I was lying in bed in the middle of the day with my eye mask on, waiting to fall asleep.
I had woken up earlier than usual that day and was trying to take a nap so I could have more energy for the things I needed to do later that afternoon and evening.
My eyes were covered. I was lying still. The room was quiet.
And then I had a thought.
To fall asleep, we basically have to pretend we’re already asleep.
We lie down.
We close our eyes.
We get still.
We stop doing awake things.
We take the position first.
And eventually, sleep catches up.
We do this every day
The idea of living as though something is already true is not new.
People in manifestation circles have been saying versions of it for a long time.
Imagine it.
Feel it.
Live from it.
Act as if.
What I hadn’t thought about before was that we do this with sleep every day.
Every night, we enter a state we cannot force by first taking the position of that state.
We do not wait until we are asleep to close our eyes.
We close our eyes first.
We do not wait until sleep has arrived to become still.
We become still first.
The outside evidence comes later.
Maybe getting there starts with living there
That made me wonder about the things we want in life.
Maybe getting where we want to go sometimes starts with living like we’re already there.
Not pretending to have money we do not have.
Not claiming accomplishments that have not happened.
Not performing a life for other people.
I mean taking the position internally.
If I believed the life I want was possible, how would I move today?
What would I expect?
What would I stop tolerating?
What would feel ordinary instead of impossible?
What decisions would make sense from there?
The life may not look different yet.
But the position can.
And then there is the part where we check
There was another thing happening while I was lying there.
I kept wondering why I was not asleep yet.
Which is almost funny when I think about it now.
I was trying to fall asleep while also checking whether I had fallen asleep.
We do that with other things too.
Where is it?
Why hasn’t it happened?
Am I doing this right?
Is anything changing?
We keep checking the current moment for proof of the thing that has not arrived yet.
And sometimes all that checking keeps our attention on the fact that it is not here.
Sleep is easier when we stop monitoring sleep.
Maybe there is something in that too.
Maybe it is a reminder
I do not know if sleep was made this way on purpose.
I do not know if it is some kind of built-in lesson, or if I just happened to notice a useful comparison while trying to take a nap.
But I like the thought.
We have to sleep every day.
Which means every day, we practice taking the position before the state arrives.
We close our eyes before we are asleep.
We become still before sleep has taken us.
We stop doing awake things before there is any proof that sleep is coming.
And then, at some point, without being able to name the exact second it happened, we are there.
Maybe that is worth remembering when something we want still feels far away.
Maybe we do not have to wait for all the evidence before we begin living from the possibility of it.
Maybe sometimes we have to live like it is possible before life shows us that it is.