Letting Sleep Come To You ✨ Guided Meditation For Insomnia

[00:00:10] Good evening, Sleep Wave. I'm your host, Karissa, and tonight I have such a healing meditation for you. Before we get into meditation zone though, I wanted to say a heartfelt thanks for all the great reviews lately. If you are loving the show, it really helps when you share a review about it so more folks can find us. We are always so honored to hear how the show is helping you sleep better at night and feel better all day.

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[00:01:32] If you love Sleep Wave and find yourself looking for something else to love, listen to between episodes, let me introduce you to Sleep Escape. Sleep Escape is a beautifully crafted sleep meditation podcast designed to help you relax and drift off effortlessly. With hypnotic meditations, soothing soundscapes, and calming narration, each episode is carefully designed with your sleep in mind. Hosted by a friend of the pod, Tyler. And the best part?

[00:02:01] Sleep Escape offers a variety of episodes to fit your needs. Whether you want a short wind down before bed, or hours of affirmations to keep you in deep sleep through the night. So if you're looking for another show to enhance your bedtime routine, search for Sleep Escape in your favorite podcast player. Sweet dreams. So, confession time.

[00:02:29] A few months ago, despite all that I know about sleep hygiene and all the tips and tricks I have up my sleeve to sleep better, I hit a spell of insomnia. I began to dread going to bed. I was exhausted, dragging myself through the day, only to have my brain ping to full awake mode as soon as my head hit the pillow. I was anxious and wired and feeling adrift.

[00:02:54] As you might be familiar with, when we get stuck in certain patterns, it becomes really hard to change your expectation that things will be different. So, I started with a simple mantra. I don't have to go to sleep. I'm just here to let my body rest. I took the pressure off of myself to fall asleep already and just let myself drift. I thought about the qualities a well-rested person has.

[00:03:21] The ability to be calm, focused, alert, and energetic during the day. I envisioned myself enjoying my work and being efficient and effective. Or running around in the backyard, playing with my son, enjoying our time together and being present. I slowly, gently let myself relax into being relaxed. Not needing to sleep or achieve any outcome, but enjoying the sensation of letting go.

[00:03:52] In short, I was aligning myself with sleep. I did not force it or even expect it on some nights. And to be completely honest, I did this for a number of days, maybe even weeks, before I felt a tangible and consistent shift. But I realized a few weeks later that I felt better. That I no longer dreaded bedtime. That I was sleeping through the night again the majority of the time.

[00:04:18] If you, too, are stuck in a cycle with insomnia, tonight, Billy has created a meditation on being receptive and opening the doors within ourselves to allow sleep to enter. Let's get cozy. The rhythms of the night. The rhythms of our bodies are inseparable from the rhythms of the natural world.

[00:04:48] And try as we may to disconnect from those rhythms, they are an intrinsic part of our being. Sleep is not something you have to chase down and acquire. It's something you can welcome. The night falls gradually and steadily. For some time, the light of the sun casts shadows as the light angles toward the horizon at sunset.

[00:05:17] Glowing warm, golden hues across the surface of the earth. Then the indigo of dusk yields to a canopy of starlight. Our eyes sense the shift in the lights and we move into our own internal night mode. This shift in perspective matters. It softens everything.

[00:05:41] When we stop trying to fall asleep and surrender into this shift, the whole experience changes. We move away from striving and into a confident openness. Now is the moment to embody this transitional reflection that echoes the day itself.

[00:06:09] The mind may be busy as you release the day. Let it be busy. Don't resist it. Enjoy the mind's nimble movements, but don't allow the thoughts to become your state of mind.

[00:06:30] In fact, cultivate a sense of distance between the thoughts that flash on the screen of your awareness and the one who is seeing the show. Find your way into a comfortable... Adjust everything. Pillow, blanket, and the rest.

[00:07:01] Allow plenty of time for this. You can't force sleep to come, but you can create a more ideal set of conditions for it to arrive. This is true for meditation as well. Meditation happens when it happens.

[00:07:27] All we can do is prepare ourselves to receive it. We do this by eliminating potential distractions and by directing our attention in a single direction. This is why the breath is a perfect aid for concentration and, thus, meditation.

[00:07:55] Allow yourself to become curious about the movements of the breath. What if the gentle rise and fall of the torso while you breathe can become supremely fascinating? It really is a marvel.

[00:08:19] Your body knows how to continue the essential process of breathing, with or without your conscious attention. This is why the breath is such a perfect bridge between the conscious waking mind and the unconscious. You can control it with your will, but you don't have to.

[00:08:49] It will just go on breathing, with or without your help. When you become relaxed, the belly will rise and fall effortlessly. Perhaps this is already happening.

[00:09:16] Watch the navel rising on the inhale and falling on the exhale. Breathe slowly and consciously at your own pace for some time.

[00:11:38] Your breath is the focus of your awareness. Watch the breath. Let it do what it will. There's no need to force it.

[00:12:01] If watching your breathing makes you feel that you need to reposition your body at feedback, and find your way into the most comfortable stillness you can, then try to be still.

[00:12:27] It's okay if you ever feel you need to move your body. Just make sure that you are conscious of any movement. No unconscious movement. Notice how the world around you darkens gradually.

[00:12:55] Even the air seems to be more hushed. It enters without fanfare. It just is. Yield into the silence.

[00:13:25] Let your body begin to soften. Let your muscles ungrip. Your breath slow.

[00:13:38] Your thoughts come for some time.

[00:16:05] Bring your attention down to your feet. And notice the soles of the feet. Night releasing. Imagine your feet beginning to glow with a warm light of relaxation.

[00:16:46] Notice your lower legs melting into the tips of your toes.

[00:18:47] Experience what the truth is.

[00:20:45] Night can be paradoxically stimulating. As the external world dims, the internal one flares to light. Your body slows.

[00:21:05] But your mind might flicker with unfinished thought, heightened awareness, even creative energy. Emotions may rise to the surface. Some unfamiliar.

[00:21:34] This is natural. The stillness of night acts like a mirror. It reflects back what was hidden during the night. It reveals beauty. Sometimes discomfort. Sometimes discomfort.

[00:22:01] But all of it is part of the same invitation to witness. And then to let go.

[00:23:49] Think of the stars. They are always there. The only way to see them when the sun disappears. Likewise, there may be thoughts, memories, or feelings that only appear when your mind becomes quiet.

[00:24:11] Just as the darkness of the sky allows the stars to draw their constellations. When we become enthralled with these thoughts, it can bring on insomnia. But when we simply observe them, they signify the first threshold of rest.

[00:24:40] The open door through which sleep may enter. We often think of sleep as something we must pursue, as if it is a distant shore. And we are swimmers fighting the current to reach it. But the truth is simpler and far more beautiful.

[00:25:09] Sleep comes when we stop swimming. And allow ourselves to just float on the buoyancy of present moment. In life, too, we imagine that we must fight against the currents to achieve our goals.

[00:25:35] But be still, and opportunities will flow to you. Surrender and drift in the calm waters of your conscious presence.

[00:26:10] Breathe.

[00:27:22] There's no single moment to mark the change of when dusk deepens into night. In the same way, your wakefulness softens into sleep gradually. There is no milestone to reach. No finish line.

[00:27:49] If there were, you wouldn't know when you crossed it. No one knows the precise moment that they fall asleep. There's not a switch that cuts off all at once.

[00:28:11] There's only the slow, delicious fading of alertness into something deeper. Feel your breath soften you into the night. With each exhale, the inhale takes care of itself. Simply yield to the need.

[00:28:44] As you breathe, let the breath breathe you. There is nothing left to do. There is nowhere to go. You are simply in the transition.

[00:30:23] Once again, scan your body from head to toe. And release any tension that may be accumulating as you follow your breath. If your mind becomes active again, let the thoughts pass through your awareness like a wave. Something beyond thought appears.

[00:30:52] And you merge with that. Space beyond thoughts is another threshold for sleep.

[00:32:06] Many times in our waking life, too, we believe that our focused, voluntary, deliberate actions are the only way to ensure we will be okay.

[00:32:25] We tend to tighten, strive, monitor everything, put off rest to be in constant motion because we see stillness as risky. It's the feeling that if you don't do it, nothing will happen. Or worse, something bad might.

[00:32:53] Some of the most profoundly meaningful movements in life can't be forced, but must be simply received. Healing, sleep, growth, transformation have an effortless progression that is only impeded by too much grasping.

[00:33:24] It's not that you are giving up action altogether. Even inaction is a kind of action, in that it too will yield some outcome. The difference lies in the attitude of surrender and flow.

[00:33:49] It's letting go of the illusion that we must micromanage everything. Even something as natural as sleep. In that state of alignment, actions happen spontaneously and without unnecessary tension.

[00:34:14] In that state of alignment, they fall from you like ripe fruit falls from a tree. In just the same way, sleep falls over you even more abundantly as you trust and soften. Like water flows into empty spaces.

[00:34:44] Open yourself up to receiving the gift of sleep.

[00:36:32] This is fundamentally about alignment with the currents of life and allowing yourself to be carried on those currents. They are the same currents that sustain and support the entire universe.

[00:36:59] Not every good thing must be seized with urgency or else it will slip away. Instead, begin to notice how much we miss when we are too busy chasing to notice what is already here, here, here.

[00:37:26] Allow these affirmations to resonate within you as you let your breath rise and fall to receiving.

[00:38:17] Receiving. To chase it.

[00:38:49] To find me. There's no need to chase it. Inhale. There's no need to chase it.

[00:39:20] Opportunities flow to me. I don't have to anxiously strive. Inhale. Opportunities flow to me. I don't have to anxiously strive. Inhale. Opportunities flow to me.

[00:39:54] To anxiously strive. Inhale.

[00:40:46] You can't force sleep, but you can create a heart. Feel free to meet the moment when it arrives. Feel free to meet the moment when it arrives. Because you are already present within yourself.

[00:41:18] Let your breath remind you that you are. Let your stillness reveal that you are already being present.