229. How I Stopped Setting Alarms, And Pressing Snooze 6 Times (and Still Woke Up Early)

Samantha Hawley (: 00:00

Hello, welcome back to Beyond Awareness. I know that this episode might annoy some of you because I'm about to talk about alarms and I know that 99 % of you set one every day, wake up alarm and alarms throughout your day probably, and you swear by them. And I get it. I was you and part of me still.

is you, but stay with me because this whole story that I'm about to share with you isn't actually about alarms, but it's where it starts. And I've actually been wanting to share this with you for over a year because it was just such a cool experience. So last April, Griffin went to his dad, his dad's house, for 10 days. And it was like an April break, essentially, for Easter.

And I promised myself that I was going to let myself sleep in, take showers. I remember I had a therapy session and she was like, what are you gonna do for yourself? Are you gonna get out? Are you going to like do hobbies? And I was like, I'm gonna sleep. I'm gonna, know, the bare necessities, like that we need just to survive as humans, that's what I'm gonna do. Anyways, I specifically was like, I'm gonna go to bed at whatever time I wanna go to bed.

⁓ I'm going to play music loud in my house, not fearing that a child is going to wake up or that a child is not going to like the type of music that I'm playing. All these things, right? And so specifically around going to bed, I decided that I had no reason to set an alarm. So I didn't. And I still remember the first night that he wasn't there, I was tired. I literally yawned at eight o'clock.

And I was like, that's my cue. I'm going to go get my pajamas on. And I did. And I was in bed at 830. I probably fell asleep by 845. And it felt so indulgent in the best way. And I was consistently going to bed between 830 and 930. Every night, I wasn't staying up too late. And my body was naturally waking up between 630 and 730.

which was mind-blowing. I thought that my body was going to wake up at 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, because that's typically when it wakes up, when I'm not being a mom. But it wasn't. I woke up at 6.30, the night that I fell asleep, around 8.45, and then 7 to 7.30 was the norm. And I remember lying there in the morning thinking, wait, like,

This is all it took? Like to not set an alarm and to wake up naturally. And I remember it was daylight savings like a week or two prior and the sun was shining in on my face in my room and it just felt so good. And it was just so contradictory because before this, I was waking up exhausted. I was still, I was setting my alarm for like 6.30 or seven.

and hitting snooze six times after my alarm went off. And I'm not joking, six times. And I was so tired, dragging, and I had just convinced myself that I needed the alarm or else I would sleep until 10 a.m. And I had proof of that because, there have been weekends when Griffin was home and he slept in until nine or 10, and I also slept in until nine or 10. So in my head,

The alarm wasn't optional. It was the only thing that was keeping me functional during the week and like productive in the morning and getting my morning routine done and all of that. But those 10 days that he was gone just transformed my mindset and my body felt like it knew what it needed. It needed that much sleep. I did the math that week.

And I was getting about nine hours of sleep every day. A few days it was 10 hours, but nine hours. And I was like, okay, I feel like I need to just try to get nine hours and then my body will naturally wake up around that time. And here's where it got interesting for me. So Griffin came home eventually, right? He came home and that night or well, the next Sunday night that it was, so

We were going to wake up and it would be a Monday. It was going to be a school day, a work day. I almost set an alarm. I remember having my phone up, opening the clock, almost turning on my 7 a.m. alarm out of habit, and then I stopped. And I thought, wait, it felt so good the past week and a half to not set an alarm. Let me just see what happens. And so I didn't set the alarm.

And the next morning, Monday morning, I woke up. I saw the sun shining in and that was my cue. I was like, okay, sun, it's hitting my eyes. Wake up. And part of it was fear because I was like, all right, if I go back to sleep right now, I risk Griffin waking up because he's clearly not up right now. So I want to be up and have a little bit of time for myself before he gets up. So.

I got up, I looked at my phone, and lo and behold, it was 7 a.m., all on my own, and I had quiet time to myself, knowing that Griffin would be up soon, and I just again wanted those minutes to myself, and it felt so good, and it was like the proof that I could trust myself to not set an alarm, and so it kept being this little like test every night. was like, can I do it again? Can I do it again? And for four,

weeks straight. That's one month, you guys. For one month, I didn't set an alarm. And then I remember there was one morning where I had an appointment to get to or something. So I had to do it. So it became this thing where if I needed to set one, I would do it because I didn't trust myself enough. I needed to be out of the house by like 830 or eight or something. And so I would. But that lasted. Me not setting an alarm lasted

pretty consistently until October. And then daylight savings hit where it gets dark in the mornings and then the sun wasn't coming in and that definitely made it way, way, way harder. And so, and it wasn't like magic forever, this like, I no longer have an alarm, but that just changed so much for me in terms of trusting my body in a way that I hadn't before. And so,

I didn't think too much of this, honestly. It just felt good. And I didn't think anything of it until I was in a client session with two different women, and both of them mentioned alarms. One of them said that if she didn't set an alarm, she wouldn't trust herself. And when I questioned her on that, I think I was like, okay, well, why wouldn't you trust yourself? What does that look like?

she had said that she would specifically lose control. And she said it like it was just a fact. Like, of course that's true. Like, how are you not seeing this, Sam? And I remember sitting there genuinely baffled because I feel this coaching session in particular was in like June or something. So I was still going through this high of not setting an alarm. And I just lived the opposite of feeling how no alarms

equals more trust and more control in your body and in your day. But anyways, then I just got curious because that's what I do. And I thought to myself that the alarm isn't the point. The alarm is just like the most concrete, relatable version of a belief that shows up so often, like everywhere.

in our daily lives, in our day-to-day lives, not this like high-level belief that's just like, I don't know, I'm picturing just like sitting up that's ruling our lives. It's like it runs our day-to-day lives. And the belief is something along the lines of, I need something external to keep me in line, to keep me in control, to keep my life in control because if I'm left to my own devices, I'll fall apart.

And when you believe that, you don't just set alarms, you set a lot of alarms, but you also over schedule every minute. And you can't rest without earning it first. And you need a system, a list, a structure, a plan, not because it helps you, but because without it,

you don't trust yourself to be okay. And the example that's popping up for me right now, it's a simple example, but think about a nutrition plan. I remember when I was going through binge eating, I was constantly printing and downloading nutrition plans that were so strict. And it was because I didn't trust myself if I didn't try to follow that.

I thought, I'm going to eat all the chocolate and ice cream and cookies in the world. So I have to try to follow this. Right? And it's the same thing with alarms. If I don't set an alarm, I'm for sure going to sleep in, or I'm for sure going to miss picking my son up from daycare or from school. Right? I even have an alarm set when I pick up my son from school. And when we first started this school year, I would set the alarm.

but still have anxiety that I was going to snooze it or miss it. And I was going to be the parent late to pick him up every day because this school is very different than daycare. This school, parents are on time. And so I had this feeling of anxiety until I realized that feeling of anxiety. And I was like, wait, why do I have this feeling while I also have the alarm set? Because that's the thing too, when we have alarms set,

I knew I was going to press snooze six times. Anyways, so I see my 235 alarm set and I then decided to just trust myself. Trust that I set the alarm. I will hear it go off. If I press snooze, I will wrap anything up. And actually there is no snooze on it. So if I cancel it, which I do, I'll wrap everything up and then go get my son. And it's not always that easy to just decide differently, but I had this experience that I just talked about and the proof to back it up. And so I just

chose differently. And so now is the part where I want to be real and just say out loud that I had that 10 day window with no kids, no morning responsibilities. Like I gave myself that freedom to not have a morning routine or to do that morning routine, but started at 10 a.m. if I wanted and the freedom to go to bed whenever I wanted and

also knowing that there was not going to be a child to wake me up in the middle of the night. And that is a luxury. And I know it, a huge luxury. I know it so well because I'm the only parent as well, right? And I know that you might not have that luxury right now. You likely do not. So even though I did end up waking up early and doing my typical morning routine, I didn't know that that was going to happen. And the same thing may or may not happen

for you. So this episode is actually not me telling you to turn off all your alarms and don't use an alarm clock tomorrow. It's not that. It's me asking you this question. Where else are you relying on external structure because you're afraid of what happens if you trust yourself instead? Or where else are you relying on external structure because you don't

trust yourself. Where are you white-knuckling and pushing through with your schedule, your to-do list, your routine, maybe in your relationships, you're the one doing all the things, maybe in your health, because somewhere along the way, your nervous system decided that you can't be trusted to figure it out or maybe to follow through to get shit done.

This is powerful stuff. And it's also kind of mind-bending stuff because I never expected to be the person not setting an alarm and not having external structure. Crazy. But come back on Thursday because that is when I'm giving you the actual strategic journaling prompts to figure out where you stopped trusting yourself and what it would actually feel like to start trusting yourself again. And of course, we'll be tapping into the

external structures that you have in place as well. But for now, just sit with that question that I asked you earlier. I'll pop it in the show notes. And stay curious about what it might feel like to trust yourself more. Okay? Thank you for tuning in today, and I will see you on Thursday.