Tonight,
As you slip beneath your blankets and feel the edges of the day begin to loosen their grip,
Let yourself drift into a gentle remembering.
A quiet story meant not to teach,
But to soothe.
To help you rest more fully inside yourself.
There is nothing to get right here,
Only softening.
Imagine you are standing before an old stone house at the edge of a wide open meadow.
Dusk is settling,
The sky is a deep blue,
Ripening into stillness.
The house,
Tall,
Simple,
Achingly familiar,
Holds dozens of windows of every shape and size.
This house is your mind.
You step through the wooden door,
And the world hushes around you.
Golden dust moves lazily in the dim light.
There is a sense of being welcomed,
Of returning to a place you have known all your life,
But rarely paused long enough to truly feel it.
You wander into the first room.
A window here is covered in a thin gray film,
And the meadow beyond appears darker,
Heavier,
More dramatic than it truly is.
This is the window where your mind leaps to extremes,
Where one imperfect moment becomes a sweeping conclusion,
Where not-quite-right becomes everything-is-wrong.
You touch the glass.
The film loosens.
The view softens,
Almost with relief.
In the next room,
A window rattles as if a storm were rising outside.
Wind whipping,
Branches thrashing,
But when you lean closer,
You see the sky is quiet.
The storm lives only in the mind's imagining.
This is catastrophizing,
The place where fear paints entire futures before anything has even begun.
You rest your hand on the cool pane.
The storm settles.
You continue moving through the house,
Room by room.
You begin to see how many windows shape your view.
One narrows the world until only a single interpretation exists,
The window of emotional reasoning,
Where whatever you feel becomes unquestioned truth.
One is fogged by unspoken worries,
The window of mind-reading,
Where your mind fills empty spaces with fear.
Another stretches small moments into sweeping narratives,
Overgeneralizing,
Where a single setback becomes a life story.
Then you realize,
With a surprising tenderness,
None of these windows say anything about who you are.
They are simply old patterns of protection,
The mind's way of trying to keep you safe when you are weary,
Uncertain,
Or stretched thin.
As you travel deeper into the house,
Something inside you begins to unclench.
Your breath grows steadier,
Your chest loosens,
And distortions lose their weight.
They become what they always were,
Habits,
Not truth.
At the very back of the house,
You find a small,
Quiet room.
There is only one window here,
Clear,
Still,
Unfiltered.
You sit in front of it.
Outside,
The meadow is bathed in a gentle moonlight nothing added,
Nothing taken away.
Just the world as it is.
This is clarity,
Not forced positivity,
Not fear,
Just what's real.
And in the soft hush of this room,
A deeper truth arises.
The distortions were never you.
They were only windows,
Filters the mind learned long ago.
Clarity has always lived underneath them,
Patient,
Unwavering,
Waiting for your return.
You breathe in slowly.
And you exhale.
And again,
Inhaling slowly.
And a deep exhale.
You allow your body to settle into this steadiness.
And a whisper moves through you,
Simple and true.
When my mind tightens,
I pause.
When I pause,
Clarity returns.
The house softens into darkness.
The windows fade.
And you feel yourself slipping into a deeper,
Safer,
Calm,
Held,
Restored,
Returned to yourself.
Now let us invite this story inward,
Into the tender,
Breathing space of your own life,
So that its clarity can move with you,
Even as you drift into sleep.
In the mind,
Imagine bringing a thought from today into your palms.
Choosing something small,
Something that tugged at you,
Lifted your shoulders,
Shortened your breath.
Hold it as you would hold a pebble you found on a quiet walk,
Lightly,
Curiously,
Without any urge to change it.
Whisper to yourself,
Which window was I looking through?
Allow the question to open softly.
There is nothing to fix here,
Only noticing.
Allow the window to reveal itself.
Does this thought belong to the window of extremes,
Where everything feels all or nothing?
Or the window that forecasts storms before they even arrive?
Or perhaps the window where feeling becomes fact?
Give the answer permission to arise on its own,
As gently as a feather drifting to the earth.
It may come.
It may not.
Both options are welcome.
Place the thought before the clear window.
Set it there in front of the steady,
Untouched glass.
Take a breath.
Ask,
What does this look like when seen with a clearer heart?
Not perfectly clear,
Not unreachably wise,
Just clearer.
Allow the thought to shift even a fraction.
5% is enough for the whole body to feel it.
Feel the shift inside your own body.
Notice what loosens as clarity enters.
Does your chest soften?
Does your jaw release?
Does your breath deepen of its own accord?
Give your nervous system permission to recognize this subtle difference,
This difference between a distorted view and one that is truer,
Kinder,
And more faithful to reality.
Seal this understanding into your being.
Whisper to yourself in the most honest,
Unhurried way.
I step back.
I let the view settle.
Clarity returns.
I have stepped back.
I have let the view settle.
Clarity has returned.
I feel how these words root you,
How they steady you from the inside out,
How they invite you back into trust.
Your breath finds its natural rhythm now.
Your thoughts dim like lights at the end of a long evening.
The house of the mind fades gently behind you.
You are safe to rest.
You are safe to release.
You are safe to drift into sleep knowing this simple truth.
The clear window will meet you again in the morning.
