Most days I feel like this…
But some days I feel like this…
In the past I thought of rest as time wasted. I felt as though every moment of every day should be filled and if it wasn’t I felt unaccomplished and lazy. This kind of judgement I put on myself had me feeling like I had to do a million things at once. The more jobs I had the more accomplished I felt. The more parties I went to the more accomplished I felt. The more miles I ran the more accomplished I felt. The more I was do-ing the more accomplished I felt until I couldn’t handle it anymore and I burned out. My awesome was extinguished.
The truth is life cannot exist without rest.
It’s like the rest symbol in music. It’s just as important to a song as every note is. If a musician ignored the rests and filled in the spaces with his or her own notes it would ruin the song. Rests are as important to the melody of a song as they are to the melody of life.
Rest is even built into nature. Every night the sun sets and the dark night takes over and we go to sleep. The time you spend sleeping is just as important as the time you spend awake. If you don’t sleep you won’t use your awake time as well as you would if you had allowed yourself to have a full night’s sleep.
In the winter time when there are no fruits and leaves on the tress it’s not by accident. The trees are resting and gathering energy for next year’s growth. Makes sense right?
What if we all decided to not feel guilty when we took time to rest? What if we realized that the time we consciously took to rest and be still is what made us healthy and strong rock stars of life?
It’s important to stop and smell the awesome.
If you don’t,you’ll get sick. Illness is forced rest. In order to avoiding getting sick we must rest often.
What role does rest play in your life? How can you infuse more rest into your life? Join the conversation by leaving a comment at the bottom of the blog. Keep the conversation alive by sharing this blog with your social networks.
Rest is the theme for the retreat I’m hosting with Ryan Montbleau in Vermont the end of this month. The retreat is sold out, but if you want to check it out and get on the waiting list you can do so here. You can also sign up for my mailing list here so you’re the first to know about future events.
The awesome in me sees the awesome in you,
my rests include: massage intense exercise music loving touch from family members and friends, hugs, netflix in my cozy living room, holding hands, my cat, long walks with my beautiful dog, i love swimming, live concerts surrounded by friends (i have not done this in forever), korean blankets and tempurapedic beds, hot showers, white tea, kind words from family, laughs with my family and making my family laugh with goofy emails.
ps. i loved your post. it’s a great reminder that we need to rest.
testing