Sleep, sleep, perfect sleep...

We all know how important good sleep is for our mental and physical health. If you’re reading this, you’ve undoubtedly already been online and done an exhaustive search on the benefits of having a good sleep routine, and the longer-term consequences of having insufficient sleep, or, worse, insomnia. You will also have found any number of recommendations for improving your sleep pattern, so no need for me to repeat it here!

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What the majority of these highly-informative and well-intentioned articles don’t really tackle is the underlying cause of your sleep issue, and that’s incredibly frustrating. It’s a bit like going to see your doctor with a problem and being given a prescription for medication without sufficient investigation into what’s at the heart of your problem. (No direct criticism of our over-worked GPs intended by the way!)

As a specialist in regression therapy, and having worked with, literally, hundreds of clients with a wide range of sleep issues, I’ve always focused on when and where the problem started, and have often been surprised by what has come up when regressing the client back to their early childhood.

Take the example of the male client who regressed back to being a very young boy, sharing a bedroom with his older brother, who took great pleasure in teasing him with stories about ghosts and ghoulies, and warning him that there were monsters under his bed that only came out at night when he was sleeping.

In a similar vein, one client used to lie awake in her cot, staring out at the creatures on her curtains. To the loving parents who had chosen and hung those curtains, they were colourful and vibrant and depicted all kinds of fun characters, but to the baby who was unable to speak and explain, those creatures seemed to take on a life of their own at night and seemed terrifying.

Sadly, it’s not uncommon for clients to regress back to times when their parents were arguing or physically fighting, either unaware of perhaps not caring that the small child was hearing everything. In one case, the client’s mother came crashing into her bedroom, propelled by the force of the father’s blows, and in yet another, the mother sought sanctuary in the baby’s bedroom by hiding behind the door.

A more typical example is clients who, when regressed, revivify being a small baby in the cot, waking in the night on many occasions and being very frightened by the dark. Wanting comfort, they will cry in the hope that the mother or father will come to them. Sometimes this happens, but not always. Perhaps the parents are sleeping too deeply, or perhaps they have the idea that it’s best to let the baby cry itself back to sleep. Worst of all is when one of the parents does come to the child and speaks to them crossly, telling them to shut up and go back to sleep.

Speaking from personal experience, I had poor sleep for many years, and this was only resolved when I had some therapy of my own, many years ago now. I was a post-war baby, and my father was an RAF pilot during the war. Like so many people, he was mentally damaged by his experiences. No PTSD therapy was offered back then! At the end of the war, he was asked to fly a group of journalists into Belsen, and what he witnessed there damaged him irreparably. He was able to work and socialise completely normally, but it was as if he had a ‘loose screw’ and there were times when he would attack my mother because of something she said or did.

I have memories of being a small child, sitting at the top of the stairs in the dark, listening to what was going on between my parents, always fearful that my Dad would hurt my mother. Is it any wonder that, as an adult, I used to have light and often disturbed sleep? I say ‘used to’ because, with the help of a skilled hypnotherapist in my 30’s, I was able to resolve those out-of-date fears and as a result, I was able to sleep deeply and peacefully. Little did I know back then that I would later go on to train as a hypnotherapist and past life regressionist myself!

There are other reasons for sleep disturbance, and those are the ones that clients are consciously aware of. They may have done night shifts for many years or travelled constantly through different time zones. Former police officers, firefighters or ex-military personnel frequently suffer from poor sleep because of the terrible things they have witnessed during the course of their careers. Nightmares, sleepwalking and even physical attacks on the person next to them in bed are not uncommon within this group.

Even then, the regression hypnotherapist will look for the root cause of the issue before addressing the most obvious reasons for it. This will always be found in childhood, sometime before the age of 5, and may be something that initially appears as being relevantly insignificant. I call this the Initial Significant Event (ISE), and once examined, it becomes clear that it laid down the foundation for the later sleep problems, known as the Symptom Producing Event (SPE).

To illustrate the importance of first finding and neutralising the ISE, imagine a garden that is choked with weeds. If you cut those weeds away on the surface, they will quickly regrow. If you dig down and remove some of the roots, they will reappear just as vigorously a little later. But if you dig right down and remove the deepest root, and then cut the weeds away, they can never return, and the garden will flourish and thrive.

So it is with regression hypnotherapy: the aim is to find and neutralise the deepest root of the client’s issue (ISE), and then to address the symptoms (SPE). For those who used to suffer from disturbed nights or insomnia, the changes can be extraordinary and they can find themselves able to enjoy deep, peaceful and comfortable sleep with all the mental and physical health benefits that ensue.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Hypnotherapy Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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Templecombe, Somerset, BA8 0ET
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Written by Niki Cassar
DCH DHP MPLTA SQHP
location_on Templecombe, Somerset, BA8 0ET
Niki Cassar has been working as a full-time hypnotherapist and past life regressionist for the past 23 years, with much of her training done in the USA. She strongly believes that we are all shaped by our past, and only by accessing and neutralising...
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