Good evening, Sleep Wave, Karissa here, and I am so happy to have you here with us.

Tonight we are going to meditate on new beginnings as we gently drift into sleep.

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We appreciate you. Every September, I feel this delicious zing of new beginnings in the air.

It's definitely partly from the slightly cooler temps, but I think it's also holdover from first day of school vibes when I got to pick out new

clothes, lay out my fresh binders and pens and books, and get ready for a new year. Even though I am

no longer in school and haven't been for a long time, I still get invigorated. Or maybe it's just that

my son started pre-K this month and I'm living

vicariously through him. Anytime we start fresh, be it a new school year, a new season, a new job,

or home, or even just a new day, it is an opportunity to see the world and ourselves with fresh eyes.

What a beautiful thing.

Though as someone who historically has loved the predictability of routines,

the necessary change that comes with starting fresh

can sometimes cause me a good bit of anxiety.

But I'm getting better and better at trying out new perspectives

and busting out of routine. Meditation can be such a help with this because when you simply allow

yourself to focus on each new breath, each new moment, you allow yourself to truly start fresh in

each moment. This is especially helpful when trying to rest.

If we start fresh tonight, not needing sleep to be any certain way, not hung up on how good or how not good it was last night, we allow it to evolve.

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