Counting the Hours

There is nothing you need to fix right now. The work of tomorrow will be done by tomorrow's body, with tomorrow's mind. The body in this bed has only one job: to rest.

Let the back of your skull settle into the pillow. Notice how the pillow is taking the weight of your head completely. You don't have to help it.

Now your jaw. Most of us hold the jaw closed all day, even in our sleep. Let it hang open the smallest amount. Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth, behind the lower teeth.

Your hands. Wherever they are, let the fingers curl naturally, like leaves at the end of a season.

Some thoughts will come tonight that feel urgent. Most of them are not. They have only borrowed the urgency of daylight. By morning, you will recognize them as smaller than they seemed.

If your mind starts listing — the thing you forgot, the thing you have to say — try this. Picture each thing as a small lit window in a house across the water. Acknowledge it. Then watch the light go out, one by one.

Counting backwards from one hundred has put more people to sleep than any sermon. Try it. Slowly. One hundred. Ninety-nine. Lose track around eighty. That losing track is the doorway.

If you wake at three in the morning, you have not failed. The body asks for that hour sometimes. Lie still. Soften the belly. Begin again.

There is no minimum. There is no maximum. There is only this hour, this breath, this slow handing of yourself over.

The morning will arrive on its own. It does not need you to wait up for it.