Redefining Rest

Rest seems to be another “4-letter word” nowadays, as distasteful as the others.

Not in all cultures. But definitely English-speaking ones.

Why?

Because it is an affront to what we prize most: growth.

Growth through action, through productivity, through efficiency. Just like nature actually.

Except, nature knows that growth is part of cycles, our annual four seasons as one example, the decades-long regeneration of a forest after a wildfire as another.

The cycles include periods of incubation, of growth, of harvest, and of rest.

Well, duh, right?

Most of us know this, and yet that’s not how we live our lives, none the less our days.

How Will I Rest Today?

Over the last few years I’ve been exploring my relationship with money, with stuff and this year, with energy. The most important and renewable resource in my life.

I’ve made many changes to better explore my energy and its natural rhythms.

One of them is: Getting grounded at my altar, saying prayers and setting intentions for the day.

Every morning, I ask myself this list of questions based on what’s most important in my life right now…

• What am I writing today?
• What am I selling today?
• When am I exercising today?
• How will I be outside today?
• How will I rest today?
• What is most important…today?

Are you wondering how I fit a nap in everyday?

I don’t.

I have reclaimed a definition of rest that balances my days. And, I bet it would serve you as well.

More Than Napping

Okay, occasionally I do take a nap on weekdays. And frequently during Sabbath.

I’m actually a big fan of sweet little cat naps. I think most of us are.

For awhile there in 2016, I even tried designing my work schedule around a “siesta.”

But, instead of waking up mid-afternoon feeling refreshed, I was usually groggy and grumpy like a toddler.

Why? Because the nap was treatment for being overworked and exhausted (just like a 2-year-old in a growth spurt).

I was out of sync with my rhythms of activity and inactivity—of rest—often dysfunctionally so, as our world is nowadays.

I was out of sync with my rhythms of activity and inactivity—of rest—often dysfunctionally so, as our world is nowadays.

Thus, we have a negative, limited understanding of rest as sleep, as napping, as lazy. Just so, we have a positive, limited understanding of work as activity, as productive, as busy.

They are not opposed: one bad, the other good. They are a team.

It’s time we thought of them this way. We must redefine rest so that we can reclaim our natural rhythm and truly live life to the fullest.

This is even easier than it sounds: simply remembering what rest means.

Rest is to “cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength.” Just as work is good, so is rest. It is the yin to the yang of exertion, of effort.

When either work or rest becomes too much, it is unenjoyable, often oppressive. And a sign that something is off. This is not the good life.

Rest is the New Hustle

People are noticing. Just look at the instagram feed of posts using #restisthenewhustle.

And people are preaching — not only faith leaders, but doctors, entrepreneurs, yogis — we must redefine rest.

As I was doing research recently, I was excited to discover that in the last seven months since I created the Sabbath Course as a way to explore and practice bringing more rest into our weeks and days, these three new books have come out that I totally agree with [quoted below per Amazon.com descriptions].

• In Rest, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, writes that “deliberate rest,” as he calls it is the true key to productivity, and will give us more energy, sharper ideas, and a better life.
• In Sacred Rest, Dr. Dalton-Smith “shares seven types of rest she has found lacking in the lives of those she encounters in her clinical practice and research—physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, sensory, social, creative—and why a deficiency in any one of these types of rest can have unfavorable effects on your health, happiness, relationships, creativity, and productivity.”
• In Daring to Rest, Karen Brody writes, “now is the time to break the cycle of fatigue and return to your truest self—the [person] you are when you’re not constantly exhausted.”

If you’re curious about these and other books about rest and Sabbath, check out the Sabbath Resources doc I created with recommended books, poems and more.

Rest Reclaimed

That all makes perfect sense, right?

Oh yes, that is what rest means. But, understanding and remembering a truth is one thing. Actually acting on it is different.

Here’s my definition of rest that helps me balance my days. To borrow Aretha’s tune, “R-E-S-T-I-N-G, find out what it means to me…”

Rest is about Relaxation. It is Effortless. It is Stillness. It is Turning off.

Did you notice? REST.

Yup, it’s even an acronym! Pretty handy, eh?

While I have yet to read those books, I have a hunch that Pang, Dalton-Smith and Brody would agree with me in the following ways of reframing our dysfunctional, limiting beliefs about rest.

So, what does it look like “in real life”?

Here’s some examples:

Rest is Downtime

• Take a break: I stop to take a break frequently when I’m backpacking. The harder the terrain or conditions, the more frequently and for longer. This break offers a chance to eat a snack, get a drink, and reorient.
• Pause for a breath: In music, the rest symbol offers a chance to take a breath. Often a deep breath. There are whole, half, quarter, eighth rests and so on.
• Take quiet time: Remember when we had quiet time back in preschool and kindergarten? Removing the stimulation and interaction, it is a time to sit or dawdle or daydream or play quietly.

Rest is Rejuvenating

• Take Savasna: At the end of most of the yoga classes I take, we are invited into savasna, or corpse pose. During this simple restorative pose of laying on my back and melting onto the floor, I find my mind opens up too.
• Take a shower: In a workshop about oxytocin, the love hormone, I learned why showers are so inspiring. They have many of the elements that produce oxytocin and feelings of relaxation and trust: warm, enclosed, dim lighting, and safe.
• Sit on it: When I’m writing, there’s a point that ideas slow down or stop. When I do something totally different for awhile, fresh, new thoughts often pop up.

Rest is Harmonious

• Reset your heart rate: When I take a slow walk, I’m at my resting heart rate. Unlike a sprint, it’s a pace that I can maintain for a long time.
• Get in flow: We all have our thing that gets us in the zone, in flow. When I’m designing PowerPoint presentations I totally lose track of time and it feels effortless. It’s doing, but a restful kind of effort.
• Switch gears: Really learning how to ride a bike was mind-blowing. It’s all about the sweet spot of efficiency. The bike works with me as I switch gears depending on the road.

Practicing Rest

Those are just a few examples of how we can answer that question of: how will I rest today? and reintroduce Relaxation, Effortlessness, Stillness and Turning off into our days.

As I better understand myself as someone with an especially sensitive, attuned and energetic body, I see that it is essential to rest as hard as we effort — and in all areas of work: paid, service, caregiving, domestic, emotional, spiritual.

We must reclaim rest in our lives, not only in our routines.

Given how out of sync so many of us are in our energy output, this invites regular practice.

Fortunately, there are so many ways, and flavors of these ways: through Restorative or Yin Yoga, through meditation like Zen or Khundalini, and through Sabbath, a weekly practice of rest and renewal.

The key is finding the sweet spot of sufficiency in our energy. Balancing the yin of rest with the yang of exertion, of effort.

Here we retain our wholeness and this integrity allows us to adapt easily to whatever life presents.

Photo Credit: Jordan Cole

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Join others from around the country in the next Sabbath Course as we explore and practice together, inspired by an interfaith, personal approach to this universal tradition. This 7-week course includes fun weekly activities, weekly community gatherings online and your own practice. You’ll experience what students describe as a “positive and significant impact on my personal growth and spiritual exploration.”