Meditation capsules,
Your nightly dose of mindfulness.
Preparing the body for sleep.
Every day we prepare for lots of things.
Washing ourselves,
Getting dressed,
Having breakfast.
Brushing our teeth and packing our bags as we prepare to leave home.
We prepare to do schoolwork,
We prepare to play,
And we prepare to go back home.
Now we are going to prepare our body and mind for sleep.
Let's begin standing next to the bed and give our muscles a big long stretch.
Stretching out all the tight stiff bits.
Pushing out your hands in front of the body as you breathe in.
And letting them flop back to the sides of your body with the out breath.
Breathing in and stretching your fingers wide out to the sides of the body now.
Making a great big beautiful wide space inside your body.
Sighing out the breath as your arms flop back beside your body.
Breathing in,
Stretching your hands up high above your head.
Sighing out through your mouth,
Just letting your arms flop down beside you again.
Your muscles might like a little shake now.
Just balancing on one foot and shake gently through the other foot.
Then swap over and shake out through the other foot.
And then you can stand still and shake through your hands and give your whole body a gentle shake.
Shaking all the busyness of the day out of your body.
Now you can change shape and lie down on your bed on top of the covers for a while.
Just letting the mattress hold your back and head.
And noticing how it feels to let your hands and arms,
Feet and legs float up towards the ceiling.
Just letting them float around in the space above you.
Noticing the shapes they make as they freely move around.
Noticing the air touching your bare skin.
And now you can give your hands and arms,
Feet and legs a good shake.
And when you are ready,
Breathing in and as you breathe out,
Just letting your legs and arms flop back down to rest on the mattress.
Notice how your arms and legs feel now.
And when you breathe in,
Letting them slowly,
Gently float back up into space.
Just like a flower opening its petals.
Letting your legs and arms open.
And when the out breath comes,
Letting them gently fall back in towards your body.
Bending your elbows and knees to change into a closed shape.
Like a little bud.
When the in breath comes along again,
Letting your arms and legs float up and out and open like petals on a flower.
And when the out breath comes,
Letting them curl back into a soft bud,
Hugging your beautiful body.
You might even like to stay in this shape for a while.
Or just keep gently opening,
Softly closing your arms and legs with the breath.
Your body would probably really like to get under the warm covers on your bed now.
And your head would probably love to rest on your soft pillow.
And when you get under the covers,
Your eyes would probably love to rest too.
Just letting your eyelids softly,
Gently close down over your eyes.
Just like drawing down the blinds over the windows.
As your whole body settles down,
Feeling grateful to you for caring for it.
And with every soft,
Gentle out breath,
Letting your body be quiet and still.
Letting it easily calm down.
Let it deeply rest into your warm,
Soft bed.
As it just drifts off,
Drifting off,
All by itself.
Just sleep.
.
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