Releasing negative beliefs, adapted for falling asleep. The closing gong has been removed so nothing wakes you at the end.
Listen to the Meditation
About This Practice
Negative stories arrive most reliably at night, when there is nothing else competing for attention. We cannot stop them appearing. What we can do is stop believing them wholeheartedly.
A belief is held together by three things: our awareness of what is happening, the meaning we attach to it, and our certainty about both. Certainty is what turns a passing assessment into something that feels like a fact, and it is the part we can work on directly.
So this is not about pushing thoughts away. Pushing makes them louder, which anyone who has tried it at two in the morning already knows. It is about putting a little distance between you and the story, long enough to notice that it may not be true, and to see the exaggeration in it.
Picturing a belief as something you can hold at arm’s length, and watching it recede, is a way of experiencing reduced certainty from the inside. A thought you are no longer sure of has much less power to keep you awake.
Micro Practice: Three Breaths
When a negative story takes hold, take three breaths.
- Breathe and settle on the breath itself.
- Breathe and observe the thought without arguing with it.
- Breathe and notice the exaggeration in it. Always. Never. Everyone. No one.