A mindfulness practice for the end of your day
Estimated read & practice time: 10–15 minutes
The Day Is Softening
Perceive it - that change of silence that is taking place right now. The sky is relaxing into more sombre hues, the world sounds are delicately drawing away, and something in you is just starting slightly to relax. Evening has arrived. Not in any pompous way, but in that whistle-blowing silence that requires nothing of you. It merely states: you may now slacken.
We are living in a world that hardly allows us to take breaks. We are in motion, it is as soon as our alarms go off, responding, choosing, creating, responding. Before evening sets in, most of us do not understand how to land. We scroll. We half-watch. We drag the burden of half-thoughts to our pillows and ask ourselves why we are so much farther away than we used to be.
However, this time around, we will do something different in the evening. One minute, you and I are going to spend a few quiet minutes together finishing the chapter of this day with care; in laying aside what no longer has to be carried, in breathing, in restoring. This is a guided evening meditation, not the type that is going to make you go to sleep. Here it is to get you woken back to yourself.
The Idea of Why Evening Is the Best Time to Meditate.
It is not that this time of day is different. With the loss of light, your brain starts to synthesize melatonin, your body temperature changes and your nervous system (assuming we give it permission to) begins to drop away out of its do state and enter its be state. Physiologically, this is to stimulate an act of the sympathetic nervous system (the alert, active, fight-or-flight state that has kept you going all day) to the parasympathetic state of rest, digestion and soft, restful rejuvenation. Evening meditation helps and hastens such a natural transition.
Of greater significance than biology, however, are the benefits. Daily, your mind is filled with leftovers of emotions, half-baked discussions, and half-thought worries that did not get a second of your time. You sleep all that with you, and the next thing. Studies indicate that despite the short duration of practice of mindfulness in the evening, it will lower the levels of cortisol in your body, enhance the quality of sleep, and enable you to wake up in a clear and peaceful state. Do not imagine this meditation to be like the antepenultimate meditation, but rather like a mild purge, purging the vouch of which you will make your entrance into tomorrow.
Preparation: Before You Get Started: January Your Space.
You do not need a special room or a perfect setup. One simply requires a few minutes and a bit of will. Sit somewhere where you are comfortable - in a chair, with your feet flat to the floor; cross-legged on a cushion; or lying down with a pillow under your knees. Whatever shall support your body without trouble. Perhaps it is to give your nervous system an idea that it is time to arrive, and perhaps some or all of the following ideas can help you to feel good about it:
- Turn down the lights or go to a lamp or candle - the soft, warm light has a natural way of relaxing the eyes and mind.
- Switch off sound/ turn phone to do-not-disturb. Allow yourself the complete license to be inaccessible during these few minutes.
- Arguably, a couple of drops of lavender, cedarwood, or chamomile can ease the senses in case you like aromatherapy.
- Keep a blanket around - when the body is still, the temperature tends to decrease, and warmth will make one feel even safer.
- You can play some music in the background or nature sound, or sit in silence. There is no wrong choice.
Ready? Let’s begin.
The Guided Meditation
Read slowly, and pause at whatever you are tempted to stop.
Settling In
Shut them, or turn your eyes down. Rest your hands, palms upwards or palms downwards, either way it comes.
One long breath on through your nose... and out of your mouth with a little sigh. Take that breath, with it whatever urgency, whatever to-do, whatever feeling that you ought to be away at this moment. You are at the right place at the right time.
Coming to your senses, now give your body a little change. Where you are holding tension, tell me where, maybe in your jaw, or your shoulders, or behind your eyes. You don't need to fix anything. Simply noticing is enough. Breathing out, suppose that tension is starting to subside, as the warm wax melts away gently.
Get the sensation that your body is supported by your chair, by your floor, by your bed. You need not uphold yourself just now. You can let go.
Breath Awareness
Focus on your breath, not to make it different, but to be attentive to it. The soft swell of your belly, or chest, when you breathe in. The breath it gives out as you breathe out.
Breathe in... two... three... four.
Hold... two... three.
Breath out... two... three... four... five... six.
Make this rhythm your cable. Thoughts will come; they never go away. As they come, just treat them well, as a friend would come knocking at the door: I see you, but not now. And soft again To your breathing turn.
Your breathing has been with you all day long. It is steady. It is yours.
Day Release
Now, remember what happened to you today, not to break it down or to live it over again, but just to remember it. The moments that went well. The moments that felt hard. The discussions, the choices, the insignificant disappointments and the silent pleasures.
Suppose you are standing on the side of a flowing river. The water flows slowly, fluttering in the end of the day light. Take all the thoughts and all the concerns, as well as all the tensions, and put them on a piece of paper and place it on the water. See it go away-- not dead, it is only changing. The river holds it now. You don't have to.
The difficult conversation. Set it on a leaf. Let it drift.
The unfinished task. Set it on a leaf. Let it drift.
The anxiety you have been bearing all morning. Set it on a leaf. Let it drift.
You are not giving up these things. You are merely letting them get out of your hands tonight. They will be there the next day should they require you. But at this moment, the river possesses them.
Heart Opening
Put one hand as though it is touching your heart. Taste the warmth there-- your own warmth, which will always be there, will always be there.
Breathe into that space. And give me one of these phrases-- or some which come to mind naturally:
Happy days, thanks to youfor doing your best today.
"I am allowed to rest."
I am thankful to-- and see what one little thing will come to me. Something simple, maybe: a hot cup of something, some sunshine, a favour taken.
The expression of gratitude does not involve huge gestures. Even the minutest of things, observed with attention, are softly radiant.
Rejuvenating Visualization
Now imagine you are away, to some place where you would think of peace.
It is after dusk in a forest that you are in. The trees are high and straight, their branches webbed with the last fibres of daylight. The air is clean and cool--it reeks of earth and pine and possibility something.
You are sitting down upon soft ground, which is at the foot of a big tree, and its bark is warm upon your back, and its roots are fixed up. The sky is darkening over your head, growing from lavender to indigo. The stars are coming one, two, three,-- gently, silently-- like an old friend overcoming his fatigue and settling down to his seat.
You have nothing to be here alone, and you are not at all disturbed. The woods are alive, with a low quiet attentiveness menacing--the murmur of some bird far away, the beating of your own heart.
Have the sense of being filled, gradually, with a kind of stillness of a sort you could call--or even quiet joy. It passes out of the earth under you through your body, and settles in your chest like a flaming ember: warm, slow, living.
This is restoration. Not the contrary of fatigue, but something deeper, a recollection of your wholeness.
Gentle Return
When you will, gradually, you had better start to grope your way back. Be aware of the body weight. The feel of the surface of your sitting or lying. The air that surrounds you is too hot.
- Wiggle your fingers... then your toes... mother, very slowly.
- Breath in once more-- fill--and exalt it, with a long, slow sigh.
- And when you are ready, you can open your eyes gently, letting the light come slowly in. There's no rush.
- Welcome back. The night is yet against you, and is calm and slow.
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After Your Meditation
The process of coming out of stillness should be approached with as much gentleness as the act itself. Instead of rushing to the next object, see if any of these silent exercises will help you feel better: open a journal and write down one word or phrase to describe how you feel - there are no right or wrong responses, and you do not necessarily need any complete sentences. Or get yourself a cup of herbal tea, chamomile, lemon balm or passionflower, or some such, classy evening playfellows, and hold the cup of herbal tea with both hands, just noticing it. Or just sit and stay a minute or two and do nothing at all. And make the silence as long as you desire.
You Gave Yourself a Gift Tonight
In a society where this equates worth with productivity, the act of stopping to have a breath, to experience, to become soft, is very radical in silence. Rest is not the reward you get when you have done enough. Rest is the basis on which all the others are based. Tonight, you remembered that.
Take this silence with you where you are headed to sleep. Whatever it comes, it softens the edges. And know that tomorrow, when the day shall start anew with all this energy and demand, this space shall remain, in the evening light, in the swell and fall of thy own breathing, in the warm constancy of thy own heart.
Sleep well. You've earned this night.
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