It's time to get into bed,
Close your eyes,
And allow your body to fall asleep so your spirit can take a ride.
Welcome to the Grounded Sleep Podcast.
My name is David Gandelman and I will be your guide.
I want to start the first episode of this podcast with a quote from one of my favorite poets,
T.
S.
Eliot.
Actually,
It's not a quote,
It's part of one of his poems.
He says,
We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
I'm going to read that quote again in the last episode of this podcast.
When we go to sleep,
We're returning to the place that we come from,
That primordial peace,
That infinite stillness,
That silence,
And that depth,
That dark,
Dark depth that all creation and being arises from.
And you thought your brain was just taking a rest.
Whether you're here because you have trouble sleeping from anxiety or stress,
Or because you sleep next to someone you don't like,
Or you want to learn how to astral travel,
Whatever the heck that means,
I welcome you.
It's important that all of us get the rest that we need,
That we recharge,
That we go deep into the unconscious so we can come out the other side and create the lives we're meant to live.
Come with me as we begin to fall asleep and go to the other side.
Let your body begin to melt into your bed.
Feel the gravity,
The heaviness,
The weight that pulls your body down into the earth.
Be grateful for things that go down.
Gravity keeps us on this planet.
Sleep keeps us rested.
The inner work that we do,
The reflection,
The rest,
It all has a purpose.
We get so programmed to be doing and doing,
Creating,
Thinking,
Communicating.
We forget that without the silence and the stillness in the sleep,
None of that can happen.
So here in our first episode of grounded sleep,
We're going to have gratitude for all of that,
That entire end of the spectrum of life that we take so for granted.
How many of us look at sleep as this almost necessary evil?
All right,
I'll get it.
I'll get it out of the way.
Or others of us.
We get so annoyed with life,
All we want is sleep.
All we want to do is stay in bed.
The whole world disappears and we don't have to worry.
So it's the best part of our day being completely unconscious.
Here's one of the tricks to sleep.
You actually want to go to sleep conscious,
Not unconscious.
So if it takes longer to get to sleep,
But you're meditating and you fall asleep conscious,
It's better than trying to knock yourself out by listening to something that just bores you or taking medication.
We're here to fall asleep in a conscious,
Deliberate,
Intentional way.
Let's slow our breathing down.
By breathing in through the nose if you can,
Filling your belly with air.
As we slow the breathing down,
We slow the mind down.
As we slow the mind down,
We open that gateway into the unconscious,
Into sleep,
Into that sacred space.
Throughout the Grounded Sleep podcast series,
We'll discuss different traditions,
Spiritual,
Cultural traditions,
And how they approached dreams and sleep.
We'll work through some of the common energies and places we get stuck around sleep.
We'll learn meditation techniques to help us go into sleep and maybe even come out of sleep in a conscious,
Healthy way.
That moment of when we fall asleep and when we wake up,
Many of us take it for granted because it's automatic.
You don't actually have to do something to fall asleep,
Nor do you have to do something to wake up.
It just happens.
Almost like the breath,
It's automatic.
But the trick here might actually be to make it manual.
Can we choose when we fall asleep and can we choose maybe even without an alarm clock when we wake up?
I like you to think of sleep as almost like a small death.
Every night we die and every morning we reincarnate or reborn.
It's very possible that we go to sleep and we never wake up or we wake up in a new body on a different plane or dimension.
Let's explore the possibility that sleep and wakefulness is a certain kind of reincarnation.
Every day we get another opportunity.
So we want to go to sleep with gratitude for everything that's happened,
Even if it was a crappy day,
Even if it was a hard day.
We want to wake up with an attitude of gratitude and with an intention to create something worthwhile.
There's this old story about this man standing in front of a wall trying to get over it or around it,
Not realizing that the wall is infinitely high and infinitely wide.
And yet he tries,
He tries and he tries.
And then there's a second man or a second type of man who looks through the keyhole of the wall and thinks he's inside.
And that's analogous to almost doing like psychedelic drugs where we feel like we've grasped the truth and then it dissipates.
And then there's the third type of man or woman,
Of course,
This is an old story so it's always in the masculine,
That is just sitting there and the other two are going,
Hey,
How come you're not trying to get over around through the wall to get inside?
And the man says,
We're already inside.
So the first man tends to be the most common type of person,
Always struggling,
Always striving,
Always trying.
The second man is a little bit more rare,
But still common enough.
And the third is the rarest,
The Buddha,
The Christ type of being that realizes we're already home.
That realizes there's nowhere to go.
When we can land into that consciousness,
Into that awareness,
Into that acceptance and realize there's nowhere to go,
That we're here,
Then we can fall asleep in peace.
And as you fall asleep tonight,
Let your heart open.
Be available.
Realize that you're already here.
Sure,
There are always things to do.
But just because there are things to do,
Just because the world spins and the sun shines and the universe vibrates,
Doesn't mean we're not already here.
Settle more deeply into your bed.
Breathe a little bit slower.
Notice a sense of calmness coming over you.
As we move into sleep,
We move from doing to being.
From a human doing to a human being.
Tonight,
There is nothing left to do.
There are no more phone calls to make,
No more emails to send.
Your only job is to rest.
The way maybe a turtle lays on the sand for hours without moving and just rests.
There used to be a tour guide in Hawaii and we would go see the Hawaiian Honu,
The sea turtles,
Some of them were 150 years old.
And they would breathe maybe four,
Five,
Six times a minute.
Human beings,
We breathe maybe 16 plus times a minute.
They would have slow breath.
They would be relaxed.
And they would rest.
Let yourself rest.
They say there's over 100 billion stars.
We say there's over 100 billion stars just in our galaxy.
And over 100 billion galaxies in our universe that we know of.
Maybe there's 100 billion universes.
There is so much beyond our grasp and yet we attempt to control everything.
To try to be perfect,
To worry.
Notice that everything in life has a rhythm,
Has a time,
Has a place,
Has a purpose.
Get in tune with that rhythm,
With that balance,
With that movement,
And with that stillness.
And so everything can matter,
And we have to invest in that lightness of ours so that You are here because life wants you here.
That's it.
You are wanted.
You are loved whether you know it or not.
And the entire universe is vibrating through you even as you fall asleep into deep rest,
Deep stillness,
Deep silence.
Fall asleep loving who you are.
Fall asleep loving sleep.
Sleep deeply,
Sleep well.
Get some rest.
And I'll see you on the other side.
Sleep deeply,
Sleep well.
Sleep deeply,
Sleep well.
Sleep deeply,
Sleep well.
