Welcome to this meditation to help you fall asleep into a state of relaxed presence.
Sleep is often when we give ourselves up to unconsciousness and the hope of rest.
But it can be so much more than that.
Sleep can be conscious and a major part of our meditation journey our awakening to the truth of who we really are.
And deep rest is essential for our sense of well-being,
Our healing and our feeling of wholeness.
So I invite you to begin by settling down allowing yourself to settle into your bed and stretching out allowing yourself to give your body into the mattress as much as you can just simply letting go.
This meditation has no music and there is no ending bell so you can simply slip off to sleep when you are ready to with no disturbance from me.
Hopefully the room that you are in is set up as you would like and there are no more distractions for you today.
Allowing yourself to meet yourself with a genuine sense of relief and gratitude letting go of thoughts of how the day has been and what tomorrow needs to be like.
Here and now is where you live and where you can rest best.
We begin now by taking a few breaths and using tension and releasing to relax your body more fully.
Take a long breath in coming up your legs and your spine allowing your lungs to fill and your belly to rise and at the same time tense your feet and legs as tight as you can tense your arms and your hands,
Your face,
Your whole body retaining the breath rather than holding it and then let it go with a big sigh or a big sound.
Again,
Long breath coming up your legs,
Up your spine lungs filling up,
Your belly rising tense your feet and legs as tight as you can tighten your hands and arms making fists tensing your face,
Your whole body,
Tighter,
Retaining the breath and now releasing everything letting your body know it's time to relax,
To be in the present,
In the now start moving towards sleep.
Very good.
One more time.
Long breath filling your lungs up tensing your feet and legs tensing your hands and arms,
Your face tightening your whole body,
Retaining the breath and then exhaling,
Letting go of anything that you're holding on to let go into the bed.
Well done.
Allow yourself to notice how your body feels now and allow yourself to relax a few more percent as you allow your attention to settle and the natural movement of breath in your body just the rise and fall of your breath at the abdomen met with your felt sense your natural breath you're not doing anything with your breath other than meeting it with your felt sense with your natural awareness allowing your eyelids and your eyes to relax and be soft allowing your face to be soft you can feel your body relaxing and with your felt sense we'll just scan through your body with living gentle awareness taking simple awareness to each body part as it is named you can feel your whole back body against your bed you can feel the duvet or the sheets covering you being aware of your right foot just taking your sense of awareness down to your right foot and then your left foot let them go even further meeting them with simple awareness,
With presence your right calf and shin your left calf and shin right knee left knee right quad and thigh left quad and thigh your right hand and fingers your left hand and fingers right forearm and elbow left forearm and elbow right upper arm left upper arm the back of your neck,
The back of your head the top and the sides of your head your eye soft,
Your face soft your jaw easy your throat center your chest your abdomen your groins whole back body whole right leg whole left leg whole right arm,
Whole left arm whole head whole chest,
Whole torso your whole body your whole body simple awareness of your whole body getting even softer gently letting go and all the tension simply dissolving as energy melting away you're gently aware of your mind moving but rather than getting caught up in stories and ideas you simply allow your mind to be witnessed from this deeper part of yourself witnessing the mind as energy and just letting that sense of energy be as it is acknowledging the feeling of the mind energy but just softening instead of moving into it and allowing awareness of your emotional state again simply witnessing from this deeper part of yourself feeling your emotions as energy acknowledging your feelings as energy but softening,
Meeting,
Allowing not getting caught up in ideas or stories you feel safe and peaceful you feel whole and present the sense of your natural breath moving in your abdomen the life in your body the feeling of your body at greater and greater ease becoming more restful and bringing you into nowness awareness witnessing of your thought and emotion your energies bringing you into presence and you can feel the sense of life in your whole body in your breath in all the movement of mind and emotion without thinking about it or reaching for it or creating an idea you simply can feel the inner life of yourself notice that you're not creating the sense of inner life of self notice how much your body loves the feeling of life the sense of contentment of comfort of well-being notice how this relaxes you how you deepen more and more into this original sense of self a feeling of wholeness deepening into your inner life you let go more and more into the sense of your core self the life within you moving and stilling into the greater wisdom of your body it is this life and presence this greater intelligence that is the essence of life itself your source of healing the gateway to wholeness truest intelligence growth inspiration you are life itself let go into life and to deep beautiful sleep now breath and sensation awareness and life your body is heavy mind and emotions are quiet your natural breath subtle and moving you are fully relaxed you are life itself good night
