Wouldn't it be nice if your brain came with a volume control, just a little dial that you could reach up and turn down whenever you needed to, because there are nights, and maybe tonight is one of them, when you would give almost anything for that dial. You're tired, you're finally lying down, the lights are off, the day is done, and there's nothing in the world you want more than to sleep, and that is the exact moment your brain decides to get loud. So you lie there, and the minutes go by, and you feel them going, and outside your window the moon is making its slow way across the sky, a little closer to morning with every hour, and your brain is just getting warmed up, and the annoying part is that almost none of it is useful, not solving anything.It's playing you the same worry for the tenth time tonight, the one you've already worn smooth. It's pulling up something you said years ago that everyone else forgot the same afternoon. It's running a conversation that hasn't happened, and probably never will, round and round, the same track, and the more tired you get, the faster it seems to go. So why does it do this to you? Because it can't help it. Your brain is an organ, like any other organ in your body, and making thoughts is simply what it does, all day and all night, whether you asked for it or not. In the daytime, you barely notice, because the world is loud and busy, and it drowns the noise out, but at night, when everything finally goes quiet, and there's nothing left to distract you, you hear all of it, but it's important to know that you are not that noise.The part of you lying here wishing it would all quiet down, the part that's tired of the chatter and just wants some peace, that part is you. The thoughts are not. They're just something your brain is producing, the way it produces them every single night of your life.You don't have to believe them. You don't have to answer them, and you certainly don't have to fight them, because fighting them is like splashing at the surface of the water to make it still. It never works.It only stirs things up more. There's another way. It's much easier.You can learn to simply watch your thoughts, to let them come and let them go, without chasing a single one, and a strange thing happens when you do, when you finally stop wrestling with your own mind. It begins on its own to go quiet. So that's what tonight is for.I'm going to walk you through it, step-by-step. First, we'll relax your body, and then we'll use a little hypnotherapy to quiet a busy mind of yours, the way we talked about. But before we begin, please make sure that you are somewhere safe to fall asleep, preferably in your comfortable bed, and not anywhere you need to stay alert.And while you're getting settled, I'm going to mention the Snoozeville Sleep Club. It's a way to support this show, and it's also genuinely, practically useful. Members listen on a premium feed, and that feed has the entire catalog on it, almost 200 episodes.And not just the recent ones, all of them, going right back to the beginning. And on the premium feed, everything is sorted into playlists by exactly the sort of night you're having. If your mind is racing, there's a whole collection called ADHD and Racing Thoughts.And if you're lying there worrying, there's one for anxiety and worry. So instead of scrolling and hunting for the right episode at midnight, you just open the collection that fits and press play. And if that sounds like something that you would use, there's a link in the show notes.But now it's time to get you settled. Let's start to relax your body. Before we turn to your mind, I'd like you to find a comfortable position, whatever one your body is asking for tonight.And when you're ready, take a slow, deep breath in, a little deeper than usual. And let it out slowly, taking your time on the way out. And again, a slow in and a long, unhurried breath out.There's no pattern to follow. There's nothing to count. Just let each breath run a little longer and a little softer than the one before.And allow your body to get heavier every time you breathe out. And then bring your attention all the way down to your feet. Just notice them and let go of any tension in your toes, in your arches, in your heels.Let your feet go loose and heavy. They've carried you all day. And let that feeling of heaviness begin to climb up into your ankles and into your calves and your shins.Feel the muscles grow soft and heavy, sinking down. And that heaviness moves up to your knees and into your thighs. The big, strong muscles of your legs, loosening, giving up their weight.And your legs are feeling so heavy now. Let that feeling move up to your hips and to your lower back. That's a part of your body that holds everything up.So let it release. Let the feeling spread. Feel your whole lower body grow warm and loose and heavy. And then that sensation moves up into your stomach, which is rising and falling with every slow breath, up into your chest. And then it radiates out along your shoulders. And you feel them drop.So many of us carry the whole day in our shoulders. So let yours sink down. And all that heaviness flows down your arms, into your upper arms, and your elbows, and your forearms, all the way to your wrists, in your hands, in your fingertips.Let your hands lie open. Let them go completely still, too heavy to move. And finally, up through your neck, softening all those small muscles that hold your head through the day, and the muscles around your eyes. Relax. The muscles around your mouth start to soften. Your entire body is heavy now, warm, held, nothing left to hold up, and nothing left to do.And now that your body has let go, we can turn to your mind. In a moment, I'm going to take you somewhere quiet. And all you have to do is listen.You don't have to picture everything perfectly. You don't have to try. Just let my voice lead you.And let your mind follow along behind it, wherever it goes. And if it wanders off somewhere on its own, that's okay. That's what minds do.It will drift back on its own. There's nothing you can get wrong here. The only thing to do is to listen.I'd like you to picture a lake. It's high in the mountains, and it's evening. That slow blue hour after the sun has gone, but before the dark has come down, you've walked a long way to get here, along a soft path through the trees. And now the path opens, and there's the water in front of you. You find a place on the shore to sit. The ground is soft and dry, and you lower yourself down onto it and get comfortable. And in front of you, the lake is perfectly still. Not a single ripple. The whole surface has gone smooth and flat, like a sheet of dark glass.And it's holding the last of the evening light. The deep blues, the fading violet of the sky, the black shapes of the trees along the far shore. All of it reflected back so clearly.You could almost turn the picture upside down, and not know the difference. This lake is your mind. Still, quiet.But this time, when a thought comes, and it will, because thoughts always do, I don't want you to chase it. I don't want you to engage with it, or try to push it away, or try to solve it. I just want you to watch it. Because a thought on the surface of this lake is only a ripple. It rises and spreads out in a widening ring, and then it fades, and the water goes still again on its own. So watch the lake with me for a while.The light is fading now along the far shore in the tall trees. The birds are settling in for the night. Small ones.Sparrows. Finches. Finding their places in the branches.Fluffing out their feathers against the coming cool. Tucking their heads down under one wing. One by one.All around the lake, they're going quiet. And your own body, sitting there on the shore, begins to feel what they feel. Heavier.Warmer. Ready. And then a thought comes.Maybe it's from today. Maybe it's something about tomorrow. Doesn't matter.You feel it arrive, and you watch it touch the surface of the water. And you see the ripples start to spread out, and out. A widening ring.And you don't do anything. You just watch it go. And the ring reaches the edge of what you can see.And it thins. And it weakens. And it disappears. And the surface closes over it. Still again. The thought came.And the thought went. And the lake is exactly as calm as it was before. An evening deepens.The blue is draining out of the sky and going gray. And then a deeper gray. And the far shore is becoming harder to make out. Just a dark line now, where the trees meet the water. And the air has begun to cool against your skin. And it carries a scent up off the lake.Cold water. And wet stone. And pine. Under the surface. Everything is going to sleep. Down deep in the dark, cool water. The fish have gone almost motionless. Hanging suspended and still. Barely moving a fin. Holding themselves. In the cold. In the quiet.The reeds along the bottom sway once. Slowly. And go quiet as well.Along the muddy banks, the frogs are settling. And the whole living world around this lake is lowering itself down into rest. And you're lowering with it.With every breath. A little heavier. And then the frogs begin. Unhurried. Rising and falling. One answering another.But notice how their sound doesn't touch the water. The surface stays perfectly smooth, the sound moves across the lake, and over you, and away, into the trees, and the mirror never so much as trembles. A sound can come and go, and leave the stillness completely untouched, and so can a thought, so let them move across you, the way the frog song moves across the water, heard, and then gone, and nothing disturbed. It's merely fully dark, and out at the far edge of the lake.Low across the grass, the first fireflies are lifting into the air, small points of green gold light, blinking on, drifting a moment, blinking out, and then another, further along, then two more, little lights coming and going in the dark, and you watch them, the way you'd watch anything you have no need to hold on to, no following, no reaching, just letting them rise and fade wherever they please, on, and off, and gone, and you notice, without trying to, that watching them is the easiest thing in the world, and that your eyes have grown heavy doing it, and here, if another thought rises, you'll find it barely makes a ripple at all, the lake has gone too deep for it, too calm, too dark, the thought touches down somewhere on the water, and the surface takes it, and it's gone almost before it began, and the stillness folds back over the spot, so quickly, you can't even find where it went, you don't have to do anything now, the lake does it for you, that's how quiet your mind has become, and the sky is filled with stars, more than you can ever count, thick across the whole black arch of it, and the lake has gone flat, and black, and perfect beneath them, every star is reflected on the water, without a flaw, a second sky, laid out on the surface, and you sit on the shore in between the two of them, the stars above, and the stars below, held in the dark, breathing slowly, your body heavy and warm against the ground, your mind as still and smooth as the water in front of you, there's no wind, there's no sound now, but the last of the frogs, far away, and even they are trailing away, the cold air rests on your skin, and the warmth of your body meets it, and you are exactly comfortable, exactly heavy, exactly still, held between the earth and sky, at the edge of a lake, that has gone completely perfectly to sleep, any thought that comes now is just a whisper, a ripple too small to see, it rises somewhere out in the dark, and it's gone before it's anything at all, and the black mirror stays smooth, still, and dark, and deep, deeper than you can see, deeper than you can imagine, calm, all the way down, past the sleeping fish, past the still reeds, down into the cold quiet floor of where nothing moves, and nothing stirs, and everything rests, and your mind is like that lake now, quiet on the surface, calm, all the way down, at peace, right to the very bottom, and if you're feeling that quiet, that calm, that peace, all the way down, remember that you don't have to follow too closely to the words coming and going, just let the ripples appear and disappear, know that you are not your thoughts, it doesn't always feel that way, especially at night, but it's true, your brain is just another organ in your body, and generating thoughts is simply what it does, the way your heart makes a heartbeat, the way your lungs pull in air, all day, and all night, quietly in the background, it's producing things, memories, plans, little worries, old conversations, and it doesn't stop to ask whether you want them, it just makes them, one after another, because that is the work it was built to do, and notice the part of you that wishes it would quiet down, the part that's been lying here, wanting some peace, that part is not your thoughts, that's you, you are the one on the shore, watching the water, the thoughts are just ripples crossing the surface, they were never you, so you can let your brain go on doing its work, without feeling like you have to answer it, let it hum away in the background, if it wants to, you don't have to pick anything up, you can just lie here, and let it murmur, and stay exactly as still as the lake, and while your mind does that, something much older and wiser is taking over, your body knows how to do this, it's been putting itself to sleep, every night of your life, and it doesn't need instructions from you, it's already begun, your heart has slowed, your breathing has lengthened, and the temperature of your body has dipped, just slightly, though it's meant to, as sleep comes near, and as you rest tonight, your body is going to work on you quietly, and thoroughly, it's going to repair the small wear and tear of the day, knitting muscles back together, mending tissue, it's going to clear your mind, it's going to sort through everything you saw, and felt today, and quietly put it in order, so that things which feel tangled tonight, will feel a little clearer in the morning, that's the great secret of rest, you give into it, and it gives everything back, you let go, and your body takes over, and it looks after you, all night long, so, there's no reason left to stay awake, the lake is still, and your brain can murmur on without you, and your body is ready, more than ready, to begin the slow, quiet, patient work, feel how heavy you've become, your arms resting wherever they have fallen, your legs too heavy to move, and your whole body sunk down into the bed, held, supported, and warm, your breathing is slow and even, and there is a softness spreading behind your eyes, and along your jaw, and across your forehead, and you don't have to hold anything anymore, not your thoughts, not the day, not even the picture of the lake, you can let it all go, soft, and dim, and distant, your mind is a still, dark lake, with the stars laid out across it, and you are sinking gently past the surface, down through the cool, quiet water, down past the sleeping fish, past the still reeds, down to where it's dark, and calm, and nothing moves, down to the very bottom, where you can finally rest.