Hushed Theater

The velvet seats are empty and the show has ended at our hushed theater. Visitors at this hour are few and far between. Usually, only the cast and crew remain. However, you've come at just the right moment to get a peek behind the curtain to observe some quiet moments as the show wraps for the night. The stage crew is busy quietly resetting the opening scene for the following day's performance. The props and furniture are all nearly in place, but the stage is not fully set without the correct lighting. For this task, the lighting operator sits at the front of the mezzanine with his lighting board in front of him. He tests each light individually and resets them to their proper positions. A calculated dance of magenta, cyan, emerald, and crimson splash across the stage, reminiscent almost of a traffic light gently changing colors on a quiet street. The colored lights dim all the way down and the spotlight turns on, creating a large pool of golden light. The lighting operator closes his eyes and imagines the lead actor delivering the opening monologue to the audience. The light gracefully moves from mark to mark, spanning the entire stage. It's easy to imagine a suited actor gliding in the center of it. Tonight's show was excellent, but it's time for the spotlight to return to center stage and shut down. However, before it does, I think it's nice to begin with a little wind down exercise. Tonight's wind down is an exercise we call noting. It helps to soothe the mind and once you've learned it, 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 as they arise. We're not trying to change them. 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 and ourselves and the feeling so we don't get so involved in it. That, in turn, creates a more restful state of mind. In other words, the perfect conditions for gentle, restful sleep. So to begin, just take a moment or two to get comfortable. Make sure you're nice and cool. Just starting with some 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 feeling the weight of the body pressing you 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 a 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, simply note it, thinking, and return to the breath, or if a feeling...