Is Stress Keeping You Up At Night?

Ep: 141

Finally laying your head down on a pillow at night should be a welcome relief. But for many working women, it’s become a place where our worries gather. Your body tosses & turns while your head feels like a circus of anxiety.

If you’ve ever found yourself struggling to fall asleep, or you wake up in the middle of the night with your mind racing, you’re not alone. Worry, stress, & anxiety are all too common sleep companions keeping us from getting the rest we need to wake up recharged.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Real rest is possible when you have the right tools to get unstuck from the mental loop.

Today, Blake explains why so many women are suffering from a lack of sleep, and what those thoughts keeping you awake at night are trying to tell you. She shares valuable tools that will help you shift that pattern in your life, and a simple exercise that’ll help you find relief tonight. You’ll learn how to pinpoint where and when you may have developed these worry habits, and how to reframe your understanding to receive them as gifts that will ultimately help you grow.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The impact that a lack of sleep can have on your life(0:31)
  • A simple practice to help relieve anxiety before going to bed (3:17)
  • How to view the emotions you’re experiencing in a more helpful way (5:01)
  • The definition of a trigger and what it feels like (6:02)
  • Why processing your feelings and patterns is so important (8:22)
  • What your sleep disruption is trying to tell you (10:09)

 

Favorite Quotes:

  1. If you’re not sleeping well, you can’t think well and you can’t live well.
  2. We get to a place in our life where the coping mechanisms that we developed in our childhood are no longer working for us.
  3. Most of us haven’t been taught how to deal with our emotions or to honestly understand that what we feel isn’t necessarily the truth.
  4. One of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself, your family, your children and those around you is to learn how to really understand what your feelings and what your patterns are telling you and really be able to process them.
  5. Our feelings are actually a gift. They’re not scary. They’re there to help us grow. They’re there to help give us freedom. And when we understand how to do that, we begin to be empowered.

 

Additional Resources:

Rather than hoping the grass will be greener, identify what the RIGHT next step is.

We can help you do just that.

Get clarity on where you are on your journey to career fulfillment, where you’re headed, optional paths to get there, and the right next step to take.

Start your complimentary, Personalized Career Fulfillment Plan by going to www.thebridgetofulfillment.com/plan

Want free resources to set your job search up for success? You can get them by going to: https://thebridgetofulfillment.com/mistakes

Transcript

Blake Schofield 0:03 My name is Blake Schofield, founder and CEO of Connections Illuminated, mom to three, and former corporate executive who got tired of sacrificing my life for a comfortable paycheck. My mission is to change women’s perspectives about what is possible, empowering them with the tools to create greater impact at home and at work without sacrificing their health time family or income. This is The Bridge to Fulfillment.

Blake Schofield 0:31 If you have ever found yourself struggling to sleep all the way through the night, if you have had periods of time where you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about everything that you have to do or your mind racing today, I hope to really give you some greater understanding and some tools to really be able to shift that in your life. Because if you’re not sleeping well, you can’t think well, you can’t live well. And it’s very interesting, because this is such a common problem, but no one’s really talking about it. As I said recently, within my coaching program, one of my clients actually brought up that she was struggling having a good night’s sleep, that she’s waking up at 2am with her mind racing. And to see the response of the women in the group, well, let’s just say this is far more common than most of us know. And that’s because no one’s really talking about it. So let’s change that dynamic today.

Blake Schofield 1:28 First and foremost, if you’re struggling with this, I want you to know that you are not alone, and nothing is wrong with you. What you’re experiencing are signs and symptoms that you just don’t know how to read yet.

Blake Schofield 1:41 So let’s talk a little bit about why does this happen? Well, this happens because you’re not addressing your feelings and what’s going on during the day. Right, maybe it feels like you’ve just got too much going on. Or you just don’t really know how to process what you’re feeling or experiencing. And so you’re stuffing it down. And so when you finally relax, all of those feelings are coming up to process. It also happens because you may be projecting out or overthinking, projecting out things that aren’t reality, what I call getting into the mental spiral, or tornado. And the thing is that those things that you’re starting to build up in your mind about all of the terrible things that could happen in the future. They’re never as bad as what actually happens, right. But our brain gets stuck into this loop, which seems at the time, we’re really hard to get out of. And the third reason that this happens is we honestly we get to a place in our life when the coping mechanisms that we developed in our childhood, and we’ve used our whole life just honestly are no longer working for us. These patterns of going through periods of time where you have I always call them work, nightmares, work nightmares, or waking up in the middle of the night or early in the morning thinking about either everything that you have to do or things that could go wrong, I lived with that probably for a decade of my 18 years in corporate, I would wake up in a panic, most of my intended to be to do list, I would be having dreams about work about all of the stuff that I had to do. But sometimes it would be about fears, fears about dropping the ball on something or something terrible happening, and that I was responsible for it. One of the things that really began to help me was by starting to put a piece of paper and a pen next to my bed table. Because honestly, some of the stress and anxiety is all the stuff that you’re keeping in your head, all the stuff you’re trying to remember. And I would remember things in the middle of the night that I needed to do. And then I would try to keep mentally remembering them. And that was actually creating a lot of stress for me. And then I would wake up in the morning and I would forget whatever the heck it was. And then I would feel guilty oh my goodness, or something I’m going to drop the ball on. So putting that piece of paper and a pen next to me. When I did wake up, I could write down whatever that was that came to my mind. Number one that helped make sure that my brain didn’t feel responsible for holding all of that in it. But number two, it gave me an opportunity later, when I was clear and awake to be able to understand what was really bothering me. What was going on. What was I processing. So if you’ve ever experienced that, I encourage you it’s something super simple, but it definitely made a huge help for me. Now, I want to talk and dive a little bit more into this because I think most of us haven’t been taught how to deal with our emotions or to honestly understand that what we feel isn’t necessarily the truth. In fact, a lot of times it isn’t not one of the things I said earlier it’s one of the reasons this comes back is because you haven’t processed or worked through emotions. And we just think if we suck them down or push on it, they go away but that’s actually not true. Those emotions get stored in your body and they get stored in your body as stress or anxiety and ultimately, right those are the things that create cancer, heart attacks and other unhealthy things for our body.

Blake Schofield 5:01 I often talk about that emotions, the emotions we’re experiencing are actually gifts. The problem is we don’t see them that way, we see them as scary or inconvenient or fearful that we’re going to be stuck feeling this way or that whatever that feeling is, that means this terrible thing will happen to us.

Blake Schofield 5:20 And the reason for that is almost all of our beliefs, right are formed by the time we are seven years old. And so as an adult, when we go through things that emotionally trigger us, and what an emotional trigger is, I’ll talk about in just a second, but we go through things that emotionally trigger us and that feeling comes back, then it creates this sense of like stress or anxiety or tension, and then we revert back to that little kid. Because whatever is happening today, that’s creating that emotional trigger isn’t actually today’s event, right? It’s triggering whatever that event was, as a child, whatever those beliefs were, that you’ve carried with you since childhood that you haven’t yet dealt with. So let’s talk about what is a trigger? A trigger is when something happens, and you have a very immediate emotional reaction to it, that is negative, generally, and you can a lot of times see this when something will happen, and you just immediately get angry or immediately get hurt. And then in hindsight, maybe you can look and go, Oh, gosh, logically, what happened wasn’t that bad, but it felt really terrible. Or logically, my reaction was sort of out of whack. But I don’t really understand why those are good signs and symptoms that you’ve been triggered. So if we don’t understand, first of all, what our triggers are, or second of all, how to address them, right? All of that sort of stuff gets stuck. And we revert back to that little kid. And whatever our coping mechanisms were, were you the kid that got angry? Were you the kid that got silent and sort of went into yourself?

Blake Schofield 7:05
Or are you the kid that just ignored and went and did something else sort of numb or not addressed the feelings, because as an adult, right, you’re using the same coping mechanisms, but they’re just not working for you in the same way. And so when we get triggered, and we have these emotions, we see them as scary because we’re still that same 567 year old kid. And we worry, I can’t feel this because something bad is gonna happen if I feel these things. But part of the process of learning how to use your emotions to work for you, and really gaining freedom, peace of mind in your life, is giving yourself compassion, realizing that that inner 567 year old thinks every single thing that she’s seeing or hearing or feeling is true. When honestly, the vast majority of the time it isn’t. So it starts with gaining awareness. What is keeping me up at night? What am I not addressing? What am I feeling that I don’t really want to feel, and then finding and then start implementing practices that help you process your emotions, get more comfortable feeling what you’re feeling, be able to challenge is what I’m feeling true, right or not. And then once you learn how to do that, what comes from that is empowerment. What I want you to understand is this is probably one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself, your family, your children and those around you is to learn how to really understand what your feelings and what your patterns are telling you. and really be able to process them. You know, there’s that old saying What you resist, persist. And I see that all of the time. When we learn that we don’t need to resist our feelings, when we can actually stop and process them. We realize our feelings are actually gift, they’re not scary. They’re there to help us grow. They’re there to help give us freedom. And when we understand how to do that, we begin to be empowered, we begin to understand how to actually leverage our emotions to work for us.

Blake Schofield 9:07 And so I want you to understand in this process, right, when you have the tools to process this emotion and work through it, you can start to see the patterns in your life. And with that awareness, you can start to identify belief systems or triggers that have been keeping you trapped, that you can actually change. You know, years ago, before I started this journey, I would have told you that so much about my life was just quote unquote, who I was, it was unchangeable. Today, I know that actually the majority of things I can change, yes, I’m gifted with certain skills and talents. 100% That is part of who I am. But a lot of the things I believed about perfectionism, or just having to do things a certain way, actually weren’t true. They were things I was doing to control my environment, or because I didn’t know another way. And so I want

Blake Schofield 10:00 You didn’t know, these things happen, you’re not getting the sleep you’re not feeling, you’re able to have peace of mind that it’s usually coming with a couple of places. Number one, you’re not dealing with the emotions that you’re feeling. Number two, perhaps your life isn’t aligned, right with your values. And what you’re experiencing is a sign. That’s telling you, it’s time to create change.

Blake Schofield 10:25 It can be something small, or it can be something actually big.

Blake Schofield 10:31 But being able to dive in, and really give yourself the time to feel and process your feelings is the key. By gaining self awareness, and the tools to understand what your emotions are telling you, as well as honestly challenge whether those are real, then you can begin to recognize these patterns in your life and be empowered to change them. So if you have places in your life where you’re having emotions come up, I want you to stop and ask yourself, Am I doing the things in my life that make me happy? Is my life aligned with the things I really value? Okay, that’s the first piece. The second piece? Is there something in my life right now that’s making me miserable? And if so, is there a way to make that a smaller portion of my life? I understand there are some things that we can’t change, or we can’t get rid of. But I would challenge you, there’s far more than you can change and you probably believe is possible today.

Blake Schofield 11:24 And so look at and understand, can I make the things that are miserable? Can I make that a smaller portion of my life? Can I create change? And if I can’t, then how do I keep that in the box and not let that impact all of the other parts of my life, sometimes we just need to do the very things that make us happy.

Blake Schofield 11:42 It can be really easy to get focused on what’s making us unhappy, and then not fill our lives with the things that actually are meaningful.

Blake Schofield 11:51 So when you have anxiety come up. If you feel yourself spiraling and a tornado of worries, stop and give yourself grace. Remember, if you were that little seven year old girl, how would you comfort her? Would you beat her up and give her a hard time because she’s not sleeping? And she has all of these things in her head? Or would you come and give her a big hug and tell her it’s going to be okay? And give her the opportunity to talk through and process what’s going on. Treat yourself with the same compassion that you would treat that little girl. Recognize that all you have to do is take one positive step forward today and tomorrow, and the next day to move you forward towards the life that you want to lead. And through doing those things, it will make creating better habits it will make creating change in your life substantially easier.

Blake Schofield 12:45 Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope that you found this topic helpful. And I’d love to hear from you. If you are either a new listener or listener has been around for a while please, I’d love to hear from you. By going to iTunes, and leaving me a rating and a review. Let me know what you’re enjoying from the podcast or what you’d like to hear more about. Because ultimately, this podcast is about you and about delivering value and messages and information to truly help you live a more fulfilling career and life. Thanks. Until next time, have a great week.

Blake Schofield 13:21 Thanks so much for joining me today. I’d love to invite you if you would like more resources and tools to be able to help you create a more fulfilling career in life. Please feel free to go to bridge to fulfillment.com. And that’s bridge number two fulfillment.com. Also, if as you’ve been listening, you really are thinking I really wonder if Blake and her team can help me I want to encourage you please feel free to reach out and schedule a free 15 minute discovery call. We’d be happy to connect and see if or how we can help you and you can do so by going to SpeakwithBlake.com. Again, that’s SpeakwithBlake.com. Thanks so much. Until next time, have a great week.