During the day, the noise blended with the sounds of the world around me. But there were many, many, many nights when the racket in my mind kept me awake hours after my family had fallen asleep. Eighteen years later, I finally found relief when I attended a seminar called "Alpha Awareness". I was there to learn the possibilities of controlling the alpha waves emitted from the brain. I was learning to program my mind to do simple tasks, for example, controlling blood-pressure and body temperature, how to use my bodyclock for an alarm clock, memory retrieval, pain control, etc.
We were involved in an exercise in which we listened to many different kind of music while being aware of the feelings that arose. We were instructed to take any unpleasant images or feelings and change them into positive ones. The second piece of music evoked an immediate negative response from me. I was tense all over. In my mind, I heard swarms and swarms of bees... and I'm allergic to them! So very gently, I began to suggest to myself that I was merely hearing the sounds of the wind. I conjured up pictures of brightly-colored leaves dancing on an autumn breeze. I imagined soaring kites with whipping tails. I saw birds gracefully gliding on currents of air. I played with the images in my mind's eye until I found I was quite comfortable and relaxed with the music.
Later that night as I lay sleepless, I suddenly realized I could apply this technique to the noise in my head. I was willing to try anything. I lay in the dark and imagined that I was in a great, wild woods, wrapped in the arms of the night. I suggested that the sound was the chirping of many crickets. The crickets sang and sang into the night. Then I realized! They were telling me the woods were a safe place. You see, in the woods, when the insects are quiet, it is a sign that a predator is in the woods. Now when I lay down at night, I invite the crickets. They remind me that the woods are safe. They lull me to sleep. I sleep like a newborn. Every night I slumber in a forest filled with song. My sleep is so restful. My whole day is enhanced by increased energy. This discovery has improved my life beyond measure.
Sometimes I find myself stopping during the day, just tuning in to the crickets, and remembering that the world is a safe place.
