Sleep,
It's the most natural thing in the world,
And yet we sometimes turn it into a problem.
It's a biological function,
And like all biological functions,
It is self-regulating.
We have all of these systems that take care of themselves,
Like sweating,
Like digesting,
Going to the bathroom,
Even breathing.
All of these natural functions of the body are all self-regulating,
And sleep is also self-regulating.
What we forget is that these systems fluctuate.
They always fluctuate,
And they run in cycles,
Like the seasons,
Like the time.
There's just a natural fluctuation between high tide and low tide,
Or the moon cycle.
It goes through its phases,
Culminating with a full moon,
And then it starts to recede again,
Or the seasons.
In the dead of winter,
Everything goes dormant,
Dry,
Beautiful in its own way.
One day,
Everything starts to change.
Daffodils just pop up out of the ground,
Like magic.
How did that happen?
They have their own internal clock.
Nature is amazing.
All the leaves start filling up the trees,
Flowers start to open.
These things don't need our help.
It happens all on its own.
And sleep,
Too.
It's one of the strongest bodily functions.
It's actually the strongest biological drive.
It's just what the brain and the body do,
And it requires no help from us.
Your body will take the sleep it needs.
And that drive is stronger than our fears and worry about it.
We worry about it because we think we need to be in control.
My Zen teacher would have said,
Well,
That's like wearing two heads.
What do you need two heads for?
It'll take care of itself.
Worry is like the second head.
It's totally unnecessary.
But we get into this habit of trying to control things that don't need our help.
A better thing to tell yourself is,
If I'm worried,
I will still sleep.
There's a funny little thing that you can do.
I learned this from an old Tibetan manual.
You can turn those worries into totally non-threatening,
Funny-looking little monsters.
And you can make them your allies and your friends.
You can make them look funny,
Use your imagination.
And you can say,
Okay guys,
We're all in this together,
Let's all go to sleep now.
So in that sense,
You've turned your fear into funny-looking little friends who are now your allies and partners.
And the thing that was scary is no longer scary.
Or if you're worried about sleeping because you had a couple of bad nights,
Or even if you've had a string of bad nights,
It doesn't matter.
Your body has not lost its ability to repair itself and regulate itself.
And so you can say to yourself,
If I don't sleep well tonight,
That's okay.
I'll sleep tomorrow night.
And if I don't sleep tomorrow night,
I'll sleep the next night.
And so on.
You can say,
I've got all day,
It's okay.
Or you can say,
I always manage to sleep at least a few minutes,
And I'm getting along just fine.
And even if I don't sleep at all,
I'll still be just fine.
After all,
Think about those situations that you've read about in novels or history books.
People in the military who've been at war and who've had to go months in the trenches with no sleep,
No food,
Putting their body through unthinkable hardship and challenges.
And they lived to tell.
And those that didn't,
Well,
It wasn't because of that.
The point is,
Many of them lived to ripe old ages.
Your body can go through a lot.
How about those people who climb mountains like Mount Everest?
Sleep is the last thing on their mind.
They can't sleep.
They'll freeze to death.
They've got to keep moving.
Day after day,
They've got to keep moving.
They've got to keep fighting and pushing.
There are so many situations like that.
Some people take it unwillingly.
How about those ultra-distance runners?
They run for three days straight in this kind of super marathon that goes on for,
Oh,
I don't know,
Is it 72 hours?
They're not fretting.
They're running.
They're not even resting.
They're running and running.
The body's amazing.
Even if you don't sleep,
It likely won't make any noticeable difference in your performance at work or anywhere else.
We just tell ourselves these horror stories and these fear stories.
In my tradition of Kundalini Yoga,
We call that the negative mind.
It's trying to protect us.
It means well,
But it pipes up a little bit too fast and too often with its worries and concerns.
You can just say thank you for sharing.
I know you mean well,
But everything's all right here.
There's no problem here.
These stories are ways of letting go of the resistance.
You see,
What I've learned from my own spiritual journey and challenges with sleep and just being a human,
Is that if there's one thing all of the world's beautiful wisdom traditions has in common,
It's this.
The way to inner peace is letting go of resistance.
The way of inner peace is letting go of resistance.
To let go of suffering and inner turmoil and angst.
Let go of control.
Surrender.
Or said differently,
Accept.
Acceptance.
It's just another way of articulating Buddha's Four Noble Truths.
Accept what's here and now,
Rather than fight against it.
Let go of resistance.
In Taoism,
It's called Wu Wei.
The easy way.
The way of non-resistance.
In Western religion,
The idea is couched often in terms of putting your faith in a higher power.
That's beautiful too.
It's a way of surrendering.
It's a way of giving up control.
But see,
Here's the thing.
We never had the control anyway.
It was all an illusion.
With regard to the body,
From head colds to stomach aches,
Our bodies always recover from all of these natural disruptions.
Sleep disturbances.
Nauseas.
Digestion disturbances.
Whatever it is.
The body is a self-regulating system.
And our attitude towards sleep affects our mood more than anything else.
Certainly more than the number of hours we've slept or didn't.
And besides,
Everyone needs a different amount of sleep.
And even you as an individual needs a different amount on different nights.
It depends on what's going on.
There's this balancing system within.
Like a clutch in the gas pedal.
Constantly moving one and depressing the other.
And moving them back again.
Balancing the whole thing out to get it right.
Your body does this on its own.
Sometimes you have more energy.
Sometimes you have less energy.
And sleep will compensate.
Sometimes you simply don't need so much.
You're flying high.
Like a balloon running out of air.
It'll come crashing down at some point.
There are so many successful and productive people that need very little sleep.
And they do just fine.
They do wonderfully.
They're called short sleepers.
Just like your appetite fluctuates,
Your need for sleep fluctuates.
It's normal.
And sometimes it takes a while to calm down.
But as the body cools and settles through the night,
You'll sleep eventually.
There's another way to let go of resistance.
Just appreciate what's here,
Right now.
Open up all your senses.
What do you feel?
How do the sheets feel on your body?
How does the bed feel?
Isn't it nice just to rest your back and your legs?
To rest your head on the pillow.
No one's waiting for you.
That alone is a rich and luxurious pleasure.
Sleep is really of no consequence.
Just enjoy the pleasure of resting.
What else do you feel?
The air cool on your face.
It's lovely.
And your eyes.
Maybe it's nice not to see anything at all right now,
But to rest your eyes.
To let go of all of the daytime stimulation.
Just close it all out.
Rest your brain.
Our little sounds,
They don't have to be disturbing.
You can sort of lean into them.
Let them become a part of your inner world.
Whether it's a distant train or birds chirping.
I suppose they'd have to be night birds.
Or maybe an owl.
Maybe it's rain.
Maybe it's windy.
Just get lost in it.
Don't fight any of it.
No resistance.
Genuine fatigue is the best sleeping pill of them all.
When your body's tired,
Falls into sleep,
You can't fight it.
It's stronger than any man-made sleeping pill or infusion.
Let your body work.
Trust your body.
Let it rise up into something more ephemeral.
You are not your body.
You're this consciousness,
This witness that's watching from above.
Watching how nature does its thing.
Your body's just part of nature doing its thing.
You're just a loving presence.
A divine,
Loving presence.
It's only when we pay attention to what we don't need to pay attention to that we trip ourselves up and we get in our own way.
We become hyper-conscious.
Not just conscious,
But hyper-conscious.
And then we create a problem because we become too aware,
Too hyper-conscious for our own good.
As an example,
Remember when you were young and you were blissfully unaware of any of this.
Blissfully ignorant of these processes.
You didn't sort of say,
Oh no,
I haven't.
.
.
I haven't slept enough,
Or I haven't gone to the bathroom today,
Or any of this stuff.
You didn't worry about your digestion,
Or your sleep,
Or.
.
.
You just didn't think about those things.
I remember when I was a little girl,
I must have been ten or eleven,
And I woke up at four o'clock in the morning on Christmas morning,
So excited to open my presents.
It never would have occurred to me in a million years to say,
Oh no,
But I didn't get enough sleep.
I didn't think two thoughts about it.
And of course I self-regulated,
I don't even remember.
It was a non-issue.
Same thing when I was young and traveling,
Having too much fun to sleep.
Didn't sleep for weeks in Spain.
Who cares?
But then at some point we become hyper-conscious,
And we start worrying about these things.
We start taking in the messages of the media.
We didn't sleep enough,
Or we didn't eat enough of this,
Or that,
Or we didn't do the right thing,
Or we didn't drink enough water,
Or we didn't take enough steps.
And we start counting out all of the things of our life.
Counting steps,
And calories,
And how many hours it will take for this and that and the other.
And we have this kind of balancing record in our head.
We're hyper-conscious.
And just take a nice deep breath in.
Feel how it feels to fill your body with oxygen.
Oxygen.
Nourishment.
Nature's nourishment.
Nature's balancing force.
Let that oxygen balance your brain,
And balance your blood chemistry.
It knows what to do.
It knows where to go.
And let it go.
Let it go.
And now feel your shoulders relax.
Let go of the tension in your shoulders.
Breathing regularly for a moment.
Continuing to let your shoulders sink into the mattress.
If you happen to be sitting up,
Or sitting in an easy chair,
Same thing.
Let your shoulders sink down.
Relax your neck.
And take another deep breath in.
And when you get to the top of that inhale,
Inhale even more.
Even more.
Feel your lungs expand against your ribcage.
Hold that breath in for just a moment.
Enjoy the feeling.
Enjoy the fullness.
Fill up your belly.
Fill up your belly.
As you release the breath,
Relax your shoulders once again.
Let it all go.
And as you breathe normally,
Bring your attention now to your belly.
Relax all those muscles in your belly.
Enjoy.
Enjoy the feeling of relaxing.
Feel the calm glide through your body like a wave.
A wave of peace.
And a third time,
Inhale.
Inhale.
Inhale even more.
Bring that breath down to your belly,
Down to the bottom of your lungs.
Feel your lungs expand down against your ribcage,
Your diaphragm.
Hold the breath.
Relax into it.
Surrender.
Surrender.
Let go.
And release.
It doesn't matter if it's through the mouth or the nose.
Release all the breath.
Long exhale.
And as you breathe normally,
Bring your attention to your arms.
Relax your arms all the way down to your hands.
Relax your legs.
Relax your feet.
All your toes.
Relax all the muscles now around your eyes.
Relax your cheekbones.
Relax the corners of your mouth.
Relax your ears.
And your jaw.
And the back of your neck.
Feel the space in your body.
Feel the peace rise up in your body.
Total inner peace.
Feel yourself more expansive.
You've released all the tension,
And now there's just expansiveness.
Infinite space.
Like there's no you at all.
No body at all.
You are above it all.
Like vapor.
Floating.
Like spirit.
Holding hands with angels.
Just floating.
Watching.
Witnessing the earth breathe.
Witnessing the wind move.
And the trees swaying.
Back and forth.
You are safe.
You are free.
Thank you.
