Rest is something that’s been coming up in sessions a lot lately…and so many of us deeply need this. Not just sleeping. There are many different ways you can rest. And sometimes it’s not lying down, sometimes it’s actually moving around if you sit a lot.
Sometimes you need a rest from staring at screens by going outside and looking at the horizon. Or you need a rest from too much stimulus and you need to just sit in a dark, quiet space.
And sometimes you need a rest when you feel like you’re not doing enough because you’re so busy, but you’re not getting the things done that you wanna get done.
I can remember when I was pursuing an acting career – I always felt like I wasn’t doing enough. And when I would go out to the theater or when I was watching movies, I was thinking, “I should be working on my business right now, so that I can be in movies like this”. And I could never really enjoy myself when I would go out to see movies or be in the moment. Then I would feel overwhelmed when I would work on my business (I was still criticizing myself) and I would get less done because I would be all over the place with an anxious energy. And it was this perpetual cycle.
And I see this with people who are working a lot and they have other things that they wanna do personally, and they’re not working on them. Or they’re watching TV and saying to themselves, “You should get up. You should be doing the things you wanna do and you’re being lazy”.And all these things that our internal voice says to us. But the real truth is that they really need the rest because they have too much stress at work, and that’s what they’re body/mind is trying to do.
But if you’re not able to be in the moment with rest, then you’re never able to experience that full rested state because you’re always thinking you shouldn’t be resting. And so it’s this tug of war of feeling shitty about yourself and needing to rest more because of you feel shitty about yourself for how you’re resting.
You think, “why don’t I have any energy? Why am I so zapped? I do sleep”.
It could be because for you, maybe resting is playing. Maybe it’s letting off steam and getting into your childlike self, exploring and letting go of the judgey, commanding voice behind what you’re doing. Maybe it’s doing things just for pure fun and just saying, “yes, why not?!”. That’s a form of rest.
And when we let ourselves rest, we’re actually more productive. But that doesn’t need to be the reason for rest – we can rest because we’re living, breathing human animals who need rest in all the different areas of our lives.
When we’re not rested, we get drained and frustrated because we can’t figure out an answer to a problem or make a clear decision.
When we’re rested we’re able to give ourselves the grace and the opportunity to bring in that really sparkly part of being alive – that brings creative flow, joy, problem solving and relationship building.
What areas are you doing too much in, that you need to bring it back the other way?
That’s often what can tell us what kind of rest we need or what kind of change of pace to bring us back into balance.
That’s what the right kind of rest does – It brings us back into balance and allows us to enjoy our lives and enjoy the moments that we have – not just living in the zone of feeling like we should be doing something else or be somewhere else or life is just going by a hundred miles an hour.
I invite you to think about where you need rest.
Want help with this? This is my jam. Book a consult call and we’ll talk about getting you into balance.