Brazil’s powerful insight helps people worry less, sleep again

“Surrender is not about giving up. It is about letting go of the illusion of control,” the author Judith Orloff wrote. A 50-year-old woman who had been awake since 2:13 a.m. lay in the dark, gripped by panic. She thought about her mother, who had dementia in her early 70s. The woman was already forgetting words and names she used every day. She feared she was losing her memory, too.

The insomnia had crept in over years. It started with disrupted sleep from newborn care, then difficulty sleeping during perimenopause. Stress hormones fueled her days working in a busy clinic and raising a family. By the time she turned 50, she was managing on about 20 minutes of interrupted sleep a night. She could no longer recognize the faces of her neighbors. She struggled to recall the names of family members. She lost concentration during important presentations.

She tried changing her diet and taking natural sleep supplements. She saw sleep specialists and tried medications. Cognitive behavioral therapy and hormone therapy helped only a little. As her sleep worsened, she snapped at her partner and felt periods of rage. Then she received a phone call from a neighbor: Her mother, from whom she had been estranged for nearly 20 years, had been diagnosed with dementia. The woman was terrified she was losing her own memory.

Control was something she inherited, not chose. As a child, her mother controlled everything to feel stable. So when the sleepless nights and memory fears mounted, the woman did what she always did: She controlled. She made lists for everything. She told her family exactly how to do things and blamed them when they did not follow her way. She kept strict routines and lost all flexibility. But she never asked if it was working. The controlling was on autopilot and exhausting.

One night she yelled at her children because they needed help with homework. One child was crying, the other had shut down. She heard herself yelling the same words and tone her mother used to use. It was heartbreaking. She realized that control was creating distance from the people she loved.

She then joined a mindfulness-based stress reduction course. One of the first exercises required lying in stillness and scanning her body. It was excruciating because she needed to be doing something. Over weeks, she learned to notice her need to be busy. Later, she saw a glaring pattern: control. When anything felt challenging, she organized everyone to feel safe. She realized this pattern no longer served her.

When she finally let go of seeing her insomnia as a catastrophic problem that needed control, her sleep improved dramatically. Her body remembered it was safe to sleep. Her memory recovered, too. She still forgets things sometimes, but now it simply signals that she is overtaxing herself. She no longer spirals or catastrophizes every forgotten word.

The first time she sat with her mother and her mother did not recognize her, she felt only presence. Instead of hurt or anger, she saw her mother as confused and frustrated, doing her best. Both had been running the same program of control. The difference, the woman said, is that she now has the privilege of consciously giving up control and meeting life with compassion.

She learned three things. First, control is fear wearing a mask of competence. When she tried to control everything, she thought she was being responsible, but she was actually terrified. Control kept her from connection. Second, the body does not know the difference between real threat and perceived threat. Her nervous system was in survival mode because she was convinced she might be in danger. Regulating it required seeing the pattern and deciding to let go. Third, you cannot criticize yourself into healing. Every harsh judgment she leveled at herself added more stress. Compassion, deep compassion for her exhausted self, was what finally allowed her to rest.