Refreshing Sleep

This is a calming meditation to relax your body and prepare your mind for sleep. There is a relaxation and some contemplation on what your mind needs to enable deep, lasting and refreshing sleep. This track is ideal for those who are troubled by a racing mind or feel anxious when waking in the night. Sweet dreams!

Transcript

Make yourself as physically comfortable and well supported as you wish.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

Take a few deep breaths.

During this exercise,

Some people will get distracted at times or notice things that are bothering them.

If that happens to you,

That's okay.

Just give yourself permission to refocus your attention on my voice or on a more comfortable part of your experience.

And be confident that with practice,

You'll be able to disengage and re-engage your attention in ways that are helpful to you.

I invite you to imagine a warm and pleasant energy moving around above you.

You may experience it as a light,

A warmth,

A feeling.

Something pleasant,

Gentle,

Supportive and calming.

Some people will imagine this with a sound,

A smell or even a taste.

And you can open up to whatever sensations will make this more pleasant,

Relaxing and soothing for you.

Imagine this energy flowing down into your head,

Warming,

Calming and relaxing you as it moves through your head,

Flowing down your scalp,

All the way over the outside of your head to your neck,

Through your temples into the inside of your head,

Calming,

Soothing and relaxing you as it goes.

It flows down your forehead and face,

Through your brain,

Through all your sensitive sense organs,

Relieving them of their normal duties,

Calming,

Relaxing and soothing as this energy flows on down into your body.

This warm and pleasant energy flows down the back of your neck,

Relaxing,

Soothing,

Releasing tension as it goes,

Down into your shoulders,

Into your upper arms,

Through your elbows and your lower arms,

Pooling for a moment in your hands and your fingers before it flows out the ends of your fingertips,

Taking with it any last traces of tension.

And now this warm and pleasant energy flows down from the front of your neck into your chest,

Down the front of your abdomen,

Soothing you,

Relaxing you,

Releasing tension.

And it flows from your shoulders down through your back to the bottom of your torso,

Warming,

Gently calming and soothing.

And the energy moves into the inside of your abdomen,

Releasing there any tension that may exist in the inner organs of your body,

Leaving you calm,

Soothed and relaxed.

And from the base of your abdomen,

The energy moves through your bottom and your hips,

Into your upper legs,

Releasing,

Soothing,

Washing away tension through your knees,

Your lower legs.

And this pleasant and soothing energy pools for a moment in your feet and your toes.

From there,

This warm,

Soothing energy flows on through you,

Out your feet,

Leaving your whole body soothed,

Calm and deeply relaxed.

As you notice how the feelings in your body have changed because you just took some time to invite relaxation,

Soothing and calm into your body.

As you notice this,

It will be useful to turn your attention to your mind for a moment.

Notice what your mind's eye is seeing right now.

And just as you've chosen to close your body's eyes and focus on calm and soothing sensations,

You can choose to also close your mind's eye,

Which has a mind's eyelid.

And you can notice that right now your mind's eyelid is getting heavier and heavier until it slides slowly shut,

Closing your mind to thinking just as you've closed your body's eyes to seeing.

You may be surprised at the difference it makes in your mind and your body to let your mind's eye be closed for a while.

Most people enjoy spending some time doing relaxing things.

Most people feel good when they take some time to take care of their bodies.

Everybody needs some sleep to be healthy.

Most people struggle from time to time to get a good night's sleep.

Getting enough sleep and waking up feeling rested and refreshed is a really good thing to do for your body and your whole self.

These days people have a lot on their minds.

Life is often very busy.

It can be a challenge to wind down your mind and body enough to enjoy deep,

Refreshing sleep.

I wonder if you've realized,

Though,

That when you get into bed,

When you rest your head on your pillow,

Your only job,

The only task to be performed,

Is to sleep.

Have you noticed that the most efficient way to get to sleep is to clear your mind fully and give in to sleep?

When you're working,

You can focus your mind on work and work with your body to get done what needs to get done.

When you're managing your home,

You can focus your mind on that and work with your body to move through those tasks until they're done.

You can also focus on your pleasurable and social pursuits,

Bringing your body along for the ride.

And when it comes to sleeping,

You can also focus on that.

You can focus your mind as soon as your head settles on your pillow by relaxing your body,

Closing your mind's eye,

Enjoying the quieting down of thinking,

Planning,

Remembering and imagining.

And surrendering to sleep.

I wonder if you've already noticed that the problems that need solving in your life are solved more easily when you rest your mind in your body.

I wonder if you are aware that often solutions to your problems come not from your conscious mind mulling things over.

But rather from deeper levels of you.

And that shutting down that conscious thinking,

Letting your mind rest and focus on relaxing and surrendering to sleep can be the best way of solving a problem.

In just a moment,

I'm going to give you a minute to contemplate this.

During this time,

It may help you to focus on how nice it is to be able to drift through your awareness in a relaxed and calm way.

And notice how pleasant it is internally when you're focused,

Absorbed and relaxed and your mind's eye is drowsily shut.

When the minute of contemplation is over and I begin to speak again.

You can use the sound of my voice.

To deepen your experience of focus,

Calm and relaxation.

You can use the sound of your voice to deepen your experience of focus.

You can use the sound of your voice to deepen your experience of focus.

When you get into bed to go to sleep,

The only task you have is to go to sleep and sleep well.

There's nothing else to accomplish.

Isn't it nice to enjoy the knowledge that once you've decided to get into bed and go to sleep,

Once you've settled your head down on your pillow,

The only thing you want to be doing,

The only thing you need to be doing,

The only thing you should be doing is surrendering to sleep.

You can allow yourself to be comfortable with the knowledge that your job when you go to sleep is to relax your body,

Clear your mind,

Close your mind's eye and surrender to sleep.

You may wish to think of this as your duty to your body,

To give it some time to rest and refresh itself,

To restore itself,

To maintain its healthy balance.

You may even enjoy the permission you're granting to your mind to rest,

To your body to rest,

To take the time they need to sleep deeply so that you can wake up feeling rested,

Refreshed and full of energy,

Energy you'll use for the other things that you do with your mind and your body when you're not enjoying being asleep.

You can think of your body as having a healthy wisdom that it channels into your mind.

You can learn to trust your body about its needs.

When it needs to breathe,

It breathes.

When it needs to eat,

It makes you hungry.

When it needs to drink,

It makes you thirsty.

You're not consciously involved in generating these needs.

Your body and its wisdom does this for you.

Your body keeps track of your needs,

Even when you're sleeping.

It will wake you if you need to,

To put on a blanket or take off a blanket,

To attend to a sound or some other bodily need.

You can trust your body to take care of its needs while you are sleeping without the help of your conscious mind.

While you're sleeping,

Your conscious mind can settle and surrender itself to sleep,

Trusting that your body will take care of its needs on its own.

And just as you can learn to trust,

Really trust your body to take care of its needs while you're asleep.

You can learn to trust,

Really trust your mind to take care of your needs while you're awake.

You can rest calmly knowing that if there is something that's important to your mind,

Your mind will let you know when you are awake at the time that you're ready to focus on that important thing.

Your mind will just know to do that when you're awake,

And you can trust it to focus on the right things at the right time.

And when it's time for sleeping,

When your head is resting on your pillow,

You can trust your mind to settle,

Close down and shut its eye and let your body get to the very important job of falling asleep and sleeping deeply and peacefully,

Restoring itself,

Caring for itself while your conscious mind is also resting.

In a moment,

I'm going to give you a minute to consider these ideas and to take from them what is valuable and helpful for you to keep.

You may find it helpful to spend this minute imagining placing your insights and experiences from this exercise.

Those things that will help you to enjoy easier and more refreshing sleep.

Placing these insights somewhere near where you normally sleep or get ready for sleep.

So that you'll find them there.

Ready for you.

When you next get ready for sleep.

That minute of contemplation starts now.

Now that you've gathered up from this experience,

Whatever you've found helpful to encourage you to enjoy easy,

Soothing,

Refreshing sleep.

You can store this wisdom inside you and find it in the place that you normally sleep,

Perhaps as an image.

Or an area.

That will help you recall it.

So it's there as you get ready to rest and fall into deep and refreshing sleep.

You may be surprised to notice that over the coming days and weeks.

It's easier to drift off to sleep.

And to stay asleep.

It may surprise you to notice that when you do wake in the night.

You're able to get back to sleep easily and quickly.

With a relaxed body and a clear mind.

As your head rests on your pillow.

You will know that you can be relaxed.

Comfortable.

And drowsy.

Aware that you can trust your conscious mind.

To take care of things for you when you're awake.

And you can trust your body to take care of things while you're asleep.

Your only task during sleep is sleeping.

And you have full permission to just go to sleep.

And stay asleep.

Without attending to anything else.

Except sleeping.

This exercise is about to come to a close.

So in your own time and your own way.

Prepare yourself to wrap up the exercise.

Gradually and gently reorient yourself to your body.

And the place that you're in right now.

And when you're ready,

Come back to an awareness of your current surroundings.