Hi there,
Welcome to this wind down before sleep meditation,
Mental relaxation,
A way to help you ease into sleep after a long day.
Once the meditation is done the recording will simply end with no bells or no sounds so you don't have to worry about anything pulling you out of your deep rest or waking you up if you fall asleep.
Go ahead and make yourself comfortable lying down if you'd like to just fall right into sleep or seated if you would like to stay awake and begin by taking three deep breaths,
Settle into your space,
Inhale through your nose and exhale to sigh it out.
Inhale once again and exhale to release.
Last time,
Big mindful breath in,
Fill yourself up and exhale to sigh it out.
Seal your lips together and continue breathing through your nose at a pace and depth that feels comfortable and relaxing for you.
Sometimes you may wish that there was an off button for your mind.
An overly busy mind can halt us in many ways throughout our lives and one of the main things a busy mind interrupts for millions of people is a good night's sleep and sleep is the baseline for a good day the next day.
Let's relax your mind just a little bit now and imagine that your mind is represented by a river with waters that sometimes flow by slowly when there's a lack of rain or maybe after a storm the water flows very quickly.
The river just like your mind is never the same.
It depends on the weather,
The day,
The time of year,
Sometimes it even depends on the time of day.
Your mind is this river and your thoughts are the water.
How quickly is your river of the mind flowing right now?
How fast are the thoughts represented by the water flowing in the river?
How fast are the thoughts represented by water flowing in the river?
Imagine yourself sitting on the side of this river,
Enjoying it,
Watching the flow.
You're not in the water,
You're on the outside,
Just watching everything flow by.
Good.
Now just allow for the seasons to pass and the weather to change and watch your river change along with it.
These seasons represent your overall happiness in life.
Some seasons are easier and some seasons are harder.
What season are you in right now?
As you sit and observe,
Notice how your river reacts to the season of life that you're in.
Water rushing by or maybe moving a little bit slower.
Are there a lot of obstacles or objects in your river like leaves,
Sticks,
Maybe full trees and branches floating by as you sit on the edge of the river just observing?
Or maybe your river is clear,
Peaceful.
Look back at your day today.
From the very beginning,
When you woke up,
How was your river flowing this morning?
How does that compare to how it's flowing now?
Remember the river is representative of your thoughts.
The water flowing are the thoughts running through your mind.
Take a moment now to come back to this present moment.
Start to notice your thoughts.
What are the thoughts running through your head?
What do you need to let go of in order to settle in to deep restorative sleep?
As you become more aware of the thoughts in your head,
I want you to place yourself back by the river and one by one put each one of those thoughts on a leaf.
Create little boats for your thoughts out of leaves floating on the river and one by one as you place your thoughts on the leaves,
Put them into the river and watch them float away.
With each leaf you feel more and more relaxed.
As one leaf goes,
Your breath gets deeper.
Another leaf goes.
The tension melts away.
There goes another leaf with another thought all the way until your brain feels open,
Relaxed,
And at peace.
You stay here as long as you like and as more thoughts come as they probably will.
You continue to place each and every thought on a leaf and allow it to float down the river so that you can stay in this space you created for yourself,
The space of peace,
Of relaxation.
You're so calm.
You're so relaxed.
You're so ready for sleep,
Ready to let go of your day,
Ready to settle in,
To rest,
And think about the events from your day.
Is there anything that's sticking with you?
Anything you want to move on from?
Maybe you had a scary moment.
Maybe you had a moment of stress or anxiety.
Maybe you had several.
There aren't necessarily thoughts associated but the experience was there.
The experience is staying with you.
And if that's the case,
Take each experience one by one and place it on the river rocks right in the bank of the river.
You'll take a rock out of the river.
Leave the experience with the rock and then throw the rock back into the river.
It sinks down to the bottom as the water continues rushing over until eventually all of these thoughts are gone.
All of these experiences are gone,
Cleared away,
Disappeared,
Settled at the bottom of the river.
And you're left here,
Totally relaxed,
Totally calm.
You're ready for sleep.
You're ready for rest.
