Thoughts of work or personal matters can have a way of ruining a good night sleep. Do they sometimes wake you in the middle of the night with a flutter of mental activity? At times it’s stress, then at other times interests or excitement over something you can’t wait to do.

Last night was a mixture of both for me, and now, here I am sitting at Starbucks getting a midday boost as I write this.

I had a profound experience this time. There’s a tool that I’ve used successfully in the past, but had forgotten about until last night. As I struggled to stop “thinking” I remembered, “these are my thoughts. I’m the boss.”

Yep, the expression fits well here,

The mind is a great servant but a terrible master.”

It was not gonna let me sleep if it could have its way. I would push the thoughts aside and as I felt sleep coming, the thoughts would slowly start dripping back in again.

Then I remembered something I’d learned from Eckhart Tolle’s best seller, The Power of Now. So, I simply decided to be present in the moment and it worked like a charm. I’ll tell you six simple steps to help get you started.

Not only is this a great tool for sleeping, but it can come in handy when you are facing stress or challenging circumstance that are consuming your thoughts and keeping you stuck.

So often, we become so involved in our thoughts about things, which we have no immediate control over, either in the future or in the past, we lose our ability to be present and use this very moment to its full potential.

Be present within yourself, in the moment, now. Stop lending your power to the future or the past.

  1. What we resist persists. Let go of fighting the thoughts or pushing them out. Quit trying to go to sleep.
  2. Accept the circumstance. It is what it is. There is no need to label it good or bad, simply acknowledge the thoughts and the feelings associated with them, which are keeping you awake.
  3. Breath in deeply and slowly. Pay attention to your breath and feel it going down deep and expanding your abdomen as you breath in and then out over and over again. Breathing is a form of meditation in and of itself.
  4. As you breath, become aware of the inner energy field of your body. Just feel it and let go of analyzing or thinking about it.
  5. If you are a visual person you can keep your eyes closed and imagine yourself being surrounded by a field of warm light or a luminous substance. Breath that light in and feel it going deep into your body.
  6. You are now fully present in your body, you are disconnected from the consciousness of your mind and you simply “are”. You are present in the moment. Stay there and enjoy the feeling. (When I did, that’s the last thing I remembered, until I woke up in the morning.)

The next time you are feeling stressed or find you can’t get some desperately needed sleep due to your thoughts, try disconnecting from those busy thoughts in your mind. Get your mind to let go of its busy fascination with future or past events. Be present. I believe some people call it mindfulness.

You may want to practice doing this once today and then few times over the next week, so you are ready to use it when you really need it.

Tap into the power of now.

  • By being present you can release your mind from the time-consuming thoughts that keep you in a state of stress or keep you from sleep.
  • Worry robs you of the time you have now. Don’t allow fear to fool you. FEAR is False Evidence Appearing Real.
  • Being present empowers you to become centered. You can then take action and move forward from a position of strength, rather than defaulting to knee jerk reactions prompted by worry.
  • You become more resourceful and creative in your solutions if, you are able to free your mind from obsessing in regret over the past or fear of the future.
  • Now is the only time you have, make the most of it.
[reminder]How have you managed stress or struggles with insomnia in the past? What other areas of your life could benefit from this technique of being fully present?[/reminder]