By Sally Stone
Why “Trying” To Relax or Sleep Never Works
If you’ve ever had difficulty relaxing, going to sleep, or unable to create any other physiological effect, you’ve experienced “The Law of Reversed Effect.”
According to D. Cordyron Hammond, Ph.D., author of the Handbook of Hypnotic Suggestions and Metaphors, The Law of Reversed Effect primarily applies to producing physiological effects such as sleeping, getting rid of pain, digesting, and eliminating. The “law” acknowledges that the harder we try to make something happen, the harder it is to succeed. Just as we are usually unsuccessful at making ourselves sleep, salivate, or perspire, in the same way, the harder we try to relax or create a therapeutic physical change, the more our goal eludes us.
Using Metaphors
But where the Law of Reversed Effect has us stuck, a metaphor and imagery can shift the tides. Employing metaphor can create anesthesia, relax a chronically tense mind and body, and create improved digestive flow. Modifying existing metaphors can interrupt chronic patterns.
For example, if you’re feeling discomfort and stress, instead of just trying to breathe it out, use an image or metaphor to relax. You might find a lighthouse to rest in amidst the roiling ocean waves of a life challenges. This lighthouse would be a place of refuge to observe the storm, and also a guide who shines a light to a calmer and better place. You could imagine yourself floating on a raft on a summer’s day, just floating and enjoying the perfect temperature. As a metaphor, you can imagine each body part is relaxed like a silk scarf or set noodles.
When I use the lighthouse metaphor and contemplate the possibility of a lighthouse as shelter and guide, I feel my physical body relax and open in places where it is chronically tight. I feel safe from the storm, am able to process my feelings about it from the safety of my lighthouse, and let it pass, knowing everything is OK.
In the quiet tower of the lighthouse, noisy memories of the past can be carried out to sea. As the seas quiet down, and the guiding light at the top of the lighthouse tower scans the horizon, the sun may rise, offering a future bright with possibility. Floating on a raft or imagining your body as relaxed as a wet noodle or a silk scarf assists in relaxing a habitually tense body.
Perhaps you have another image or metaphor, rather than a lighthouse, a raft, a silk scarf or a noodle, which suits you better. Close your eyes for a moment, take a deep breath in, hold it for a moment, then breathe out long. Take another deep breath in, hold it for a moment, then breathe out long. Now allow your breathing to be natural. As you feel yourself becoming more relaxed and open, let an image or metaphor float into your subconscious which will bring you the peace you want to experience..
A client who I used this concept with offered the metaphor of a swing. She was swinging back and 
forth in a gentle rhythm with her mom. The feeling of connection and love brought her perfect peace and contentment. She connected her breath with the rhythmic back and forth of the swing.
Another client offered an etch-a-sketch. The chaotic drawings on the etch-a-sketch were her stormy feelings, which she can look at and then erase by shaking the etch-a-sketch. Another client likes a reservoir of quiet water where she swims and floats. Challenging emotions are washed away in the clear water, then diluted until they’re gone. All that’s left is the clear, peaceful water.
Create A Safe Place With Metaphors
When we’ve experienced trauma, we sometimes feel as if we’re tossed about in the sea. In the case of enormous loss and grief, betrayal, or physical harm, it’s sometimes difficult to separate ourselves from what happened. There is a fear that if we do, we will be caught off guard next time. In this way, we remain traumatized by roiling about in the stormy seas intent never to forget (the difficult lesson of the) experience.
But if we allow ourselves to rest, just for a moment, in a place we create within ourselves; if we create a foothold on the inside to climb out of the storm to dry off and find a new way, we can experience peace and safety within ourselves.
From inside the lighthouse, where we take respite, a distance is created that allows us to say, “Yes, that happened to me… and now it’s over.” We can watch the stormy waves from a witness-consciousness point of view that acknowledges our experience from a safe place. The etch-a-sketch enables a sense of control over the emotions and what is created next. The reservoir offers a sense of peace that is larger and more encompassing than the emotions once were. The metaphors and images that work for you will have their own characteristics when you play them out, which also work for you.
From the safe place we create inside ourselves, we can trust again. Trust that we are safe now, even if it’s in the tower of our imagination at first. Enjoying our rest, emotions calm down and there is a break in the storm. We are pointed in a new direction and the peace we feel inside begins to occur in our lives.
In the lighthouse metaphor, the dark night of the soul gives rise to a new dawn, the storm passes, the waves settle into a still mirror reflecting the rising sun. The peaceful waters shine with the rose and gold tones of a gentle sunrise, revealing the beauty hidden by the storm. Your eye drinks in this captivating landscape and fills you with a peace and joy you had once forgotten in the midst of the storm.
Now you may even entertain swimming or boating on the calm ocean. Or, you can stay in your lighthouse and relax. The lighthouse is always there for you to rest in during stormy times or even during quiet times. It is your inner sanctuary, your divine serenity.
As you open your eyes from this contemplation, you find yourself calmer and more serene, from a place of trust and security that you did not know you had in you.
The more you visit this place within you, whether you choose a lighthouse or a different metaphor, the more you bring this feeling with you throughout your day. Some days are stormy, some days are calm. From the point of view of your metaphor or imagery, you can observe them all with gentle serenity.
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