Why Healing Isn’t a Race: The Sleep Coaching Journey You Live

Today, I’ve been thinking about Libby. She’s made tremendous progress—but it’s been a journey, not a quick fix. Let me introduce you to her story…

Some days in coaching, I feel deeply inspired—not just by how hard my clients are working, but by how long they’re willing to work without instant results. They’re showing up, doing the work, staying with the discomfort. And I’m right there with them, holding space, quietly hoping for that shift—that moment when it lands: healing isn’t a task to accomplish. It’s not a checkbox. It’s a process.

And the hardest part? Letting go of the idea that it should be quick or linear or neat. It’s none of those things. It’s messy. It’s slow. It asks for patience, trust, and more compassion than most people are used to giving themselves. But once that truth sinks in—once they stop trying to “fix it” and start letting the process unfold—everything begins to change.

Libby is 43, a powerhouse of a woman. She runs a busy household, always has grandkids around, works part-time, and still finds time to care for her elderly parents. On the outside, she was holding it all together. On the inside, her body was crashing.

That’s what brought her to me. Not sleep, exactly. Not at first. It was the sense that her system was shutting down—like she’d been running on nervous energy for years, and the wheels were finally coming off.

She told me, “I can’t close my eyes without panic rising. It’s like my body’s running from something… but I don’t know what.”

These were big questions. Hard questions. And they had to come before anything else.

Yes, her nights were fractured—she’d fall asleep but wake too early, buzzing with anxiety. Naps were out of the question. Not because she didn’t want to rest, but because her body wouldn’t let her. Still, in her words: “I’ll know I’ve made it when I can nap.”

So we got to work.

Healing Looks Like This (Not That)

Week after week, we peeled back the layers. The racing thoughts. The survival mode. The buried trauma. We explored where her nervous system had learned to stay alert, even in stillness. Libby kept showing up. She journaled. She cried. She tracked her triggers. She listened to countless custom-made recordings—even when they didn’t feel “effective” in the moment.

She was a doer in every sense of the word—someone who ran community events, kept everyone else afloat, and never let herself slow down. But now she was learning something new: how to pause. How to let her body take a moment without trying to fix anything. Without making it a task.

The Lightbulb Moment

Libby’s biggest shift wasn’t something you could chart or track on a graph. It wasn’t just better sleep or fewer wake-ups. It was deeper than that—rooted in nervous system regulation, emotional awareness, and learning to step out of the post-insomnia panic loop she had been stuck in for so long.

That’s when I knew she would be a success—not because her sleep challenges were cured overnight, but because she had crossed over into something deeper. She understood that sleep recovery is a process—not a destination. That true healing happens when we slow down, regulate the body, and stop measuring every step.

She stopped checking for proof that she was “almost there.” One day, she told me: “I took away the measuring tape. I’m not checking every day to see if I’ve made progress or wondering when this will be over.”

That’s when I knew she was getting it.

Not because everything was fixed—but because she was no longer rushing her healing. She was living it.

The Kind of Progress You Can’t Force

Not every client gets to this point. Some find partial relief and step away. Others feel overwhelmed by how deep the work goes, and they quietly disengage—not because they failed, but because the process asked more of them than they were ready for. And that’s okay. Healing is personal. It meets each person where they are.

But every now and then, someone like Libby stays in it. Even when it’s slow. Even when it hurts. She kept showing up—not to check a box, but to meet herself with honesty and compassion.

Libby is still Libby—busy, generous, running her full life. But something is different. She’s calmer. More in tune. She gives herself permission to pause. She notices when the old patterns creep in—and instead of panicking, she gently steps off the wheel.

Not because everything is perfect. But because she knows how to meet herself in the hard moments.Because she’s not rushing to be done—she’s living the healing.

And that, to me, is a real win!

If You’re on Your Own Healing Journey

If you’re on your own healing journey—whether it’s sleep-related or something deeper—and you’re beginning to see that it’s not about quick fixes, but about patience, nervous system support, and real emotional honesty, you’re not alone. Whether you're facing exhaustion, early-morning waking, or just feeling stuck in a loop, I'd love to hear your story.