Desert Campfire

Hello there. Thanks for joining us around our campfire tonight. On summer nights like this, I like to sit and watch the stars come out. From here, we have an amazing view of this ancient landscape. There's really nothing like it for helping you develop a healthy sense of perspective. It's just the best place to let go of stress and worry and find rest. Each night we like to start with a short wind-down. Tonight's wind-down is a technique called noting. It's particularly helpful if you're troubled by a busy mind when you're trying to get to sleep. You can even use it if you wake up in the night. We're going to be counting our breaths and then just gently noting thoughts and feelings if they arise. We're not trying to replace them with anything else. We're simply labeling thinking as thinking, feeling as feeling. It may sound incredibly simple but it can help to create distance between ourselves and the thought, ourselves and the feeling so we don't get so involved in it. And that creates a more restful state of mind. In other words, the perfect state of mind for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin with, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some nice, big, deep breaths. Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. And with the next out breath, allow the breath to return to its natural rhythm in and out through the nose and just feeling the weight of the body pressing down into your bed. And in your own time, starting to count the breaths as they pass. One with the rise, two with the fall. Just up to the count of 10. When you get to 10, you can stop and start again at one. And remember, anytime you get distracted, the moment you realize you're distracted by thought, simple note it. Thinking, and return to the breath. Or if a feeling arises, huh, feeling. And return to the breath. That noting is very gentle, not harsh at all. Think of it like a feather. Just gently touching the surface of a crystal glass. I'm gonna give you a few moments just to keep counting the breath and noting any thoughts and feelings that arise. That's great. A few weeks ago, the rain fell upon this desert. The land may seem dry and dusty now, but those rains made so many plants blossom and bloom. Over there, that's a globe mallow. This bush has fuzzy green leaves and bright orange flowers along it stalks with five round petals. Those flowers seem like slices of apricots with a teaspoon of golden pollen in the middle. The desert five-spot also grows around here. This flower also has five petals, white on the inside and lilac purple on the outside. Each petal has one bright red polka dot. This flower would make a lovely teacup and the blossoms certainly...