Jessica Porter (0:11)

Hi, everybody, I'm Jessica Porter, and welcome back to Sleep Magic, a podcast where I help you find the magic of your own mind, helping you to sleep better and live better. Thank you everyone for being here. You know, I haven't been in the booth for a couple of weeks, and it always feels really nice to come back and connect with you guys. And we've been hearing from you, getting suggestions and feedback and reviews. It seems like when this show really resonates with someone, lots of good things start happening. So that's great to hear. We heard from someone who calls herself Peacock Princess. I love that she says sometimes she just can't sleep and then she thinks, oh, I can listen to Sleep Magic. And it always works. We heard from Johanna or Johanna, and she wants to hear about a story about the dinosaurs or the Jurassic period. I think that's a great idea. We'll see what we can do. Someone named Lollipop Pop said that Sleep Magic really helped during finals period in high school. Amen. I'm so glad we could help and I hope you got good grades. So if you are enjoying this show, thank you so much for spreading the word to your friends and your family. It helps us to keep growing, and so many people these days need help sleeping. And know that by listening regularly, you're also spreading the vibe of this show. Relaxation is powerful and it sort of speaks for itself. Before we get started, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors who make this free content possible. This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. Between two factor authentication, strong passwords, and a VPN, you try to be in control of how your info is protected. But many other places also have it, and they might not be as careful. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats. If your identity is stolen, they'll fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast for 40% off terms apply. Hey, Sleep Magic listeners. If you enjoy the stories and sessions we do here, you might also like having another gentle voice in your sleep routine. There's a podcast I think pairs beautifully with Sleep Magic. It's called Sleepy, and it's hosted by Otis Gray. Each week, Otis reads classics in a soft, steady voice to help you fall asleep. You'll hear stories like the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Thumbelina, and the Mark on the Wall. Beautifully told, calming reads to soothe your mind at bedtime. Sleepy is a lovely companion to what we do here, something you can turn on when A peaceful, familiar story feels just right. You can listen to Sleepy on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts new bedtime stories every week. Okay, so tonight, letting go of other people's anger. A listener recently requested an episode, sort of along these lines. She mentioned that before she goes to sleep at night, she sometimes bristles against the negative energy she experienced as a kid. Like the anger that was in her childhood. Household judgments, yelling, they sort of come back to her as she relaxes. And I totally get that. When we don't grow up in the safe or warm environments or environments where safety feels intermittent, we tend to be in protection mode a lot of the time and experience hypervigilance, which means we're tensing up in order to protect ourselves from or deflect that negative energy. And then at night, when we're asked to relax, all that stuff we've been protecting ourselves from seems to sort of come knocking at the door, even though it's no longer a part of our current lives. So getting personal here. For much of my life, I was afraid of people getting mad at me, specifically yelling at me. I grew up between my mother and father's homes. They split up when I was really young. And while my mother was naturally very soft and protective, my dad, who was in his mid-30s and had never had any sisters, well, he didn't really have a soft touch with little girls. He wasn't abusive or anything. But to me, a very little person at that time, he seemed big and loud. And when his temper flared, as tempers do, it freaked me out. So later, as an adult, when tempers began to rise in any room, I would contract, sort of hide or do anything I could to reduce the emotional temperature in the room. Later in life, I realized that I was so afraid of people getting angry at me that I'd sort of designed my life around that fear and that it had inadvertently become the rudder of my boat as I steered away from anger again and again. But that wasn't necessarily the way I wanted my boat to sail, simply away from the anger of others. I wanted it to navigate toward my goals and my dreams, regardless of how others felt about me or anything else. And then as I was getting really conscious of this pattern and beginning to work on it, well, the universe basically served it up on a platter for me, as it often does. It was during a summer in la, and we were experiencing a heat wave. Well, a heat wave in sunny Southern California can be really, really hot. And it was. I felt like a baked potato in an oven and that kind of heat simply puts pressure on the human organism. Short fuses get even shorter. And in the period of about a week, right in this sliver of time when I was noticing my fear of being yelled at, four perfect strangers, all of the men screamed at me. And I mean screamed. I had cut them off in traffic or was going too slow or didn't shut the door of my car quickly enough, whatever. I think I was actually wrong in maybe one of four circumstances. But the temperatures were so high, people were blowing left, right, and center. And these strangers basically lost their minds at me for no real reason. And I remember thinking, here it is. People are yelling at me. My biggest fear, here it is. And on one occasion, the person's yell passed right through my body like a bolt of lightning. And I thought, this is my greatest fear. And I'm standing here on the street, and I'm okay, I'm still here. I know that here at Sleep Magic, we're creating a safe cocoon inside of you. I want you to feel safe and relaxed inside yourself as your inner self becomes a sort of sanctuary. And that's fantastic and very, very healthy. But no matter what, we all still relate to the outside world, especially during the day. And that inner sanctuary opens and interacts with the world and feels the impact of other people. And I guess what I'm suggesting is instead of girding against it, we just let the energy flow through us, just like the sounds when you listen to Sleep Magic. They flow in and they pass through and they take you even deeper. Other people's feelings are their business, coming from them, and that's it. You may want to hear them or learn from them, but they're not yours, and there's no reason to hold them or gird against them. So if you've experienced a turbulent environment at any point in your life, or received lots of criticism or yelling, and you're unconsciously repeating it to yourself or protecting yourself from it, we're going to relax into it tonight and just let it move through you and out of you, because it's over. Today is over. Last year is over. The energy that's been beating at your door can be relaxed into and released. And by opening to the energy instead of girding against it, we open to our deeper selves, our inner beings. So tonight, we let go of all that stuff, and we relax into the infinite. So get yourself into a safe and comfortable position, and let's begin. Allow your eyes to close easily and gently and bring your awareness to your breathing. It Feels so nice to allow your awareness to rest on the breath. And the awareness doesn't rest anywhere for too long. In some Buddhist traditions, they call the conscious mind a drunken monkey with a scorpion bite. But here at Sleep Magic, as we relax the body, the awareness slows down. The conscious mind slows down. And as you bring it home to the breath, just invite it to slow down just a bit. Good. Now I'd like you to bring your awareness up into your eyelids. And just imagine for a moment that your eyelids are really relaxed, really heavy, as you imagine that they become heavy. And now I'd like you to accept the suggestion that your eyelids are. Are so heavy that they will not open. Now, of course, you could open them if you wanted to, but we're gonna pretend that you can't. So now I'd like you to test your eyelids to make sure they won't open by wiggling your eyebrows. Just give them a little tug as your eyes remain closed. Perfect. As you go deeper and deeper into relaxation. And this wonderful heavy feeling around your eyes moves down now down your face. Allow the heaviness to just spill down your cheeks, moving down to the muscles of your jaw, allowing your jaw to relax. Relax. It feels so nice to allow your face to feel heavy. Heavy. And now you allow your entire head, your skull, to feel heavy, heavy. Sinking into the pillow, going deeper and deeper. As that wonderful relaxation around your eyes now moves back into your brain. Imagine a warm mist of relaxation is taking over every single cell of your brain. And your brain is soaking in relaxation. As you go deeper and deeper. And all mental tension has disappeared. As the warm mist of relaxation moves down into your neck now down into your shoulders. Your shoulders are softening and releasing. And all of the responsibilities you carry on those shoulders have fallen to the floor. The responsibilities you feel to other people, it's okay to let them go as you sleep. They fall into the floor, and they will be there tomorrow morning and you can pick them up again. But for right now, your only responsibility is to yourself and this wonderful, warm sanctuary inside of you as you take yourself deeper and even deeper as a mist of relaxation moves down into your arms now. And your arms are feeling nice and heavy, Just comfortable and relaxed and heavy. The day is done, and their work is over. As the mist of relaxation moves down into the palms of your hands, into your fingers. Your fingers are feeling heavy, heavy and relaxed. Good. And you may be hearing sounds going on around you in your environment. But from this moment on, no sound will disturb you in any way. Because the Sounds are moving through you, taking you deeper and deeper into relaxation. So bring your awareness to any sounds that may be going on around you right now, and let them take you deeper as the sound of my voice also takes you deeper. And soon the sound of my voice may sound far away or detached, and that's good. You will continue to listen from a deeper place as you drift and float and dream. Now the mist of relaxation is moving down into your chest, moving down along your spine, all the way down deep into your belly. And your pelvis is feeling very, very heavy on the be the muscles of your lower back softening. Your buttocks are relaxing, and even muscles you may hold unconsciously during the day in your belly, letting go as your breath deepens. And the mist of relaxation is naturally flowing down into your legs now, all the way down deep into your feet, down deep into your toes as you go deeper and deeper. Imagine you are walking along the bank of a quiet river. It's late afternoon, but the sun is still warm and the air is soft. The river is running beside you, burbling in its own language, and a gentle breeze moves the grass on the banks of the river so gently, almost imperceptibly. But as you go deeper and deeper into relaxation, you're noticing the subtle details. The river winds through the landscape like a beautiful ribbon of water, flowing in slow, steady curves. In some places its surface is glassy and reflective, and in others, it burbles softly over rounded stones, creating a quiet the water is clear and cool. The grass on the banks of the river is dotted with wildflowers, swaying ever so gently. You feel patches of soft mud moss underfoot, like nature's cushions, and notice the smooth stones in the river, worn by centuries of current. An old willow tree leans towards the water, its long green tendrils brushing the surface. Its roots curl into the bank like fingers, birds, and its branches call out, and their sounds take you deeper and deeper. You lie down on the grass near the water's edge, and you feel the river's energy, quiet yet alive, moving beside you. It's a river of release, flow of freedom. And as you settle into the grass, you begin to relax even more deeply. And as you go deeper, you're feeling a kind of unwinding, of letting go. Not just of today's tensions, but of old tensions, old hurts, old criticisms you've carried like shadows through the years. They are old vibrations that were never really yours. And they're leaving now, evaporating, drifting out of you like mist, dissolving into the earth. And taken by the river. Gone. Gone forever. And in this quiet that remains, your inner being is expanding, opening naturally and easily, like a flower in the sun. This vast, deep presence inside of you that is you steady, loving, expanding. And it feels so good to expand as the water of the river continues and your body goes deeper and deeper into relaxation. And now, across the river, on the opposite bank, people are arriving. These are people from your life. Family, co workers, strangers from the past. People you've interacted with, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. And as you look more closely at them, you see a tightness in their brows, a tension in their bodies. You notice that each one of them is caught in their own thoughts. And some of them are carrying heavy clouds of judgment, fear or worry. And each one of them is subject to their own reality and the tension of their own minds. They look tight and contracted, but because you are across the river, you feel detached. The river is a soft, natural boundary between you and the people. And you realize that although you live in the same world, you have different inner realities. You realize that you are in charge of your inner world, and they are in charge of theirs. And now some of them are getting frustrated, even angry. A few of them are shouting. But the more intense they become, the more relaxed you are becoming. The more the tempers flare, the deeper you are going into relaxation. Your reality begins with your inner being. And you understand now that their words and their judgments and their yelling, those things were never about you. They are simply extensions of their own discomfort. And they are in charge of their own inner beings. As you relax, going deeper and even deeper, letting everything flow through you. No matter how anyone else feels, I relax. As tension arises around me, I go deeper and deeper into relaxation. Everyone is in charge of their own inner being. No matter how anyone else feels, I'm allowed to relax. And as tension arises around me, I go deeper and deeper into relaxation. Everyone has their own inner being. And now you notice something wonderful happening. All the people on the other side of the river are lying down on the grassy banks. One by one, they are softening and relaxing. Their breathing slows and their thoughts quiet. And in their relaxation, their tension is melting away. All the harshness is disappearing, and the negativity floats away. And from the space of their own relaxation, their inner beings are rising and expanding, just like yours. And as your inner being continues to expand beyond the river, you feel a connection. Not from mind to mind, not through words or stories or even feelings, but from essence to essence, core to core. You are all connected. The sun has gone down and the stars are twinkling above. You allow your inner being to contract just enough and you feel a gentle tiredness in your body, a peaceful, satisfied fatigue. You wave goodnight to everyone across the river and walk slowly into the forest where you find a wood cabin nestled among the trees. It's dark now but lanterns hang from hooks by the door and glow with a soft amber light guiding you inside. You step through the doorway. The walls are paneled in warm honey colored wood and a stone fireplace holds the glowing embers of an earlier fire. Its warmth is lingering in the air. In the corner is a bed, low and wide with soft pillows and a cozy down comforter folded back inviting you to rest. There is a window just above the bed and it opens to the river and you hear the water as it takes you deeper and deeper. You lie down in the bed, pull the comforter over you. You turn your face to the open window. Moonlight touches the wooden beams and the sound of the river moves right through you as you drift and float and dream. Sam.