It’s just not safe enough to sleep

by Mary Llewellyn BA(Hons) psychology EFT Master

"Mary, I hear you are good a helping people to sleep. Can you help me?" This is a question we are frequently asked as therapists, part of our everyday experience. This lady we will call her Sarah had been experiencing poor sleep for over seventeen year.

On the phone, I asked her, was there any reason her mind felt that it was not safe to sleep. She said, "When you see me you will know why.". We booked an appointment and I looked forward to meeting her.

During the first session she talked about all of the routes she had already taken to help herself which unfortunately had not worked. After listen to what she wanted to say I reminded her of what she had said to me on the 'phone and she told me why.

The interesting, sad or strange part about the whole process was that no one had asked her this question before. Sarah said that immediately I asked her she realised why her mind and body was too scared to sleep. In her early teens Sarah had unfortunately found her Mother dead - sadly she had committed suicide. Her Mother and Father had separated a short time before she died, and she realised she still blamed her Father for her Mother's death.

She worked with her Father in a family business and they were civil on the surface but underneath these feelings were seething. During hypnosis we worked on the pain, the fright and loss of her Mother as well as the emotions of anger with both of her parents. This process significantly improved her relationship with her Father and stepmother. Sarah also reported improvements right across the board with all aspects of her life. The exception to these improvements was, she still was not sleeping. However, she was very happy with feeling so much better so she wanted to continue with further treatment.

At this point, I felt it would be helpful to explore hidden information so far not conscious by using the energy therapy called Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT). I have found over the years that using EFT at a time when hypnotic regression had not giving the necessary insight, frequently helped. We worded the set up statement in such a way as to obtain new or unconscious information. This statement was "Even though I don't know why I'm not sleeping at night I completely accept myself" Whilst saying this phrase Sarah and I both rubbed the sore spot and repeated the phrase three times. Then, on alternate points a reminder phrase was used which was "I don't know why I don't sleep", "I don't know why its not safe for me to sleep" and so on throughout the whole basic recipe.

After doing one round she said, " I've remember something. I don't know why I didn't tell you before - I've never told anyone else about it either. When I was around ten or eleven, I had a dream. In fact I had several dreams, maybe you could call them premonitions. In these dreams I saw my Mother dead, (just as I had found her the day she died) and then I would wake up. I never told my Mother about this dream but it obviously worried me. Now I realised whilst I was doing EFT why my insomnia is so bad. I only sleep long enough to take the edge off my tiredness but perhaps not long enough to dream. I'm worried that if I dream about my children that I may dream of something frightening about them, something I don't want to see."

EFT was then the ideal therapy to use on these understandable motherly fears. No wonder her mind and body had been hypervigalent for so long following her premonitions and the death of her Mother. During several rounds of EFT we dealt with the fears of possible loss of her children and the worry of bad things happening to them. During the EFT process we reduced the intensity of the emotion to a more acceptable level. The likely benefit of doing this would be to create peace and confidence in her mind and help her body to relax and sleep. We also worked on the irrational feelings of guilt and of the feelings of being responsible somehow for her Mother's death.

Following this session of therapy Sarah's face was so peaceful and relaxed. She said she genuinely felt it was now safe for her to sleep she realised that in no way was she responsible for the death of her Mother. She left with an appointment booked for three weeks time and a suggestion of ringing me and postponing or cancelling her appointment when our work was complete. In less than a week Sarah rang me to say she could not remember sleeping as well as she had done during the past week. The only reason she did not ring earlier was that she found it hard to believe that it had resolved itself so easily.

Mary is a psychotherapist, and energy therapist and trainer at the Tickhill Clinic in South Yorkshire, UK

For more information regarding her energy therapy training visit www.TickhillClinic.