12 Simple Steps To Fall Asleep By Relaxing Your Brain v2

A busy mind often prevents us from being able to fall asleep and get a good refreshing night's sleep. This mindfulness meditation of breath and thoughts will gently guide you into an experience of relaxing your brain. This is accompanied by the relaxing sound of a flowing stream and birdsong, giving you plenty of time to drift off into a deep sleep, naturally and effortlessly.

Transcript

So the first of the 12 steps,

And as promised,

Each of them is a very simple step,

Is to become aware of your breath.

Notice your breath and your breathing,

And see if you can really feel the physical sensations of the breath.

So really feeling the breath in your body.

And the idea for this meditation and how I approach mindfulness generally is to,

If you can,

Avoid the idea of having to focus or concentrate on the breath.

So the idea is to instead keep a very easy,

Light and open awareness.

So I'm still aware of other sensations in the body,

Sounds,

Thoughts,

Whatever's going on around me in this moment.

And I'm just choosing to gently hold the breath in the foreground or the centre of my awareness,

But not to the exclusion of anything else.

I just allow to keep happening around the breath.

So I'm particularly interested in my breath,

And I'm exploring the sensations of the breath that are still open to everything else that's happening.

So just to give you a few moments just to really experience this first step of simple awareness of the breath before we move on.

Okay,

So the second step is quite a critical step,

An important step,

Particularly in the second half when we're doing this with the thoughts.

It's also a very passive step,

It's a not doing step,

And that is to not change your breath in any way.

So don't try and breathe more deeply,

Don't try and breathe more slowly,

Don't try and breathe more steadily.

Allow your breath to breathe just as it is in this moment.

Notice and be aware that you could choose to change your breath,

We have that power,

That ability,

But for these moments we're choosing not to.

So it's a conscious decision to not change the breath.

This would be a really useful practice for the second part of the meditation with the thoughts.

A few moments just feeling that choice of,

Although we could,

Not changing the breath.

With each step the invitation really is to notice how it feels,

So how the breath felt in the body for the first step.

Second step,

What does it feel like to know you can change the breath but you're choosing not to.

If we add the feeling to the thoughts with each step then it can become an experience.

So if you do this meditation on your own you can obviously spend longer or shorter with each step.

But I'm feeling ready now to move on to the third step and this is to just break down the breath for a moment into the in-breath and the out-breath.

So first fully in-breath I'm going to just add the thoughts,

The intention to really allow the breath into the body.

So as the in-breath occurs I want to really notice how it feels to allow the breath in.

The idea behind this step is simply that often without realising it we will be restricting the breath in some way.

There will be some tension in the mind or body or an habitual pattern of breath that is actually restricting the in-breath in some way.

So these few moments are to give the breath an opportunity to really enter the body as freely and as fully as the breath wants to.

So I'm stepping out of the way and allowing the breath in.

And for the out-breath I usually just add that thought or that intention of release or letting go.

And really feeling that release and that letting go in the body each time I breathe out.

So again the idea is just to check that I'm not getting in the way of the breath by holding onto the breath.

But allowing the breath to leave the body as soon as it is ready to go.

So how does that feel to let go and release the out-breath?

And this takes us naturally into the fourth step which is putting both those parts of the breath back together and allowing the breath in,

Letting go as we breathe out and seeing if we can get a real sense of the flow of breath.

So feeling the breath as a flow rising and falling within the body.

Spend a few moments really feeling that sensation of the flow of breath through the body.

Remembering to allow everything else to happen just as it is around the breath.

Lightly,

Gently holding the breath in the foreground or the centre of your awareness.

Everything else just slightly in the background.

Enjoying the flow of breath through the body.

Okay so the final part of the mindfulness of the breath,

The fifth step of the 12 is to notice and see if you can have the experience of being breathed by the breath.

So instead of feeling a sense of I am really,

See if you can make that subtle shift to feeling that I am being breathed,

The body is being breathed by the breath.

See how that feels.

So we are not changing the breath in any way,

But just changing maybe our view or attitude towards the breath.

And that can certainly change our experience of the breath,

Although the breath hasn't changed.

Okay so we are going to just allow the breath to continue.

We are going to allow the breath to become part of the background and we are going to choose to bring something else now into the foreground of our awareness.

Again,

Lightly with an open awareness and easy attention.

So attention without any tension.

And now we are going to turn our interest to our thoughts.

So the next five steps we are going to do what we have just done with our breath,

But with our thoughts.

Although we are going to be doing the same steps,

It can feel a little more challenging because we tend to identify a lot more with our thoughts and our breath.

We are a lot more attached to the content of our thoughts and our breath.

So that's the challenge for the next five steps.

So step six,

The first step for the thoughts is to simply be aware of your thoughts.

Allow your thoughts to be in the foreground,

The centre of your awareness.

And just as important is to allow yourself to really feel what this is like.

It can feel very different to think with awareness than to just think normally without paying particular attention to the thoughts as they occur.

So how does it feel to think and be aware of those thoughts at the same time?

So the second step is that non-active step that we did with the breath and that is don't change your thoughts.

Don't make any effort to affect your thoughts in any way.

So don't try and slow down your thoughts,

Don't try and deepen your thoughts,

Don't try and think positively.

Allow your thoughts to think however they are thinking without any effort or intention or desire for those thoughts to be any different than they are.

So I become a neutral observer,

A non-interfering witness to my thoughts.

It's the practice of this step that can begin to lessen that attachment and that identification with our thoughts.

So the third step of mindfulness of thoughts,

The eighth step overall is to see if I can get a sense of a flow of thoughts like I had a flow of breath.

The breath is flowing through the body,

See if I can allow and get a sense of feeling of the thoughts flowing through my mind.

You're probably familiar with the ideas of clouds floating through the sky,

Water flowing down the river,

See if you can feel your thoughts to be flowing through the mind,

Through your awareness.

So a succession,

One thought after the next.

So the fourth step with the thoughts is to do what we did with the breath when we allowed the body to be breathed by the breath and we realised we didn't have to do the breathing,

We didn't have to remember or choose or make any effort to breathe.

The breath can just happen automatically,

Naturally,

Spontaneously.

So noticing that actually the same happens with the thoughts.

I don't need to remember to think,

I don't need to make a choice to have a thought,

I don't need to make any effort to create thoughts.

If I watch,

Be open,

Alert,

I can notice that thoughts simply arise within my mind,

Within my awareness.

So how does that feel to notice the thoughts happening in a natural,

Spontaneous way?

Okay,

So the fifth and final step.

The mindfulness of thoughts,

The tenth step overall is to become aware of the arrival of thought and the passing of thought like we did with the in-breath and the out-breath.

So with the passing of thoughts,

The idea is to just allow your current thoughts,

Whatever you're thinking in the present moment,

To hang around as long as they want to.

So we're not going to make any effort to move those thoughts along or to get rid of them.

We're going to in fact be quite disinterested in the thoughts.

They can hang around if they want to,

At some point they'll drift off.

So we're not really interested in what they do.

We'll give them the freedom to do whatever they want for as long as they want.

The content of our thoughts is completely irrelevant to this whole meditation.

So even if they're annoying or negative thoughts,

That's fine.

So what our focus is going to be for this last step is the arrival,

The incoming thoughts,

The new thoughts.

So the invitation is to be as alert as you can be,

Remembering to be light and open rather than focus and concentrate.

So an open and light alertness,

Attention,

And see if you can catch the arrival of any new thought that comes into your mind,

That comes into your awareness.

As if you're shining a bright light into their mind,

You're ready to spot any thought as soon as it arrives.

Really having that attitude of really not caring what the thought is,

Really doesn't matter.

Giving complete freedom for any thought to come along,

Welcoming any thought at all.

Our only intention is to see if we can be alert and catch that thought as it arrives.

Once it's there and it becomes a current thought in the mind,

Then we lose interest.

We're allowed to stay as long as it wants and we're thinking,

We're waiting,

What's the next thought going to be?

So I want to catch the next new thought that comes along.

When that arrives,

What's the next thought?

So always being open and alert to the next thought.

So I'll give you a few moments to practice and experience this.

This is a culmination really of the first 10 steps.

So I'll give you some time for this before we conclude the meditation with the last two steps.

So an easy,

Open awareness,

Alert,

Always looking for the next thought.

That new thought might be noticing that there aren't any thoughts,

Then that becomes your thought and then you wait for the next one.

Once you feel,

Then you follow.

Okay,

So moving on to the final part to conclude the meditation.

This is where we do the relaxation.

And again the first part of the relaxation like the parts for the breath is a practice of the approach we're going to use on the on the brain,

On the thoughts.

So what I'd like you to spend a few moments doing is choosing a part of your body,

Anything from the shoulders down to the toes.

It could be a hand or foot,

An arm or leg.

I want you to pay really close attention to what happens and the experience when you choose to relax a part of your body.

So just notice the process,

Notice what you do,

Notice how it feels to simply relax a part of your body.

A moment to exaggerate the feeling,

The sensation of relaxation by tensing that part of the body first.

Really familiarizing yourself with that experience of the relaxation response in the body when we choose to relax part of the body.

So just do that a few times with real attention and really feeling the sensation of relaxation.

Okay,

So when you're ready I want you to become aware of your face and all the muscles across the face,

Muscles around the jaw,

Around the eyes and forehead.

And relax all those muscles across the face and how does that feel?

How does it feel to allow your face to relax?

Now becoming aware of the top back and sides of the head,

The scalp and the skull and allow this part of your head to relax.

How does that feel?

Now treating the brain exactly the same as any other part of the body allow your brain to relax and how does that feel to have a relaxed brain?

Be aware of your whole head and face,

The skull and the brain.

Allow your whole head to relax.

How does that feel?

Feeling that relaxation response throughout the face,

The head and the brain,

Just as in any other part of the body.

Let's allow the breath to flow freely through your relaxed body and allow your thoughts to flow freely through your relaxed brain.

Free flowing thoughts,

Free flowing breath and the whole body including the brain enjoying that relaxation response,

That feeling of relaxation and letting everything flow freely.

Let's allow the breath to flow freely through your relaxed body and allow your thoughts to flow freely through your relaxed brain.

Let's allow the breath to flow freely through your relaxed body and allow your thoughts to flow freely through your relaxed brain.

Let's allow the breath to flow freely through your relaxed body and allow your thoughts to flow freely through your relaxed body.

Reviews

I enjoyed listening to the steps towards sleep.
This meditation was like a countdown easing me to sleep 😴
Thank you 🙏 so very much 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡