Do not listen to this audio when your mind requires your conscious attention.
Listen only when you're comfortably seated in a chair.
Or link.
On a bed.
When you're ready,
Close your eyes.
And take a breath in through the nose deeply.
And let it out through the mouth slowly.
Taking the second deep breath in through the nose.
And out slowly.
Let's take the third deep breath.
Breathe in.
And breathe out.
Come back to your normal breathing.
And bring your attention to your jaw.
Let the back teeth part just slightly.
And let the tongue come away from the roof of the mouth.
Soften the space between your eyebrows.
And let your shoulders drop away from your ears.
One full centimetre lower than you thought they could go.
Your hands,
Your belly,
Let it be soft.
And your hips,
Your thighs,
And your calves.
Feel completely supported.
In a moment I'm going to count down from 10 to 1 with each count down.
You can drift a little further inward,
Not asleep,
Just further from the noise of the day.
Setan.
9.
.
.
The sounds in the room becoming less and less important.
7 5 4 3 too.
And one.
Now imagine that you're standing at the edge of a wide ocean.
Quiet seashore early in the morning.
The light is grey,
Blue and soft.
The air is cool against your skin.
You can feel it on your forearms and the back of your neck.
Along your collarbone.
And the sea in front of you is moving.
In and out.
In and out.
The tide has been doing this for as long as there has been a moon.
It rises.
It falls.
It surges high up the sand.
And it draws back.
And nothing about that is a malfunction.
It is simply a body of water responding to a body of light.
Exactly as it was designed to.
Your body is doing the same thing.
The rises,
The falls,
The surges.
And the tide,
However high it comes,
Always,
Always draws back.
Now ahead of you on the wet sand there is a stone.
Walk towards it.
And as you walk towards it,
You feel the firm,
Damp sand under your feet.
Pick up the stone.
It is smooth and flat and it fits into your palm.
As though It was shaped for your hand,
Your palm.
And it is cool,
Not gold.
The kind of cool that comes from something that has been sitting in shade and salt water for a very long time.
Feel that coolness spread from your palm up through your wrist.
Along your forearm through the elbow.
The upper arm,
The shoulder.
And now across your chest and up.
In the front of your throat.
Cool along the jaw,
Cool across the cheeks.
Cool at the back of the neck.
Right where the hairline is.
Now let's practice something.
Imagine.
A warm beginning.
Low in the chest the way it does.
And instead of bracing against it,
Instead of tightening and thinking,
Oh no,
Not now,
I want you to notice.
The way you would notice a wave coming up the sand.
Here it comes,
It rises and as you breathe out long and slow You hold the cool stone and you say to yourself quietly,
This crests and this passes.
Watch it reach its highest point and now watch it recede,
Drawing back,
Cooling,
Settling and gone.
Now I want you to take that stone with you into the dark.
Picture yourself walking in the night,
The room is dim.
The house is quiet.
And in the old pattern,
There is the moment where the mind switches on.
The things to do lists,
The worries.
The why am I awake?
And I'll be exhausted tomorrow.
But not tonight.
Tonight as you surface,
The first thing you do is bring your right hand to rest over your heart,
Over your belly.
Do that now.
Feel the weight of your own hand on your body.
And as you feel that,
You say in your mind,
Rest is enough.
Rest is enough.
You do not have to force sleep.
You do not have to chase it.
Laying still,
Warm,
Breathing out long.
That is already restoration.
And when you stop chasing sleep.
Sleep stops running.
And as you rest here,
Let these settle in quietly where they will do their work.
Your body is intelligent and it is doing something.
Ancient and ordinary.
Warmed rises and warmed passes.
You breathe out and it passes sooner.
At night,
Your hand finds your heart.
And your body remembers how to rest.
In a moment I'm going to count from one to ten.
Up to five and you will come back.
Feeling alert,
Clear-headed and carrying the coolness from that stone with you.
1.
Awareness returning to the room.
Too.
Feeling begins to come back into your hands and feet.
Three,
A gentle stretch if you would like one.
Roll the shoulders.
Four,
And five,
Eyes open,
Wide awake,
Feeling refreshed,
Comfortable and completely yourself.
Thank you.
