting back to letting the thoughts just go crazy and the thoughts will just be zipping through there about the more negative ones, and I’ve got to get over this and that sort of thing.

But for the most part, I’ve gotten to just more of a place of… I don’t want to say giving up with it, but living with it like… Oh, I don’t know. Well, maybe it’s akin to… I got a little bit of arthritis and instead of just giving up and saying, “Well, I just can’t deal with this,” and, “Oh my God, this hurts,” just getting up and doing the best you can and just not letting it run my life.

Martin:
Would you say that’s acknowledgement, acknowledging the presence of stuff that turns up that’s really difficult? Maybe acknowledging difficult stuff that we can’t control rather than getting tangled up trying to control the difficult stuff that we wish was gone, but we probably realize that we can’t directly control it? At least maybe our experience suggests that.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Yeah. I think I’ve gotten to more, not giving up on it or anything like that, but more of a, well, life’s difficult. Everybody’s got something. My foot’s sore sometimes from arthritis. Well, what are you going to do? I have that attitude, so like, “Well, what are you going to do?”

Martin:
I think this is sometimes where we can get a bit tripped up when we hear the word acceptance because it’s quite easy to confuse acceptance with just throwing in the towel, giving up on everything, admitting defeat, resignation. But really I think acceptance in some circumstances can be quite empowering, quite liberating, because it can free us from a struggle. For example, if we have something that we can’t really control, let’s say for example, arthritis, like you mentioned, we can either throw in the towel and withdraw from life and cancel everything that adds meaning to our life and really try somehow to battle it, to fix it, which might to some extent be helpful, but at the same time, it probably can’t be directly solved just by our own efforts. Acceptance might just involve just accepting that there is going to be some difficult stuff that we cannot control, so it’s more to do with accepting that there’s stuff out there that’s difficult that we can’t control rather than just accepting this is something I have to suffer with. And I think that’s the difference.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And also, I don’t want to get into this ongoing constant battle with arthritis or insomnia or something where it just runs my life.

Martin:
And I think it’s so linked to what we were talking about a little bit earlier, about that kindness, as being kind to ourselves too, in addition to accepting that this is present, that we might not be able to control it, being kind to ourselves and not being mean to ourselves and making it even more difficult.

Gerry:
Yeah, I agree. Totally. Yeah. And I have to remind myself about that, being kind to yourself. I tell that to other people, but I have to remind myself.

Martin:
You mentioned that back in the day when things were really difficult, lots of tossing and turning when you’d wake during the night, lots of pressure, putting pressure on yourself to sleep. Our brains make that link, especially if we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to perform during the day, we make this link, I’ve got to perform well at night, I’ve got to sleep well in order to perform well during the day. And that’s one of those intentions or efforts that can make things more difficult because as you know from experience, sleep doesn’t respond well to effort. The more we try to make it happen, the more difficult it usually becomes. Something we touched upon earlier, and that I’m keen to explore with you a little bit further, is that role of that brain, that human brain and all the thoughts and the feelings it can generate.

And this is one reason why I really wanted to get you on the podcast, is you’re so active in the forum, offering some great advice and support to other people out there, and a common theme that you talk about is this role of our thoughts and how when we’re struggling, all these difficult thoughts and feelings are going to turn up. And although we can’t really control those thoughts and feelings, they’re going to show up no matter what, we can choose how we respond to them. And I think that’s key really because our response to them determines whether we are engaged in a workable response or an unworkable response. What have you found is a workable way of responding to all the difficult thoughts and feelings that can show up during and even after difficult nights?

Gerry:
What I found over time was that indeed they’re just thoughts, and so all those thoughts those are branches going by in the river and just sitting by the riverbank and just watching them go. They’re not pleasant, but just watching them drift on by. Instead of jumping in the river and trying to wrestle with them and try to work them out and try to rationalize with them.

It’s just drifting on by. I can acknowledge the thought, I don’t deny it, but I don’t have to react to it. I don’t have to freak out about it all over again for the 50 millionth time. And I still have times where I goof and forget that and go down the thought train and I might find myself in the river and going around the bend and then I hit a log and then realize, “Oh, whoa, here I am in the river.” And then I get out of the river and try to dry myself off and go, “Okay, well, that was a bummer, but we’re through that and we realized that happened a long time ago, and here we are right now and I’m going to get on my bike later today.” Or we got a fun project at work to do, and that’s going right now. Let’s go with that.

Martin:
What your response comes down to, if I just were to sum it up, is it started with acknowledging so you acknowledge the presence of that thought rather than just immediately trying to push it away or trying to avoid it from even turning up in the first place.

Being more of an observer of it, being maybe a little bit more curious about its presence rather than putting on a big suit of armor in its presence and being kind to yourself in return, because a lot of this stuff is really difficult. I think you’ve touched upon this in the past that when you first hear this phrase from all the gurus that thoughts are just thoughts, it can be quite offensive because these thoughts are difficult and they’re real. But when we practice and when we practice acknowledging them, observing them and being kind to them, we can get a little bit distance from those thoughts so we can recognize that they are there, they are present, but that’s what they are, they’re thoughts. They’re separate from us, they aren’t us. They’re thoughts that we’re experiencing.

Gerry:
Yeah, I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m pretty good at not getting into the, oh, I’m going to get rid of that thought because that’s a conscious thought that I can recognize fairly quickly that no, that’s not going to work. But as far as getting caught up in thoughts, that can still happen for sure. If it’s just really powerful, you just get gobsmacked, and I have ones that just will just wham, even from years ago. All of a sudden it just hits that hard and it can take a while. Maybe it’s akin to being in a martial arts match or boxing or something, and man, you just get hit and for a second there you’re not really sure what’s going on. And so it can rock my world a little bit, but I find that with some practice it’s not too long. I might find myself in that river, but not in the river too long before I go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, this isn’t working. I’m getting jacked around here.” Yeah.

Martin:
Yeah, that is such an important point, I’m really glad you made it, that none of us get to, I don’t think at least that anyone gets to this guru level where we don’t deal with difficult thoughts, where we don’t get caught up in the struggle with them again. Even if we are practicing for years moving away from struggling with them, every now and then we are going to find ourselves dropping into that river, as you put it, getting swept away, and I think that’s normal part of being a human being. What matters is the more we practice, the more we’re able to notice when that’s happening, and… Maybe not the easier it is, but the more skill we have in noting when it’s happening and refocusing our attention and bringing ourselves back so we don’t quite get tangled up in that big struggle quite so fast.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah, I think if anybody’s thinking, if I can just get to the point I have total serenity, I’m going to be at total peace, I’m going to sleep well, nothing’s going to ever bother me, no, that’s not going to happen. Not on this earth. I’ve never met the Dalai Lama, but I doubt very much he would say that everything is just peachy keen for me all the time.

Martin:
It’s really interesting because as human beings, I don’t know whether we are hardwired or it’s culturally ingrained upon us, just this pursuit of happiness, we should be happy all of the time. We shouldn’t feel fear, we shouldn’t feel worry, anxiety, stress, anger, frustration, so we’re taught that we should only experience one emotion, one feeling, and that everything else, that implies that everything else that comes with being a human being, all the other thoughts, feelings and emotions are somehow wrong, that we have to get rid of them. We are hardwired to struggle with all this difficult stuff, so it does take a lot of practice to understand or to acknowledge or just to realize that that’s normal, being a human being, doing things that matter comes with difficult thoughts, feelings and emotions. Happiness is just a transitory state and we can’t reach any moments of happiness without some struggle along the way.

Gerry:
Yeah, true. I think that’s true.

Martin:
I think that’s a great summary of your changing your relationship with your thoughts. One from where there was understandably that big attempt to control, to fight, to avoid, which consumes all of our energy, our focus and attention, and can make things more difficult, more to a place where we practice, maybe not always achieve, but we practice acknowledging our thoughts, being more of an observer of them, being kind to ourselves when they show up, and responding to them in a way that’s maybe more workable. Where we do things that matter to us even when they’re present. And these don’t have to be huge things. They’re just things that are important to us that represent who we are, who we want to be, kind of life we want to live.

Because I think with repeated practice, when we just continue to do that, then we’re still living the life we want to live even when this difficult stuff is present, and that in turn might help reduce the influence of all this difficult stuff, or at least reduce the focus of all that difficult stuff. It’s like looking at our difficulties through a magnifying glass. It’s hard to see anything else when we are looking through a magnifying glass. If you can practice putting the magnifying glass down, that stuff we were looking at is still there, but now we’ve got this whole field of vision around us and we might recognize that there’s more available to us, more things to do and more that makes up our world than just what was once visible through that magnifying glass.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I think it’s so easy to get too focused on stuff, maybe too much media consumption or social media or something, just getting down a rabbit hole of negativity or getting on Instagram or Facebook or whatever where it looks like everybody’s just… Everyone else is just doing great when they’re all probably looking at it thinking everybody else is just doing great, and I’m not. These illusions, and maybe there’s something in our culture that’s like, “Well, I should be happier, or what’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with everything that I’m not happy?” And well, there’s good and evil in the world, and it’s a hard world. It’s also a beautiful world, and I can acknowledge both.

Martin:
Something else that can maybe set us up for a little bit more difficulty with the difficulties that come with being a human being is the kind of sharing culture that we have mainly online, so like social media, social networks and stuff where we have friends or acquaintances and we’re scrolling through our feed and everyone’s posting pictures of themselves smiling on vacation or with their kids or with a new car. And everyone’s obviously posting content that reflects happiness or where they would like to be in life, but the truth is that can lead to a bit of a distorted view, like you touched upon. We can then believe that everyone around us has got this great life, they’re not dealing with any struggles, there’s no pain or difficulty just because it’s constantly reinforced through where a lot of us spend a lot of our time on these devices. We’re just seeing everyone else that we know having this great life, but the truth is no one really posts about their struggles and all the difficult stuff. We generally post when we’re having a good time.

Gerry:
They’re not telling you about the surly kid at home or getting laid off or the hassles at the grocery store, and I can’t find this or that, or my car broke down, but it’s all happening.

Martin:
Yeah, exactly. It’s all happening behind the scenes, and I think that… I wonder if that might even just be an act of self-kindness, just recognizing that it’s not unusual or abnormal to be finding things difficult. It’s almost a guarantee that everyone you interact with each day is dealing with their own struggles too. I don’t think there’s anyone out there that’s got a perfect life, 100% happiness I don’t think is an achievable feat.

Gerry:
No.

Martin:
One thing that I think that might be a bit of a theme to what we’ve been talking about, and I’m curious to hear your take on this because it’s something you’ve mentioned a few times in the Insomnia Coach Forum, is mindfulness. And you touched upon sometimes it can feel like it’s a bit of a fad, even though it’s actually been around for a long time and a lot of people have some confusion about it as a result, like what is mindfulness? What does it mean? What’s the goal of it? Can you tell us about what you feel mindfulness is and how it’s helped you?

Gerry:
I think mindfulness has to do with just being aware of the present moment, and by itself, it just sounds kind of weird. I even have a friend who’s a mental health therapist herself, but she just thinks, “Ooh, that just sounds woo woo, and what’s that got to do with anything?” Just the fact that I’m aware of that this fingertip is touching this thumb or something like that. What’s that got to do with anything? But the best thing I can think of is, well, you can either be focused on the present or the past or the future, and so where are you going to be? I can be ruminating about the past or reliving the past a lot, not to say you don’t think about memory sometimes, but I can live in the past or I can be in the future. And there’s lots of ways to get anxious about that because we don’t know what’s going to happen, and meanwhile, miss the present.

Oh, it’s been attributed to John Lennon, probably some other people too, but life is what’s happening while you’re busy making other plans, and there’s just a lot going on in present life, and so for me, what I try to do is, yeah, I do some practice, listen to some meditation tapes. I’ve got some favorite sites and I have sometimes listed some, and I tell people that if you get on there and you find somebody you’re just not really… It’s just not working for you. Don’t just say, “Well, to hell with mindfulness.” No. Instead, just look around and… It’s almost like music, such and such musician, you resonate more with this artist or that. But it’s just a way of just appreciating the present. Like right now, I’m just looking out over the screen here and seeing this beautiful flower in our yard, and I’m not going to leave our podcast now and just focus totally on that, but I’m just noticing that just for a second.

When it comes down to the actual practice, it’s really trying to just be aware of what’s going on right now, whether it’s my body or what thoughts are going through in my mind. I’m not trying to force anything out, I’m not trying to think happy thoughts, I’m just being aware, and it’s hard to put in words. It’s almost like I found this… I even have a note in my dresser and it refers to both mindfulness and guitar. I can think about it, watch videos about it, read about it, talk about it, or I can do it, and at some point it comes down to just doing it and to really try to get a feel for what it can bring.

For me, what it brings is, especially in difficult moments, realizing that, okay, what’s going on right now is I have to do maybe X, but it doesn’t mean I have to do X, Y, Z and everything all at… Life doesn’t have to be a flood that I have to deal with everything right now, just what’s going on right now. Life doesn’t seem so as overwhelming, I can say that, and life can also be more fuller. Instead of driving home and realizing that I can’t really tell you a thing that I’ve seen from point A to point B and getting home and not even realizing anything, instead just being able to appreciate where I am or even little basic things, like I can find that I really appreciate the fact that I’m healthy, that I can move, that I own this car.

Martin:
Where I feel that mindfulness can be really helpful, just as you described, is our minds like to time travel, so I’ll just use one of my own examples. Kind of like yesterday, had a lot of podcasts to prepare for, I had to call the bank, I had to do all the other stuff that comes with being a parent, working, being a human being, and I felt the heart racing. I felt really tight and stressed, and that’s because really what my mind was doing, it wasn’t focusing on, okay, right now I have to work on this. It was thinking, “Oh, but then I’ve got to do this, this, this, this, this.” I was getting stressed about something that hasn’t happened yet, it’s in the future, so it doesn’t even exist.

And the fact of the matter is the task that I was working on at that moment is the same task whether I had 20 other things to do after it or zero things to do after it, but if there were zero things to do after it, I would be doing that task, just my mind would be traveling thinking, “Oh, I can relax after this, do whatever I want,” but instead my mind was like, “Oh, but then you’ve got to do this, this, this, this, this, this.” And one thing that mindfulness can help us do is keep us a little bit more present or at least to notice when our mind starts to time travel and bring us back to the present, help refocus our attention.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I can give you an example of my own. Lately I’ve found that I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I’ll wake up, my mouth will be kind of dry, my neck is a little sore, and so I go in the other room and I lay down and I find, and I just… Okay, I am awake and I’m walking into the other room and I’m laying down, and now I’m stretching my neck to the left, now I’m stretching to the right, and instead of ruminating, oh my God, I wonder if I’ll get back to sleep, what’s going to be like tomorrow? When’s this ever going to end, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. Instead, I find myself just focusing on the present and with practice I find that I can do this a little bit more, not always perfectly, but just stretching this way and then going back to bed and then laying there and realize, “Okay, I’m just laying here and I’m just breathing.”

I can feel myself breathing. I can feel the pillow. Totally in the present. And I’m just going to do this and just do that instead of, oh my God, I wonder if I’ll get back to sleep. And it doesn’t always work. Sometimes I don’t get back to sleep and it’s like, “Oh, well, I wish I did, but okay.” And then just focusing on, okay, now I’m going to get up and I’m going to do this, and just being… Yeah, and just… It’s nothing really fancy or earth-shattering or anything, it’s just… Yeah, it’s just like where are you going to be? Are you going to be in the present, the past or the future? You pick.

Martin:
And the mind still wanders anyway, right?

Gerry:
Oh yeah.

Martin:
Especially if we are new to this practice, so we might be like, “Okay, this sounds like something I could try and experiment with,” so next time, let’s say whether you’re lying in bed or if it’s just a moment during the day when you’re getting really distracted or you find your mind time traveling-

Gerry:
Yeah, my mind will be wandering, like I say, when I’m stretching there or I’m laying back in bed, the thought might be going through my mind and I’ll find myself saying, “Oh, I’m having the thought that I might not get back to sleep, and it’s just going to be a real bummer, and…” Well, there’s the thought going by and then try not to glob onto that thought, just let it drift on by.

Martin:
It comes down to that control. The mind is still going to wander off. What we are doing is just looking to practice bringing it back to the present again, because it’s always going to drift off to the future or the past away from right now.

Gerry:
Yeah, and don’t beat yourself up when it wanders, like, “Oh my God, I’m really a bad meditator. What a flop I am.” No, it’s going to do that. Our minds wander for reasons that drive us crazy like we’ve been talking about, or they can lead to really creativity. I read somewhere where the guy that came up with what, silicon chips or something, it’s just the idea popped into his head when he was taking a shower. What kind of thought that was, I have the slightest idea how anybody could think of that, but apparently he wasn’t consciously thinking about it, he was just taking a shower and all of a sudden this idea popped into his head, so go figure.

Martin:
Going back to these themes of mindfulness where you said one of them is the time traveling, being more present, noticing when our mind is time traveling, just bringing it back to the present moment with kindness and recognizing that just because you brought it back once, it doesn’t mean it’s going to stay there. It’s going to drift off, especially if you’re new to this. This is a skill and no one ever is able to keep their mind anchored 100% percent in the present 100% of the time. It is something that requires ongoing practice, but another benefit you touched upon or another part of mindfulness, another benefit of mindfulness is the brain likes to run on autopilot a lot of the time. You gave the example like if we’re driving a car. We can just be driving along, before we know it half an hour has gone by, we can’t remember what the speed limit is.

When we are noticing ourselves on autopilot, we miss out on stuff, and so when things are difficult, when we’re struggling, it can feel as though that’s the only thing that’s present. But like you just mentioned, you’d notice just in the background, out the window there was this beautiful flower. These things can seem quite small and insignificant, but the more skill we can gain through practice of just noticing the good stuff around us, disengaging autopilot when we find that we’re doing stuff without really thinking about it, can really open us up to more of the good stuff that’s also present even when the difficult stuff is present with us too.

Gerry:
Yeah, you’re going to be having a really tough day and gulping down coffee and not really noticing it or be having a really tough day, but still noticing, wow, this coffee tastes really good, so at least there’s a little bit of bright spot if you can notice it. But it’s there. It’s there.

Martin:
And it’s amazing what’s out there, and I think children are great at this. Children are experts in this. They want to… You take a child out for a walk, they want to look at every rock, look at every leaf, and there are limits to this. As adults, we do still have to get stuff done, we can’t just be walking around in a philosophy of amazement, wonder and curiosity all of the time, but maybe if we can just take a little bit of that childhood magic with us and just stop every now and then and just notice what’s around us. Is there anything we’re missing out on?

Gerry:
And not to mention learning from kids, relearning from kids about sleep because kids are doing all that stuff and then after a while they just conk out. They don’t sit and think, “Well, I really hope I can get to sleep,” or, “What should I do to sleep?” And thinking it through and… They just conk out.

Martin:
Exactly. Yeah, there is a lot, and as a parent, I learn a lot from my kids every single day. It is quite amazing how much of those childhood insights we lose as we get older. We obviously gain a lot, but we also can lose a lot as well.

Gerry:
Yeah. Yeah.

Martin:
Well, Gerry, I really appreciate the time you’ve taken out your day to come on. I really like the way we really dug into the thought processes that can be involved when we are struggling with insomnia and how we can easily get caught up in a battle with them that can make things maybe more difficult and how there is an alternative approach that can help us move away from the struggle, but that’s that’s not something that’s easy. It does require ongoing practice and just being kind to yourself when things are difficult. If someone with chronic insomnia is listening to this conversation, listening to your great insights that you’ve shared, but they feel like I’m that person, I’ve tried everything, I’m just beyond help, I’m just never going to be able to move away from struggling with insomnia, what would you say to them?

Gerry:
Right now you’re having these thoughts that I’m stuck, I’m never going to get better. I realize that’s a really powerful thought and I can understand where you would be coming from, how that thought would develop and lodge into your brain because of all, unfortunate, the suffering you’ve had. But I can’t emphasize enough that the thought is powerful, I totally acknowledge that, but as hard as it might seem to acknowledge, I can tell you the thought is not true. It’s not true. You’re not stuck, you’re not condemned to it. Going back to that thing about the kid that conks out. Over time, if you don’t eat… You’re not hungry right now, say, but over time, eventually you’re going to get hungry and over time you’re going to fall asleep. If you say, “I just can’t sleep, I can’t sleep,” well, you will acknowledge that you can’t just get in your car and try to drive across the United States. And you know eventually you’re going to fall asleep at the wheel.

And so the things that say I can’t sleep, your brain is… I know that’s a powerful thought, but it’s simply not true, and if you can try to give yourself a break, maybe realize that, hey, I’ve really been working hard on this, I’ve really been trying, but maybe if I can not take my thoughts so seriously, even though they seem like they must be true because they’re so powerful, but if I can acknowledge that sleep is a natural process and that therefore something is getting in the way, and you know what, it could be that the thing that’s in my way is my thinking that I can’t sleep, that I am stuck, that there’s nothing I can do, that I’m a failure, that this is my life and my life is hell, and I wish I was dead and so on and so on. Believe me, I’ve been there and it’s easier said than done, and no, it’s not perfect, and like I said earlier in the podcast, turned out I didn’t sleep that great last night, but hang in there and also realize you’re not alone.

A lot of it, there’s millions any given night. Last night probably in the US alone, there was probably what, 20, 30 million people easy that didn’t sleep that well. A lot of us are walking around kind of blitzed, we could use some more sleep. You’re not alone, and this isn’t a death sentence or a life sentence to insomnia. Things can get better. I would really urge you to stick with… Well, the Insomnia Forum, and see what people are going through and get some tips and share some ideas, and Martin’s podcasts, emails and whatnot. And things can get better. If this sounds like just some sort of goody two shoes pep talk, it’s not. We all have different journeys, but on the other hand, there are some similarities, and I think that I’ve got a pretty good idea what your… In this part of your journey, I got a pretty good idea what that is like because it’s tough, it is tough. And maybe also give yourself credit. Here you are, you’re still here, and you’re not alone. You’re not alone.

Martin:
I think that’s a great note to end on, Gerry, so thank you again for taking the time to come out onto the podcast and to share your thoughts, your insights, and your experiences. Really appreciated.

Gerry:
Well, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Martin:
Thanks for listening to the Insomnia Coach Podcast. If you’re ready to move away from struggling with insomnia and toward living the life you want to live, I would love to help. You can get started right now by enrolling in my online course or you can book my phone coaching package. My online course runs for six weeks. It will help you make changes that can create better conditions for sleep, it will help you identify and get rid of any behaviors that might be making sleep more difficult, and it will help you respond to insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it in a more workable way. You can work through the course in two ways. You can choose the self-coaching option and work through it by yourself with the support of an online forum that is available only to clients.

Martin:
Or, you can choose to add one-on-one email coaching and work through the course with me by your side. With the one-on-one coaching option, you get unlimited email access to me for eight weeks, starting from the day you enroll. Any time you have a question or concern, any time you are unsure about anything, any time you want to focus on the challenges you face or any difficulties that show up, you can email me and I will be there to coach and support you. You can get the course and start right now at insomniacoach.com.

Martin:
With the phone coaching package, we start with a one-hour call (voice only or video — your choice) and come up with an initial two-week plan that will help you create better conditions for sleep and practice moving away from struggling with insomnia and all the difficult thoughts and feelings that come with it. You get unlimited email access to me for two weeks after the call and a half-hour follow-up call at the end of the two weeks. You can book the phone coaching package at insomniacoach.com/phone.

Martin:
I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Insomnia Coach Podcast. I’m Martin Reed, and as always, I’d like to leave you with this important reminder — you can sleep.