... Insomnia is an oppressive force that depletes your body, mind and spirit. Its insidious nature will smoother your vibrancy, imprisoning you under a fog of fatigue and exhaustion. Day by day it steals a measure of your life’s beauty, intrigue and romance. With less than restorative sleep you exist in a state of perpetual disharmony. Like a high performance car running on low octane gas your engine sputters. We humans have a remarkable ability to adapt, yet adaptation cannot overcome the underlying sense of feeling deprived. You exist in 'less than'. Without rest you live a life that is by definition one of suffering. I know. I’ve been there.

Now imagine a freedom that only those who have been held hostage by night after night of poor sleep can truly appreciate. A beautiful freedom, a cup of fresh water for the dehydrated body and a healing salve for the soul. This freedom is also empowering, imbuing control and surrender, allowing you to cultivate both with a manner of grace and equanimity. Negative thoughts of scarcity are replaced by the positive joy of abundance. Better sleep becomes both the metaphor and the driving force for a life well lived. Cutting the binds of insomnia will create that significant of a shift. And cut them we will. However, to us do this successfully requires that I take you on a path that veers off from conventional wisdom.

There are many books written on the subject of better sleep, many from authors with impressive credentials representing equally impressive clinical environments. These books influence a large part of what we are told in the mainstream news, read in magazines and even shape how we treat insomnia.  However something is definitely not working. The number of Americans suffering from insomnia is growing at an alarming rate. So much so that insomnia has achieved epidemic status according to the National Institute of Health.  More people than ever are taking sleep drugs and yet more people than ever are sleeping less. Once the curse of the elderly, insomnia no longer discriminates demographically as it crosses virtually all age, gender, education and income levels. By the numbers it appears that 'doctor knows best' is suspect and perhaps another point of view may be in order.

The doctorate I have earned is from the insomniac’s school of hard knocks and personal discovery. Conventional thinking is a controlled view through a plate glass window. My perspective is through the dynamic prism of defeat, discovery and then success - all of what is implied in the phrase 'personal development'. Sleep logbooks and analytical discourse have little or no sway in this dimension. Science exists yet is not relevant. This isn’t the stuff of magazine quick tips and prescription bottles. We are about to embark on an insomnia-busting journey that will be a remarkably blissful exploration into you and your own power to create change. It is truly the sweet art of sleep seduction.