703: 3 a.m. Thoughts (How to Make Middle-of-the-Night-Wake-Ups Feel Great)

Last night I woke up at 3am it's always 3am, isn't it? My head was so full of unsavory thoughts, they were clutching and picking at me. And you might know the feeling. Why does all of our inner crud lift to the surface at night, especially in the middle of the night? And what can we do about it? Well, today we're going to learn how to rearrange our thoughts and energy and in the wee hours of the night so that you can get peaceful sleep again. Stay with me. Flow Dreaming still kind of Woo Woo is just what it sounds like. An escape into the world of woo. Also a ride into you and how to feel happier, wiser and more self aware in every way. It's your ultimate journey into personal growth and inner power. Will explore ideas like how your energy self influences the kinds of opportunities you encounter, or how your personal growth can drive your business growth, or even how that feeling of being stuck is really always coming from something else. We just have to figure out what. That's right. We're a dash of woo woo. A sprinkle of self care, a heap of problem solving and pattern busting, and a giant cup of encouragement. We're going to relight so much passion, purpose, self love and confidence in you that you practically stagger. I'm Summer McStravik, your host and welcome to Flow Dreaming. Still kinda woo Woo. So like I said in the beginning, isn't it weird that it's like our subconscious just wants to sabotage us right in the middle of a great deep sleep? Or maybe it's even just been a restless sleep. But the point is, your eyes are open, you're staring out into the dark and you're thinking these horrible thoughts. What if this happens? What about that anxiety? What if? What if? What if? Well, we're going to talk about that and a few other weird things that happen to us at night as we sleep. Nightmares, for instance. Other fears and strange things, things that go bump in the middle of the night. Tell you my experience with them and what I have learned to do about them from both a kind of psychological standpoint as well as an energetic standpoint. Things that have been really, really helpful for me and I'm hoping they'll be really, really helpful for you too. Well, first of all, I've kind of concluded now you guys, I don't really have a good logical basis for this, but my own personal conclusion is that something happens while we sleep. Our subconscious takes over and when we wake up in the night and all these racing thoughts and weird stuff is going through our head. We know part of us is like, this is irrational and I'm not going to be able to solve this right now. And what am I doing thinking about this? It's kind of like the subconscious is the lint trap in your dryer, right? It's the filter in the, you know, the bottom of your. The drain in the sink. It's catching all the cruddy crud of your day, of your life, the hairballs and the old pieces of food. You know, it gets nasty and gunky. Your subconscious, when it rises up to the surface, right, it's propelling itself through your dreams, it's hashing things out. But when it rises up to the surface and it meets your conscious right at that moment when you kind of wake up and start to spin, I kind of feel like the subconscious is still a little bit in control, maybe a lot in control. So it's moving through all the cleaning of the sink, if you will, because you know what, it's gotta happen, right? You gotta take the lint thing out of the dryer. If you don't, you know, bad things happen. So your subconscious is trying to do this with us and for us. We're just happening now to be kind of awake for it. And it's icky. It's icky. Here's what I do. First thing I do is realize that what I'm thinking is probably irrational, right? I get to a point, I surface enough where I start to say, hey, why are you thinking this? Because if I can get to the point where I can ask that question, I now get to be the observer. I'm not caught. Instead I'm asking, hey, why are we thinking this? The next question I ask is, is this something you're gonna solve right now? And often by the time I get to that second question, the answer is no, you're not gonna solve it. Is what I'm thinking going to solve anything at this point? Again, the answer is no. Then can we think about this in the morning when I'm all there and available to think about this? And often the answer is yes. So at this point, I'm starting to grasp a little control over these racing thoughts, these anxieties, these fears, these unsolvable situations, and I'm making an agreement. It's like I'm making a bargain with myself. Hey, you let me fall asleep now. We'll attend to this in the morning when I've got even more resources to pour toward this. It's a pretty rational offer. And Weirdly enough, you would think the subconscious wouldn't reply to that at all. A rational offer. I don't do rational, but it does often, and I want you to try it. It's a really good trick. The next thing that I do is I choose something very purposefully that I want to think about or feel. Something that is curious or interesting to me, but not so interesting, it'll keep me up. So for me, I'm often thinking about house projects, like, you know, how do I want to design the side yard? It's still a whole bunch of wood chips out there. But I've got this idea for making a garden for wildflowers and maybe some paths. So I start to think about that. You know, I also write, so sometimes I'll start a chapter in my head of what I'm going to write next and I'll start writing it in my mind. Now, these are very soothing for me. They're lightly creative exercises. They're letting my mind go into something that it genuinely enjoys doing. You must have a couple of things like that that you kind of take daydream about. Well, that's exactly what I want you to bring to mind. In fact, right now, come up with two or three ideas. What could I think about as I fell asleep? Fall asleep, or wake up in the middle of the night trying to refall asleep. By the way, this works for falling asleep, too, if that's where you're awake. What is? Something gentle, pleasant. You can ruminate about turnover in your mind. Yeah. Maybe next summer we'll go to Scotland. And where do I really want to visit? Well, I'm definitely gonna go to Edinburgh, and I'm gonna go to here and maybe take a train and. Oh, I've always wanted to see. Right. Things like that. Things that aren't anything you're hustling on. Anything that you have to get done, just gentle and joyful. All right, so think of a couple things that you can offer your mind as these substitutions. Same again. Ditto. Ditto for falling asleep. If you're starting to rehash something that's not working out for you in your life, I want you to come up with that pleasant, joyful, creative pursuit. That thing that just soothes you. You build in decks, think about new railings and how you want to design it. Anything like that. Right? Okay. Here's the other thing that I do before I fall asleep. And I'll do this when I have a series of nightmares. You guys, I have nightmares. I know it's not that common But I've always been a heavy nightmare person. Too much Stephen King reading when I was young. I don't know how I got all of these, but sometimes I'll have nightmares that will go on night after night after night. And eventually I realize it because you don't always remember in the morning except that you're really tired and kind of cranky. But when I realize it, I do this thing before bed where I again, I talk to myself. I state it very clearly. I say, hey, let's not have nightmares tonight. Agreed? I've had enough. I don't need any more. I don't want them. I don't need them. They're not useful for me tonight. Let me dream good dreams, or at least dreams that I don't really care about. But no nightmares. They're done. No nightmares tonight. None. And this stern talking to myself is often all it takes. Because remember, you're talking to your mind. You're talking to your conscious. You're talking to your subconscious. You're talking to your greater self, your soul self, your energy self. All of it is listening. All of you is indeed hearing. And what you're saying is, enough, enough. We're not doing that. I know it may sound silly and, like, how can that really make a difference? Well, let me ask you. Why couldn't it make a difference? Maybe it will. Maybe it's the turning point. Every night before you fall asleep, I intend to have wonderful dreams. I intend to learn things and grow and feel supported and joyful with my dreams. Isn't that wonderful? Ask for it. Demand it. By the way, some of you listening on very good headphones may be hearing a little purring in the background. That's my kitty cat. She's joined me for this portion of the recording. In fact, this final portion of today's episode. Of course, I could not end today without talking about my favorite, nearest and dearest method for making my 3am thoughts go away. It's this. Remember, what you go to sleep with is what you oftentimes stay asleep with is what you oftentimes wake up with when you fall asleep. I have a lot of people who use my flow dreams to fall asleep to. Because any kind of audios, even guided meditations, pick your favorite teacher or use my flow dreams. If you fall asleep letting your subconscious be drenched with these beautiful, strong, powerful, enlightening, loving, spiritually LED messages, that's what goes in. You are, in essence, fertilizing, watering that beautiful soil, the garden of your mind. And you're saying when you sleep extend on this. It's very different than what many of us fall asleep to, right? Hashing things out, worrying, just trying to shut off our mind or our thinking. Let good things drip into your mind again. You can use my Flow Dreams. I actually even have a sleep story. If you're not familiar with those, they are very gentle, beautiful stories that you listen to for the purpose of falling asleep. These stories are not interesting. They are purposely boring. And a while back I challenged myself to make one because I thought, I wonder if I can write a really boring story that's interesting enough to want to listen to. It's actually harder than you think. I put it up on YouTube on a channel called Sleep Stories with Summer. You can Google it. It's called the Crafty Nook Sleep Story. And of course it's infused with manifesting and creating inside this story. So you can play with that. It's kind of a secret, but go play with that if you want to. So there you have it. Those are my biggest suggestions, the ones that work for and hold on, before we wrap, I believe we've got Mailbag. You've Got Mail. I've been trying to add in some interesting segments in my newly formatted show for you, including Mailbag. Right. So this one comes from a listener named Nancy, and she says, I was wondering, I have not been able to stay awake during your flow dreams. Not once, even in the middle of the day. But I always wake up as soon as they end. Do you think I'm getting any value unconsciously or should I just listen again? I feel like it could be a state of hypnosis almost, but then I'm not sure if I'm actually sleeping. Anyway, I'm interested in your feedback. Well, Nancy, for anybody who doesn't know what a flow dream is, again, they are a kind of guided meditation, but I consider them an emotional, energetic exercise. I've got like 200 of them@flowdreaming.com, they are audios that you listen to for the purposes of manifesting, co creating, healing, doing all kinds of energetic emotional work. You can also find them on the app. If you go to the App Store on your phone, look up flow dreaming for meditation and manifesting and you'll find them. So to answer your question, Nancy, yes, a lot of times people do fall asleep, and that's why I wanted to read your note here in this particular episode. Because yes, you can fall asleep to them. And typically when this happens, it's because what your body is saying, what your emotional system is saying is I'm tired, I don't have enough energy left to do this. You're giving me a moment where I can just absorb and so I'm going to take it. I don't consider it self hypnosis really because it's not like you're walking yourself through and part of you is kind of aware. It's more like you are again drenching your subconscious as you pretty much fall asleep. And then at the end of the flow dreams, I typically say, and you're coming back and you say, oh okay, I'm waking up again, I'm coming back again. So I guess it's, I don't know, six of one, half a dozen of another. Could be self hypnosis, I suppose. Could just be letting good feelings and thoughts kind of sprinkle over your subconscious, but either way it's wonderful. And I have people who again, like I say, fall asleep to flow dreams for that very reason. And then in the daytime when they have more energy, then they'll actually participate in the flow dream and do it as an actual energy exercise as they are originally intended for, but certainly use both. Thanks Nancy, that was a great question and very appropriate for today. Well all of you, thank you. Thank you for hanging out with me and sharing. I've got more ideas to muse over in the weeks to come. I want to point out me school is enrolling as well as my private sessions with people. So reach out to me anytime. I work with people day in, day out, week in, week out, privately, one on one. I've got opportunities for that if you reach out to me. Summerlowdreaming.com yes, that email goes straight, straight to me. I also have ME school coming up in the fall which is a gorgeous, gorgeous, powerful program for deep personal growth, change, revitalization, finding direction, oh so much more. In fact, I'm gonna pop in a little pre recorded note that I wrote up for you guys about it. So take a listen right now and I'll see you all next week. MI School is happening and it only happens once a year. This year we're starting in September and it is a wild and wonderful ride. In fact, last year more than half of the students were taking it for their second or third time, which is crazy. What it tells you is that one is MI school is epic for learning how to awaken or accelerate your intuition, learning to manifest at a richer, deeper level, and for creating those long standing desires, making those things in your life finally real. And two, MI School works, just works. So head on over to flowdreaming.com MI School we are registering you right now. I really hope to see you as part of our MI School class and one of the next people on this planet to graduate into their next level self again. Just head over to flowdreaming.com me school and learn all about it.