I mentioned in my last episode that I'd caught a cold. Well, it's been over a week and I still feel a little rundown. It's just a general sort of malaise. I like that word. Malaise. Makes me feel like a Victorian lady who needs to lie down with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead. Which honestly, some days doesn't sound half bad. Maybe you know the feeling. You don't have to be sick exactly. Just not a hundred percent. Worn thin. And of course, that's when sleep matters most. You know you need it more than ever. And somehow, that's exactly when it won't come. When you lie there, watching the minutes tick past. Worrying about the sleep you're not getting, which is its own special way of making sure you don't get it. Wishing you had more energy. Maybe even lying there feeling bad about all the things you didn't get done today because you didn't have it in you. But not being a hundred percent sometimes. It's just part of being human. We're not machines. We don't get to run at full speed forever. And the days when we can't, those days are allowed. Sometimes, they're even necessary. Letting something lapse for a little while is not you falling apart. It's just you being human and being sensible about it. And rest, real rest. It's not the thing you do once everything else is done. It's the thing that lets you finish anything at all. You would tell a friend who's feeling this way to go to bed. To take it easy. To stop pushing. You would give them that permission in a heartbeat. And you'd mean it. So why is it so easy to give everyone else permission to rest? And so hard to give it to yourself? Tonight, we're going to practice. We're going to imagine the kind of day you'd give to someone you loved who wasn't feeling well. A soft, slow, quiet day. You don't have to do anything but listen. And allow yourself to be looked after. And as you follow along, the rest that you've been needing will come. Your breathing will slow. Your body will settle. And sleep, real, deep, healing sleep, will find you. But before we start, our usual disclaimer. This episode uses hypnotherapy and relaxation techniques. So it's important to be somewhere safe when listening. Preferably, that's your comfortable bed. And not anywhere. You need to stay alert. And before we begin, one quick thing. You may not know this, but I've started moving my older episodes off the main feed. There are almost 200 of them now. And they can't all live in one place forever. But they don't disappear. They all live in the Snoozeville Sleep Club. The whole back catalog. Every episode sorted and organized. Joining keeps them at your fingertips. And it also helps me keep the lights on around here. And it keeps Max the cat in treats. Which he personally considers the most important reason at all. Probably the only reason. There's a link in the show notes if you would like to join us. Before the hypnotherapy starts, let's take a few minutes to help your body slow down. We're going to breathe together. But tonight, a little differently than usual. So if it's comfortable, rest your hands on the sides of your ribcage. And as you breathe in, I want you to send that breath into the sides of your ribs. Not down into your belly, but out to the sides. Let your ribcage widen. Opening like an accordion, filling with air. And when you breathe out, feel the ribs settle back down. So let's try that now. Breathe in. And then breathe out. Long and slow. Nice. Let's do that again. Breathe in. The ribcage opening. And then out. Everything settling. One last time. Breathe in and feel the ribs moving apart. And then breathe out. Even slower. Letting all of it go. Perfect. And allow your breathing just to carry on by itself. That wide, easy in-breath. And that long, slow out-breath. And just relax. Feel how nice it is to be here. In the dark. And from here, there's nothing you need to do but listen. Let my voice be the thing that you rest your attention on. Just letting it carry you along. And if at any point you drift off, just let yourself go. You might notice my voice beginning to feel further away. The words softening. That's good. You don't have to keep up. Let the words blur. And for now, all you have to do is rest. Imagine yourself coming home early because there's nothing left in the tank. You get the door open and you step inside and pull it shut behind you. And the sound of it closing is the first good sound of the day. The street and the weather and everywhere you were supposed to be all shut out on the other side of it. And the bags come off first. Whatever you've been carrying, the heavy one on your shoulder that's left at Stroutmark all day, the one in your hand, you set them down by the door. You just lower them to the floor and let go. And there's that small release across your shoulders and down your back as the weight leaves you. You slip your shoes off, heel against toe, one and then the other. And you leave them where they fall. And your feet spread out against the cool floor. You take out your phone and you write one message. Short.Clear. Not feeling well. Going to rest. I'll be offline today. Don't worry about me. You send it to whoever needs to know. And then before it can start lighting up with replies, before anyone can ask you a single thing, you turn it face down and you set it somewhere across the room. You've said everything you're going to say today. The world has been told that you're not available. On your way through, you pass the laundry. The hamper is full. The thing you'd normally deal with. You look at it for a second and then you pick it up and put it inside the closet and close the door on it. Not today. Today is not a day for that. Or for any of it. The tidying. The catching up. The being useful. It can all wait behind that door. And now the clothes that you've been in all day. You peel them off. The ones with buttons and waistbands. The ones you wear to be a person out in the world and you leave them in a heap. And you don't care. And you put on the soft things instead. The old worn pajamas, gone thin and gentle from a hundred washes. Thick socks. The cardigan with the sleeves you can pull down over your hands. Everything loose. Everything soft. Nothing touching you that you have to think about. And you go to the window and you draw the curtains. The gray afternoon light narrows and then it's gone. And the room goes dim and warm and close. And outside you hear the rain has started. The light at first. And then steadier. Settling in against the glass. The room is yours. It's warm. Quiet. Everything that could reach you has been set down or shut away or turned to face the wall. And your bed is waiting. Made this morning. Cool and smooth. The blankets turn back. You cross to the bed and you pull the blankets back a little. And you climb in. And you pull the blankets out. Up over your legs. Over your body. Up over your shoulders and you feel the weight settle down over you. The heaviness. Pressing softly all along you. Tucking you in. And the ache is still there. The run day. Worn thin feeling in your arms and your legs. Behind your eyes. But you're not fighting it now. You're not pushing through it or working around it. You're lying still and letting it be. And when you stop resisting it, it changes. It softens into something almost pleasant. The deep body tiredness that feels good to finally give into. Like the ache of muscles after a long walk. The kind of tiredness that feels good to finally give in to. That only wants to lie down. And behind your closed eyes is nothing to look at and nothing to watch for. Just the soft darkness. And the sound of the rain. The rain is steady now against the window. It rises a little and falls a little but it never stops. And there's a rhythm to it that your breathing has started quietly to follow. A slow breath in. A slower breath out. And somewhere in the house, faintly, there's a sound. Someone moving about a long way off. The ordinary sounds of a home being quietly tidied. A door. Water running somewhere and stopping. The muffled soft movements of someone seeing to things so that you don't have to. It's just there at the edge of everything. Telling you without words that you're cared for. That it's all being taken care of. And the blankets are warm. Your body is heavy. And you feel yourself sinking, slowly, down past the edge of waking, down towards sleep. And you let yourself go. Because there is nothing here to hold on to. You can sleep now, if you like. There's nothing else to do. And you didn't notice it happen. There's no moment where waking stops and sleeping starts. There never is. One breath just follows another, slower and slower. The rain goes on and somewhere in there you slip under, without knowing it. The room goes on holding you while you're gone. Time passes. You don't know how much. That's part of it. The clock has no hold on you today. And the hours don't march the way they usually do. You could have been asleep for 20 minutes or two hours and it makes no difference to anyone. And then slowly you begin to surface. You just rise up, gently, toward the surface, the way you sank down. Coming up out of the warm dark by degrees. And for a moment, you don't know where you are or what time it is. You don't reach for it. You just lie here. Warm. Heavy. Held. Aware of the blankets over you and the soft dimness of the room. The rain is still going. A little steadier now, maybe. And there's a smell in the room. Something savory and simple. Soup. Someone has made soup. And just the smell of it is a kind of comfort all on its own. Curling into the warm room. Telling you that you've been thought of. You don't have to get up for it. It's right there within easy reach on the table beside the bed. A bowl and the steam rising off it in slow curls that you can watch. Something plain and good. Chicken, maybe. Or just a clear golden broth with the steam coming off it. You prop yourself up just a little. Just enough. And you take the bowl in both hands and the warmth of it comes straight through into your palms. It's warm going down. It's the easiest thing in the world to enjoy. A little salt. A little warm. The kind of simple good thing that a body wants when it's worn down and can't manage anything complicated. You have as much as you want and no more. You set it back down on the table when you've had enough. And the steam keeps rising off what's left. And already you can feel it working through you. The warmth in your middle spreading out, loosening everything it touches. And your shoulders drop a little more. You feel it in your legs. Your whole body. Your whole body. The rain. Inside. The warmth of the soup still glowing in you and the room dim and safe and nothing at all that needs doing. Your eyes close again. They're heavy. They want to. There's no reason in the world to keep them open. So you let them close. And you let yourself drift. But somewhere underneath the small old habit stirs. The one that says that, really, you should be up, that something needs seeing to, you can't just lie here, you know that voice. But listen, the rain is still falling, the world is still out there, going on exactly as it does. All of it actually managing without you, the work, the messages, the long list of things, and none of it is falling apart. It doesn't need you holding it up every minute. The things that matter will keep. The people who count on you can manage this once. That's what today is showing you. So, you can set it all down for a little while and the world will keep turning, right where you left it, and you can pick it back up when you're better. Just not now, not today. Today, it's someone else's turn to keep the world spinning, and it's spinning just fine. And as you let yourself sink back down, you can sense that this is doing something. Even as you lie here doing nothing at all, this is the very thing your body has been asking for. And now that it's getting it, it's gone quietly to work. Down beneath all the warmth and the heaviness, in the deep, quiet places you never see, your body is mending itself. Resting isn't the pause before the healing. Resting is the healing. It's happening right now, while you drift, while you lie here. And all it ever needed from you was this, to stop. And your breathing has gone slow and deep, slower than before. The rain keeps time with it, or it keeps time with the rain. You can't tell anymore which is leading, and it doesn't matter. You're warmer now, heavier. You've sunk deeper into the bed than you were. And the mattress holds all of you, and the blankets are a soft weight along your whole body. And there's not one muscle anywhere that's doing anything at all. Your hands have gone loose. Even your face is soft. Small muscles around your eyes have let go. Your forehead is smooth. And somewhere still are the faint sounds of the house being quietly kept. Further off now, softer. You're too far down to make them out, and you don't try. They're just there. The way a heartbeat is there, telling you that you're safe. You're held. It's all being seen to. The room is dark around you. The rain is steady on the glass. And time has come loose from its moorings altogether. There's no morning behind you and no evening ahead. Just this long, soft, gray middle of a day with no edges. We're sleeping and waking, run into each other, and neither one asks anything from you. You can go all the way down now. As deep as you like. And stay there as long as you'd like. You've put it all aside. The day. The world. And the phone that has now turned to the wall. The door closed on everything that can wait. It's all still turning out there without you. And in here, there's only this. The warm bed. Soft darkness. The rain. And time. So let yourself have it. The whole rest of that day and the night that comes after. Yours to sleep straight through. Your eyes are heavy. Let them close. Let them stay closed. There's nothing to look at. Nothing to watch for. Your body is heavy. Let it sink. Let the bed take the whole weight of you. Every last part. Give none of it back. Your breathing is slow. So let it slow more. Each breath out a little longer. Each one carrying you down. Down. And down. There's nothing to finish. Nothing to do. Nothing left that needs you tonight. Only sleep. So let it come. It's already here at the edges. Warm and dark. And waiting. You don't have to reach for it. You don't have to earn it. Just let go. And let it take you. Let it take you. The rain so soft on the window. The room warm around you. You are held. And safe. And there's nowhere else you need to be. Sleep. Let go of this thread. And this one.And the last one. And again. Down. Warm. Safe. Sleep now. And sleep well.