The art of forgetting and remembering

Hi friend!

I might be repeating myself in this letter — I've said this in one way or another before — but that’s exactly what I want to talk about: the importance of repetition in the recovery process.

Let me start from a broader perspective.

As I see it, the essence of insomnia and sleep anxiety recovery is relatively straightforward: Let the night be what it is. Don’t resist the experiences. Don’t judge them or yourself. You are safe. Trust the body to take care of sleep — just as it does with breathing, blood circulation, or hair growth.

But when it comes to actually living this principle, we quickly realize it’s not easy at all.

That’s because we’re caught in a tug-of-war between two giants of our biology:

1. Sleep, which can’t be controlled and tends to slip away the more we chase it.

2. Our survival mechanism, which loves control and, to put it lightly, does not like uncertainty.

No wonder this journey feels so hard. Sleep can’t be willed into existence, and our survival instincts can’t simply be switched off. We can’t force ourselves to sleep, and we can’t just decide to stop wanting to try to sleep.

But one of these forces is more adaptable than the other.

We can’t change the nature of sleep — it will come when it comes. The more we interfere, the more elusive it becomes. But our brain? That’s different. It can learn and unlearn.

This doesn’t happen overnight — it’s a process. And part of that process is exposing ourselves, over and over, to a new way of seeing our nights and responding to them.

So, recovery is a learning process (or rather, an unlearning-to-fear process). And as the saying goes, repetition is the mother of learning.

Many people felt frustrated (myself included) when they had to revisit the same concepts repeatedly. “I just started to get this, and now I’ve forgotten everything!”

But that’s completely normal. I went through it myself. I had to come back to the same teachings again and again. I forgot things so many times — to the point where I could go from “I finally get this” to “Wait… what am I supposed to do again?” in a matter of minutes.

If you can relate, please know: there’s nothing wrong with you. Forgetting is not the problem.

Why we seem to forget

Remember that second giant — the survival mechanism. When it activates, our perception shifts. Our focus narrows, and suddenly, all we can think about is sleep and safety. The bigger picture isn’t visible in those moments — but it’s still there.

When hyperarousal kicks in and distorts our sense of reality, repetition of what we previously learned helps gently guide us back. It reminds us: Everything is okay as it is.

And here’s the thing — we might revisit the idea 100 or 1000 times and feel like nothing is changing. But on the 101st or 1001st time, something clicks. A shift happens. A new understanding emerges. An aha moment.

Just last week, I was talking to a few coaches about speedbumps in recovery, and it got me thinking — what if a speedbump is simply a moment where we temporarily forget that we’re safe? And what if a speedbump “ends” the moment we remember? Maybe the task isn’t to eliminate moments of forgetting, but to get better and better at remembering?

Just a thought I wanted to share with you. I have no conclusive statement other than normalizing the need to revisit the basics once in a while when things get a bit too entangled. Let me know if it resonates! Wishing you a great day ❤️.

Ali

sleepcoach.sk