Category: Spiritual Development

Posted on

Your Path to Rest

your path to rest

I had been on my spiritual path for nearly a decade and never asked myself this simple question: when do you rest?

The question showed up one day back in fall, 2014.

I had just signed a big contract with Nike for a 3-month gig. I was in the first year of self-employment and this was way too good to refuse.

But, I had three other consulting projects already, plus service commitments and the rest of life. It added up to 60+ hour work weeks. 80+ if you counted housekeeping and caregiving.

I knew something had to give. And it wasn’t the work.

It turns out it was the Rest.

My Path to Jack

Several women in my interfaith women’s group saw the same spiritual director, Jack Kennedy. At first, I didn’t really know what a spiritual director was, but I had seen therapists and shaman, so it seemed in the ballpark of familiarity.

I got his phone number, called to set an appointment and showed up at the house where he rented a room for his sessions.

Nestled into the the antique striped couch at my first meeting, I explained why I’d come to see him and what was on my heart: the heavy work load, running a business, volunteering, family, the upcoming holidays.

He listened for 15 minutes until I reached the end of my laundry list and this question: How was I going to do it all and not get burned out?

“Well, when do you rest?” he asked.

Not power naps. Not quick breaks between meetings. That’s just more doing.

He meant time and space for deep, restorative being in rhythm with my own body, the world around me and something bigger. He meant Sabbath.

I was speechless.

Sabbath Keeping

It was not something I had experienced yet in my everyday life.

But, as he described Sabbath, it sounded a whole lot like my magical times at the coast on personal retreats.

And I could have some of that magic every week? I was in.

That fall and for the last 3 years since, I have set aside one day a week, usually Saturdays like in the Jewish tradition, for rest and renewal.

Sabbath has become my weekly retreat.

An ancient practice, Sabbath is the fourth commandment. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.”

It comes before family, before murder, before adultery and more.

Overwhelm and overstimulation are newer human conditions. But, hard work is not new. Labor is not new.

Many call it a merciful gift. Compassion for all this labor. In other words, it is a day that has been given.

There are many ways that different religious traditions remember or observe the Sabbath, including Christian services on Sundays and Buddhist monks’ recitation of precepts.

Barbara Brown Taylor describes her experience in Leaving Church:

“Observing the Sabbath is saving my life now. For the first time in my life, I can rest without leaving home. With sundown on the Sabbath, I stop seeing the dust balls, the bills and the laundry. They are still there, but they lose their power over me. One day each week I live as if all my work were done…Now, when I know the Sabbath is near, I can feel the anticipation bubbling up inside of me. Sabbath is no longer a a good idea or even a spiritual discipline for me. It is my regular date with the Divine Presence that enlivens both body and soul.”

Finding My Spiritual Path

Just as Barbara says, Sabbath has become a highlight of my week.

It is not simply a day to set everything aside, to stop doing and simply be. But a “regular date” to reconnect with what grounds me and inspires me, something bigger than myself.

My path to rest did not start with this practice in 2014. I think it actually started in 2007 when I went to a spiritual community gathering, the first step toward spiritual development I’d taken since leaving home at 18 years old, seven years prior.

Or perhaps I’ve been on the path my whole life?

I was raised in a “new age” household by a former Roman Catholic mother and a former Episcopalian father (more by label than by practice for both of them) who found more inspiration in the outdoors than in the church.

My parents started their own spiritual journey in their 20’s soon after getting married, leading them to a new, broader sense of spirituality (though heavily influenced by the Judeo-Christian traditions).

Growing up, my only exposure to religion was tagging along with friends and most of it was “too churchy” compared to our hikes and seasonal gatherings.

While organized religion was not to their taste, looking back now I see that ritual, ceremony, values, and beliefs were baked into my very spiritual upbringing.

I distinctly remember in high school having a discussion about this with my parents – about not having any religion. Their response?

We were to chose our own religion.

My response: “Huh, well I won’t be doing that.”

Nowadays, I worship at a Unitarian Universalist church, I commune with the Sacred Fire Community outside around the fire, I find fellowship with interfaith, intergenerational women at BBB, I observe Sabbath, I am again practicing yoga in a nearby studio.

While I did no choose a religion yet, I am religious about my portfolio of communities and practices, along with many tools, that help me navigate the world.

It has been a journey of seeking what’s true to me. As well undoing dysfunctional beliefs that I created along the way.

24/6

Some of the dysfunctional beliefs I still struggle with directly conflict with Sabbath.

  • Rest is earned not given.
  • Taking naps is being lazy or childish.
  • Doing creates a worthwhile day.
  • Living life to the fullest means doing many things at the same time.

These are the beliefs that make me forget Sabbath.

So, how do I remember the Sabbath?

I remember that rest means more than simply being tired.

I remember that rest is a break, a pause.

I remember that rest is an important note in music.

I remember that when I step out of the grind I find space for reflection.

I remember that when I find space, I find perspective.

I remember how I’m connected to everything. Everything.

And over the years of remembering, observing, practicing Sabbath, I have also started showing up differently in the other six days a week.

I am:

  • more present
  • more connected
  • more energized
  • more focused

While the path getting here has not been easy – the path to rest never is – I bet it would have been a lot easier if I had always remembered the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.

Moving forward, I do.

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.”

Posted on

The Gift of Sabbath

Sabbath is a gift that everyone has already been given.

Though for most it sits unwrapped or if opened once, now tucked away unused.

It is a given. Not because we are entitled to it. Not because we earned it. But because we need it.

And so, it’s ours. A gift of mercy.

A Gift of Mercy

Whoa, what? The first time I heard this, that Sabbath was a merciful gift, my head tilted to the right in curiosity and a bit of skepticism.

Mercy seems like something severe, a pardon, like before an execution.

I realized that maybe I don’t know what that word actually means. Especially if I’ve only really come across it back in my English literature major days reading Middlemarch and Emma.

Mercy:

  • Kindness or help given to people who are in a very bad or desperate situation
  • Compassionate treatment of those in distress
  • A blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion

Sabbath as a gift of mercy.

An End and A Beginning

Kindness or help, compassionate treatment — yes, those are a gift.

People who are in a very bad or desperate situation, those in distress — yup, that speaks to humanity and also to the natural difficulty of these evolved lives we lead.

And so we’ve been given sabbath, as a blessing, approval that helps us do something. That something? To begin the cycle again, refreshed, renewed, reconnected, resolved. To start again, and perhaps to do better.

We see this cycle in nature. Perhaps not weekly with everything, though we know the annual cycle well.

We see the plants and animals go into hibernation each winter, they withdraw, they retreat into themselves or their dens, they rest. And then they emerge again.

So whether you find meaning in this blessing, this gift, coming from “divine favor or compassion” or not, there is a sense that it is part of a bigger system. Of the way things work.

And in order to work, there must also be rest. A pause. A break. An opportunity to notice the work, the effort, even the accomplishment.

This is why our weekly break of Sabbath gratefully becomes a must not a should in our lives.

Posted on

My First Retreat

Author selfie on Manzanita beach near Neahkanie Mountain during first retreat

There was a series of decisions that had been quietly forming for at least a year, probably three, maybe my whole life, that lead me onto my first retreat.

Not my first journey. There had already been many of those.

But, my first retreat from the world into my world.

I had lost touch with my soul.

Lost and Found

It’s a rare occasion that a decision gets conceived and made simultaneously. Not the millions of mundane choices we make every day. But the real decisions.

The ones that carve the course of one’s life.

Most of these decisions were made long ago.

As John O’Donohue says, “in out-of-the-way places of the heart, where your thoughts never think to wander, this beginning has been quietly forming, waiting until you were ready to emerge.”

After two cross-country moves in six months followed by a soul-full, but draining, year teaching kids in the outdoors followed by several temp jobs, I landed an hourly receptionist position at a company I unknowingly admired. After all, the founders started their own company and they made beautiful things.

But, this was basically the same job I had the summer before I left for college.

The decision to quit lingered in the initial decision to accept. This initial “Yes” marinated in desperation and impatience.

I was three years out of college already and with no career in communications in sight. Intern, sales associate, program leader, administrative assistant, daycare supervisor…okay, no career in sight at all.

A full-time job with benefits paying slightly over minimum wage seemed like a step in the right direction.

Unfortunately, insteading of seeing The Devil Wears Prada movie that came out that same year, I lived it.

It took an entire year until the “No” was ready to emerge.

And then, the “No” boldly gave two-weeks notice with no plan in place except to be whole again. But how?

Deciding ‘what color of parachute’ to claim? No. Not the career how.

This was the life how.

Retreat and Reset

This was not the first time I had been unhappy or confused.

But, it was the first time I considered that my life wasn’t whole. As it does when you’ve completely lost touch with who you are.

Or realize for the first time that you don’t really know who you are because you’ve been so busy building a life that matches what you think you’re supposed to be.

So how does one start?

By retreating to our core. Tapping into our deepest knowing, naturally attuning, again in harmony with all.

These are the words I use now, 50+ retreats later to describe the “how” to regaining wholeness.

Back then, I didn’t have these words. Nor did I have any practices, tools, resources or answers for how.

Seeking Answers Without

I did have the 2006 edition of “What Color is your parachute?” by Richard Bolles, a gift from my Dad during the grueling job search of those last few years.

This book alluded to wholeness: considering one’s whole life in the job hunt, such as preferred location. And that edition even included an epilogue on “How to Find Your Mission in Life,” that would soon be devoured and dog-eared.

So, during the initial days of deciding and informing those close to me about the decision to quit my job, I asked and received about the how.

Many of their answers were answers: Do what you love. Go back to your passions. Use your talents.

But one, was a path, a way, to wholeness.

After having tea and sharing my news with my retired-therapist-turned-friend, I got a call from her with instructions.

She would be dropping off a bag at my apartment in the next few days. It was supplies for me to bring on retreat at their beach house for a week. She would email me with directions on how to get there and instructions for the house. All I needed to do was let her know which week during the next month I wanted to go.

It sounded wonderful. And necessary. And true. But, what was a retreat?

Was it like camp? Was it like camping? Was it like vacation?

And, what did one do on retreat?

Having traveled a lot with family growing up and and with friends during college, the travel and preparation part was very familiar: Check weather. Research activities. Plan meals. Pack accordingly.

But, that still left the question of what to do? And, what to do by myself?

Having spent endless days playing on my own as a kid and a semester with a single dorm room in college, being alone for a week wasn’t the part that phased me. If anything, that felt like the greatest part of the gift.

But, what to do in order to find myself again? That was the mystery.

Seeking Answers Within

My sister did not feel as confident about the idea of me being alone in a strange house faraway at the coast for a week, so she volunteered to come down for the first night. As a big sister would. And as requested by our Dad, I suspect.

She brought her puppy and groceries. She inspected the house. She walked me into town after dinner for a beer at the pub. She explored the beach with me and her dog the next morning. And then, satisfied I was indeed safely doing some soul searching and not sinking into a depression, she headed back to the city.

And I sunk into my retreat.

I opened the bag that my friend and spiritual patron had dropped off.

Out of it I pulled book after book:

An avid reader, I leafed through these in wonder and delight.

And set them, one by one, on the dining room table next to the pile of books I had packed:

Over the next few days, I explored these books in the way that I explored the beach. In short bursts. Until hunger or tiredness set in. Broadly in general, intricately at parts. Listening. Noticing. Wondering.

It would be many years before I would consume many of these books and be transformed by them. Some I have yet to read or use.

Falling into Consolation

On this first retreat, as with all of them since, it has been about the dabbling, the tasting, the savoring. The connections and co-creation.

It was as Wayne Muller (whose books I didn’t know then, but highly recommend now) describes as “the intimate, fertile conversations between our own heart’s wisdom and the way the world has emerged before us.”

The deep, profound conversations that can be heard and had when things are quiet and still and candlelit and comfy in an overstuffed leather chair and with chocolate within reach. And when its overcast and windy and shells crunch beneath rain boots and there’s driftwood strewn across the shore where the waves are crashing.

When one’s away from the clutter, away from the distractions, away from the demands, away from time and measurement, it is as if one is seeing the world through a child’s eyes. The clarity of these deep, profound conversations is simple, magical, truth.

Spurred by a passage in a book or by making a meal or by a scene in a movie or by artwork on the wall or by the sunset or by the rhythm of the waves, the truths show up and are relished as a gift. Often its one big truth. Sometimes there are ripples.

Basking in these truths, the minutes turn to hours turn to days. Some call this flow.

The spiritual director I’ve worked with for the last few years calls it being “in consolation.” Not the comfort one receives after a disappointment or loss. That’s consoling.

He describes being in consolation as a state of being with the world. Or rather, the world being with us, soothing us, taking care of us. As we take care of it.

For some, as it has for me, this state of oneness goes out of this world and extends from the physical waves and sand and shells into the spiritual, to a feeling of connection with the Source.

Moment of Truth

On this first retreat, I remember getting beers at the pub with my sister and talking to some scraggly local fishermen. I remember making popcorn in the microwave and watching a movie together. I remember throwing tennis balls on the beach and the puppy chasing after them. And, then I remember being on my own and time stopped.

I can’t recall the details of each day that followed and each revelation. I don’t remember changing or feeling the healing happening. Nor do I recall the magic showing up immediately, rather sinking into it as the days passed.

I do recall one afternoon:

I was lazily draped over the overstuffed leather couch, a leg over the side, an arm dangling, with several books strewn around me. My ponytail drooped and the knit blanket sagged off the couch.

The fire had died down in the wood stove since I hadn’t risen in hours to stoke it.

A break in the grey day, the late afternoon sun came pouring in the picture window that faced the deck and overlooked the ocean a mile away.

I set the book down, spine open on my belly, like a hug, and paused, watching the ideas of the past few hours, and days, start to line up.

There were so many pieces of information coming together from my head and from my heart and from the world. It was as if the bits of information started square dancing.

Partnering up to create ideas, and then joining up to promenade, one idea emerging after another. Amidst the clatter and joyful dancing of these ideas, I could hear the caller shout out directions.

And in this moment, I recall feeling/hearing/understanding/making the decision to attend graduate school. Important yes, cosmic no.

This was not one of the universal, soulful truths that has shown up during some of my retreats.

But it was the seed of a decision, the beginning that would start quietly forming until, to echo the words of another beautiful writer, Charles Bukowski: it came bursting out, in spite of everything, coming unasked from one’s heart and mind and mouth and gut.

This decision (one that would emerge unasked several months later) was important, because it was connected to my path, my mission, my reason for being.

A way for the light of my soul to shine through the deeds of my life.

Everyday Integrity

That retreat – the first and most formative – took me away from everything and allowed me into my core. To the place where I am always whole. Where there is no searching or seeking. Tapping into my deepest knowing, naturally attuning, so that I was again in harmony with all.

This is not how I would have described it back then. Far from it.

What I knew then was that I felt good. I felt grounded. I felt in sync. I felt assured.

Over the last decade of retreating nearly every season, for a night or for weeks, I have discovered the “how” to regaining integrity, the state of being whole and undivided. In addition to this practice, I have studied and read and discussed and written and drawn and done all sorts of inner work to learn how to stay that way.

I am not yet one of those people who live in a way that keeps them in a constant state of wholeness. I would venture to guess that there are not many people left in the world who can.

And so, retreats offer a way to practice integrity. As does prayer and meditation and intentions and blessings and altars and cleanses and sabbath. And I enjoy all of those too (often during retreats!).

The power of retreat is not only in its practice, but also in its application – the promise of return.

Integrating that blissful, temporary state of being whole and undivided into our daily lives. Returning to taste, savor, relish and bask in the everyday.

Proudly powered by WordPress