Rest is wildly underrated. Emptiness is totally undervalued. Pauses are sacred spaces. Stopping sometimes is truly the secret sauce for a richer life. Because when we pause and sink in, we reconnect with the depths of ourselves. And it is from those depths that inspiration, creativity, wisdom, clarity and potency spring forth.
OVERRIDING OUR SIGNALS AND LOSING OUR TRUST IN REST
Although resting should be second nature for us, we’ve learned to override the signals. In doing so habitually, we’ve lost our trust in rest. Many of us actually fear rest and have to be forced into it. We miss the signs that it’s time to lay down the doing and fumble our way into rest by way of illness and burnout.
ACHIEVEMENT IS OUR ADDICTION DU JOUR
Why do we fear rest? Because achievement is the addiction du jour in our culture. We avoid anxious feelings by keeping our pipelines full and tasks piled high. If we stay busy we don’t have to sit with discomfort. Every little achievement rewards us with a cheap hit of worthiness. Beneath all that bustling and busyness and box-ticking we are afraid we are not enough just as we are. So it’s no wonder that stopping and resting can be hard. It’s no wonder we don’t transition into rest with much grace.
CREATE INTENTIONAL PAUSES + GET COMFORTABLE WITH REST
The good news is that instead of letting rest “happen” to us out of necessity, we can learn to welcome it. Creating intentional pauses in our lives (both short and long) creates opportunity for rest, reflection and renewal.
The more comfortable we are with cycling through periods of rest, the less we resist rest. And the less we resist rest, the more we benefit from it. And those benefits build our trust in rest – and in ourselves.
