#110 Relax & Sleep Hypnosis Daily - GRATITUDE (Jason Newland)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland, this is Relax and Sleep Hypnosis Daily. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. I'm sorry that I haven't made a recording for a few days, but I wasn't able to, but now I am.

So here we are. I do try to do these daily, hence the title, I do try, but sometimes circumstances come up and I wasn't very well, but I'm feeling better now. So I hope that you're well and wherever you are in the world, I hope that things are okay for you.

I think it would be nice for us to focus on a feeling, and the feeling we're going to focus on today is gratitude. And you may think, what's that got to do with, what's that got to do with relaxing? What's that got to do with sleeping? You know, how's that gonna reduce my stress levels? Or how's that gonna, you know, reduce the overactive mind, you know, when I'm trying to get to sleep?

It could do by quite a lot, actually. I will explain myself, so don't worry.

This is something that I've been thinking about the last couple of days, and I guess to start with, it's a different focus. So I'm going to talk about what I mean, at the same time I invite you to open yourself up to the feelings, or to that feeling, that particular feeling of what you would call gratitude. I guess another word would be appreciation.

In a sense, gratitude is appreciation gained from acknowledgement, you know, of what we do have, opposed to focusing on what we don't have, or the things that we don't want. So it's not about a false gratitude, it's not like trying to just make stuff up, and to pretend to feel grateful, because I can't be bothered with that.

So, this is about real, real stuff, real things that perhaps we can focus on, get in touch with, and appreciate, and notice the feelings, the positive feelings that arise, because from a stress perspective, when we are focusing on something that we're grateful for, something that we have, then in that moment we're not focusing on what we don't have.

When we're focusing on feeling grateful for something that's gone to plan, we're not focusing on something that hasn't gone to plan. When we're focusing on feeling grateful for something that is how we want it to be, I know you're ahead of me on this one, again, we're not focusing on those things that we don't want, which means in a way, we stop fighting reality, because we can move away from that mindset of, of, well things should be this way, that shouldn't be happening, this is how it should be.

You know, that arguing with reality, which first of all gets us nowhere, and in, in the moment, it's of no use.

That doesn't mean that we can't make changes, you know, and change the way things are. I mean, there's certain laws in the past, certain social restrictions for people, where they've said, it shouldn't be this way, we should have equality and stuff like that. And, you know, that was arguing with reality at the time.

But then they, you know, made those changes. But again, that takes time, and we're not talking about something like that. We're not talking about something that can be changed.

For example, somebody parks their car in your favorite parking spot, in the car park. They shouldn't be doing that. They shouldn't park their car there.

That should be available free for me whenever I want to use it. Well, it's being used. Yeah, but it shouldn't be.

It shouldn't, they shouldn't use it. Yeah, but they are. Now you can go around in a circle with that.

But basically, it's just arguing with reality. And it gets nowhere, it gets us nowhere, other than feeling rubbish. I bet millions of people over the years have ended relationships due to arguing with reality, trying to fight reality.

My partner should be like this. My partner should do this. My partner should think like this, instead of the reality.

But you know, this is just a, this is just a recording, the subject of fighting with reality. And that's, it's possibly a book I'd be quite interested in writing. It's also one I'd be interested in reading.

But that's another day. So what we need to, well, what I'd like us to do is focus on those things that are getting in your way to relaxing. Those things that are getting in your way to letting go when it's time to go to sleep.

Those things are getting in the way if you're allowing your mind to just slow down and slowly drift away. Moving further, every minute or so further in the direction of sleep. Just naturally, automatically, if that is what you want.

Alternatively, and at the same time, your body can continue to feel relaxed. Whether it's, whatever the cause, it could just be through boredom, could just be through my boring voice, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, the muscles in your body, they can't be bothered to listen.

Maybe sometimes they're just like, oh, there's that bloke again on that podcast. He just, all he does is go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think I'm just gonna have a little, I'll close my eyes for a little while now, have a little nap, have a little 50 winks.

I said winks. It's like, oh, before you know it, you're asleep. But for those that do want to listen, I'll continue talking about this subject.

And the benefits, I think, to you, and to me, to all of us, in starting to realize some of the things that we can be grateful for. Because the benefits of that is the more gratitude you have, the less things to worry about. Because if you're grateful for what you have now, you're not going to be worried about tomorrow.

For some reason, it's a weird one, really. Gratitude and a worry don't seem to be able to exist in the same space. And it doesn't seem to be like an opposite thing.

But I guess it is. Because with gratitude, you're almost embracing reality. With worrying, you're pushing reality away.

You're distorting, distorting, perhaps distorting reality to make it something that it might not be. Because, you know, worrying is generally about something that hasn't happened yet. So when you have and you embrace more gratitude, worrying just starts to drop off.

Almost just falls to the floor and just disappears, really. Because you can't have both. Because when you've got gratitude, it automatically moves forward into the future.

So I'm going to go through a few things that you may be able to experience experience a feeling of gratitude for. Just a few examples. Ultimately, this is your life.

You're the only one who really knows those things that have happened, that have been lovely, that have been helpful. I'm going to try and think of some generic universal situations that maybe we all may share. That could, if you allow yourself, could actually create that feeling of gratitude.

And when you have the feeling of gratitude, stress melts away. It really does, just melts away. So this isn't about positivity.

Although, getting in touch with things that you're grateful for is a positive thing. It's something that can increase your positivity. It's a positive psychology technique, in a sense.

It's a very, very important thing in positive psychology, the field of it. So this comes from academic and scientific studies. Gratitude is actually and can be hugely beneficial to your life.

Not just in reducing, and maybe even eliminating altogether, your stress levels. Eliminating your worrying, because you just can't worry at the same time as focusing on what you are grateful for. Gratitude can come from all aspects of your life, your past, thinking, present.

And sometimes it may feel false. To start with, in a sense of, I'll give you an example. Feeling grateful that if you're able-bodied, that you're able-bodied.

Feeling grateful that you can walk, if you're able to walk. And that might seem seem a difficult thing to start with, might seem a strange thing. The idea of trying to feel grateful for something that you've always had.

Because some people, in order to feel grateful for their mobility and, you know, being able to walk, maybe some of the only people that can really get in touch with that, is those that have had that ability to walk taken away temporarily due to injury or illness. And then they get, they get their, their mobility back and are able to walk again. And maybe for people like that, it's easier to get in touch with feeling grateful for what you have, rather than focusing on what you don't have.

You know, it doesn't have to be big things though. It doesn't have to be something huge. So let's focus on a few different things.

And maybe there's something inside you, that you can actually start to notice that you're grateful for, that's personal to you. And might be, here's actually here is something again, it's personal, but here's something I think all of us can relate to. There's been a time in the past, an experience, it might have been a place that you lived, a job that you had, a relationship that you were in.

It may have been an illness, even a period of time, could have been all kinds of things. But you're not there anymore. You're here.

You got through that. You're not living there anymore. You're living somewhere new.

You're not doing that job anymore. You're doing something different. You're not in that relationship.

You're not going through that illness. So there's going to be probably quite a few things in the past, that when you think about it, that you really wouldn't want to go through that again. You wouldn't want to be living in that apartment, or being in that relationship.

Maybe it's a toxic relationship, or maybe it could be anything, a job, and you you're not there anymore. You're here. You survived that, and you're never going to go back to that.

Perhaps, it's up to you of course, but perhaps you can allow yourself to get in touch with the feelings of gratitude for you, for now, just for this moment. Just for not being there, but to be here, for not having to go through that. And it's not about focusing on that stuff.

It's about focusing on now. Focusing on feeling grateful that you're safe. Feeling grateful that you're not fighting with reality.

This is just factual. And firstly, this is how you feel. You can feel grateful by focusing on what you have.

It can even be actual physical goods. You know, you might have a really lovely car that you love. A car that you absolutely love.

Or a motorbike, or a pushbike, or a skateboard, or a scooter, or a plane, or a yacht. Try and run out of vehicles. A horse, a cow, I don't know, a space shuttle, a fiery dragon, you know, whatever.

So you might have, you know, a car that you love. And you can feel grateful for that. And maybe you already do feel grateful for it, but you weren't, you weren't in touch with the feeling connected to you.

Feeling grateful for that car, or motorbike, or whatever it might be. So we could look at maybe your home. And again, if I'm focusing on something where a gratitude is not a word that you associate with those things, because of some kinds of problems going on, then just skip forward.

You know, it's just a case of finding something that you can experience. A sense of, or the feeling, that feeling of gratitude, when it fills your body and your mind, it really does, and can feel wonderful. And at the same time, relaxes you completely.

Relaxes you deeply. You allow the feeling to grow. First of all, you just allow it to be there.

It's almost as if you invite, invite gratitude into your life, into your mind, into your heart. And maybe this can be an opportunity to explore. Relaxed and calm.

And there's a real sense of letting go, that pretty much happens naturally. And you may find, as you've been listening to me, even focusing on now, being grateful for this moment that we are sharing. This moment of comfort, relaxation.

It's quite meditative, the way that your mind noticing, maybe it's you allowing the feelings that you may have now of appreciation and gratitude, maybe even love, and just sending more of that gratitude into the future. Paving the way, so calm, loose, and relaxed. Drifting, drifting, relaxing.

Counting down from ten, down to one, each number, freeing your mind to feel more relaxed. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, four, four, one.