Hi, welcome to this seven day sleep challenge. Each day, you'll receive a short teaching like this one that will help prepare you for sleep and then a corresponding meditation that will help you transition into sleep. We'll be exploring different tips and practices to help settle your mind, relax your body, and help cultivate the inner stillness that will help you transition into a night of deep and restorative sleep. In today's session, we're going to explore the importance of not trying to sleep. Now, this may seem counterintuitive because I'm sure you're listening to this because you're trying to fall asleep.

You might be frustrated that you haven't been able to fall asleep. And more than anything, you want to find some calm and stillness that can allow you to get restoration. So doesn't it make sense that we would try to fall asleep? Well, I'm sure you've also experienced the tension and agitation that can come when we're frustrated by not being able to sleep. We settle ourselves in, we get relaxed, and then the mind seems to be awake. And our usual response is, Come on, mind, settle down.

It's time to sleep. Why can't you relax? What's wrong with you? Does that resonate? And what happens in those moments? Well, at least for me, it's more agitating. It's like adding more noise to an already noisy system. It doesn't get us anywhere. And if anything just makes us feel more awake.

So the idea we're going to explore today and take into our meditation is what would it be like to just create the conditions for letting go, for being at ease, still, aware of what's happening, without trying to force the sleeping process. And instead allow that to happen organically as a result of a mind and body that has the space to be at ease, to let go, to not have to do anything or force anything. It might be a new idea for you, but see if you can start to feel some of the ease that might come with that. Maybe you don't need to try so hard. What if your only job was to simply be, to notice what is present, what is arising and to let the falling asleep piece happen on its own? So if you haven't already, you can settle into your sleeping posture, getting cozy under the covers, and we'll transition into our sleeping meditation.

I look forward to being on this journey with you. Let's begin.