Desert Island Sleep Meditation

Listen to this when you're ready to go to sleep, lay down, press play, close your eyes and let me do the rest...

With regular use, your brain will associate this track with sleep, meaning that within a few days, falling asleep will get faster and easier. You'll also wake up feeling happier, more confident and ready for the day.

Transcript

I'd just like you to settle into your space,

Check in with your body,

Making sure there's nothing digging in,

Nothing that's going to distract you,

And on your next exhale,

I invite you to just land in this space,

In this moment,

Right now,

Shrugging off the week,

Letting go of everything that's happened today,

And as you lie yourself back,

You can settle down,

Begin to relax and just make yourself nice and comfortable,

You can notice the weight of your head resting there on the pillow,

And you can be aware of your head relaxing on the pillows,

Knowing that those pillows will fully support the full weight of your head,

So you don't have to hold any stress or tension in your shoulders or your neck,

You can just let your head rest back,

Nice and relaxed,

And let go,

You can relax your shoulders too,

Because you know the pillows will fully support you,

You can take your full weight,

Your full height,

Every muscle,

Every fibre of your being,

As you just lie back,

Fully supported,

Because now is the time for you to do nothing,

You don't have to be anywhere,

You don't have to do anything,

You can just lie back and relax,

And your mind can drift and dream as you hear all the sounds around you,

Sounds outside,

And none of these things need distract or disturb you,

As they comfortably remind you that the world is safely still turning,

And you can allow yourself a moment to just rest back,

Relax,

And let go,

You can let go of any tension in your stomach or across your shoulders,

Ease off those muscles in your back and down your spine,

Along the muscles in your legs,

Down through your ankles,

All the way to your feet and your toes,

Leaving your arms and every finger loosening,

Relaxing,

Perfectly at ease,

Drifting and dreaming with your thoughts as you pay attention to your breathing,

That gentle rise and fall that happens all by itself,

With every breath you take,

With every word I speak,

You can just let go,

And in a moment I'm going to ask you to imagine certain things,

But it doesn't matter if you can't imagine all the things I'm asking you to,

You might even find your mind wandering quite a bit,

So that my voice just fades into the background,

But that doesn't matter either,

The sound of my voice is going to continue to relax you,

And it doesn't really matter if you don't hear a word I say,

Because very soon you're going to be more relaxed than you've ever known.

Imagine yourself standing on the very top of a green hill on a tropical island,

You can feel the warmth of the sun on your head and shoulders,

You can see long grasses around you moving gently in the breeze,

When you look down the hill you see a narrow winding path that disappears into a small forest,

And beyond the forest you can see the ocean,

With sunlight from the clearest blue skies dancing off the top of the waves,

The whole ocean seems to shimmer and sparkle,

You begin to move lazily and easily down the path,

With the ferns and grasses pushing gently against your legs as you pass,

You can catch the faint smell of salt born on the breeze,

Become aware of the distant sound of the ocean on the shore,

Maybe hear seabirds calling faintly from a long way off,

You marvel that a deep sense of calmness and tranquility sweeps over you as you move on down and down towards a forest,

Moving so easily,

So effortlessly,

You feel almost as though you're floating on air,

And in no time at all you find yourself drifting through the trees,

Their leaves closing overhead to form a canopy,

The branches making an irregular pattern against the clear blue of the sky,

It's pleasantly cool in the forest,

The gentle sound of birds singing,

Echoing faintly,

The scent of the trees and undergrowth relaxes you still further,

As you move easily into the inviting depths,

Becoming lazier and lazier with each step you take,

You can hear a stream somewhere,

A gurgling sound gradually mingling with the sound of the ocean,

As you follow the winding path down and down towards the beach that you know is in front of you,

Weaving through the trees and pushing aside the occasional piece of foliage,

Until quite suddenly you feel the warmth of the sun on your head and shoulders again,

And you find yourself on a beautiful deserted beach,

A beautiful golden shoreline sweeping away in a gentle curve in front of you,

To a distant point where the trees seem to come right down to the shoreline,

So that their branches seem to hang over the ocean itself,

You feel the sand warm beneath your toes,

As you stroll lazily across the broad beach to the water's edge,

The sand becomes darker golden colour when you get there,

And you enjoy the change to a moist firm coolness beneath your feet,

As you wander along the shore leaving a lazy trail of footprints in the sand behind you,

And every so often a larger than usual wave sends water foaming around your feet,

And as they recede you notice how the sand is washed away from tiny coloured pebbles,

Blinting like jewels in the sun,

The smell of the ocean,

The sunlight on the waves,

The sound of the water hissing over the sand,

All these things seem to create a sense of timelessness for some unknown reason,

As you find yourself a comfortable position,

A grassy hollow maybe,

Just to sit and gaze out across the rolling depths to the horizon,

Trickling warm golden sand idly through your fingers,

There's a faint haze which makes it difficult for you to see exactly where the sky stops and the ocean starts,

As you try to fathom it out you see a small white cloud appear from somewhere on the horizon,

It moves towards the island quite quickly,

Growing larger as it approaches,

Until it's immediately overhead,

The largest fluffiest whitest cloud you can ever remember,

And you somehow know,

Just by instinct,

That you can let all your worries,

All your cares,

All your fears,

Just drift up towards this large white cloud,

You can actually see them drifting away from you in a long slow spiral,

Maybe like smoke from a bonfire,

Just spiralling away from you towards this large white cloud,

This cloud absorbs all your worries into itself,

Swallowing up all your fears and anxieties,

And becomes steadily darker all the time,

Until just as it reaches its darkest,

Just as the last part of that spiral of your worries and cares disappears inside it,

The sun bursts through,

Dispelling every one of your worries,

Every one of your fears and anxieties to the edges of the universe,

Leaving you totally relaxed and perfectly at ease with yourself,

Without a single care in the world,

And now all your troubles and cares having floated away from you,

You settle yourself down into a comfortable position,

And just drift off into a deep and relaxing sleep,

And while you sleep you have a dream,

You dream you're walking down a long corridor stretching away in front of you in a long gentle curve,

So long you can't actually see the end of it,

But you know that this corridor is the very depths of your subconscious mind,

And the part of your mind that knows just what to do,

And just how to do it,

As you begin to move along this beautiful corridor,

Becoming even more relaxed,

Even more lazy,

You realize that time and space are beginning to lose their meaning,

And slowly the walls of the corridor seem to dissolve,

Leaving you in a large room,

The room is full of a gentle golden light that relaxes you still further,

And you suddenly realize with a surge of inspiration and pleasure,

That what you once saw as limits are merely stepping stones to greater success,

It suddenly dawns on you with a surge of joy and anticipation,

What once seemed to you to be the limits of your personality,

Your skills and abilities,

Are nothing more than stepping stones to even greater success,

One wall of this room is like a huge television screen with words and images flashing across it too fast for you to see,

And you realize that this is information being transmitted to different parts of your mind and body,

And you use your mind to will it to stop,

And as you do,

The screen clears,

And the word ready appears in large flashing letters,

And now your mind is prepared and receptive to everything I'm going to say to you,

And everything I say will be accepted and acted upon by your subconscious,

It will have steadily increasing effect upon the way you think,

The way you feel,

And the way you behave over the coming days and weeks,

Months.

Starting now,

More and more,

You will realize that happiness and unhappiness are due to your own thoughts,

The way you think about situations,

You will be able to shift your thoughts,

The way you think about situations,

You will be able to shift your thoughts to the positive aspects and look at the positive aspects of living,

Enjoying every day,

You'll become more and more aware that if life situations are not the way you always want them,

You will work to change them,

Without frustration,

Without anger,

Without being bothered,

You will work to change things that are not the way you want them,

But you will do it with a calm,

Peaceful mind,

Being at ease and peace with the universe,

You will become more and more aware that everyone has problems in living,

You will also be aware that as you become more mature,

You can face problems with a calm mind,

With strength and determination,

You'll work to improve them,

When you cannot change things,

You'll accept them calmly,

You'll be aware that anger and frustration do not help,

You'll realize that life is too precious and too wonderful to waste it being bothered with little things,

Little annoyances,

Starting today,

You'll work to change anything that is changeable when you can,

Changing with peace of mind,

Without being bothered,

Without frustration,

Without anger,

You'll be less and less worried about the future,

Problems of the future,

Dangers of the future,

Which will never occur anyway,

Most of the things you worry about won't happen anyway,

You'll let the worries go,

You'll enjoy the day,

You'll let yourself go,

You'll enjoy yourself as worries drop out of your life,

And while you're resting in this very pleasant way,

I want you to imagine something,

I want you to imagine that you're looking at a steel ball resting at the top of a gentle slope,

Just imagine that now,

You're looking at a steel ball resting at the top of a gentle slope,

As you look at it,

So the ball begins to roll slowly down that slope,

It moves slowly and follows a very straight course as it moves,

But now I want you to imagine it's a little way ahead of the steel ball,

And off to one side of the track,

You can see a strong magnet,

As the ball is rolling towards the magnet,

So it enters into the magnetic field,

And the magnet falls on the steel ball,

Not enough to make it stick to it,

But enough to make it change its course,

The steel ball now rolling in a completely different direction from the original path,

And there's a reason for imagining this,

Because your pathway through life is like the path taken by that steel ball,

In the beginning,

Your pathway through life was set,

You were following a course that was right for you,

It was comfortable,

It was right for you,

And it felt right,

But soon you found you were being influenced by other people,

Acting like magnets,

Trying to pull you off course,

Trying to make you change direction,

In short,

It made you feel that your way was wrong,

They wanted you to conform to their ways,

And followed their course of action,

By trying to please them,

You changed your course,

You've been following a way is not what you originally set for yourself,

The result has been that you have felt uncomfortable,

It's not felt right,

You have consequently felt you have lost your individuality,

You're trying to please other people,

And this has been the problem,

So let's see what can be done about it,

Let's return to our picture of the steel ball and make a few changes,

Once again,

Imagine that steel ball at the top of the slope,

This time,

As you look at it,

See it grow to double its size and weighing twice as much,

Now see it rolling and see what happens,

It approaches a magnet,

And the magnet tries to pull on it,

But this time the ball is too heavy,

Too big,

It does not deviate once from its course,

It keeps on rolling in the same direction,

The influence of the magnet has not been strong enough to affect the ball,

It just rolls straight past,

These simple changes were enough to overcome the problem,

For you to overcome the problem,

It's not necessary to grow in size or put on weight,

But you can grow in strength and in power,

And you can do this easily,

As you rest there now,

I want you to realise something and realise it well,

Understand it and acknowledge it,

It is not your purpose in life to become a carbon copy of someone else,

You are an individual in your own right,

You have your own opinions,

You have your own personality,

These things are right for you,

No other person has a right to try and take these things away from you,

To make you conform to their ways,

You are a person in your own right,

A complete person,

And they must accept this fact or go on their way,

Your individuality is precious,

It must be protected,

And you can protect this with your own strength,

Your strength has been weakened by the influence of other people,

But that strength is still there,

It is within you now,

So now is the time to rediscover it and let it grow,

So as you rest there now,

Just imagine yourself as being strong,

Strong enough to withstand the influences of other people,

Strong enough to stand on your own two feet,

Imagine you are that strong now,

And as you imagine it,

Feel that strength,

Feel that strength,

It's there and you can feel it,

Feel the confidence that goes along with it,

Feel yourself able to speak out,

Able to defend your own individuality,

Feel these things now,

Just as you can feel them,

You know they are there,

You already have that strength,

It's there,

You can feel it,

So you know it's there,

Acknowledge it,

Welcome it,

It's yours,

And now that you've experienced these things,

You can recognise them and use them,

Now that you know they are there,

You've become more aware of them,

Because of this,

You already feel stronger,

More able in yourself,

And this feeling is going to remain within you and become stronger as each day goes by,

No longer are you influenced into a wrong course by other people,

No longer do you allow your individuality to be taken away from you,

It is precious,

It is yours,

And as you practice being more and more confident,

So your confidence grows and becomes stronger,

So more and more your feelings of self-worth become strong and powerful,

Each day,

With each new situation,

Whenever you need to,

You take control,

Calm your mind,

Disregard troubles,

You are calm,

Relaxed,

Poised,

Competent and confident,

You are your own person,

And as you leave here today,

You go forth into the world looking forward with a new and determined optimism,

But you are armed now with new knowledge and understanding of the person that you are,

Unique and special,

Your real self,

Confident in your own abilities to be true to those values,

To really important and to recognize what is false and inappropriate,

Now you love and respect yourself for the person that you are and you will be happy with all that you have,

Yesterday has gone and with it is gone all the influences that could make it different,

Tomorrow is but a myth that we can color with imagination,

But today,

This very moment,

All is real and for this moment we live,

And then that too is gone,

Either seized upon and enjoyed or wasted,

You can choose too which reality is yours,

And you will,

Will you not?