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Meditation 103 · 28 May 2026 · 5:51

Evening Meditation: Letting the Day Settle Down

The day is still in your jaw and your shoulders. Six minutes to put it down by the door instead of carrying it up to bed.

Subject: Sleep & Bedtime, Letting Go & Acceptance

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Inner Peace Meditations · Meditation 103

Length5:51
SubjectSleep & Bedtime
Best timeThe end of the day, before you go up
PositionSitting or lying down
StyleGuided, six minutes, three lines to finish on. Music underneath

The day is still in your jaw and your shoulders. Six minutes to put it down by the door instead of carrying it up to bed.

About 6 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice. Perfect for the evening.

The working self is a costume. The one who answered the messages, the one who held it all together. You take it off, and you do not even fold it. Three lines to finish on. May what I did today rest. May what came to me today rest. May what is still unfinished rest.

Treat me to a coffee, keep the podcast free, and get my Weekly Calm every Sunday. It is all on stevenwebb.uk

Thank you for sitting with me.

Steven

Who this is for

The day is over and it is still in your jaw. Still in your shoulders. Still in that small tight space behind your eyes.

We carry the day home in the body and then take it up to bed with us, and then wonder why the bed does not work.

This is six minutes to put it down by the door instead.

What happens in this meditation

We start by noticing where the day is still being held. The jaw, and letting the back teeth come apart. The shoulders, and letting them drop by about a finger's width.

Then you take the working self off. The one who answered all the messages, the one who held it together. It is a costume, and you do not even have to fold it.

It ends on three lines. May what I did today rest. May what came to me today rest. May what is still unfinished rest.

How to get the most from it

Six minutes, so it fits in the gap between finishing and going up, which is exactly where it belongs.

Do it before bed rather than in bed. This is about putting the day down, not falling asleep, and there is no fade out at the end.

It is not only for people coming home from a workplace. A day at home with children is a day, and it lives in the shoulders the same way.

Questions people ask

What if the unfinished thing is genuinely urgent?

Then it will still be urgent in the morning, and you will be better at it. Letting it rest is not the same as dropping it.

Can I use this to fall asleep?

It is not built for that, and it ends by bringing you back to the room. Sleep is better served by one of the longer ones.

Six minutes seems short. Is that enough?

For putting one day down, yes. The short ones get used, and the ones that get used are the ones that work.

Read along

The transcript

It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.

evening · stress · body-scan · letting-go

Read the transcript

Hi, and welcome to putting the day down.

You don't need to do anything with your body or your breath.

Just be aware.

The body knows how to breathe.

We just allow these things to happen in the moment. So

just while you're settling in, this meditation, although it may be focused on someone coming home from work or a

day away, it's also for somebody that has

been working at home or a parent or... It's just whatever you've done today, it's allowing the day to rest.

So it really doesn't matter how you do this meditation. The idea is just to stay alert and be aware.

So we've come to the end of a long day and we are here for

just a few minutes to put it down.

And before we begin, let's just be aware of our breath and aware of our body.

Breathing in calm.

Breathing out relax

You don't need to do anything with your breath. Your

body knows how to breathe and

Just allow your body to relax around So let's begin by noticing the body. Not changing anything, just noticing.

So where has the day still been held?

The jaw perhaps? The shoulders? The

small space behind the eyes?

The day very often lives in the body. As

a kind of leftover residue of the day. We

carry it home in our shoulders. We carry it home in our breath. We

carry it home in how we feel.

So we begin softly with the jaw. We let the back teeth come apart just a little.

And the tongue, we just let it rest.

And now the shoulders, we just let them drop

And just by a finger's width.

We very often don't realise that we're holding them. We rarely do.

And just imagine metaphorically leaving the bag down just next to the door.

There is a moment every evening when the work itself can be left at the threshold. The

one who answered the messages. The one who held it together. We

let that one go just for a while.

The working self, the busy self, is a kind of costume. It's a role that we play.

We

sometimes forget to take it off.

So we let it slip.

We don't even need to fold it.

Three things we let rest tonight. We don't need to know how, we just allow.

May

what I did today rest.

May what came to me today rest.

May what is still unfinished rest.

May what I did today rest.

May what came to me today rest.

May what is still unfinished rest.

We stay here with this breath, with this body for one more moment.

And we're just going to bring ourselves back to the room.

Five. Just gently become aware of the room you're in.

Four. Open your eyes. Three. Just move your arms, wiggle your fingers.

Two. Just look around knowingly

and One Just take a deeper breath like we're aware.

Thank you for listening to Inner Peace Meditations. If

you'd like to message me or got an idea for meditation, please reach out on StevenWebb.uk. Take care.

It's been a pleasure sitting with you this evening.

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