The affliction of forgoing much-needed sleep because you’ve had too many stressful things happen in your day and you want a sense of control, even if your decision to stay up and scroll social media causes you even greater suffering in the long term.
When you have little control in your day-to-day life, you’ll find ways to exert your control – even if it’s not terribly healthy.
I am guilty of revenge bedtime procrastination and believe I have a really awesome low-stress life, so I KNOW you deal with this situation, too!
Episode Highlights:
01:55 Sometimes I refuse to do self-care because I would rather wallow than be energized enough to deal with my life
02:15 Not wanting tomorrow to start and begin the whole daily grind again can be enough to cause us to choose to stay up instead
03:42 Despite knowing how I would like my ideal day to start, I feel as though it is way too idealistic to actually achieve, and so I procrastinate even more
04:17 Avoiding our feelings of helplessness or frustration fuels the desire to find something else to do instead and leads to later and less satisfying bedtimes
05:44 Bedtime Procrastination echoes other unhealthy coping mechanisms in my life, like grabbing snacks to avoid conversations
06:17 The solution is probably to build in moments of pleasure throughout the day so that we feel satisfied enough to go to sleep when we need it
07:06 My particularly avoided feeling is about feeling like I am behind and I should have already accomplished so much more than I have by now
09:06 Our brains like to convince us that we don’t have control over anything at all, when in truth, we have ALL the control over how we spend our time
10:10 What happens when we give ourselves the option of trusting ourselves to be able to handle our feelings?
11:19 It becomes a sticky cycle of exhaustion if we don’t get enough sleep because then the next day we have less control, and to regain it we don’t sleep, and so it goes
12:37 I am guilty of the communal shame of thinking that my life is boring and I am just an exhausted person living a pretty mundane life, and believing that I was supposed to have an extraordinary life, whatever that means!
13:13 Life is making decisions and facing our days no matter what comes, and being present for our own experience is worthy and I’d even say a sign of a life well-lived
Welcome to the full Spectrum Feeling Podcast. I'm your host, Blaze Schwaller, life coach and former tattoo artist. I help people heal their past, speak their truth to those they love, and learn how to feel ALL their emotions, so that they can live lives they love no matter what comes up. Join me here every week for conversations on how to live an imperfect but fully engaged life that embraces all the feels, so you can stretch into your best life while enjoying the you that's here now.