Why do we resist going to sleep?

One of my favourite things to do is to teach others how to use EFT/Tapping in order for them to find sleep again naturally. I am writing this story with permission from one of my clients. She had a hard time getting herself to bed at a decent hour and knew that her lack of sleep was affecting many areas of her life. But she resisted going to bed and knew she wanted to change it.

When she first came to see me, she was only sleeping 4 to 6 hours per night and she never felt rested. She always falls asleep within minutes (once she decides to turn the light off) but she can’t get good quality sleep. And wakes up numerous times during the night and can’t fall asleep again. Never getting good deep sleep.

Her goals for our work together:

1. Get 7 hours of sleep a night,
2. Go to her bedroom by 11:30 pm so she could read for half an hour,
3. Turn her light off at midnight,
4. Wake up at 7 am which would give her 7 full hours of sleep.

It’s very important to set specific goals so we can measure the outcome as we work together.

I asked her how possible does it feel for her to actually go to her bedroom by 11:30 pm tonight. On a scale from 1 to 10, she felt it was a 4. We decided to focus our work for this first session on removing any resistance she had towards going to her bedroom at 11:30 pm. By the end of our session, she felt it would be possible at an 8 out of 10.

I also asked her to pay attention to her feelings during the week between our sessions and to journal and tap on any negative emotions that came up.

When she came back for her second session, she said she had noticed a resistance going to bed. She was getting ready for bed and said to herself, “Carol is not going to tell me WHEN to go to bed”. She realized at that moment that she didn’t like anyone telling her “WHEN” to go to bed. We began exploring that feeling that she experienced. As a kid, she was always made to go to bed at 6:00 pm. All her friends were playing outside and she could hear them, but she was not allowed to go play. Once, she got caught looking out the window and got in trouble for it. As a 7-year-old, she felt invisible and not heard, put away in her bedroom where she would be out of sight. She realized the connection from her experiences as a child to still feeling that resistance today with going to bed.

As we continued our next few sessions, we focused on the two limiting beliefs we had uncovered.

• I am invisible felt true for her at 95%
• I am not heard felt true for her at 100%

We took each of these limiting beliefs and found specific events that confirmed to her today that she was invisible and not heard. There were times when she was not heard at work by her supervisor. Times at home where she was not heard by her husband. Even a memory from childhood where her grandmother said, “Children should be seen and not heard”

By session 5 she was sleeping between 5 to 7 hours, which was an improvement. She still felt some resistance going to bed early and we explored that further. She remembered as a child having to be under the covers with a flashlight because the RULE was lights out at 6:00 pm. She wanted to go out and play “kick the can” with her friends and couldn’t because of that RULE. She was resisting any rule imposed on her because of it, even if SHE was the one trying to institute that rule. Knowing that she felt this way because of her childhood and the fact that she was made to go to bed so early, we focused this session on her feelings about being made to go to bed that early. How she rebelled by having a flashlight under the blankets and reading when she was supposed to be sleeping. All these rules as a kid were still ingrained in her subconscious today causing her not to want to turn the light off.

Session 6, she started out by saying “I slept 7 full hours last night”. The resistance she had about turning the lights off was gone, and she was feeling more rested. When we checked her 2 limiting beliefs discovered in other sessions, her feeling of being invisible was down to 50% and her feeling of not being heard was down to 25%. Still more work to do on those limiting beliefs but a great reduction already.

I am grateful for my work with this client. Knowing that the quality of her sleep improved, I know the quality of her life will also improve.