"I can't accept wakefulness. Am I failing my insomnia recovery?"

Let's dispel a big misunderstanding about acceptance practice

Hi there!

There is a common message I receive occasionally that sounds something like this: “As much as I try to be okay with a wakeful night, I simply can’t do it. Am I failing my recovery process?”

I’m here to dispel some misconceptions about acceptance, and I hope this can help you feel a bit less frustrated with the process.

First of all, learning to accept is the entire process of recovery. It’s not just one of the intermediary tasks.

No one expects a person in recovery to ✍️ ✅ check the “acceptance” box every single night. It’s a given that your safety-seeking brain will resist every step of the way. It will push back whenever it can.

Gradual unfoldment of acceptance

At first, acceptance might feel utterly unavailable, and we resist our experience 100% of the time.

Then, as we start educating ourselves about the circular nature of insomnia and anxiety, and understand this better, we might begin to notice brief moments of peace and clarity that feel like a small exhale. We might feel hope and comfort, and even notice for a split second that being awake doesn’t suck that much. Those moments are quite fragile and can quickly be replaced with another wave of panic and resistance. This is normal.

The more we embrace the night and our feelings, the more frequent those moments of ease and peace will become. But they can still be very fleeting.

This is the hardest part to accept: “How come I was so calm just a moment ago, and everything felt so crystal clear? And now I’m back in this chaos and I can’t accept or invite any of it!” We often feel like failures when that happens, but that’s how learning to accept goes.

We can’t go from 0 to 100 in a short sprint. It’s going to be a messy process. You aren’t failing just because you can’t find it in you to be okay with wakefulness right now. There is a whole process that leads us there.

If you feel frustrated with the process and judge yourself for not being able to “not care,” hear me out: you aren’t required right now to accept any of it. Of course, you care! And of course, you want to sleep well and not worry about anything!

Most of us spend about 90% of the journey with an “I hate this” attitude. You aren’t lagging behind. Acceptance takes time to cultivate. In fact, the whole journey is about discovering what it means to accept things as they are.

During insomnia, our brain gets very defensive and persuasive, convincing us that we must do something to feel safe. Conscious understanding that we are safe isn’t enough because our emotional brain needs to see it to believe it. With time and practice, this becomes easier. But don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t find acceptance right now. You can accept the non-acceptance too!

Eventually, our capacity to experience wakefulness and any emotions grows, making it easier to be with them without much resistance. We might still dislike it and find it annoying—that’s perfectly fine!

As we move towards acceptance, our emotions evolve too: at first, it might be lots of panic; then it becomes less intense, just a general anxious feeling; then it can turn into anger and irritation; and finally, it moves closer and closer to acceptance. It might also happen that there is a back-and-forth process between these transitions. All is okay.

We can’t bypass this dynamic, but we can normalize it and allow it to happen.

Okay, I’ll wrap up my rambling for today ❤️ Hope this brought some value to you. See you next time!

Ali