Sleepytime! | 5 Audiobooks For Sleep PART ONE (In a Positive Way)

My nightly set up.  You can find the speaker HERE.

Sleepy time!

Now, I can’t be the only one who uses his/her Kindle for anything other than reading.  Though sadly I wish I could get into electronic reading.  The problem is I never seem to follow through with anything over 200 pages.  But that’s beside the point.  Except for watching the occasional Hulu or Netflix program (usually while cooking), my Kindle’s primary use is for putting me to sleep with audio books.  Yet, they’re not the kind of books you may be thinking about.  There’s no John Grisham giving me lawyer intrigue during my dream state.  Danielle Steele isn’t lulling me with romance stories.  Though I may need to try her out to get some kind of romantic action.  And while I would love Harper Lee’s latest; Go Set a Watchman's narrator isn't storytelling me to sleep either.

Whether it's seen as accessing the subconscious to switch better thinking thoughts into my waking/conscious state; I listen to self-help, motivational and inspirational books while winding into sleep. 

It started years ago when I would lull myself to sleep listening to psychic Sylvia Browne’s lectures on cassettes.  I used to probe her material at a time when I desperately sought answers through self-realization.  The other truth was her harsh, smoke-stretched voice relaxed me.  ASMR buzzes tingled all throughout my brain at the sound of her crackly voice.  

I’ve never been able to sleep in utter silence.  Actually, I don’t know anyone who can.  So learning to listening to audio books helped me sleep.  They cut the soundlessness.  The darkness.  Complete silence does a number of things, but the primary one is over-activating the imagination.  So groaning pipes become ghosts.  Popping wood becomes approaching footsteps.  But a storyteller with just the right narrative voice relaxes like no other.

With so much said, I would now like to share five of my favorite audiobooks for falling asleep.  In a positive way...

Embracing Change - Louise Hay

Louise Hay changed my life back in 2011.  You can click on the LABEL at the bottom of the post to see whatever other post to understand why and how.  Nonetheless, without a doubt her material/audio books dominate my Audible library.  Fifteen audio books and lectures stay at my fingertips.  Night after night.  And even day after day.  However, as it regards nights, I mostly find myself clicking on her lecture, Embracing Change to lull me to sleep.

Embracing Change features Louise in her classic profession of sharing her profound–though always ecstatically simple–ideas on bettering one’s life from the inside out.  Her examples emerge through her own life experiences.  Such as her overcoming cancer.  The abuse she faced as a child.  Her divorce.  And so forth.  It’s soft.  It’s gentle.  It’s caring.  It’s calmingly smooth against restless emotions.  And her ideas really encourage us to release so many of the negative thoughts and afflictions that hold us back.  Of course with the necessary tools and affirmations to make it happen.  One can never go wrong with her.  Seriously, Louise Hay has been in the self-improvement game for decades and is worth every bit of our attention.  Including in our dream state.

Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match You Desires – Wayne Dyer

If anyone should follow or slip above Louise Hay, it’ll be Dr. Wayne Dyer.  Sadly, of course, Dr. Dyer has recently passed.  But his books and lessons will always remain.  And one I’ve enjoyed over the years is Being in Balance: 9 Principles for Creating Habits to Match Your Desires.

While the same can apply toward others in his field, I love Dyer for his ability to shift your thoughts and emotions into acknowledging the bigger picture.  Whether it’s learning how to find asylum from the past mistakes that torture our life.  Or learning how to trust ourselves and others.  Dyer's teachings brings comfort in much needed spaces.  No matter how many times he impresses his thoughts and share his ideas, he always provides a new or refreshed direction at approaching many of life’s struggles.  Of course with the insightful tools necessary to manage the inner work involved.  And Being in Balance takes the essence of the Law of Attraction on with a balanced touch between the Universe and recipient.  Of course immensely refined through Dyer’s wisdom.  And gentle narrative for those interested in falling asleep peacefully to his wisdom.

Mom & Me & Mom – Maya Angelou

Now this author (among other things) takes little explanation or introduction.  So, we’ll just get right into what her book, Mom & Me & Mom is about.

If you’ve read Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, then you should be familiar with her history.  Particularly the history between her and her mother.  Her mother, Vivian Baxter, was certainly a character.  Commanding and demanding as she was, her actions weren’t always in acknowledgment of Maya and her brother.  As Vivian’s marriage grew rocky, she sent Maya and her brother away to the South to live with their grandmother.  An action boiled with resentment inside of Maya.  It’s in Mom & Me & Mom where Maya takes us on the road for reconciliation within her relationship with her mother.  The book pinpoints the different areas of that journey, as well as what the two women walked away from that eventually brought them closer.  This is easily one of my favorite audio books to fall asleep to.  It’s also one that I find myself staying up in the dark listening to.

Thanks for tuning in.  I’ll be back with PART 2 of this list.  There I’ll get into my time with Marianne Williamson, Doreen Virtue, and Lisa Nichols.

Share your experiences and comments below!

The Tao and Limitlessness

A couple of years ago I was sitting alone in the computer lab at school looking at a big, less-than-20%-grade-achievement on a line of math assignments that would surely reroute me back into the course the proceeding semester.  I was struck with panic.  I was tired and wasted with the idea that I could somehow conquer my math anxiety as well as other complications with the generality of arithmetic.  I was just about ready to let my defeat wash over me, turning into a wave of hate and resentment for life as I hit another block.  Somehow I managed to swallow a scream.  Then I simply... quietly... just sat still.  That stillness was silent enough for me to recall a video featuring Louise Hay and her philosophies on life.  Right then and there I managed to calm myself by stating the affirmation she shared in the video.  "All is well," she'd said.  "From this experience only good will come and I am safe.  For the Universe is on my side now and forevermore.  All is well."

That was all I had; I left out of that lab smiling.  While I didn't pass the course, a few months later I was redirected toward another school where I got all of the help I needed in math.  I left their prerequisite math course with a solid B.  Needless to say, I learned to use that affirmation often.  Whether a problem arises or I need to calm my thoughts down from over-obsessing about the future, I hang on to the truth that all is well.

After that experience I decided to seriously focus closer on the changes I wanted to make in my life through healthier thinking.  And while there were plenty, one of the old patterns of thinking gave me a little more resistance than others.  I found it difficult to squelch the idea that what was necessary and good in my life felt limited by my unconscious need to create time limits or expirations on them.  From money, to friendships, to my ability to accept grace and new found creative freedom, everything had a frustrating time limitation on it.  From the ability to be receptive to allowing certain dreams that I’d dreamed up to be, or to at least staple them down to becoming possible through some general actions toward their direction, had a time limit.  It was as if things had to change at a certain time in my life because I was always trying to escape the possibility of being tied down to a worthless existence.  I couldn't trust the process and there seemed to never be enough to work with.

Reversing that form of limited thinking required me to put forth the ever true concept that whatever I needed from God/Universe is forever in a state of endless abundance and assistance.  There is no limit to what God/Universe can do and provide.  Therefore, there is no need to limit my thinking about money because money would always be available to get me where I desired.  There was no need to think about my lack of friendships because friendships were always available and ready for creation (though most of that issue resided in my reclusive ways toward others).  There was no need to believe that my creativity had a limit, because God/Universe would always provide avenues to explore my creativity and share it further.  Inspired by change, I realized that all things are possible if I let go and put trust where it belongs.

Relating the Tao’s translation by Derek Lin to Wayne Dyer’s made me realization that the purpose of Chapter/Verse 4 is to recognize that bottomless abundance provided by God/Universe, and that we have to trust in how endless such a resource is.  Much of that realization can be achieved by reading the first four lines.  Nevertheless, let’s start with Lin’s translation stating:

The Tao is empty

When utilized, it is not filled up

So deep!  It seems to be the source of all things

It blunts the sharpness

Unravels the knots

Dims the glare

Mixes the dusts

So indistinct!  It seems to exist

I do not know whose offspring it is

Its image is the predecessor of the Emperor

Whereas Dyer’s translation reads:

The Tao is empty

But inexhaustible,

Bottomless,

The ancestor of it all.

Within it, the sharp edges become smooth;

The twisted knots loosen;

The sun is softened by a cloud;

The dust settles into place.

It is hidden but always present.

I do not know who gave birth to it.

It seems to be the common ancestor of all, the father of things.

Amazing, right?  Probably the shortest and clearest verse I’ve come across so far.  I find myself drawn to the comfort of words--between the two translations--like “empty”, “inexhaustible”, and “bottomless.”

So how do we shut our minds down long enough to let God/Universe/Tao do what it does and provide for us with its bottomless edge of abundance and assistance?  Or how do we allow these “forces” to bring abundance through ourselves?  It takes practice, but I believe the key within all of this is to quickly affirm that all is well.  This allows our mind enough calm to let God/Universe/Tao to provide us clear answers, or even deliver us the solution.  As I shared in my little mathematics story, I learned to quickly shut my mind up when problems arise.  Instead of jumping up to resist the issue, I tell myself that all is well.  This gives me time to chill, reorganize my thoughts, and put aside all of the thoughts that only make the situation worst.  Doing so at least gives me enough time to think up a solution or allow a solution to come.  Sometimes those solutions don't show up until days down the road, but I have to trust that that's okay too.  I'm not saying I always get it right, but I am always aware of the potential behind the tool of simply stating that "all is well".  From there, I begin to trust the process when the resources surrounding me are abundant.

Lesson number 125 titled, In Quiet I Receive God’s Word Today, in A Course of Miracles kind of expands on the idea of silencing ourselves to grasp what many refer to as that inner voice (I leave that open to personal interpretation; some say it's angelic, God, Christ, etc.).  A passage from the lesson reads:

“Today He speaks to you.  His Voice awaits your silence, for His Word can not be heard until your mind is quiet for a while, and meaningless desires have been stilled.  Await His Word in quiet.  There is peace within you to be called upon today, to help make ready your most holy mind to hear the Voice for its Creator speak.”

A Course in Miracle: Text, Workbook, Manual for Teachers: The Advent of a Great Awakening. [United States]: Barnes & Noble, 2007. Print.

Dyer, Wayne W. Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2007.

Lin, Derek.  “Accurate Translation of the Tao Te Ching.”  Accurate Translation of the Tao Te Ching.  N.p. http://www.taoism.net/ttc/complete.htm.

Tao and Oneness

To change my scenery a bit, I took my laptop notebook to a window door.  From my position on the floor, legs tucked over a dark green fleece blanket, I see that our grass needs cutting in all its sound greenery.  There’s also that tree stump created last winter.  It hosts a small cluster of mushrooms where a butterfly currently keeps dipping on and off.  The two weeks worth of recyclables are parked at the curb, the bin and the plastic trash can filled with empty bottles of zero calorie drinks, 20oz water bottles, and Kashi cereal boxes.  A FedEx truck just raced by, and I wish there was something for me to receive as I sit writing, continuing to find ways to bring comfort to this thing called life.

I was a little hesitant to sit before my neighborhood with my notebook, seeing that a couple of years ago our neighborhood was hit by a group of teens breaking into homes.  Unfortunately, I became a victim of said teens when they got into my new, used car and took the non-operational stereo out.  It recently came to my attention that they have long been caught.  Two of them found themselves on the receiving end of a bullet fired from strapped homeowners in another area of the city.  The two survived their karmic twists.

So why am I sharing all this?  Why am I bringing up my lawn, a butterfly, recycling, and thieves?  Because I find it the appropriate time to look back and discuss the Tao’s second chapter/verse through the translation of Derek Lin and Dr. Wayne Dyer’s interpretations.  It is here that we acknowledge some of the good and the bad in life, and how it is kind of unnecessary to gnaw on their differences when they both come and arrive from the same source.

Derek Lin’s translation goes as:

When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises

When it knows good as good, evil arises

Thus being and non-being produce each other

Difficult and easy bring about each other

Long and short reveal each other

High and low support each other

Music and voice harmonize each other

Front and back follow each other

Therefore the sages:

Manage the work of detached actions

Conduct the teaching of no words

They work with myriad things but do not control

They create but do not possess

They act but do not presume

They succeed but do not dwell on success

It is because they do not dwell on success

That it never goes away

Wayne Dyer's read as:

Under heave all can see beauty as beauty,

only because there is ugliness.

All can know good only because there is evil.

Being and nonbeing produce each other.

The difficult is born in the easy.

Long is defined by short, the high by the low.

Before and after go along with each other.

So the sage lives openly with apparent duality

and paradoxical unity.

The sage can act without effort

and teach without words.

Nurturing things without possessing them,

he works, but not for rewards;

he competes, but not for results.

When the work is done, it is forgotten.

That is why it lasts forever.

What can we say is the meaning behind this verse?  Of course it depends on your personal interpretation.  However, I got the sense that it coincides with the expression that “everything is everything” or “it is what it is.”  I believe the key terms between both verses are “each other”, “duality", "unity", and "success."  So how inspiring the better person can be to acknowledge the parallels we see daily in life and nature, and accept them equality.

And because I tend to over think, I must go on...  

A single thing, concept, idea, or existence can’t be labeled or called such without the recognition of its opposite--even by its opposite.  Dyer points out an example in this chapter where he asks the question: “Has it ever occurred to you that beauty depends on something being identified as ugly?”  With that said, the idea of beauty has also fashioned the idea of ugly, just like life can generate the idea of death.  Good can conjure up the meaning of evil.  Male knows of female.  It is almost like saying we/life live in a grayness where we/life possess even the things we sometimes reject or judge unfairly.  According to the Tao, or my thinking/seeking, these possessions are all necessary in their oneness.

I think we as humans may be the only animals that place focus on these differences.  Seriously, like Dyer says, “the daffodil doesn't think that the daisy is prettier or uglier than it is.”  Why would it when--as a plant--it simply just is?  Nevertheless, we do the opposite of it every day to other people, and in view of some of their circumstances.  We’re all guilty, and I can be honest in saying that I don’t know how I can reach such a state of perceiving.  Especially in a time where I am so busy trying to change my life as thoughts rush pass me while I speed along.

But I think one of the keys here is to live and respond with good intent toward others.  This allows comfort within yourself that you don’t necessarily have to justify yourself to no one.  Half the time not even to yourself.  What you like is what you like.  Who you are is who you are.  All you can do at the end of the day is do good and be.  So why waste so much time fighting those who do the same?

A complicated mess, but thank you so much for reading. (^.^)

Sources:

Dyer, Wayne W. Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao.  Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2007.

Lin, Derek. "Accurate Translation of the Tao Te Ching." Accurate Translation of the Tao Te Ching. N.p. .