Soul-Power | Authentic Voice | Archaic Knowing | Labyrinth | Inner Guidance | Connection to the Mother | Origin of Dreams
Healing Sleep | Peacemaking | Resonance with the Earth | Tribal Survival

Sleep is key to our health and healing. Sleep gives our bodies and minds time to restore and renew, a time to shed toxins through the breath and skin and resolve worries through dreaming.

Maddeningly, when we're feeling anxious and overwhelmed-when we desperately need to rest from the stress accumulating in our lives-sleep can be most elusive. The mind is chattering away, the body is tense. The harder we try to quiet the mind and release the body's grip on itself, the more difficulty we have relaxing.

Thankfully, the body's center—the hara, the energetic sourcepoint that our bellies shelter—can serve as our entryway into sleep. As you focus your attention on your belly and breath as indicated in the following practice, tension drains away from the body and mind into the hara, where it dissolves and allows sleep to gather you in.

I tried this practice for the first time during a spell of tossing restlessly around in my bed. I completed the suggested five repetitions and said grouchily to myself: "Well, this doesn't seem to be working." The next thing I knew it was morning, and I felt refreshed.

In the context of this practice, my belly is the guardian at the threshold between the waking world and the world of sleep. As I proceed through the steps of breathing in, pulling belly in, tightening muscles, pushing belly out, and releasing breath and tension, I feel myself calmly walking toward that threshold; there I see this friendly gatekeeper beckoning to me and waving me through the entryway he tends.

Enter Into Healing Sleep Lying on your back with your arms and legs extended, inhale slowly through your nose, expanding your belly. Holding the breath in, pull your belly in and down toward your spine; then tighten all the other muscles in your body. Still holding the breath in and keeping every muscle tight, now push your belly out and hold it out for a slow count of five. Then exhale slowly through your mouth and release your muscles' grip completely. Breathe naturally for a few moments. Then repeat as many as five times, focusing on sensations and images occurring in your belly.

Sweet dreams!

Soul-Power | Authentic Voice | Archaic Knowing | Labyrinth | Inner Guidance | Connection to the Mother | Origin of Dreams
Healing Sleep | Peacemaking | Resonance with the Earth | Tribal Survival

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