Okay, so the post title is a tad misleading…

(At least it’s not “33 Reasons Why You Can’t Sleep… #5 Will Change Your Life!)

I sleep just fine most every night. If if weren’t for those meddling kids of mine, every night I’d be asleep shortly after my head hits the pillow, enjoying 8 or 9 hours or uninterrupted, restorative slumber until I get up. Currently, I tend to stir when the kids cough or talk in their sleep. I sleep with my ears open, attending for any werewolves who might sneak in the house looking for a succulent meal. Even still, I sleep rather well as a rule and I am quite deliberate about sleep because it’s important to me.

But I read about people who can’t sleep all the time…

It’s hormones, they say. Or just what happens when you age. Or Mercury in retrograde. (Usually the cause is attributed to something they have no or limited control over.)

And because sleep is like, important and stuff, when you can’t sleep there’s a powerful motivation to remedy the situation.

I’ve seen people use everything from meditations to homeopathic herbs and spices to narcotics to try and fix the problem.

But here’s the thing…

What if every sort of unwanted issue you experience is vibrational? (Because it is.)

And if vibrational still sounds a little woo woo to you, how about that everything health issue you experience, whether it be some sort of dis-ease like cancer or insomnia has an EMOTIONAL BASIS… In other words, if you want to get to the ROOT CAUSE of something (instead of just treating a SYMPTOM), then you just might want to ask yourself something like, what am I really feeling stressed over in my life right now?

While that’s a pretty simple question to ask oneself, for most folks, looking inward is a last resort — lagging far behind options like pills, restrictions, mantras, or having some body part excised with a sharp knife.

It’s not hard to understand why this is this case. Most everyone has been trained to avoid big scary feelings. It’s just plain easier to live in a state of quiet desperation and to swallow a pill than to admit that you don’t like something about your life. Going inward and seeing how you feel requires you to TELL YOURSELF AN UNPLEASANT TRUTH (e.g., I’m worried about money, I’m unhappy in my relationship, I’m scared or mad at something, etc.) and then work your way to the other side, a better feeling.

But getting to a better feeling place requires work. Awareness. Courage. Vulnerability.

[Uh, where are those Ambien, again?]

Yet until you open the dark closet and set the BIG HAIRLY MONSTER of your feelings free, he’ll be running your show.

Your emotions are not as frightening as you’ve made them out to be. You can handle the intensity and you’d be well served to set aside some time to feel your feelings so you can move through them. Your emotions (“energy in motion”) want to evolve and move through you. When you ignore them and treat symptoms instead, your emotions remain stagnant, like a dead pond. And when that happens, you’re staring at the ceiling at night, cursing the darkness. Or sitting in another badly lit doctor’s office, reading shitty old magazines.

Insomnia (and illness) is just a symptom that you’ve fallen out of alignment (which is no big deal when you face it squarely). So even if you solve the “sleep problem” you can bet that another similar-feeling nagging issue will manifest in your life (Who’s up for a sore back? Do I hear anyone interested in a new allergy? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?).

Better (and sooooo much easier) to see yourself as the creator of all the bumps in your road. Better to go inward and ask yourself what’s really going on emotionally that’s got you feeling out of sorts. Better to be present with yourself and allow your unpleasant thoughts to be what they are. Better to allow those thoughts to flow through you like river-water and evolve than trying to dam them up.

Your sleep, and perhaps your life, depends on it.