As a mom, sometimes I have trouble sleeping when I have a lot on my mind. It doesn’t happen too often, but on occasion it can be downright annoying to not be able to sleep because of all the thoughts swirling around my head.
One thing that I have found that helps a ton is to process my emotions about each thought right there while I’m laying down trying to sleep. This gets you out of your head and into your body.
The process goes like this:
- Pick one of the thoughts you are thinking.
- Ask yourself: What emotion is this thought producing? (Could be fear, shame, sadness, anger, etc.)
- Then ask yourself: What does this emotion feel like in my body?
- Then just try to FEEL it. Lean into the sensation. Breathe into it. And pretty soon it goes away and you are ready to go on to the next thought.
Processing Emotions
So let’s say you are worried about something at work. Your mind is looping on all the things your boss said to you that day and what you said in response. Slow it down and take one thought at a time and process the emotions that each thought produces.
For example, maybe your boss said “You did a bad job in this area.” How does that thought make you feel? Maybe it makes you feel sad. What does sadness feel like in your body? For me, it feels like a heaviness in my stomach and a tightness in my throat. Next, just feel that sadness for a few minutes. Focus on the sensations in your body. Breathe into it. When I do this, I feel the sadness for a little bit and then it fades away.
Then move on to the next thought. Maybe you said to your boss “I was trying to do this…but I guess it didn’t work out very well.” How does that thought make you feel? Maybe it makes you feel a bit of shame. What does shame feel like in your body? Try to focus in on how shame feels to you. As you focus on how it feels in your body, your body will slowly relax and that feeling will go away.
And just keep doing this until you have processed the emotions for all the thoughts you are worried about.
Personal Experience
I did this one night when I had a VERY stressful situation happen right before bed. It sent my mind reeling with all of these horrible thoughts and fears! So I just had to take them one by one and process them. How does this make me feel? FEAR. What does fear feel like? It feels like a tightness in my neck and throat and chest. Let’s feel the fear then. Let’s focus on that feeling. Let’s breathe through it. Then go on to the next thought.
For me at this specific time, it only took about 10 minutes of processing emotions and then I was fast asleep. I had processed all the emotions. I had confronted all of my worst thoughts and felt the feelings associated with them. And then my body was ready to sleep. Try it out and see if it works for you!
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