Some thoughts on rest…
Rest has been a constant challenge for me in my life, a skill I have to work at consistently to master. As I take some time out from normal life on a family holiday in France I felt called to share some reflections on rest that I have learned over the past few years as I recondition myself to integrate rest in my life.
These thoughts are contemplations, and I hope that by sharing them they might spark a little reflection for others.
Rest needs to be re-defined as an empowerment practice. By claiming our rest back for ourselves, we are literally changing the future generations approach to nourishing themselves by modelling a lost art.
We have to choose rest for ourselves. We have to claim it. To ask for it. To orchestrate it. It’s rare that someone else will come and ‘offer’ you the chance to rest… we need to take radical responsibility for it for ourselves.
Rest is truly where the magic happens. It is not in the doing.
Rest is not a luxury. It needs to be as much of our lives as brushing our teeth or showering our bodies.
Rest is challenging in this modern world. It’s labelled as lazy… unproductive… time wasting… but this is because human beings have been commodified and de-humanised to appear like machines. This makes me sad and mad.
I have had to learn rest. I have had to unlearn toxic productivity and worthiness based on doing… and I have to work on this every damn day.
Rest often needs to be done in baby steps.
Sometimes our nervous system does not feel safe resting because our ‘survival’ and ‘worthiness’ and sense of ‘belonging’ has been pinned on productivity and making stuff happen.
Rest needs to be a pro-active act… it is no good resting when you are already totally empty… that isn’t really rest… that’s exhaustion and often shows up as illness… our body shutting down. Rest needs to be used as a preventative act of daily maintenance not as something that we have to succumb to as a last resort to claw back a little bit of aliveness.
Rest is accumulative... the benefits only expand as you do more of it. Little and often is actually more sustainable and effective in the long term than waiting until you are empty of life force and trying to top up your battery in one big stint!
Rest is a privilege. It shouldn’t be… but unfortunately it is.
Rest often comes with a dose of guilt… it’s uncomfortable… but like any challenging emotion if it’s witnessed and observed, and met with curiosity instead of running from it… there is so much to be healed and shifted. Until we can get comfortable with some of these difficult emotions… which is not our fault because it’s very rare that we are taught to process and be OK with them… we are unlikely to be able to fully surrender to rest.
Rest is where the healing takes place. It can’t happen in any other state.
Rest is a valuable part of the creative process. Until we make space for divine expression to show itself to us, we won’t hear it and will likely be frustrated using the mind to try and ‘think up’ creative solutions. It’s in the sacred pause that our soul sparks can reach us.
It’s no coincidence that these words have poured through while I’ve been taking a break in France. As soon as I carved out some time to rest and replenish... the creative downloads flowed in.
There are different types of rest in my opinion, and I think we need to take a similar approach to rest as we do with balanced eating... I.e. varying it to ensure we get topped up in different ways.
Guided rest such as meditations, restorative yoga, yoga nidra.
Creative rest, such as drawing, painting, making, cooking... but for pure pleasure rather than for ‘work’.
Total rest (which I personally think is the hardest) where we simply do nothing other than purely be.
Dynamic rest where we are doing something that restores our mind but in movement rather than static, for me walking slowly in nature fulfils this need.
Held rest... when someone else holds space for our rest in the form of healing practices such as energy work, ,assuage, anything that activates a sense of relaxation.
Something to ponder...
Are you getting enough rest? Really? Are you feeling balanced in your rest practices? Are you ALLOWING yourself to truly RECEIVE rest? What could you do to implement the power of rest into your life? What do you need?
Rest is radical. It’s rebellion. It’s a great big f*ck off to capitalistic society. It’s something I want my children to just do as part of their way of being and in order for this to happen it has to start with me.
It starts with you.
It starts with us.
Here is a short and sweet Yoga Nidra practice I have created for you to receive deep rest, it can be used before bed to help you sleep, or anytime you want to recharge yourself.
