Excerpt from the book “7-7. Soul Matrix. Psychotherapy of emotional trauma using the empty chair method.” Author: Klein Valentina. All names and numbers have been changed. “... PART TWENTY-FOURChairs No. 23. How to remove anxiety about insomnia? When the psychologist himself sits in the client's chair. Towards the end of the book, I try to describe client cases with non-traditional options for using the empty chair method. Those situations where everything goes according to the usual algorithm are at the beginning. One of the options for using this technique is when the psychologist himself sits on the client’s chair and looks at his life through his own eyes, but with his own consciousness. It probably sounds confusing. Therefore, let's look, as usual, using an example. Let's return to the very first client described in this book. Tamara, 34 years old, two sons, married, housewife. There are four of us living together. There is an older brother. Both parents are alive. Meeting No. 27 Tamara: Valentin, for some reason I began to sleep poorly for the last month. And this is very strange to me. It seems that I no longer have any acute experiences. I live a calm, stable life. But every time I can’t sleep until two or three in the morning. I'm worried that maybe this is abnormal? The body doesn’t have time to rest, and in the morning you have to take two children to their clubs again and other chores. And I can't understand why. Maybe I'm not noticing something about myself? I asked a variety of questions from a variety of angles to identify possible hidden experiences. But everything is past. Over the previous 27 meetings, we managed to level out all the most pressing pain points: relationships with my mother, with my brother, fears of losing my husband, fears of getting sick, losing children, self-esteem about appearance, prevented two planned gynecological operations, healed the psychological trauma of abortion and missed abortion. Valentina: Tamar, I’m at a loss now and don’t yet understand the reasons for your insomnia. Let's try to do this now. Let me now mentally sit on your chair during insomnia and feel what exactly is happening to you at this moment. How do you look at this? Tamara jumped up from her chair, giving me her place. I started smiling. Valentina: No, Tamar, you don’t need to get up anywhere. Your permission is enough - and I’ll “join” you here, in my chair.” I took a breath and said: “I’m Tamara now, at home, at night, I can’t sleep.” And she began to listen to her feelings, began to say both questions and answers out loud. Valentina on Tamara’s chair: How do I feel at night? Yes, I feel great! Am I afraid of something? No, calm down. Maybe I'm angry? No. I have such a buzz now. It seems to me that it was at night, when everyone fell asleep, that it became so quiet and calm, good. It’s as if I’m even starting to breathe deeply. It was as if the room even seemed larger. The space seemed to expand. I’m so free now! Listen, Tamar, I don’t see anything that during insomnia you would feel anxious, sad, bad or something like that... How do you like hearing this? Does my description sound like what you really feel when you don't sleep at night? Tamara: Valentina, yes, you're right. Now that I heard all this from the outside, everything became clear to me. I just enjoy the silence and solitude at night. With my small children for 5 years now, I have had such a total deficit in this that really for me to sit alone is just a gift. Better than any shopping, flowers and gold rings. You correctly described my condition - expansion of space. I also noticed that the light in the room seemed to become brighter. And then I asked myself the question: how is it possible, the light bulbs seem to be the same, but for some reason the room seems brighter. This was incomprehensible to me. It turns out that I really just get high at night, but I doubted: is this right? After all, in the books they write that the body needs to get enough sleep, that if you don’t sleep for 8 hours, then it’s somehow not good. Valentina: I hear you. It turns out that you were not bothered by insomnia, but by anxiety about insomnia. That is, insomnia was not yesterday’s over-salted semolina porridge, but tasty.