Sleep Healing ~ A Personal Story

At now 70 years of age, I talk about healing a lot. This post is on Sleep Healing. I have written about setting healthy sleep patterns and habits before. This is a different look at healing the personal sources of sleep issues. Each of us is unique, our life experiences are unique, and our healings are unique and individual. No one size fits all!

The journey we are on here on this planet is pretty amazing. The lesson being taught me on a deeper level right now is about asking. When I truly ask, I am always blessed with a healing response. I don’t mean this religiously. It is a Spiritual Principle I am learning and will explain further on. Recently, responses have been very clear and quite close in to my asking. My latest ask has been about my sleep. As my Shamanic learning continues I am empowered and connected in new ways through journeying. There are openings, communications and travelings back and forth in the spirit world that are – I’m going to repeat myself – amazing – and always healing!

So on to sleep…

It is humbling and precious that a tiny grandbaby is key to my understanding and release of old pains to heal my sleep. Spirit is so beautiful and gentle as it heals. As we see and recognize these areas of need and pain and are willing to release them we receive healing – which is love. One of my current teachers has said that to release we must receive. I got it, sort of – but receive what? Release what?

See how the Spiritual Principle of The Ask is at work in the sleep story below

I have always had trouble falling asleep – lots of trouble. And trouble staying asleep. It seems like every two hours of my sleep cycle when I come back up from deep sleep I come all the way awake. And then I have to do what is very difficult for me to do, go to sleep again!  I figured out all sorts of reasons for why this has been so for me. I ascribed it to having so many babies (I had 5) and having to wake often for children. Then I blamed my snoring husband who has sleep apnea. I used to track his breathing in my sleep until he got a breathing machine. I even had trouble falling asleep as a child. When I learned Reiki practice I used Reiki – but unlike others who get wonderful sleep from using Reiki I only got a little help falling asleep – the same patterns kept repeating and I would try putting my hands on myself to go back to sleep with only a little success. Overall, my sleep patterns were dismal….

The Ask:

There are many reasons we suffer from interrupted sleep and much work to be done around sleep healing, but here is my story. It begins with

The Ask: I talk often about setting intention in spiritual practice. The Art of Asking is related. What I am finding is that the Ask is similar to setting an Intention in that, like setting an intention, we ask with

1. A Very Open Heart – no covering up, no saving hurt, broken places. We just admit we are broken and put it all out on the table to be fixed.
2. No Expectations – just ask the question, state the need, and Let It Go! No trying to figure it out, no more wondering what it is, no trying to push or control for a desired outcome – just stay broken and open on the table.
3. Trust – in one of my poems I call it a muscle. Trust must be learned through practice – the practice of walking away and leaving something hanging and unresolved and knowing that love will take care of it – that there is Love to take care of It.

If we continue to doubt, to think we are unworthy of that love and healing, to doubt that there is a positive outcome for us, We Will Create Just That. Learning to Trust takes spiritual muscle, strength, fortitude and integrity, the ability to be transparent, to be seen and to see through yourself to touch your own wounds without fear.

This is The Ask, and it includes the concept of an Altar – a place where you lay out your wound. You can use ceremony around this – a simple one of writing it out and burning it to offer it up in smoke. There is also some wonderful dissolving paper you can use with water, or you can make a small prayer box and put it in there. Any physical action that will help set the intent of the spiritual ask in a way that helps you let go of it will do. You may not even need any of this once your trust muscles get stronger – you just bring it to the altar of your heart and leave it there while you go about your daily life. Whatever works for you!

Key to The Ask is Being Willing to Receive the Answer- that which love brings in for healing – and recognizing and accepting that response. Spiritual eyes and heart are developed over time through practicing The Ask.

And so, I Asked for Sleep Healing.  I had tried everything over the years. I was done. It went on the altar.

For Every Ask there is an Answer:

I work with Archangels Michael and Raphael, so it was a natural step for me to do a healing reading with Raphael for myself. These powerful and loving Archangels are so very here and an immediate help. I looked for guidance on my healing journey, next steps or how to clarify my ask.

Raphael immediately said (I always do a 4-card reading for guidance situations)

Card #1: Accept – accept my condition, my need, who I am, and just love myself right there. Accept that everything is happening and going in just the right direction now that I have put heaven in charge.

Card #2: Then I got a diet modification, Nutrition – I have been pescatarian for several years now but recently got word to really cut out all dairy and most gluten, which has been very helpful. I got this immediate thought about adding some poultry and pork back into my diet but was questioning this. The next card I pulled was

Card #3: Listen to your Intuitive Feelings – ha – I laughed. Just in case I was inclined to doubt myself I got the exclamation point. Trust your inner leadings and give the dietary change a try. So I did. My digestion seems to have settled more and the increased protein is probably supporting my sleep.

Card #4: Then of course the corker: Divine Intervention – thank you for helping me with my sleep problem, I have faith in divine intervention and fully accept your guidance. Time to let go and enjoy my day. Don’t worry my problem or it won’t go away. So I got up and went on my way.

What Happened Next – I know this is long but keep reading, this is a corker!

Two Divine Interventions occurred over the next three days, no kidding!

Firstly:

I am taking a Shamanic Course with Sandra Ingerman on Developing Spiritual Immunity. It is pretty awesome to work with her – the energy online is wonderful. She had us journey to the moon in our next session this week. Well, I came up crying to Grandmother Moon who immediately removed all my dark robes of shame and clothed me in the most beautiful, iridescent shining silver moon robe and told me this is my true self, shine. She then took me to Mother Moon, who told me that I am never alone at night because she is always there. She told me to journey to her each night and sleep in her arms. Well! I am now sleeping with a smile – I used to wake up with my face all furrowed from my efforts – knowing that it is not good to be frowning in my sleep. Now I am laughing awake….

Secondly:

My youngest daughter is a new mother to my youngest grandchild, who is now, at three and a half months, entering into the phase now known as “Sleep Regression” – they never had all these great terms and understanding when my own were young – and certainly not before that, but there is now “Sleep Training” which my son and another daughter have talked about and used with their children. In talking with my youngest daughter, I offered to do some sleep healing work for my little granddaughter.

As I shared my results and suggestions with my daughter she spoke about her chosen sleep training method, explaining why she chose a particular approach, and I shared with her how relieved I was that she was not totally letting the baby “cry it out.” She talked about how hard it had been to move her daughter into her own room at night and ping! Connection! I knew this from my mother — my parents put my crib in the attic to let me cry it out when I was a baby — but I never connected that infant panic to my sleep issues before!

Well, that did it…

The experts may call it “sleep regression,” I find that a really inaccurate term. The baby and her sleep are not regressing, they are progressing. What has happened is the growing awareness of separation. Birth is the first separation of life, the bodily separation from the mother. Going alone into the land of sleep is the next. One we sometimes never cope with well, as in sleep we are alone with ourselves.

By three months a child is no longer resting in the womb and often no longer sleeping with the mother’s breath and heart next to her in the same room. She is a separate being, and she is becoming aware of that separation in a whole new way. Think of how many toys and sleep aides we surround our young with to help them feel safe, connected and not alone as they journey into the “land of nod.” We start talking about angels, give them teddy bears and lights and music. Sleep is the first place we travel to truly on our own in life. Into the land of other realms we go, with no hand to hold or womb to carry us. No wonder I got invited back into the Mother Womb of the Moon to sleep safely! I seem to have had sleep regression since infancy…..

My daughter continues to use her chosen sleep training method. Rather than letting her little daughter cry it out to the bitter end, she goes in when the crying hits a certain level and reassures her that all is well, that mommy and daddy are here, that she is not alone, and that she can go to sleep safely on her own. My daughter listens to her heart and reaches out to help her child make this important life transition with encouragement and empowerment. I journey to Mother Moon for safety, protection and sleep healing, resting in the deeper truth that we are surrounded by love always, even in sleep, and that encountering that love on a personal level releases ingrained pain and fear from decades past. My granddaughter and I are learning together that the universe is a safe place in which to sleep…..

The moral of my little story of Sleep Healing?

ASK. Any healing? ASK. Not in desperation but in trust, knowing that the Universe Loves You and will move heaven and earth to help you heal because You are Worth It. Love and blessings!

Looking for sleep healing or any personal healing? What is your Ask? Contact me to arrange for your healing journey. We will walk it together into the land of spirit, love and light.