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Hi, 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. Tonight, building your spirit. We can make ourselves stronger in many ways by exercising, eating better, and by feeding our brains with interesting and valuable ideas.
But there's a really quick and easy way to strengthen our minds, our spirits, our whole selves, and it's by practicing positive thinking. Before we get started, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors who make this free content possible. I know, I know. The power of positive thinking goes in and out of vogue. Lots of more analytical people or scientific types like to dismiss it.
or throw it in the box of witchcraft and wishful thinking. Still, others can go sort of off the rails with positive thinking and like to believe it can solve or prevent everything, and that if we just thought more positively, we'd never have problems. I like to look at it in a slightly different way. They say the mind is a muscle, and that's true in that it needs action and repetition to develop in certain ways.
But I like to think of the mind as more like a light bulb. Its energy is either positive and bright and strong or negative and dim. And where that light bulb goes, your whole life follows. Your health, your ambitions, your relationships, your future. But before we go on, let's take a look at the environment that we're functioning in. Here's the pattern most of us are trained to follow.
Something happens outside of us and we have a reaction to it. That's the pattern. And we think of this pattern as experiencing, quote, reality. Something in our world happens and we react to it. So we're pretty passive in this scenario. Reality is taking place and we're just subject to its dramas being pulled along with the show.
At best, we may develop a type of inner calm that allows us to react less, to be less perturbed by reality. But we're all still in a reactive position. But who is this being inside of us doing the reacting? And what is this being doing before the external event occurs? Just sitting there, waiting for stuff to happen?
Just watching TV or scrolling on social media waiting to be delighted, surprised, or outraged? Well, it can seem that way. But the truth is that the reactor inside of you is the light bulb. And before you react to the outside world, you have a choice. You determine the brightness of that bulb. No one else. No one else has the access to it that you do. You can turn the light bulb all the way up to its maximum brightness
long before the outside world starts throwing its so-called reality at you. Or you can deny that the light bulb is there, let it get dark and dull, and reality will generally, over time, make it dimmer. But if you keep that light bulb bright, not only are you more resilient, you actually begin to create your own reality.
When your mind is bright and positive, your whole being becomes bright and positive. And the outside world begins to align with you, with that brightness. And all it takes is one simple kind of dumb practice. Positive thinking. How cool is that? So tonight we're going to crank up that light bulb. Just for fun. Just because it feels good. So enjoy.
Get yourself into a safe and comfortable position and let's begin. Allow your eyes to close easily and gently. And now just bring your awareness to your breath. No need to do anything conscious with your breath. We're just bringing the awareness to it. Sort of reeling your awareness in like a fishing line. Bringing it back home to the body. Back home to the breath. Good.
If you've been practicing with sleep magic for a while, your body has already begun a cascade of positive chemical releases, muscles relaxing, shifting into the delicious parasympathetic nervous system. Just the sound of my voice and the music behind it and your participation has begun the process. Good.
Now bring your awareness up into your eyelids and allow your eyelids to get nice and heavy. Heavy. So sleepy and comfortable. And now I'd like you to accept the suggestion that your eyelids are so relaxed that they will not open. And you know we're just pretending here, but now that you've accepted this suggestion, I'd like you to test your eyelids to make sure they won't open by wiggling your eyebrows. So give them a little tug. Good. While your eyes remain closed,
Perfect. And now this wonderful relaxation you have around your eyes, let's imagine it moving back into your head like a mist of relaxation being set loose inside your brain. A mist of relaxation moving in and around every single cell of your brain, causing your head to sink further into the pillow.
as it becomes nice and heavy. The muscles of your scalp softening and relaxing. The muscles of your face letting go, resting. As you imagine this mist of relaxation making its way down into your throat, softening, relaxing, releasing your throat. Neck muscles moving down now into your shoulders,
as that mist of relaxation works its way into all the muscles of your shoulders. Letting go, letting go. And all of the responsibilities you carry on those shoulders, responsibilities you feel to your family and friends, responsibilities you feel to your work and to the world at large, responsibilities you carry when you think about the future, and even responsibilities you may feel to the past.
They've all dropped to the floor and you can pick any or all of them up tomorrow morning. For right now, your only responsibility is to yourself as you take yourself deeper and even deeper. As that mist of relaxation moves down your arms and your arms are starting to feel nice and heavy like they're made of marble. As that heaviness moves down into your hands, into your fingers, everything feeling so heavy.
deliciously. As you listen to this recording, you may hear the sounds going on around you. Sounds from within your environment. But from this moment on, any sound that you hear is actually helping you to go deeper and even deeper into relaxation. Bring your awareness to those sounds now and let them take you deeper. Well done. That's using your magic mind.
And you can do this in any environment. As that mist of relaxation moves down now into your chest, imagine that warm mist of relaxation surrounding and supporting your heart, sort of spiraling around your heart, holding as all emotional tension disappears. As that mist moves down further deep into your belly,
softening and relaxing your other internal organs, your pelvis feeling heavy on the bed, the muscles of your lower back and belly, buttocks, relaxing, relaxing. As that mist of relaxation moves down your legs, allow your legs to feel heavy, heavy, like they're made of marble. Their work is done for the day.
as the mist of relaxation moves all the way down into your feet, into the soles of your feet, your toes, everything becoming heavy, heavy, good. Although your body is deeply relaxed, imagine now that you are standing at the top of your staircase of relaxation. There are 10 steps down, and with every step that you take, you will go deeper.
and deeper into this wonderful, wonderful relaxation. And with every number that I say, you'll take one step down, moving down from the top of the stairs down to step number nine, eight. As you go deeper and deeper, seven, six, taking yourself even deeper, four, three, and one. You are standing in front of a door
and on the door are written the words Positivity Room. This is the place inside yourself where you cultivate positive attitude. You don't come here all the time, but it's a place inside of you, in your being, where you feel good and you generate positive thoughts just for fun, just because it feels good. And feeling good
Feels good. So you open the door and enter your positivity room. And spacious. Decorated in just the ways you like. And on one of the walls is a full length mirror. Just allow yourself to stand in front of the mirror for a moment. Notice how you appear tonight. As you step away from the mirror, you notice that there's a big soft cushion.
in the middle of the room. It's the size of a bed, but round and soft and your favorite color. As you lie down on this silky soft enormous cushion, it feels so nice, velvety and luxurious. As you begin your positivity practice, I'm grateful for this cushion for its velvety softness
I'm grateful for the relaxation I'm experiencing lately. As I sink further and further into this cushion, I'm so grateful that my body can relax. Relaxation feels so good. I'm getting really good at relaxing whenever I want to, wherever I want to. I'm grateful that my body
finds balance easily and effortlessly. I'm grateful that my body finds balance again and again, easily and effortlessly. I'm grateful that my body knows how to clean itself, that it releases and lets go of toxins easily and effortlessly. My body has an inner wisdom
And it detoxifies itself. I don't have to tell it or guide it. My body takes care of itself. I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful that my body heals itself. Every single cell of my body contains its own ancient wisdom and knows itself.
How to heal itself. I'm so grateful that my body heals itself. I'm so grateful that I'm safe. That right now, in this moment, I am safe and relaxing into the night. I'm grateful that everyone on the planet sleeps every night. And I too am allowed to fall into this experience.
every night. Sleep is normal, natural, and easy. Sleep is normal, natural, and easy. I'm so grateful for sleep. How amazing and wonderful is sleep? I'm grateful for my health. My body works in so many amazing ways. Moving, growing,
Learning. Sensing. Enjoying. My body is amazing. I'm so grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my skin. It has held everything together. My entire life without me thinking about it. It's soft and resilient and feels things and heals magically.
I'm so grateful for my skin. I'm grateful for my bones. They have held me up every day of my life. They are solid and strong and do their job perfectly without my thinking about it, without my instructions. How amazing are my bones. I'm so grateful for my bones.
I am grateful for my heart. It is sending blood to every cell of my body and receiving it back, sending it out and receiving it. It is the metronome of my body, the rhythm of my life. My heart feels things and knows and sends love into the world.
My heart has been doing its job every single day of my life without my instruction. I am so grateful for my heart. I am grateful for my lungs. They're pulling in oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. Doing their job every single day of my life without my thought.
or consciousness. I'm so grateful for my lungs. I'm grateful for my brain. It is a miracle, more sophisticated than a computer, more mysterious than nature. It thinks and gathers and synthesizes and remembers and imagines. It governs the functions of my body. It is the seat
of my consciousness, my light. I am so, so grateful for my brain. I'm grateful for the sun, the magnificent of light in the sky, nourishing every plant, every creature, every moment of the day. The sun feeds us and warms us and lights our way. I'm so, so grateful
for the sun. I'm grateful for this planet. We are on this lovely planet with its atmosphere designed for us. I love the oceans and the mountain and the field and the sky. What an amazing planet. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be alive.
As you allow your inner being to expand into the room. Filling up your positivity room. As you expand and expand and fill with light. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm so grateful to be alive. As you allow your inner being to gently, slowly contract back into your body. As you drift and float.
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