Do I have to become "zen" before I can recover from insomnia?

No, absolutely not.

We don’t have to become calm, zen, anxiety- & trauma-free in order to recover from insomnia.

In fact, believing that we need to fulfill certain requirements before we can recover can in itself stand in the way of recovery Through my personal experience and witnessing the journeys of others, I came to a conclusion that insomnia recovery is unconditional.

Here’s a pre-story: I’ve always been anxiety-prone person even prior to insomnia, often spending hours ruminating, doubting myself, being shy, engaging in all sorts of unhelpful compulsive behaviours. Sleep was my only safety island, and when that was gone… well, you know.

Anyway, fast forward to my post-insomnia life now – I still do have worries and compulsions and overthinking, just like I had before insomnia! Sleep is no longer the issue, but my anxious personality didn’t go away with insomnia. It’s better now because insomnia showed me all the unhelpful patterns I tend to deploy, but there is still a long way for me to go. I’m work-in-progress in other areas of my life.

So did I have to conquer my anxiety in general to become free from insomnia and fear of not sleeping? Not at all. That’s not a must. I’ve seen parents overcoming insomnia before their baby stopped waking them up at night. I’ve seen people overcoming insomnia while having some of the most challenging work conditions or going through some rough patches in life.

And here are other common conditions that we set unnecessarily for ourselves on this journey:

In order to recover:

• …I must stop thinking about sleep

• …I must no longer desire a good night’s sleep

• …I can’t ever engage in any sleep-related behavior

• …I can’t experience fear or doubt

• …I can’t experience a choppy night or a series of it

• …I must create a peaceful and stress-free life

• …I must wait until my baby grows up and stops waking me up

• …I must work through all of my childhood traumas

• …I must ensure that all of insomnia-related fears are exposed

• …I must start liking insomnia

• …I have to stay completely unaffected by a crappy night

• …I have to have a healthier work environment

• …I have to overcome my health issues

Insomnia recovery isn’t really blocked by any of the above or other requirements we may set for ourselves.

If you had a device that could precisely remove all of your memories associated with insomnia, yet your circumstances remained the same, your next night would not be any different from that of someone without insomnia under the same circumstances.

So we don’t have to move mountains, change jobs, quit relationships, wait for “better“ times in order to keep going.

I’m not saying you can’t do anything about any of your circumstances – of course you can! But it’s more helpful to do it parallelly, not interdependently with the insomnia recovery path. In other words, un-condition your recovery process from any other process or obstacle you might be going through in life and the journey will flow easier.

Feel absolutely free to sort out all of your childhood traumas if this feels relevant but don’t make your insomnia recovery dependent on that process: “I can’t sleep until all of my traumas are healed.“ Yes, you can (to be precise, your body can). And vice versa: don’t try to get rid of insomnia first before you can start doing things that you find meaningful for your life in general. We can “parallel” our processes.

Take care ❤️

Ali