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My Sleep Aid [Part 1] |
Read through the description of each step below fully before trying it yourself. As you're reading, please keep in mind that you're reading a transcript of what was originally an audio recording.
STEP 1
Close your eyes now and relax. Let go and feel gravity pulling the weight of your body down. Realize that this exercise is the most important thing you have to do at this moment, and that you can simply let go of any other thoughts that come into your mind. Remember the important role that sleep plays in renewing your body, and the positive impact it has on your life. It makes sense that nothing matters more at this moment than the activity at hand, learning to prepare your mind for deep and restful sleep. If any emergency should arise, you will be able to attend to it with full awareness. Feel your body relax as you let any other concerns just float away.
Now, please focus your attention inwardly, into the feelings and sensations within your body. For this exercise, I would like you to choose any one particular area of your body to place mental awareness on. For demonstration purposes, I'll assume you're starting in the neck/shoulder/or head area. But if you've already gone through this exercise once, you can really start in any area of your body that you wish - perhaps in your head, neck, chest, abdomen, arms or legs. Eventually you'll probably choose to start with areas where you notice significant physical sensations accumulated, but for now anywhere will do. Mentally observe that space you've chosen with your minds eye, and notice the sensations there.
Just observe whatever energies are there. Notice that when you place your awareness on this area of your body, it's NOT just empty space -- You can feel your body, the sensations or the energies within it.
If you have any strong emotions within you right now, and if they're in the area of the body that you've chosen, note that every emotion has an energy, or a physical sensation that underlies it. It is that physical sensation, not the emotion, that we're interested in here. The energies you find may have shape to them, such as "ball-ish" or "rod-like", they may have density, such as lightness or solidness, or a certain feel such as tingling, aching, heaviness, constriction, and so on. The possibilities are endless and will be unique to you.
Just observe whatever is there, You don't need to force anything to be created. Even if you find yourself becoming frustrated or rushed because you don't notice anything, then that energy, the one underlying the feeling of frustration or rush is a good one to transfer your awareness to. Feeling nervous about not getting enough sleep, or worried about something you have to do later? Then that body sensation, the one underlying the nervousness or worry within you, is what you can put your awareness on. Do you feel anger about the noise of a dog barking outside that is preventing you from relaxing? Then it's that energy, the one underlying the anger, that you can focus on. On the other hand, the sensation you find might be completely non-emotional in nature.
Either way, just remember, it's the physical sensation and physical characteristics that we're looking at. Please take a moment to find and observe the energy in your chosen body area for a couple minutes.
[Pause]
Try to keep yourself as an outside observer of the energy by holding your observing consciousness somewhere around the center of your head. This will help avoid going into or becoming immersed in the energy that you've found. Make the energy the focus of your outside observing awareness.
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You may initially find this inward focusing to be very uncomfortable, depending on your current energies. Most of us have unconsciously done just about anything to avoid feeling discomfort within ourselves. We get in the habit of ignoring or suppressing the uncomfortable sensations within by engaging in a plethora of external activities that we think will make us feel better -- or we try to medicate the feelings away. But it is truly by bringing consciousness back to our inner energies that we regain power over them. So try using this time right now to consciously be with your energy.
Please place your attention back on the energy you're spending time with, focus on it, and acknowledge it by saying "hello energy". You can speak the words either out loud or in you mind. All that's important is that you mentally project your greeting toward the energy, almost as if it's a separate part of you. Direct your awareness to the energy you're with and try this greeting now - "hello energy"
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Now, continue focusing your concentration on your energy, as if you're LISTENING to it, as if it is speaking to you with the sensations that it radiates. Overcome all tendencies toward avoidance and feel genuine interest in the energy, and in wanting to listen. Listen without analysis, without evaluation, without judgment, and without desire to change the energy. No thought is necessary here. If it helps, think of listening to energies simply as concentrating on and observing them with pure, thought-free, avoidance free, fully interested awareness. Try this now.
[Pause]
Just as a good listener would put all their mental attention on the person they are listening to, you should "listen" to the emotional or physical energy with all your accepting awareness, free of analytical or judgmental thought. Continue doing this for a few more moments.
[Pause]
This exercise very effectively gets you into the present moment, away from thoughts associated with external events, and onto your present moment energies. This pausing of thought has a very calming effect on the mind and is extremely beneficial to the sleep process in and of itself.
The ability to stay focused and listening is like a muscle. The more you practice, the stronger your ability becomes. If you start to lose focus, say something to the energy like "I am with you energy". If you become distracted with other thoughts, don't try to forcefully push them out, as doing so only gives them the additional energy of your attention. Instead, let them be there and just let them effortlessly float away or not. They'll lose strength as you concentrate on the energy you're with. Realize that you are learning how to give your mind a rest from thought, preparing your body for the sleep state, and that being with your energies is more important than any thought or associated external situation at this time. Just turn your awareness back to the energy and say something like "Feeling, I am with you now. There is nothing more important right now than being with you. I want to know you."
STEP 2
For the energy you are currently listening to, try now to describe the physical characteristics of that energy. Reflect your observations TO the energy, as if you are speaking to it. You can do this either out loud or in your mind.
Some examples might be:
These are just some examples. You will obviously have your own unique energies, and therefore unique descriptions. Each person's internal sensations will vary, and can range from physical ones like aching within muscles, to emotional ones like the butterfly feeling in a nervous stomach, to pressure and tension in your head, or the heaviness of depression throughout your body. If the sensation you find is of an emotional nature, just observe it as the energy. Feel the anger, nervousness, frustration, anxiety or other emotion as the energy it is. Try to avoid placing verbal labels like "nervousness" or "anger" on energies. This type of identification requires an intellectual evaluation that interferes with complete attentive listening to the pure energy. DO NOT get caught up in trying to interpret your energies or associate them with external events. The key right now is to observe and listen to the energies, and the describing process is an integral part of this. You can use words like "tingling vibration", "smooth energy", dense, throbbing, light, fuzzy, heavy, like a rock, tightness, and so on. Try to come up with as many descriptive words as possible, including shape, density, size, feel, or even color. Your description does not have to be exact - there's no need for perfection - just reflect the first observations that come to your mind. Please take a couple minutes to try this- tell the energy your observation of it's physical characteristics.
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In this energy describing process, you are reflecting back to your inner energies your understanding of them. The process of reflecting helps maintain mental focus and encourages thought-free observation, with no intention on "fixing" or altering the energy. By focusing on the physical characteristics, you are limiting the need for the intellectual activity that interpreting energies into feeling words would require. This is the best way to stay focused on listening to the pure energy.
If you would like to spend some more time with your current energy, please feel free to do so now.
[Pause]
Please keep in mind that the goal of this process is to still your mind, and increase tolerance for all emotions. While the method does have an amazing capacity to eventually dissolve the uncomfortable overwhelming nature of certain body energies, an elimination of unpleasant feelings should not be the objective of your interaction with body energy. To have a mental goal of dissolving your feelings will defeat much of this processes powerful benefits. You are learning to be with your energies, and in doing so eliminating the magnification of discomfort that is caused by avoidance. So do not try to empty yourself of emotions. Although they may currently be in a state of disarray due to mismanagement, they are still in fact your energy, which will soon be transformed into inner strength. But for now your objective should be to achieve acceptance and appreciation of your energies, whatever they may be.
Turn your attention back to the energy you were spending time with. Affirm your acceptance of the energy's presence by repeating the following phrases to it. As you say these sentences, project the genuine feeling to the energy. Although the words will help in the beginning, it's not actually the words, but the attitude that you are channeling to your energy that is important. Please repeat:
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Repeat this process for each area of your body, especially for those areas where you notice significant accumulated energies. You might move your awareness from your head and your eyes, to your face and jaw, down into your neck.. Then into your shoulders and back, inside of your chest and abdomen area.. To your left arm.. Your right arm.. Down to your left thigh, calf, and foot.. Then your right leg.. and so on. The order doesn't really matter. I tend to start first with the areas where I notice the most accumulated or significant energies, but that's just a personal preference.
Please take a few minutes to move your awareness around like this. Perform the listening process anywhere you find accumulated energy.
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Finally, expand your awareness so that it encompasses your entire body - the overall feeling in your body. This may be the collection of all the individual feelings, or it may simply be a currently prominent emotional energy. It may be strong or subtle. Whatever it is, perform the listening process with your overall body sensation. You don't even need to think about moving your awareness around. Just bring consciousness to the entire body energy. Take as much time as you'd like to try this, and continue when you're ready.
[Pause]
This overall process of moving awareness among different individual sensations, alternated with the overall body sensation, is what you should start doing either before bedtime or while going to sleep. IT'S GOING TO HELP TREMENDOUSLY IN SLOWING THOUGHT PROCESSES AND REDUCING THE EMOTIONAL OVERWHELM THAT CAUSES ADRENALINE AND RESTLESSNESS.
If you sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with your mind racing, thinking about something -- even if you don't know what the cause is -- put your awareness on that restless feeling and mentally be with it, know that you can handle it as you observe it. Do this for as long as you need. There may even be an underlying fear that you won't be able to get rid of the restlessness. If that's the case, then be with that fear sensation - make that energy the target of your observation. Remember that your goal in learning this process is not to dissolve adverse emotions, but in bringing your conscious awareness to inner energy, you'll notice anxiety, stress, anger, frustration, and other adverse emotions becoming less overwhelming, and they'll have less impact on your sleep. These benefits may appear after using the technique just a couple times. And the more you practice, the greater the benefits become.
I recommend working on this technique for at least a few nights before moving on to the next section. This is the most important phase of the process, and moving forward too quickly will probably result in not extracting the full benefit of the program. In fact, many people are able to induce an anxiety free, worry-free, and sleep-conducive mindset using this section alone.
If you find any success during your initial week or so of using the above exercise, check out MC2Method.com for a downloadable audio program which expands on the technique. Either way, please do stick with the above process until you are completely comfortable in using it to feel, observe, and get in present moment congruence with your inner energies. Just get yourself to a point where you are able to place full accepting, thought free awareness on your energies for at least a few minutes without difficulty. As you're lying in bed at night, move awareness around your body and practice the technique as described. As much as possible, keep inner dialog and thought out of the process. Let sleep come if it will, but do not try to force it. Know that both your body and mind are receiving a great amount of rest and renewal simply as a result of this thought free energy awareness technique alone.
That's another wonderful thing about this exercise; it has a renewing effect all by itself. Some people ask whether it's a good idea to read or get up and do something else when they can't sleep. In most cases, my answer is "no" (unless you're simply not tired). The reason you're trying to sleep is because you want to rest your mind and body. Even if you happen to get no sleep at all, when practicing the methods you're learning now, you will still be re-energizing your body and renewing your mind even if you lie awake all night doing it. In learning this process, you've eliminated the need to worry about loss of sleep. So do not try to force yourself to sleep. Such mental strain creates an inner frustration that releases stress hormones which only interfere with the process. As you do this exercise, be like a child, not worrying about whether you'll fall asleep or not. Adopt an attitude of acceptance and contentment with whatever happens, and just let it come. Know that your body is an amazingly strong system and you'll still be able to function fine even if you receive less sleep than you'd like, especially now that you have this energy awareness exercise to perform while in bed. Ironically, it's exactly such letting go and non-resistance that will bring the sleep you desire.
NEXT PAGE: My Sleep Aid [Part 2]