November 30, 2021
What is ‘rest’ to you? ✨
What does it feel like to gift yourself delicious hours (or even days) of not having an agenda, of not checking stuff off of a to-do list, of simply sitting with your own magnificence and being, not doing, just being?
A few years ago, @everett.newell (@zunayoga) looked at me and asked me when the last time was that I did nothing. I tried to explain that actually, yes! I do meditate. I promise I do. Not as often as I wanted to necessarily, but I did it and I told him so. I thought I’d given the “right” answer. Spoiler alert: meditating isn’t doing nothing.
Turns out, that was not what he was looking for. He encouraged me- sit on your couch, let your eyes wander, don’t do anything. First thought? Panic. If I look around my house from my couch, surely I’ll find things ‘to do’ and a list of chores and activities that are waiting to be accomplished. That was my reaction to sitting on my couch. In fact, I also don’t really watch TV. It’s something I don’t find relaxing and I do find un po’ impegnativo (a little bit too much effort) and I think all of this reflects my own relationship to rest/breaks/simply sitting with myself.
And yet. And yet we can be taught. 2.5 years, a global pandemic, a lot of soul-searching, a bit of soul-finding, a life that feels rich and layered and varied and nuanced later- I think I’m starting to get it. Let’s be honest, I’ll probably ‘get it’ even more next year and still more the year after that.
Rest and idleness and taking full breaks are as vital to our mental/emotional/spiritual health as discipline and pushing ourselves snd creating goals and action plans. You can’t really have one without the other.
As we go into the holiday season and all the fun sparkly glittery things that come with it, one of my best and most used “practices” (in quotes cause it’s really just that basic)— look around the room, notice things that are pleasant- light/shadows/something beautiful. Take a few deep breaths. Can ya believe it? Even that counts as rest.
