“Close your eyes” says the woman on the recording.
“Focus on your breath” she continues.
You try to follow along obediently, letting your chest rise and fall with each tide, but you can’t help but wander your thoughts to what happened the past day, weekend, month, year. Maybe a sudden memory from the distant past begins to creep up. When it is a fond memory you smile at the thoughts and quickly return to the task at hand, but when it is grim…you somehow become more still.
The grim memory, while the recording plays is actually the best opportunity. An opportunity to reflect, remind yourself of how you are older, wiser, stronger. You’ve moved past it. Now that you’ve had the time to remember, you can release the negative thoughts. Why are you holding on? You don’t have to anymore. The moment you recognize that, a weight lifts from your body through your chest. Blood pulses and it feels like a magnet pulling something from your vessels out into the universe.
“Tense your muscles… and relax” she drones. What a coincidence! Your mind was wandering but somehow the recording is asking you for the exact motion you are performing.
You think to yourself there is no such thing as a coincidence… everything happens for a reason. Whatever the reason… you fall asleep.