Guided Sleep Meditation to Help Parents Unwind

Listening to a guided sleep meditation is one way we can be intentional about caring for ourselves during these chaotic times! Putting on a meditation to go to sleep takes little to no effort (uh, press play😆), you literally don’t have to lift a finger, and you can listen to beautiful meditation music to sleep by on your phone’s speaker as you drift off to la-la-land.  This might be the best challenge I’ve come up with yet!

WATCH: My Guided Sleep Meditation to Help Parents Unwind

Here is why you should be listening to a pre sleep meditation at the end of your day:

JOIN THE CHALLENGE TO GET FREE MEDITATIONS!

Here’s how to get access!

1. Join the Play Pandemic Challenge
2. Open the Play Pandemic Guide
3. Listen to the meditations featured on page 5!

We’ll Remember the Beginnings and the Ends

I know some of your days are going really well and others of your days are feeling like they’re straight out of Hell. I get that. This parenting ride is a wacky, crazy, up and down journey at the best of times, but when things are in crisis mode, it just heightens those experiences. 

We don’t have control over a lot of things, but we do have control over how we show up for ourselves, especially during transition periods. 

I want to remind you that we remember the beginnings and ends of things. (Watch my Morning 4 minute Meditation video if you aren’t sure what I’m referring to.) If you think back to events in your life, one of things that stands out is that we remember big emotions, but we also remember beginnings and ends. It’s very hard for us to remember the things that happened in the middle. 

So why don’t we use that to our advantage by crafting and creating conscious, present beginnings and ends to our days that look the way we want them to look? 

How to Be Intentional about Meditation and Sleep

Being intentional about meditation and sleep is a way to live a life that nourishes us. I know we want a life where we show up with consciousness, where we treat ourselves well, where we’re happy, joyful, connected, and all of the good things, … well, I’m sorry to say that we actually CAN’T live that way. At least not all of the time – that’s too tall an order for most of us. 

But even among the highs and the lows that parenthood brings to our daily lives, we can take specific points in our day where we CAN craft intentionality. 

One of them is waking up. Another one is going to sleep. 

Are You Making Excuses for Your Poor Choices?

Sleeping, something that we do for 1/3 of our lives, is such an important and nourishing thing. But us parents often mistreat ourselves; we kind of abuse ourselves when it comes to sleep. 

Now I’m gonna call you out on some excuses, okay? So get ready and put your big girl pants on because this might sting a little 🐝.

“I don’t need meditation techniques for sleep; I’m always sleep deprived anyways!”

Many of us are quick to brush off meditation techniques for sleep and how they can benefit us. We complain about sleep deprivation and I get it, I’ve had four children. I know what it’s like to be up nursing all night with a baby.

But we are not taking charge of what we do have control over and we’re using our kids as an excuse for our exhaustion.

Yes, our kids are up screaming at night, or wake up at 4:30am and that interrupts our sleep. But..

• Are we going to bed as early as we could be?
• Are we truly creating a dark, nourishing sleep environment?
• Are we switching off our screens over an hour before we go to bed?

(Now, maybe you’re not doing these things, in which case I apologize for calling you out.)

But if you are, this is a call to action that today you take the challenge with me and you listen to a meditation to go to sleep.

I’ll give it to you – it’s my evening and sleep meditation audio.  You will receive it when you sign up for my 21 day Play Pandemic Challenge. (With more challenges like this one!) It’s nothing fancy, but it will help you to unwind for just a few short moments.

“I don’t need meditation to get to sleep; I have Instagram!”

If you think there is no point in listening to a meditation to get to sleep because you just scroll until your eyelids are heavier than your toddler on your hip, you’re just making excuses. This is not beneficial – this is not “me time.”

“Me time” is not exhausting yourself in front of Tik Tok at 11:00 p.m. That’s not good quality me time. Good quality me time is you going to sleep so that you can show up and boss tomorrow. 

“I Ain’t Need No ‘Go To Sleep Meditation’ Doohickeys! I Unwind Just Fine.”

(Sorry for making you sound like that… 😆)

Those “go to sleep meditation doohickeys” are true ways to unwind. Unwinding isn’t scrolling aimlessly through Facebook, pinging our brain with anxiety hormones, getting ourselves on high alert and staying up much too late. That’s not nourishing ourselves. That’s not self care. 

Self care is when we listen to a short meditation for better sleep health, take a relaxing bath, read, a book, get into the zone, or spend some quality time with our partner and then… go to sleep.

“I Don’t Have Time for Meditation and Sleep Music!”

I know you can’t set aside 30 minutes to listen to meditation and sleep music, but a few short moments, you can do. After your kid falls asleep, or while they’re falling asleep, pop it in your ear, just listen to a spoken meditation for sleep, take the deep breaths, go into that state, and then:

Go to bed. Go to sleep. Go to sleep early. 

Doesn’t Listening to this Guided Sleep Meditation Sound Easy?

It is! Listen to this pre sleep meditation for sound sleep and prove to yourself that you are taking charge of the things you DO have control over right now. I want you to snap a selfie 📸 of yourself in the morning, or perhaps in the evening before you’re going to bed, to prove to yourself and to others that you are doing this. FOR YOU. Share it on social media with the hashtag #PlayPandemic and tag me for a chance to be featured! 

A guided sleep meditation is going to be just what the sleep doctor ordered.