Get Sleepy On A Houseboat
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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. Thank you everybody for being here. Thank you to everyone who's in a position to subscribe. When you subscribe, you get no ads and access to the back catalog and bonus episodes every month. So thank you if you're able to do that.

And also thanks for the great reviews I heard from someone named Christopher, who now looks forward to bedtime. Muffy, whose insomnia got so bad she was afraid to drive to work. She didn't feel safe in the car, but now she's sleeping well without using any meds. Someone named Car Smiles, who maybe should get together with Muffy in the car, is also no longer taking medication.

We've gotten other great reviews from Kristen, Kabuchi, Annabelle, Barbie, Mike in the UK, a listener from Ireland whose ADHD symptoms are becoming more manageable, and Carrie Boosh in Australia. Thank you, everyone. And that's just mentioning a few. I can't tell you how much I appreciate knowing that this is helping people. And let's just keep practicing relaxation and see how it changes our lives.

I think it's like, it's the magic. Relaxation is the magic. Just watch it do its thing. Yay. Before we get started, let's hear a quick word from our sponsors who make this free content possible. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

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Okay, tonight, get sleepy on a houseboat. I recently visited my sister who lives in San Francisco and she lives on a houseboat. Well, technically she lives in a little town called Sausalito just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, but it's in the Bay Area. If you've never been to the Bay Area, it's an extraordinary place to visit.

It's a city, well, a handful of little cities all clustered around a bay off the Pacific Ocean, all built on hilly terrain with gorgeous eucalyptus trees and cypress trees. And when the fog moves in, it is something to behold. I don't know many other cities nestled in such natural beauty.

And living on a houseboat is a whole other level of weird and fun with the rising and lowering of the tides, the sounds, the smells, the gentle rocking. I think you're going to enjoy this one if you make it through it. So tonight we explore the Bay Area and end up snoozing on a houseboat. So get yourself into a safe and comfortable position and let's begin.

Allow your eyes to close easily and gently. Now just bring your awareness to your breathing. Gently bringing your awareness to that in of the breath. You don't have to do anything special. You don't have to breathe in some special way. It's just bringing your awareness back home to your body. Bringing your awareness back home to the breath. And the awareness doesn't like to settle too long.

on any particular thing. So now I'd like you to bring your awareness up into your eyelids. Just imagine now that your eyelids are feeling heavy, sleepy, comfortable, so heavy, so relaxed. And now I'd like you to accept the suggestion that your eyelids are, in fact, so relaxed that they will not open. That you couldn't open them even if you tried. Now here's the secret. I know you could open your eyelids if you really want to, but I'm asking you to pretend that you can't. So

Imagine that your eyelids are so heavy they simply will not open. I'd like you to test them to make sure they won't open and that's wiggling your eyebrows. Just wiggle your eyebrows, give them a little tug. Good. Good. While your eyes remain closed. Beautiful. Beautiful. So now your eyelids are feeling really relaxed and heavy. Let's imagine that heaviness in your eyelids. Let's imagine it moving back, sort of falling back into your brain.

Just allow that heaviness to fall back like a warm waterfall taking over every single cell of your brain. Just let your whole brain soak in relaxation. As your head gets heavy on the pillow, oh, it feels so good. And let go. Already by relaxing your head, the muscles of your body are getting the signal that it's okay to relax. That it's safe.

to relax. Even your scalp is relaxing. The muscles of your face letting go, becoming nice and soft. Nice and soft. All the tension that you may have carried in your face today, whether it was worry or focus or people pleasing, let it go. As the muscles of your face go deeper and deeper into relaxation. Good. As you imagine warmness

waves of relaxation lapping up against the beach of your mind. Feel those warm waves of relaxation lapping up against the beach of your mind as all mental tension disappears, just disappears. And now that warm relaxation is moving down through your neck, the large muscles of your neck releasing and relaxing.

They're done for the day. As that warm relaxation moves down into your shoulders now and the muscles of your shoulders become loose and limp and relaxed, sort of melting into the bed. And now that your shoulders are relaxing, you can let go of all of the responsibilities you carry on those shoulders. Imagine them dropping to the floor. Responsibilities you feel to your family, to your work, to your friends,

Responsibilities you feel to your community and the world at large. Even the responsibilities you feel to the future. Maybe you're even carrying responsibilities from the past. Just let them fall to the floor and you will pick any or all of them up in the morning. But for right now, this is your time. This is when you get to go inside of you and take that weird journey.

We call sleep two and a few billion other people all at once. This is yours, private, personal, and very, very important. So enjoy it as you go deeper and deeper. Now just allow that warm relaxation to move down your arms, all the way down your arms. So now your arms are feeling nice and heavy.

And as the relaxation moves down into the palms of your hands, the palms of your hands even tingle a little as you allow that relaxation to pour all the way down into your fingers. Every finger feeling full, heavy, and totally relaxed. Good. While you're listening to this recording, you may be aware of sounds going on around you, at least at first. But from this moment on, no sound that you hear

will bother or disturb you in any way. In fact, from this moment on, any sound that you hear, like traffic on the street, or another person in your home, the sound of an animal, or a television in the next room, those sounds will now take you deeper and deeper into relaxation. Bring your awareness to those sounds now, and let them take you deeper. Just open to them.

and let them take you. That's you using the magic of your own mind. So now let's imagine the warm, relaxing feeling moving down into your chest cavity. Let's imagine a wonderful, warm feeling surrounding and supporting your heart. Just hold your own heart for a moment. What has your heart been through today or recently? As you hold your heart,

with that warm relaxing energy. Any emotional tension that may have built up in the last little while has disappeared good as that warm relaxation moves down deep into your belly. You allow your whole belly area to relax and let go. We tend to hold this part of ourselves during the day for any number of reasons, but now it's safe to let go.

As the warm relaxation moves down into your hips and buttocks, it moves down now all the way down your legs. Your legs are becoming nice and heavy, like they're made of marble. And as the relaxation moves down into your feet, the soles of your feet feel like they're tingling a little. And the relaxation moves all the way down your toe. Every single toe feeling full, heavy.

and totally relaxed. Utterly relaxed. Imagine you're standing at a lookout point on a rugged ridge at the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Below you is San Francisco Bay. It is a huge bowl made by ancient tectonic activity filled with the cold blue-green water of the Pacific.

It is 60 miles long and 12 miles wide and is connected to the ocean by a strait called the Golden Gate over which spans the famous bridge of the same name. The hills around the are grand, dark green and undulate like sound waves. Across the water in the distance you see the cities of Berkeley and Oakland

And as your gaze continues to pan west, you can make out the pointy, playful skyline of San Francisco. You are standing at the end of the bridge, where San Francisco traffic spills north into Marin County. And just looking at the Golden Gate Bridge calms you down. You take a nice deep breath of sea air.

You gaze up at its two huge towers made of steel. They are extremely taller than the Statue of Liberty, taller even than the Washington Monument. And they are elegant, designed in the art deco style, displaying simple, symmetrical patterns. And the whole bridge is painted in international orange.

Despite its name, it is a warm color, like that of a ceramic gardening pot. It complements its natural surroundings while remaining visible in San Francisco's famous fall. The Golden Gate Bridge is painted continually, all year long, from one end to the other. And when the painting is done, it begins again, again, and again.

just as you sleep again and again. Between the towers hang enormous suspension cables, creating the lovely, sloping, feminine curves that the bridge is known for. You notice the perfect balance between the tall, mighty towers and the soft, sloping cables. Their balance makes you feel soft and calm inside.

The Golden Gate Bridge was built in the 1930s before computers or even calculators. Designs were drawn on paper and measurements taken with slide rules. From those humble tools was built a bridge that is almost two miles long and 90 feet. So enormous and yet it feels oddly quaint and familiar.

You've probably seen it on postcard, or in the movie, or on television shows. It's like a friend in the subconscious mind. You look down from your vista, and the tide is rising. So you see the cool water running under the bridge from the Pacific into the bay. The tide mirrors the rhythms of life, filling the bay and then emptying it. Rising and falling. Rising and falling.

and falling like the rhythm of your breath, the beat of your heart. Day becoming night. The fog is beginning to roll in from the Pacific. It is a dreamy, ethereal vapor. And within minutes, the bridge is enshrouded by fog. You can only see a few dozen feet in front of you. As the fog takes over, you are feeling more

more and more comfortable. It feels cool against your skin and smells like the sea. The fog is making you sleepy. It's time to begin your journey to bed. You turn around and begin your walk up into the hills of Marin County. You hear the crunch of pine needles under your feet. You walk past cypress trees.

Their branches formed into funny shapes like trolls by the wind. You see a grand eucalyptus tree, its bark papery and mottled, falling off in places. The smell of the eucalyptus is sharp, clarifying, almost medicinal. You stand for a moment and watch the fog move through the forest. It's soft and soothing.

You hear the caw of a crow in the distance. As you continue to walk slowly, you come across a redwood, a mighty redwood, stretching higher in the forest than any other. Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world, sometimes growing to 30 stories high. As you look up into the sky, it's difficult to make out where it ends.

reach out to touch the bark on its huge trunk. The bark is reddish and feels soft, almost spongy. It feels good to make contact with this tree. Some of the redwoods in America are 2,000 years old, having stood since the time of the Roman Empire. But this is the native land of the Coast Miwok people.

who lived in this part of California for three to four thousand years before the Europeans arrived. This redwood that you're touching has been marveled at by countless people, touched by thousands and thousands, and it's heard the secrets of so many. This tree knows something. As you continue to walk, you begin your descent

As you walk down the hill, the trees open up and you arrive in Sausalito. It's a small coastal town of just 7,000 residents stretched out along the water. As you walk along the seashore, you see people eating delicious dinners at cozy restaurants and merchants shutting their gift shops for the night. Everything is mellow.

and the pace is slow. You notice the little ferry terminal and an evening ferry leaving for San Francisco. Its foghorn blows and you feel the sound vibrate through your body. As you look up, you see a band fog pouring down over the mountain like candy floss being stretched by a child. The fog comes in

But Sausalito has its own distinct climate, warmer than other parts of the Bay Area, so it burns off quickly. As you gaze out into the harbor, you notice a collection of houseboats, referred to locally as floating homes. There are more than 400 of them, attached to several piers. It is an entire community, rising with the tide,

and falling with the tide. Rising with the tide and falling with the tide. Strangers intimately connected by the sea. Humans have made their homes on the water for thousands of years all over the world. The earliest houseboats floated down the Nile in the time of the Pharaoh. There are houseboat communities in Europe, Africa,

Southeast Asia, Oceania, and many other parts of the Americas. There are people living in houseboats along the Thames in London and the Seine in Paris. There have been floating homes in the Sausalito harbor since the 19th century, but it was in the 1940s and 50s that a new wave of bohemians and artists moved in.

bringing their distinct aesthetic and energy. You start walking along one of the wooden piers, like docks, and notice that residents have decorated it in their distinct way. There are flowerpots and little trees, pinwheels, lights, a statue of the Buddha. A man walks by with his dog on a leash and says, "Good evening." Connected to the pier,

Each by its own individual gangway is an amazing array of houses. You see one with beautiful hand-painted murals of underwater creatures, all done in blues and greens. Another house is purple and displays mosaics and sculptures and mirrors. The next house is made of wood and has delicate stained glass windows.

and pinks and yellows and reds as you continue to walk, going deeper and deeper into relaxation. You spy a rooftop garden on top of a home filled with lemon trees and roses and various succulents. You see a woman sitting on this roof sipping a glass of wine at her glass-topped table. She looks relaxed and happy.

She has the perfect spot to take in the dusky light shimmering on the water. With the sun setting in the west, the Golden Gate Bridge is casting a long shadow. The air smells slightly salty and the seagulls squawk in the distance. Some of the homes are modest in size, while the biggest is four stories high. One looks like a temple in India.

but its neighbor is sleek and modern with solar panels on its roof. At high tide, these floating homes appear like an enviable collection of toys bobbing in an enormous bath. The sun has set and the moon is rising over the bay. You come to the house you'll be sleeping in tonight. It's a modest home

with clobbered siding painted yellow. It has a traditional, simple design that makes you feel calm and peaceful. You walk along its gangway, which creaks a bit, but it's sturdy. You open the door. The home is surprisingly big. It has a high, vaulted ceiling made of exposed wood. There are windows on every side, bringing in the deep,

blue sky before it turns black. The living room is cozy and has French doors leading out onto a deck. You go outside and sit for a while, watching the water. It's peaceful and soothing. In the moonlight, you see the head of a seal popping up in the bay and then going underwater again. A neighbor waves goodnight and you go inside.

You walk to a small bedroom at the back of the houseboat. There's a big comfortable bed with a candle on the nightstand. You close the door and shut the blinds. The room becomes nice and cozy. You blow out the candle, get into the bed and snuggle under the covers. You close your eyes and smell the slight

Hint of smoke in the air from a candle mixed with the saltiness of the sea. You feel the gentle movement of the water beneath. You hear the whoop of an owl in the distance as you gently rock and fall.