Hello,
Dear one,
And welcome.
My name is Sadhu Simone.
It's such an honor and a joy to be your guide in tonight's practice.
So perhaps you are already laying down in bed.
If you're not,
I invite you to get cozy with keyword intentionality and grace.
Even if you are laying in bed,
Invite intentionality and grace.
And as you get comfortable and cozy and ready to have an amazing,
Refreshing night of sleep,
Setting us up for an incredible day,
I invite you to,
When you're ready,
Gently close your eyes.
And then I invite you to bring to mind an intention.
An intention is something that you want to welcome more of into your life today.
And when we bring our intention and attention together at that beautiful intersection of clear,
Sharp attention and clear,
Sharp,
Heart-based intention,
Beautiful,
Incredible,
Magical things can happen.
So you may be saying,
My intention is to have a restful night of sleep.
It could be that simple.
Or my intention is to welcome more joy into my life.
Or my intention is to become more creative.
Whatever it may be,
Just get clear on your intention.
Intention for our practice.
And now we're going to do a breathing technique.
And if you are a yogi,
You probably practice a variation of this.
This is just the left nostril.
So I invite you to bring your right hand and close your right nostril.
And we're going to breathe in and out of the left nostril to really bring relaxation and ease into our mind and body.
So for this practice,
We're just breathing in deeply through the left and out deeply through the left.
OK,
So we're not switching nostrils.
We're just doing in and out of the left.
This is an extremely potent practice to immediately relax the nervous system.
So let's do it.
Breath in.
Rest your hand where it feels most comfortable.
And then take a close look at your mind.
What is it like inside?
Do you perhaps notice a difference from how you're feeling before you started the practice?
Or maybe you notice a difference from how you felt earlier in the day.
And maybe that feeling has lingered around and you've become entangled with it all day.
And with this breath,
You maybe notice just a slight change.
Enough to notice.
Or maybe nothing at all.
That's OK,
Too.
And then using the same attention to look around in the mind,
In your mental landscape.
Maybe you are still holding on to something that happened today.
Maybe you are still replaying something in your mind that happened earlier today.
Maybe you're holding on to a mini grudge.
Maybe you're still holding on the tight grip on something that's happened.
So now I invite you to really recognize with the foundational truth.
One that we so often overlook.
We keep replaying our days in our minds.
In hopes of seeing something different.
In hopes of changing what happened.
So I invite you,
Dear one,
To stop trying to fix the past.
Stop trying to fix what happened.
We can only do better now.
And in this choice to relax into this meditation and relax into sleep,
We can do better tomorrow.
So I invite you to whisper it in your mind.
A revised version of the serenity prayer.
I have made peace with the things that I cannot change.
I have made peace with the things that I cannot change.
I have the courage to change the things that I can.
I have the courage to change the things that I can.
And I have the wisdom to know the difference.
And I have the wisdom to know the difference.
And a powerful way to awaken wisdom,
Which is one of the qualities of our hearts,
One of the innate qualities of our very own hearts,
Is to rejoice in our lives.
Rejoice on all of your virtuous good deeds.
Good deeds from today.
Think back.
Gave a nice tip to your barista.
Or you gave a five-star rating to your Uber.
Or you opened the door for somebody that needed help.
Or you held the elevator a few moments to somebody who was coming in.
Maybe you called a friend.
Or you returned your mother's call.
Perhaps you picked up a piece of trash from the subway platform.
Or you gave a compliment to a stranger.
Using this intention to awaken our hearts to all the virtuous,
The good deeds that we've exercised today with our mind,
With our actions,
With our words.
So if you can spend the next few moments just tracing back and recognizing all the ways that goes unseen,
That we really exercise our best qualities throughout the day.
We're normally so hooked on all the negativity,
On all the ways that things didn't go how we wish them to go.
So in tonight's practice,
We're really exercising our innate ability to be happy for ourselves.
For all the virtuous,
Beautiful,
Healing ways that we exercise our best qualities.
So think back.
Even if you held a positive thought towards somebody in the subway or at the office.
Sprinkling your day with the qualities of your heart.
And if your attention gets pulled away,
Just invite it back.
We're only practicing in this way just for another moment here.
Just invite it back and continue to trace all the beautiful ways that you've exercised your best qualities.
And as we start to bring this practice into a close,
I invite you to wish that all people everywhere,
Just like you and I,
May have a restful,
Healing night of sleep.
May these wishes from your very own heart reach all people everywhere.
So you may visualize these wishes on a spiritual megaphone reaching all people everywhere.
Thank you so much for your practice.
I'm sending you love.
Good night and sweet dreams.
