After you've made yourself comfortable,
Adjusted your seat or bed,
Soothed yourself,
Fluffed your pillows,
Whatever you need to do,
Just start to let everything go.
All that's good and all that's bad.
Any struggles or worries.
Anything you need to let go of and step away from.
Gravity is always drawing us down,
Pulling us towards the deepest earth.
And during the day we resist.
We stand upright.
We walk.
We climb.
And in the evening,
Gravity becomes our best friend and our most useful tool that physics has to support restful sleep.
So instead of clenching muscles and organizing one's mind to strive and climb,
Just let gravity do what gravity wants to do and pull you down.
Feel heavy.
And as you feel heavy,
You may also feel miraculously light,
Drifting,
Supported by your seat,
Your lying place,
Wherever you find yourself.
Your body is strong and solid and maybe some special part of you just begins to wander and drift.
We start to surrender all that was and even all that will be.
Everything we don't need right now we can let go of and become more secure,
More assured.
In every day,
In every human experience,
We are hurt,
Done wrong,
Treated with rudeness.
We can hold on to those resentments,
But it's not going to help you sleep.
So at the end of the day,
Begin by forgiving.
Not because you have to.
Not even because anyone deserves it,
But because you deserve it.
You deserve to let go.
You're breathing in,
You're slowing down,
You're becoming deeper,
More still.
And the irony,
If you could call it that,
Is that just as much as you need to forgive,
You probably also need to be forgiven.
We all make mistakes.
We say things rashly.
We bump into people.
We're not empathetic or unaware of others' needs and can't take perspective.
So we harm,
We make mistakes.
To whatever part of the universe you need to address this,
Ask forgiveness.
Breathing deeply,
Finding your seat,
Enjoying your mass and the gravity that embraces you.
You may start to notice the light getting dim or just appearing more dim as tiredness seeps in.
Your eyes start to water and get heavy.
Let them,
Let them drift towards being closed or more closed.
Let the darkness swoop in like a blanket,
Like a snow.
Let your thoughts be kind so you have gentle and sweet dreams,
Settling,
Becoming deep and purified and letting go.
The world is within you and all the way out there.
And at some level,
It's all one thing.
It's all continuous and not separate.
And there is a oneness,
A unity that pervades all creation,
Barely perceivable but there.
For just a brief moment,
The space of a few words,
Just try to imagine and acknowledge the unity of all things,
The shared destiny and origin.
And from that place of awareness,
Maybe what you experience is a sense of love and compassion,
Moment to moment and every moment.
Awareness of the mutual thread of all being and it fills you with an inescapable and pervasive love.
At this moment,
At this moment in an evening,
You are protected,
Sheltered from the storm,
Embraced in wings of love and great and good forces surround you and lift you up,
Protect you and embrace you.
And as you prepare for sleep,
There will be healing and protection and life and vigor conveyed to you as you sleep.
You will be strengthened in your sleep.
You're breathing,
You're breathing,
You're relaxing,
You're sinking in and becoming more quiet,
Heavy,
Yet light,
Still,
Yet not unmoving.
And you lie down in peace and tranquility,
Shielded and protected from sorrows and traumas,
Embraced as you lie down and as you will soon get up.
When you go into sleep and when you come out of sleep,
You'll be watched and guarded and whole.
There are great and good forces that follow us and surround us at all moments,
Perhaps even more so when we sleep.
Great and good forces that looked over those who preceded you and great and good forces that will care for those who follow you.
In a nearly endless chain of being,
You are surrounded and protected by might and care and support.
You breathe,
You breathe in this grace and generosity and empathy and you breathe back compassion for all that is and your mind drifts and your thoughts begin to unravel,
Come unglued,
Less structured and logical,
Almost fantastically drifting.
You are blessed,
You are guarded.
The world looks upon you in shining and radiant grace and the world looks at you and extends to you peace and wholeness and completion.
While you sleep,
You're secure.
There are great and good forces nurturing you and sheltering you.
In every life,
There are difficult questions and when you sleep,
You can put your difficult questions to your right side with the great and good force responsible for mysteries.
When you sleep,
You can put all of your striving and energies and muscular awareness at your left side with a great and good force that's responsible for vigor.
While you're sleeping,
You can deposit all of your doubts and fears at your feet.
There sits the great and good force responsible for illumination and any pains you have,
Aches and sufferings.
You can rest behind you with the great and good force who gives us healing and above it all,
Drifting above you as you sleep,
Is a presence of majesty and glory.
You're breathing,
You're taking it all in.
Maybe at some point you start to drift out of consciousness.
Isn't that fun?
Your mind is wandering down all these alleyways and pathways that it doesn't get to visit while you're awake.
Just let it go.
Maybe you need to fidget one more time and shake off any residual tension.
Take one deep breath in and one long breath out.
And one long breath out.
And as you rest,
As your mind drifts and unwinds,
Becomes something else,
Travels to realms beyond the conscious thought,
You can know that you're safe,
You are protected,
You are held in a loving embrace and you have no reason to fear.
