Before we begin,
I just want you to know there will be long pauses throughout this practice where my voice fades into silence.
Just know nothing's gone wrong.
You don't need to do anything during these moments.
The pauses are intentional.
Space for your body to settle,
Your mind to drift,
And for your nervous system to soften naturally.
So let's begin.
You are here.
And that's the only thing that matters right now.
Not how you feel.
Know what happened today,
Or what's still unresolved.
Just the fact that you are here.
Lying down.
And letting this moment begin.
So close your eyes if you haven't already.
And get as comfortable as you can.
Make sure that you feel warm and cozy.
And use an eye mask if you need to.
You don't need to arrive here relaxed.
You don't need to clear your mind before this will work.
Whatever state you're in right now.
A thinking mind that's still turning things over.
The hollow feeling of a day that took more than it gave.
The tightness that's been sitting in your chest since this morning.
All of it is welcome here.
We aren't going to push any of it away.
We're simply going to let the body do what it already knows how to do.
When we finally stop asking it to hold so much.
So let this be the moment you stop holding.
Just for tonight.
Just for the next little while.
Make any last minute adjustments that you need to so that you can be supremely comfortable through this meditation.
Now bring your awareness to the back of your skull.
Feel the weight of it.
Resting on the pillow now.
Completely.
Without any effort from you at all.
Feel the pillow receiving that weight.
The skull is heavy.
The scalp softening.
The small muscles at the base of the head beginning to let go of what they've been carrying.
Now move your attention to your shoulder blades.
Both of them at the same time.
Feel where they make contact with the surface beneath you.
The density of them.
The way they're being met from below,
Fully.
Without you having to do anything to make that happen.
Let them drop a little further than you think they can.
And now,
The long muscles on either side of your spine.
Feel them softening outward.
Like something releasing that's been gripping for a really long time.
Your ribs along the back body.
Rising slightly with each breath in.
And on the exhale,
There's a settling and dropping toward the earth.
A little more each breath.
Move your attention to your sacrum now.
The wide triangular bone at the base of the spine.
Feel its weight.
Let it become heavy.
Let the earth beneath you take it completely.
You don't need to hold yourself up from below.
The Earth is doing that.
The Earth has always been doing that for you.
Feel your hips widening now.
Not through effort.
Just through permission to take up the space that you actually take up here.
The backs of your thighs.
Heavy and wide.
And resting.
The backs of your knees.
Your calves.
Releasing downward.
And now your heels.
Feel the weight of your heels pressing into the mattress.
So many points of contact.
Your body touching the world.
The world holding your body in return.
Now feel the whole back body at once.
Feel every place that's being held.
And every place that's already resting.
You aren't holding yourself up right now.
You haven't been since you lie down.
The Earth has been doing that for you.
Let yourself feel how completely you're already being held.
Now bring a gentle awareness to the sounds around you.
Whatever sounds are present in the room or even beyond it.
Let them be here without needing to identify them or follow them.
Just sound.
Moving through the air.
And landing lightly on the edges of your awareness.
And moving on.
You don't need to follow any of it.
Let the sounds become part of the room.
And let the room become something a little more distant from you now.
Feel your awareness beginning to draw inward.
Very slowly.
Like light narrowing at the end of a long afternoon.
And now bring that awareness to the breath.
Not to control it.
Not to deepen it or slow it down.
Simply to notice it.
The breath arriving.
The breath leaving.
The breath arriving.
The breath leaving.
Your body breathing itself.
Without your help.
Without your supervision.
The way it's breathed you through every moment of your life.
Even the ones you didn't think you'd survive.
It just kept going.
For you.
And now let the breath become the background.
Something quietly happening in the body.
While your awareness goes somewhere deeper than your breath.
Down into the body itself.
Into the sensation of weight.
Of warmth.
Of being here.
You may begin to notice something happening now.
A heaviness in the limbs that wasn't here before.
A slight blurring at the edges of your thoughts.
The mind moving in a slightly different way.
Less linear.
Less insistent.
Beginning to drift and double back.
Like something that stopped needing to go anywhere in particular.
This is the threshold.
The place between waking and sleep.
And tonight you're allowed to follow this drift.
You're allowed to let the threads of your awareness go.
If an image arises.
Let it arise and dissolve without holding onto it.
If a thought surfaces.
Let it surface and pass like something moving slowly through deep water.
You don't need to follow it.
You don't need to resolve it.
Just let it pass.
And notice the underneath the drifting.
Underneath the thoughts that surface and pass.
The body is becoming heavier.
The limbs further away.
The breath quieter.
Something in you recognizing.
Slowly.
That it's safe to go deeper than this.
Safe to let the edges soften.
Safe to stop monitoring.
You've been monitoring for a very long time.
And tonight you're allowed to stop.
And now,
Very gently.
Without effort.
An image begins to form in the space behind your eyes.
A shoreline.
At night.
Not cold.
Not stormy.
A warm,
Dark shoreline.
On the kind of night where the air itself feels soft.
Where the darkness isn't empty,
But full.
Where the sky above holds more stars than you can count or need to.
You're lying near the water's edge.
The sand beneath you is warm and yielding.
Your body is the same temperature as the night around it.
And nearby the tide.
Moving slowly in and out.
Steady.
Unhurry.
Ancient.
The tide has been moving like this for longer than any human life.
It was moving like this before you were born.
And it'll move like this very long after every version of you has rested.
And right now.
You're lying beside it.
Being breathed by the same rhythm.
Breathe in.
.
.
As the tide draws back.
And breathe out as the tide moves slowly toward you.
Again,
Breathe in,
The tide draws back.
Breathe out,
The tide moves slowly toward you.
And again.
The body beginning to remember something it's always known.
That it's made of water.
That it's always moved in waves.
That rest isn't something you achieve.
It's something you return to again and again.
Now imagine the tide reaching a little closer.
Warm water moving slowly over the sand.
Reaching the soles of your feet.
And surrounding them with warmth.
And then gently pulling back.
Not cold,
Not demanding.
Just warm and present.
Another wave arrives.
Slower this time.
Moving through the feet,
The ankles.
The calves,
Surrounding everything it touches with a warmth that asks for nothing in return.
And then receding again.
Taking with it just a little bit of what the body no longer needs to hold.
Not your feelings.
Not your story.
Just some of the tension wrapped around them.
And now another wave.
Moving higher now.
Through the hips.
The lower back.
The belly.
And here the body may resist a little.
This is where so many of us hold ourselves up against life.
You don't need to force softness here.
Simply let the warmth remain.
Wave after wave.
Surrounding this place.
Patient as the tide itself.
Until something begins loosening on its own.
A deeper exhale.
A softening beneath the muscles.
A feeling of more space inside yourself.
The wave moves through the chest now.
Into the heart.
Notice if something rises here.
Some grief that's been waiting.
Some exhaustion that hasn't had anywhere to go.
Let it rise.
The tide is large enough to hold it.
You don't need to manage anything tonight.
Just let the warmth surround it.
And let the wave carry it gently.
Out with the tide.
Back to the ocean.
Back to something large enough to dissolve it.
Another wave.
Through the throat.
The shoulders.
The arms.
All the way to the fingertips.
The whole body now surrounded by rhythmic warmth.
And very gradually.
The line between your body and the warmth begins to soften.
Not disappearing.
Just becoming less important.
The body resting so deeply.
That it no longer needs such sharp edges.
You are still here.
But the here has grown larger.
Larger than your name.
Larger than your story.
Larger than everything you were holding before you lie down tonight.
The tide continues.
In.
And out.
The body heavier now than it has been in a long time.
The mind somewhere far away.
Thoughts arriving like distant lights on water.
Moving slowly across the surface and disappearing.
You don't need to follow them.
The breath happening somewhere in the background.
The warmth remaining.
The tide remaining.
Ancient.
Study.
Holding you in something older than worry.
Older than exhaustion.
Older than every hard thing you've ever carried.
There's nothing left to hold together.
Just this slow drifting.
At the edge of the world.
In the warm.
In the dark.
In the ancient rhythm of something that's never forgotten once to return.
If sleep comes now,
Let it take you completely.
No effort.
No holding.
No more needing to be anywhere or anyone.
Or anything other than this.
Just rest.
Sweet dreams.
