The Best Bedtime Story
Magic Nights for Children
Bedtime Stories by Gracie & Viv
How could a bedtime story help your child feel empowered and honored for who they are. How could it show them that friends come in all shapes and sizes, and that, in the end, the universe they live in is a safe and supportive place to be.
Maybe it could be the story with a simple, fun story structure that you can lead them through, but where they can choose the scene, the characters and the destination. – a nighttime journey of their own making. Like going out into a magical ocean full of possibility every night.
Maybe it could be a tale where you can teach a Captain’s Code of important life-skills like graciousness and freedom and ethics that they can draw from for the rest of their lives.
Maybe it could be a story with an exciting new chapter every night sending the child off into dreamland as the Captain of their own ship, with a crew of their choosing, to a destination only limited by their imagination.
So that in the morning before they open their eyes, they can learn how to go within to thank their crew and guests. They can see what treasures that they have brought back with them, and what new discoveries they have made.
And they can keep that feeling of self-determination, self-reliance and support from the universe with them all through the day. They can learn that they now have a resource, an inner wisdom and power, and a place to go for help no matter where they are or what situation they might find themselves in.
All they have to do is remember that special bedtime story.
And when they grow up, they will still have that old Magic Nights ship in their back pocket: And when they feel challenged, their answer just might be “Sure. Let me sleep on it…”
Have a Magic Night!
Dr Katie Hawn
Magic Nights Lullabye: A Sea Chanty for Children
Dreamtime Boats by Sammydavisdog
Sing this lullabye to help your children have a Magic Night.
So that they will always remember…
Set to an old Irish tune:
“Star of the County Down”
Magic Nights Lullabye Music and Lyrics (.pdf here)
Every Magic Night, there’s a golden dock that goes out to the dreamtime sea.
There your ship awaits, and it’s strong and sleek. Only you have the magic key.
So put on your Captain’s fancy dress and call up your hearty crew.
Check your maps, chart your course. Raise the sails, take the wheel.
There’s adventure ahead for you.
Will you swim with the dolphins down into the deep, or daringly great whales ride ?
Will you dance and play, through the nighttime day, with your best mates by your side ?
So lay down your head on your pillow, and drift off on a dreamtime tide.
We’re devoted crew, and we’re here for you on your Magic Nights dreamtime ride.
Musical Notes 🙂 the YouTube version plays the tune ABB, ABB, ABB, where I have written it out ABAB The sheet music .pdf shows the A part and the B part of the tune.
Have a Magic Night!
Snoring – New Help from a New Therapy
“Physician Heal Thyself (and then others) of Thy Snoring!”
Snore by Noemi Manalang
How I fixed my own snoring in Aspen, CO:
After chiropractic school, I decided to move to Aspen, Colorado. I had always wanted to live in the mountains, and when I got there, I knew I was home!. Something about the beautiful canyons and crystal clear mountain air enthralled me. I came alone with just a few dollars in my pocket, a short housesitting job and a sense of adventure. Soon the housesitting ended and I was looking for whatever I could find for next-to-nothing. The cheapest living space was at the edge of this very small town, living with six other young women and a creepy old man (the owner) in a townhouse. Space was tight, but as long as we had room for ski clothes and hiking boots, and a few clubbing outfits, we were happy. I was a little older then most of them, in my thirties at the time, but they were gracious and invited me to go clubbing with them almost every night.
One night I woke myself up with my own snoring! I was personally a little amused, but I could just imagine what my twenty-something roommates would think (“old fart…”). So, it couldn’t continue. Luckily my well-trained hands could reach just about all the body parts involved, so I went to work. Physician heal thyself!
I started with my chest and worked my way up my neck to my jaw and sinuses. Ten minutes of that brief routine for a few nights and I felt pretty sure that I wasn’t snoring any more. What a relief.
A Quiet Beach Vacation
My next snoring client was my Mom:
I didn’t think much about it again until I was staying at a small beach house on vacation with my mom. She was snoring a little, just as I had. And by this time, (it took about ten years) she believed in my abilities as a therapist and doctor. So when I asked her if I could treat her before bed, she welcomed it. Twenty minutes later and her snoring was fixed and I could sleep too.
All the other snorers I treated:
Every now and then, I would do update snoring sessions on myself and my mother. And every time I was in the position of having to sleep with other people who snored, I offered my services. These snorers were a often a little more challenging. As I worked with people with generalized long-term chronic tension (middle aged men are prone to this), chronic asthma and sleep apnea, it became evident that they would benefit from more frequent sessions at first, and then follow up with therapy for the underlying conditions to keep the sleep disturbances (for everyone) at bay.
Help with sleep and snoring was always one of the positive side effects of Upledger’s CranioSacral Therapy. As therapists, we were more often presented with more complex health issues, and the clients may not have even noticed that their sleep was better. I didn’t think much about it for a while, but then I started working with my own sleep by programming it Magic Nights style. I became interested in all things sleep related. And I remembered about my success with snoring.
I realize snoring is a big, and underserved, problem:
After doing a little research, I realized what a big problem it was and how seemingly little was out there in the way of effective treatment. The kind of comprehensive deep-tissue release therapy, like CranioSacral Therapy (CST), that I had found worked so well was never mentioned as an option. I looked at my own hands and thought, “But it’s so easy!” And a new marketing idea was born. Every time I mentioned that I treated snoring, ears would perk up, accompanied by a few nervous chuckles. It seemed that most people had a problem with snoring themselves or knew someone who did. I ran out of business cards very quickly.
Adding another treatment option to the snoring menu: CranioSacral Therapy
Now it’s my dream that all those big sleep clinics will have CST trained personnel on staff. But there’s no need to for you to wait. There are qualified CST practitioners all over. Just look for the therapists in the Upledger site with at least four dots in CST, then maybe some in brain curriculum or other courses as a bonus:
http://www.upledger.com/
Have a Magic Night!
Losing Weight vs. Gaining Attitude
Skinny by Jon Bell
The Psychology and Neuroscience of Getting Skinny:
Changing your mind about your body and your life, why it’s important, and two books that will help.
Is being thin, losing weight, or getting in shape more a matter of the “right mindset” than counting calories, carbs or sit-ups?
That’s what the “Russell Cook Wellness for the Real World” blog asked experts on the site: www.drveronica.com
What are the real goals of getting “Skinny”? :
Self-acceptance, Enjoyment of life, and Freedom of expression.
So it’s just a matter of changing our goal, our focus: “changing our mind” about ourselves. That should be easy, right? But wait – aren’t we supposed to work hard at the gym? struggle to stay motivated to exercise? deprive ourselves of tasty foods? Our current society seems to encourage this approach. We beat ourselves up over not being thin enough or healthy enough or eating badly.
Paradoxically, this ‘hard work’ path to self-esteem and health can be the safer one emotionally. But where does it lead? Haven’t we all seen people with beautiful, thin, or buffed bodies that are just not attractive because they don’t believe it themselves or they just feel miserable on the inside and can’t completely disguise it no matter how much time or money they spend on their appearance? This self-flagellation only causes more stress and low-self esteem and can result in a downward spiral of – more of the same. If we forget the true goals of self-acceptance, enjoyment of life and freedom of expression, then all the exercise and dieting can seem endless, and pointless.
Dancing Pirate by Chris Willis
The seemingly easier path of changing our minds requires a commitment to introspection and self-love that can be long and painful in its own way. But it’s where the journey to “being thin” must begin, in order for it to end in true self-esteem and wellness.
It’s much easier to take care of ourselves when we feel loved and safe. And the most important source of love has to come from within as self-love and appreciation. If this is in place, then we will naturally make healthier choices for our bodies and our lives. True and healthy healing and wellness must begin with changing our minds about who we are, what we are worth and what we are capable of. Only then will the hard work we do for our health pay off, and stick.
Two books that will help are:
Magic Nights by Katie Hawn, DC (me) for an easy way to begin to “change your mind” while you sleep, finding self-love, motivation and getting a jump-start to health. Tune into my Captain’s Log blog for more stories about how this works on a daily basis:
http://www.amazon.com/Magic-Nights-Treasure-Possibility-Sleeping/dp/0615442129
And
The Only Diet There Is by Sondra Ray for a wonderful presentation of why self-love is the only way to the true goal:
https://www.liberationbreathing.com/bookstore
As a bonus,
Here is a great quote from Abraham-Hicks:
“Your sophisticated physical body exists because of the intelligence of your cells. And the intelligence of your cells exists because of their Connection to Source Energy.
When doctors and scientists try to find cures for diseases without taking into consideration the Vibrational relationship between the physical Being and Source Energy, they are looking for cures in all the wrong places. If the resistance that disallowed the Well-Being to begin with is not released, it will show up in the form of another and another disease.
Your cells, because of their connection to the intelligence of Source Energy, know exactly what to do in order to become the incredible variety of functioning cells in your magnificent physical body. And in the absence of the hindrance that is caused by your resistant negative thought, that communication stays open to clear, up-to-the-moment interaction, keeping your physical body at peak and perfect performance.
In the absence of negative emotion—and therefore the allowance of complete alignment and communication with Source Energy—your physical body can reclaim its balance and recover from any imbalance. And once balance has resumed, it is easy to maintain with consistently good-feeling thoughts.” — Abraham
Excerpted from the Getting into the Vortex Guided Meditation CD and User Guide # 332
http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php
Have a Magic Night!
Dr. Katie Hawn
Spring Cleaning for Your Mind
Desert Sunset Meditation
A Quiet Mind is Good for Sleeping Well
It will help you fall asleep more easily and awaken more peacefully.
When I talk to people about the quality of their sleep, many mention an inability to turn off their minds, making it difficult to fall asleep. In this age of information overload and desk-jockey stress, that’s not unexpected.
But an hyperactive mind is not a healthy one, whether it comes from poor health or causes it. Sadly, many of us have forgotten how it feels to experience that deeply healing sleep our body needs and craves to fully recover from our daytime lives. A stressed-out, busy mind needs help from wherever it can get it.
A Comprehensive Approach to Clearing Your Mind:
Clearing and cleaning your environment:
- Exercising in nature, breathing in good, pure natural air; nature will simultaneously soak up bad energy and feed you with good energy
- Finding a place to get away from electronics of all kinds; they are their own form of insidious pollution. .
- Taking a break from all kinds of toxins; meaning artificial anything. Scents and non-natural cleaning solutions are typical offenders.
- Use Feng Shui in your home and workspace.
Cleaning up your diet:
- finding an organic, healthy, whole food, raw food, toxin-free, natural diet.-
- or just getting used to buying your food at a good health food store such as Whole Foods.
Indulging in a non-tech hobby that raises your spirits and feeds your soul:
- such as gardening, music, art or crafts (nothing that has a plug or battery.)
Getting good bodywork:
- Upledger’s CranioSacral Therapy; for those who just want someone else to do it for them while they just lay there. It’s great for relieving stress on a deep level. www.upledger.com
- Lymphatic drainage would be a great bonus, as it clears out the body’s sewer pipes. Also found at Upledger.com
Using the Magic Nights technique every night to help with:
- Finding a silent mind
- Asking for general cleansing, clearing and balancing
- Asking for a deep, healing, clearing sleep
- Asking for your energetic body to be cleared, balanced and charged.
Unfortunately, many of us just don’t have enough time, energy or perhaps money to do the things that would be most helpful. And we don’t want to give up everything we like now to farm potatoes in the wilderness and play fiddle at sunset. We prefer our over-stimulated daytime busy-ness. It seems to make our lives feel like they have some value.
Luckily, we have all night, every night, and the (free) power of our own mind and brain to get us back to that silent and peaceful state of mind. And we know, instinctively, that it’s a very important place to be able to find. It’s where the larger meaning of it all has a chance to slip into our lives.
The first time I used the Magic Nights technique to ask for a sense of a silent mind, it took about four days to work. On that day I woke up with that wonderfully peaceful, silent awareness that some people spend years of cross-legged devotion to find. Then I practiced going back to that silent place during the day to make sure I could return to it when I needed it.
To be fair, I had achieved this kind of mental silence – a mind without words – before. But that time was purely a matter of psychic self-defense. I wrote about it in my book as it was a notable achievement in my early psychic development.
And to be clear, I have also experienced a kind of mental silence that is decidedly scary. One time was possibly due to a toxic environment, the other more likely a symptom of my empathic tendencies (I was living with someone with Alzheimers). Luckily – physician heal thyself – I stopped the progression, reversed it with cranial adjustment, supplements and other natural remedies and recovered fully both times.
In the Magic Nights book, I recommend asking for a silent mind as your second nighttime ‘intention’ or destination, just after a good nights sleep. Finding that ability to listen on a deeper level is a core building block to further success with the work. It will help with that ‘attention’ part that happens when your alarm goes off in the morning and you are in that precious and powerful place just this side of the dream state. This is where you would pay attention to how you feel, what you are thinking and find the treasures you have brought back with you from your night’s journey.
After a full week of asking for a silent mind, you should have enough of a taste of that wonderful place that you can return to it more or less at will. Once there, not only should your mind be actively resting in a clear and peaceful state, but a very important door will open for you; a door to another world. Now, with your intention, imagination and acceptance, the magical possibilities of our universe are open to you.
Have a Magic Night!
Dr Katie Hawn