Getting a good night’s sleep was something I yearned for for YEARS. It seemed like no matter how tired my body was, my mind wouldn’t slow down and be quiet. If I was lucky enough to fall asleep, I would almost always wake up in the night crippled with worry, fear and sometimes even full blown panic.
I can remember this one night (although I had many more just like it), where I woke up in a wave of panic, after actually having had a few decent hours of sleep. We had recently moved out of state to a rental house that was a ranch. I was not used to having our bedrooms on the first floor.
As I shot upright in bed, my heart was pounding and I was paraliyzed with fear with the thought that someone was going to break into my young daughters’ bedroom and kidnap them.
I bolted out of bed to check on them, and, of course, they were sound asleep. As I crawled back into bed, the fear was still pulsing through my whole body. I lay there with eyes and ears wide open. I could actually see it in my mind; their bedroom window being carefully and quietly opened as I slept soundly, not aware that my precious children were being whisked away in the night.
I felt completely powerless.
For months, night after night, I would have similar episodes until we moved to a new house with our bedrooms on the second floor. But my sleep was still compromised due to my continuous anxious and fearful thoughts.
Some nights it was because I was certain my new house was haunted, or that it was going to catch fire in the middle of the night and I needed to stay awake in order to make sure we all got out safely.
I was so caught up in my worry and fear that I didn’t even realize at the time that my sleep patterns were causing distance and anger towards my husband, not being present with my children, friends, family and clients as well as having next to no motivation, low self-esteem, brain fog, and complete exhaustion by 4pm every day. My whole life was out of balance due to my lack of sleep and stress.
One afternoon at our local library, as I was dropping off an armload of children’s books, a small little book on display about getting a good night’s sleep caught my eye. After bringing it home and devouring it cover to cover, I felt like a weight was beginning to lift.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that little book was the beginning of me not only starting to have better sleep, but was also my introduction to the body-mind connection and how insomnia, for many people (including myself), can be rooted in stress from past trauma and conditioning.
It became my MISSION to learn more about the amazing power we have within us in regards to our healing and living a healthy life in mind, body and spirit, no matter what has happened in our past.
That one little book (I wish I could remember the title and author but it was over 15 years ago!🙃) was a game changer for me, and NOW my mission is to share what I’ve learned so we all can be getting the deep rest, night after night, that we so desperately need and deserve.
Ready to change your sleep story?