From Stressed To Rest: Grounded Sleep Podcast #18

Hey,

Friend.

Welcome back to the Grounded Sleep Podcast.

Go ahead and turn off the lights,

Get in your PJs,

And get under the blanket,

Because tonight we're going from being stressed to rest.

I know there's a lot going on on the planet right now.

There's a lot of pain and suffering and intense energy.

And so,

None of us are inoculated from that.

I'm sure you can feel it inside your body.

And so for tonight's meditation,

As we go to sleep,

We're going to release some of that stress,

Hopefully all of that stress,

And drift off into a really nice,

Deep sleep.

Let's jump into it.

And by into it,

I mean into your bed.

So close your eyes if you haven't.

And notice maybe you haven't paid attention to your breath at all today.

Maybe you've been breathing very shallowly or very fast.

And as you close your eyes,

Can you start to slow down and just deepen your breath?

As you do that,

Just simple exercise of slowing the breath down,

You might already notice your stress levels just come down a bit.

So tonight we're going from stress to rest.

And perhaps you lower that stress level by 10% just by breathing a bit slower.

And perhaps you lower that stress level another 20% just by noticing anywhere in your body that you're holding on to stress.

And wherever you notice it,

I want you to just breathe into that place.

If it's in your stomach or your shoulders or your head or your lower back,

Just take a few nice deep breaths right into that area and relax those muscles.

As you do that,

Just recognize that your stress level is already coming down 20-30%.

And I know what you're thinking,

Oh,

What's the other 70% David?

Just recognize first that you can consciously relax yourself.

Sink a little bit deeper into your bed.

And now let's get to some of these deeper layers.

I'm willing to bet there's another good chunk of stress here that's related to other people.

Maybe someone you've been arguing with in your mind or replaying something that happened throughout the day.

Perhaps you've been holding on to the stress of somebody around you.

I want you to recognize that there's nothing you could do about that situation right now.

In fact,

The best thing you could do is to get some good sleep.

So I'd like you to imagine kind of out above you,

There's a big hot air balloon.

And you just go ahead and take anybody that comes to mind and you put them on that hot air balloon.

Maybe there's just one person or a whole parade of them.

And if there is a parade lucky you,

You've got a parade for yourself.

Allow whoever comes to mind to gently float out into that hot air balloon.

And not in a negative way,

You're just letting them go.

And let that hot air balloon really fill up.

All the people that have been stressing you out or that you've been worried about.

Just let them go up there.

It's almost like some heaviness comes out of your head or off of your chest as this happens.

And you recognize you don't have to solve anything right now or fix it.

You're just kind of letting all that psychic weight go up into the hot air balloon.

And then when you're ready,

You just send it on its way.

Maybe one of those people will message you tomorrow and say,

Hey,

I had a dream I was on a hot air balloon.

So weird.

I think you were there.

And perhaps sending them off took another 30% of that stress away.

Maybe you're below 50% now.

And this last chunk of stress is usually the trickiest because it belongs to you.

As you unwind to go to sleep,

I'd like you to notice if there's been anywhere inside yourself you've been trying to control everything.

Perhaps you've been trying to peer into the future again and again,

Trying to figure out how to manipulate things so they happen a certain way.

You might notice that constant effort in trying to make things happen creates stress.

When you think the stress is being created by the thing you're thinking about in the future,

But it's actually being created by you.

And the bright side of that is if you create it,

You can also release it.

So I'd like you to imagine another big hot air balloon.

And this time you could take almost like packages wrapped around your stress or wrapped around that control and just send them up into that hot air balloon.

The beautiful thing about sleep is we can't control it.

While you're asleep,

You have no control.

And so if you go to sleep trying to control,

You won't have a very restful sleep.

Watch those little packages of control and stress just go up into that hot air balloon out of your body.

As you release it,

You notice your body is getting lighter.

And at the same time,

It's deepening into the bed.

Your muscles start to relax.

Your breath softens.

You recognize you're not worrying so much.

As this happens,

You may have released 70 or 80% of that stress already.

So for this last chunk,

I want you to notice inside of your body there's almost like a knob that would control a stove how big or small a fire would be on a stove.

And this particular knob keeps you kind of aware and always protecting yourself.

Always being vigilant,

Worrying,

Calculating your next step.

Recognize that there's no lion outside of your cave here.

You're completely safe in your bed.

And before you drift off into sleep,

You turn this knob down.

You turn that fire on the stove down.

Way down.

Your entire body from head to toe begins to relax.

And now you're actually enjoying letting go.

When you go to sleep,

There's an invitation from silence.

There's an invitation from the deep emptiness of sleep.

It's waiting for you to come rest.

And it asks nothing of you.

It's truly the only time in your life where you don't have to do anything.

You just get to rest.

You slowly drift off into a deep,

Deep night of sleep.

And you've crossed the bridge from stressed to rest.

Let go and sleep.