One of our Healing Shame workshop participants recently wrote me a letter. Here are her words:
I sometimes lie awake for several hours during the night, and I experience shame during that time. My mind goes in circles about particular aspects of myself or my life that I feel shame about. It never occurred to me until last night that what I was experiencing wasn't anxiety but shame. It's a shame-induced insomnia, and I've been experiencing it on and off for many years.
I have never heard anyone talk about this so I wanted to ask you if you have seen this as a common phenomenon. I would love to learn imaginal tools to apply countershame during those bouts of insomnia. I think it would be helpful for my client work as well because I'd bet that for a lot of people who experience insomnia it is actually related to shame.
Yes, there is such a thing as shame-induced insomnia. Many people lie awake tossing and turning or just thinking, ruminating, with their minds going over and over. One of my clients is distressed night after night that he can’t solve global warming to assure the future for his daughter that he so carefully planned out; and now he can’t assure her a safe planet to live on when she is his age. He reviews all the zoo animals that she learned at zoo camp were threatened or endangered. Another goes over and over political issues. Some lie awake going over financial concerns. Many worry about basic fears, particularly Covid and forest fires, especially in the Bay Area, after the power outages, with many leaving their homes and returning when it was safe. If there’s been trauma in their history, the worry and anxiety is more likely.
As the stress goes up, the tossing and turning comes up. Whether it is insomnia or anxiety or night terrors that little kids have, there is a lot going on in our brains. We are supposed to get normal sleep of seven or eight hours a night. Whatever gets in the way of that can add to the distress. So right now I am up at 4:30am anticipating a talk I’m giving tomorrow, with a combination of excitement and distress from all that is going on. So I thought I would write this article at this appropriate time.
So where does the shame come in? Shame combines with other feelings during the day to reduce their intensity. So a shame-anger bind reduces the anger during the day. A pleasure-shame bind reduces libido during the day. A shame-anger bind reduces the anger during the day. At night, our mind goes over the shame that is now available to attack when our defenses are down.
Here are some ways to address shame-induced insomnia:
First, talk to yourself in a kind voice and say, “It’s going to be OK.” If that doesn’t work, gently put your hand on your heart and THEN say, “It’s going to be OK.” Take a couple deep breaths in and out with the outbreath going out just a count or two longer than the inbreath. And then gently talk to the inner critic, that voice that is telling you something about you that you must do or must not do. Just say hello to it and say you’re going to write a list of what you need to do. Then write the list, put it in a drawer, gently close the drawer, and go back to sleep. If your negative voice keeps attacking you, you can tell it, “It’s going to be OK—I’m going to be OK. Please take a rest and I will deal with this in the morning, or tomorrow or next week.” If that doesn’t work, tell it, “SHUT UP I need some sleep!”
In this particular question, where the student is saying, “My mind goes in circles about particular aspects of myself or my life that I feel shame about,” this is where her mind goes into hyperdrive to make her miserable and not get sleep that she deeply needs and deserves. There are many ways to work with this shame voice. The first is to say “Shut up.” If that doesn’t work, try saying “SHUT UP!!!” Sometimes it helps to kick one foot or both feet and say “Shut” (kick) “up” (kick), “Shut” (kick) “up” (kick), doing it in rhythm with each kick. Or, “Shut up! Shut up!” Or, “Shut up and leave me alone! I need to sleep!” Another possibility is to say: “I need to rest now.” You can also give those thoughts to someone else, give them the problem. I hand them over to Quan Yin or to angels.
And although the content of the shame may grab your mind when it’s undefended during sleep, so it is very important to tell yourself it’s not real! Don’t believe the shame voice. It is just trying to shame you!
Here are some creative things you can do that are from the imaginal realm. Imagination is very powerful! You can put the shame in a box. Imagine a small box or even a large box and put the shame in there and slam the top with firmness. Then lock it. Then imagine dumping the box in the lake or ocean. And then declare, “I choose peace, deep peace.” And if it helps, say, “I choose peace now. And I breathe in peace and breathe out shame. I’m breathing in peace and breathing out shame. Breathing in peace. I choose peace!”
Another very creative way to work with this shame that shows up at night is to invite our unconscious to bring a healing dream. If telling the shame to go away doesn’t work, try asking the shame if it’s here with a message that can happen through a dream. Try saying to yourself, “I am dreaming now” and see what happens. You may drift off into a helpful dream that counters the shame.
Right now many of us are up at night thinking of unfinished things or things very off due to psychological fear or terror from such unknowns, especially Covid, that we cannot control or even understand. The fires and threat of fire is profoundly distressing to our nervous systems. Sometimes this shame-induced insomnia may actually be trying to help by getting our attention, trying to focus on something that if we could fix it then we could get to sleep. As I write this, I have an image of putting a Covid mask on the shame!
So try one or two of these ideas and see what works for you. Everyone is different and only you will know what works best for you. For everyone who wants it to be a little less each night, be kind to yourself and say, “I’m not alone, this happens to others” and let it loosen its hold on you. And the best of all is to say to yourself, “It’s going to be OK. I may not know how, but it’s going to be OK!”
© 2020 Sheila Rubin