Give It A Rest

The root word of restoration is rest. Maybe you think rest is for the rest of them and not for the best of them! Maybe you think rest is something that only comes after really pushing yourself to a limit, leaving nothing out there as some athletes say and that’s cool but what about rest for the sake of rest?

Rest is not the opposite of pushing your limits nor is it aligned with laziness, it’s actually more aligned with recovery and that not only rhymes with discovery it creates an opportunity for us to discover something about ourselves when we rest. When we rest we don’t just rest our muscles, we rest our organs, our mind our brain and sometimes we rest our reactions to things or people. It also gives us a chance to rest our narrative, our thoughts, our aggravations, our lack of patience, our hard self talk and much more.

“Hi, how you going?” Is quite often followed up with “So, you been busy?” And it’s expected that the answer will be “Yeah killin it! Totally dominating right now!” Or “Too much on to notice” etc. These type of answers carry currency, they suggest a life of busy, a life of success, a life of value.

But what if we answered Well I’ve not been that busy actually or I’m pretty relaxed at the moment, no real drama’s, I feel pretty rested and relaxed.

Wonder what kind of reaction we would get from others? And does it matter?

Rest is just not for when we are sick or have pushed ourselves to our absolute limit, although it is very helpful when we have been sick or pushed ourselves beyond a limit,  it can also be very helpful in creating some quiet for our body, creating a moment to reset through rest and maybe even shut our eyes for a bit of a nap. It can be very useful to help us work through problems, aid in recovery for our muscles, slow our breathing and heart rate a bit and just enjoy.

Be healthy. Stay healthy.

Christine