Sleepless Nights Are Not Your Enemy: How This Guided Meditation Brings You Back to Rest

By the end of this episode, you’ll discover how to find peace and balance even on the most restless nights.

Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

In this episode, you’ll discover how to be less frustrated when sleep doesn’t come, the hidden benefits of not sleeping, and why sleep doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfectly happy. This is an edition of Guided Meditation Mondays, where I’ll be guiding you to do the work of Byron Katie as you listen.

Think of a situation where you were having trouble falling asleep. And Maybe it was the beginning of the night, and you just couldn’t fall into sleep. There was just a, mind was racing, or something was not allowing you to sleep. Maybe you just fell asleep, and something woke you up, and now you’re having trouble falling asleep again.

Or maybe it’s the middle of the night, and somehow you woke up, maybe from a dream, maybe you’re too hot, or maybe your stomach is feeling funny, but something woke you up, and now you’re having trouble falling asleep. Find a situation like that. Maybe this is you right now. And let’s do a meditation.

So the thought that I invite us all to question is, I need to fall asleep. In your situation, can you find that? It’s I need to fall asleep. It’s a feeling. It’s a stressful feeling. And it may have words similar to that. So let’s question that idea and see what we find. So be in your situation, either in your imagination or in reality, as you’re wanting to fall asleep and you’re unable to.

Is it true that you need to fall asleep? And just sit with that question and see if you can find a yes or a no.

This meditation comes from the inside,

so give yourself space.

You need to fall asleep. Is it true?

And I’m imagining myself waking up in the middle of the night and not falling back asleep.

Is it true I need to fall asleep?

My mind tells me yes.

What does yours tell you?

So regardless of what you find, if your answer was yes, then let’s go to question two of the work. Can you absolutely know it’s true that you need to fall asleep? In your situation,

when I find a no,

how do you react? What happens when you believe this thought that you need to fall asleep and you’re not falling asleep? What happens to you?

I become restless.

I become agitated.

What images do you see in the future?

I imagine myself tired. The next day,

I remember that feeling, tiredness, trying to work when I’m tired. I dread it.

I already feel that now, just imagining it.

This is how I react.

So how else do you react when you think you need to fall asleep and you’re not being able to?

Frustration?

Do you start trying to use different techniques to fall asleep? Counting sheep, for example, never worked for me.

Do you start blaming your mind which seems to be going around in circles?

I feel trapped, powerless.

Notice this is the reaction to the thought, I need to fall asleep.

What else happens to you?

I notice my heart rate increases,

my stress levels go up,

now it’s even harder to fall asleep.

I shift my position, shift it again, thinking maybe that will do the trick.

I need to fall asleep.

Do you feel the pressure you put on yourself when you’re believing this thought?

Tomorrow’s a big day, or tomorrow’s another day. I need to be at my best. Pressure.

Any other reactions when you think that you need to fall asleep? And you can’t.

I judge my mind as too busy, something wrong with it. It won’t leave me alone.

I become a victim of my own mind.

All this is reaction. Reaction to the thought, I need to fall asleep.

Then I want to get up. I go try something. I want to distract myself, feel so uncomfortable. I want to just get away from this feeling.

This also is reaction.

So who would you be without the thought? I need to fall asleep. Who would you be, lying there, not sleeping, but no need to fall asleep?

I would be relaxed,

as relaxed as I naturally would be. I notice my mind is still running, but it’s not a problem.

Thought, I need to fall asleep.

I’m just there. Oh wait,

where’s the problem?

Who would you be? In the same situation, Without the thought, I need to fall asleep.

Feels easy.

Nothing I have to do. I’m not fighting with my mind. Listening to the flow of it, actually. And I’m entertaining.

I notice how quiet my breathing is, actually.

And it may change. But I’m there with it.

I’m in a sensory deprivation chamber. People pay money for that. And here I am. Nothing going on, hardly know what the time is,

feels meditative.

So the effect of this thought, I need to fall asleep, is that it stresses me out. And without the thought, I’m still not sleeping, but I’m less stressed. This is the effect of the thought, I need to fall asleep.

So if this is the effect of the thought, let’s consider if the opposite of that thought could be as true or truer. Just for balance, because I think I’m getting too caught with this thought.

So an opposite would be, I don’t need to fall asleep.

So how could that be true? Is there any truth in it?

I can start with the obvious that I’m still alive. I’m still breathing.

I don’t need to fall asleep.

Heck, I remember In college, staying up all night, and then the next day, I survived. I

don’t need to fall asleep.

Also, I’m lying down. That’s a lot of rest.

I tend to idealize sleep as if it’s the, that’s where the real rest is. And there may be some truths to that. But there’s a lot of rest in just lying down. What if I lay down for an hour or two hours every day during the day? I would think, my gosh, I’m getting a lot of rest.

So it’s the same thing, even better. Because there’s not a lot going on when I’m lying in the dark.

So I don’t need to fall asleep.

I’m getting a lot of rest.

I’ve also experienced that even when I’ve slept poorly in the past, many times, I can still function just fine.

In fact, that dreaded fatigue often never showed up the next day at all.

Or if it did, it was late in the day and time for bed. Time for bed. So yeah, if I don’t fall asleep, I may have And even better sleep tomorrow,

but it’s amazing to me how often I’ve been awake for one or two hours and had zero impact on my day the next day, like just fine. What’s exhausting is thinking I need to fall asleep. Now I’m stressing myself out, but if

I’m just being there with myself, it’s quite restful.

And when I’m not resisting it, it’s fun. The daydreaming that happens. The night dreaming, if you will. My mind goes into all kinds of things, looks at all kinds of things, turns things inside out, can’t help it anyway. Might as well enjoy the ride.

It feels nice to just see it as easy, as fun, as curious, instead of bad. It

only becomes bad when I compare it to some ideal of needing to fall asleep.

The turnaround is nice. It’s nice. I don’t need to fall asleep. I get to enjoy my mind.

I’ve sometimes had real insights in this quiet time of the night.

I’m a listener if I’m not thinking, I don’t need to fall asleep. I’m not encouraging my mind to go crazy, but I’m not discouraging it either.

More like I’m enjoying it.

So who needs to fall asleep? I’m enjoying the movie that I’m watching.

It’s also very meditative to just be there, awake, lying on the bed, with the lights out, not sleeping.

Very akin to meditation.

And meditation is not always silent either. The mind can be busy.

We give it a space to begin to settle down. But the mind takes its own time in doing that. It may take hours to do that. It may never do that time. And yet, it’s still a meditation.

Like I’ve opened the door and said, yeah, if you wanna be quiet, wanna settle, you’re welcome to. And you don’t have to.

It feels so respectful.

So I don’t need to fall asleep. I can enjoy the meditative quality of lying there while my body’s getting rest.

Maybe my body’s working something out. That happens.

When the body gets rest, it starts to throw off imbalances. And so it may feel like a tension is being released. mounting, but it’s mounting because it’s unwinding itself.

And the mind may be active, but it’s active in unwinding itself.

I’m not putting anything new in, so it’s all going out.

So I don’t need to fall asleep.

I love quiet.

Pretty much all HSPs love quiet.

And here it is, as many hours of it as you would like. Beautiful, uninterrupted quiet.

So I don’t need to fall asleep.

The mind takes a while to unwind,

need some time to process the experiences during the day. And it doesn’t mean it’s useless time. If I’m lying there, allowing it to unwind, it

doesn’t have to look like sleep.

In fact, asking it to sleep. would be jumping the gun. First it has to unwind and then when it’s ready it will sleep.

Just reminds me of how intelligent the body and the mind are. They know when to fall asleep, even if to fall asleep.

I’m in their hands and they have a lot of experience passed down from generations.

So I don’t have to fall asleep. I don’t need to fall asleep.

Maybe my mind is ruminating on important things that I, should be ruminating on,

bringing to my attention something that needs or wants resolution.

Like the unconscious mind just working it out.

There’s a lot of intelligence there underneath the surface at work.

And it brings up the possibility of, maybe I could focus more on resolving this issue in my daylight hours. But in the meantime, my mind’s working it through and often comes up with brilliant ideas. If I let it,

maybe I’m not falling asleep because there’s something I need to do, something I need to say, something that takes courage, who knows?

There may be wisdom in not falling asleep,

but ultimately, I can’t control when I fall asleep, if I fall asleep, how long I sleep, how deep I sleep. I can’t control it. I can do what I can to lead a balanced life, settle down as best I can in time, but it’s not really under my control. Sleep comes. Or it doesn’t come, then it’s none of my business.

I don’t need to fall asleep. Maybe another turnaround is, I need to be with myself.

Just allow myself to be. Let my mind do what it needs to do. Let my body do what it needs to do. And just give it ample opportunity to rest. In this episode, we looked at how to be less frustrated when sleep doesn’t come. And the way to do that is to hold that idea of needing to fall asleep more lightly, less tightly.

Because in the end, we can’t control it anyway. And when you fight it, it becomes stressful. We also looked at the hidden benefits of not sleeping. And we found that there’s rest happening when you’re not sleeping and function is still there most of the time the next day. And there’s a decompression happening physically, mentally and unwinding.

And that is a good thing. And finally, sometimes insights come, sometimes little ideas pop in and it can be fun to witness that and to allow that. when not sleeping. And finally, we looked at why sleep doesn’t have to be perfect to be perfectly happy. Happiness comes from being yourself. And when you’re fighting with is not.

which is not sleeping, that’s when the unhappiness comes. When I start thinking, ah, I should be sleeping, if only I had slept better, if only I would sleep, I’m in the constant fight with the situation. And happiness doesn’t require anything. You can be tired and happy, you can be sleepy and happy, you can be mind busy and happy, happiness is akin to easiness and it comes from not fighting.

And ultimately, the next day you may find as you get out of bed without a lot of story that you feel fine. So thank you for listening, and I hope you sleep well, and I also hope you enjoy when you don’t sleep. Till next time, have a wonderful rest of your day.