Welcome to your bedtime sleeping ritual.
If you haven't already,
Get into bed.
Let's simply start by laying on your back,
Propping yourself up with pillows,
Cuddling yourself under your favorite blanket,
Putting a pillow under your knees,
Pillows to your sides,
Whatever makes you feel the most cozy and the most comfortable.
Let's begin there.
As you settle into bed,
Just allow yourself to feel yourself,
Your body,
The blankets,
The pillows,
Noticing the light in the room,
The darkness of the room,
The temperature of the room.
Become aware of your surroundings.
Just enough to feel safe in your surroundings.
And when you feel ready,
If you haven't already,
Close your eyes.
We will be breathing ourselves to sleep tonight.
And so very simply in this moment,
Just become aware of your breath.
Notice how your inhale feels.
Notice how your exhale feels.
If you can,
Breathe through the nose.
If that feels challenging,
Notice that.
And make yourself comfortable still,
If you can,
Breathing in through the nose,
But allowing the exhale to be through the mouth,
If that feels good.
No matter how you are breathing,
Your attention is on the breath,
The sensation of breath in the nose,
The feeling of the rise and the fall of your chest as you breathe.
Allow yourself to become very aware of how you feel now.
Become aware of the thoughts and the emotions that still may be moving within you.
Becoming aware of tension,
Tightness,
Aches or pains in the body.
Allowing all of this to exist for you here and now.
They are not obstacles to sleep.
They are simply how you are here and now.
Tonight,
We'll use our breath to allow ourselves to be in a state of calm.
To calm and quiet the mind.
To smooth out the emotions.
And to allow the body to simply and completely rest,
So you may have a good night's sleep.
Now,
Begin to lengthen your breath.
Let it be easy and gentle.
Simply inhaling until you can't inhale anymore.
And exhaling until you can't exhale anymore.
Imagine the breath rises up the body all the way into the fullness of your heart,
Maybe even the head.
And as you exhale,
The breath goes down,
Down,
Down,
Down to the toes.
You can imagine the fullness of your breath traveling the full length of the body as you inhale,
Bringing that breath all the way up,
As high as it'll go.
And as you exhale,
Bringing the breath all the way down,
As low as it'll go.
Maybe the breath travels from the toes all the way to the tippy-top of your head.
Maybe it travels from the base of the spine all the way to the neck.
What is it for you?
Whatever it is,
It's perfect.
Just allow yourself to be both the witness of your breath,
And the experiencer of how the breath feels.
Inhaling and exhaling,
And a nice,
Long,
Deep breath.
Let this breath be gentle,
Nothing forced,
No tension,
Not forcing your breath to be longer than it naturally is.
Just finding the natural edges of your breath tonight.
And then as you find those edges,
The very top of the breath and the very bottom of the breath,
Begin to pause there.
So,
When you inhale and fill the lungs and feel the edge of that breath,
Just pause with the breath in your body.
Retain,
Floating.
And then as you exhale,
Running all of the breath,
Leave the body.
At the very bottom with empty lungs,
Pause once again.
Not too long.
And then begin again,
Inhaling.
Pausing at the top of that inhale,
Just feeling the quiet space of no breath.
And then exhaling.
Nice and slow and sweet.
And at the bottom of that breath,
Holding before you inhale again.
And inhale.
And do it all again.
Nice,
Long,
Deep breath with a gentle pause at the top and at the bottom.
No rushing,
No tension,
No effort.
How gentle can you be with your breath and yourself?
Let's explore that for another couple of minutes.
Breathing in.
Full,
Gentle breath.
Pausing at the top.
And then breathing out.
Complete,
Gentle exhale.
And pausing at the bottom.
And keep going just like that.
Beautiful.
A gentle counting to the breath.
Intentionally making our exhales longer than our inhales.
So letting that retention in between the breath,
Let that go.
And all together,
Let's inhale.
Exhale completely.
And then measure your breath to the five count.
Inhaling.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
We're going to exhale for nine.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight,
Nine.
Doing your best.
Inhale.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five.
And exhaling.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five,
Six,
Seven,
Eight,
Nine.
Keep going with this ratio.
If the ratio is hard and you're not quite hitting those numbers,
No worries.
Just breathe and allow your exhale to be almost double what your inhale is.
Finding the ratio that works for you without effort,
Without tension.
Maybe it's three and five,
Four and seven.
Find what works for you.
Simply making your exhale longer than your inhale.
And breathe that pattern for another two minutes.
Letting the count of the breath be your focus of mind.
And so when the mind wanders,
That's okay.
Let your focus come back to the counting of your breath.
And the thoughts will begin slowly to become thinner.
The emotions slowly become calmer.
The mind becomes softer.
Beautiful.
And just simply watch your breath.
Notice how the breath is breathing you.
And let your breath be a bridge to the awareness that you have of your body.
Of your mind.
And the energy of emotions moving through the body and the mind.
And now we'll begin to hum ourselves to sleep.
Very simply,
You'll inhale through the nose and hum on your exhale.
The teeth are apart,
The jaw is relaxed,
The lips are together,
The pitch doesn't matter.
Doesn't have to match the pitch you hear with me.
It's your pitch,
It's your sound.
Listen to the sound you create with your humming.
Inhaling.
Hum until you have no more breath.
Until all the breath is breathed out with the sound that you're making.
And then gently inhale through the nose and begin again.
Letting the sound.
Letting the sound and the vibration of your humming capture your attention fully.
Letting the sound of the hum dissolve all the thoughts,
All the words,
Thoughts and thinking.
Humming yourself into a space,
Into a state of quiet.
Humming yourself into softness,
Silence and space.
Keep going.
Beautiful.
Let that humming go.
Notice how quiet you are.
Begin once again to feel your body and notice if it wants to move.
If you're fine here on your back or if you'd like to take your favorite falling asleep position.
Making yourself as comfortable as possible.
As you start to drift into sleep.
Once again come to the awareness of your breath.
Noticing and feeling the body inhale.
And getting heavier and heavier with every exhale.
Inhaling the body and the mind and the emotions quiet and exhale the body sinks deeper into your bed.
Inhale quiet and exhale heavy gentle sleep.
Inhale space,
Silence,
Peace.
Exhale grounded.
Space,
Quiet,
Exhale heavy,
Silent,
Deep sleep.
