When do you let yourself rest?

I discovered the practice of Bhava Yoga in October last year. I was looking for something that would support me in being in my body to release all the intense grief I have been carrying this past year. Many years ago, one of my Yoga teachers said that we come back to Yoga when we are in pain – whether that is physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual pain. I have found this to be true. This time, I was coming to Yoga to work through my mental, emotional, and spiritual pain after losing my father, and walking through one of the most difficult years of my life in my marriage.

Over the past 12 months, there have been days where it has felt impossible to get out of bed, and yet, I got up. I have to, because I have small humans who depend on me. However, I also understood that I could not show up for them if I wasn’t resourced. So, Bhava Yoga has become non-negotiable. It has become a way that I return to the sacred.

Even though going to this 90-minute class takes up most of my Thursday mornings, I go. Even when it rains, or snows. Even when I feel like shit, and don’t want to go, I go. Why? Because it’s one of the few places I allow myself to fall apart, to cry the tears that need to be shed, to release the pain that my body is holding onto, and to come back to myself.

No matter what state I’m in when I enter the class, I always leave feeling more grounded and present, and so grateful that I made the choice to show up. Why am I sharing this with you?

I’m sharing this to invite you to consider for yourself how you relate to rest / space / slowing down? This is something that will be explored in THRIVE, because resourcing is such a critical part of truly thriving.

Before I started working with my coach, I used to relate to rest as a reward I would occasionally give myself when I felt like I had worked hard enough to earn it. I also often related to rest as something that is unnecessary and burdensome. If I’m being honest, I know I had so much judgment and guilt about rest. I perceived people who allowed themselves to rest as weak, pathetic, lazy, unambitious, indulgent…

It’s not a mystery where my conditioning around rest and play comes from. My father was a workaholic who would not even rest when he was dying, because there was always more to do. I actually think he believed in the hustle mantra, “Rest when you are dead.” Play was perceived as frivolous and indicative of a lack of character and strength.

Then I started working with my coach and I saw how much she was resting, playing, and just enjoying her life in general, and I was shocked. I didn’t know that we were allowed to enjoy our lives. I thought we had to work really really hard, and prove our worth, and then, and only then, were we allowed to rest and have fun.

As you can imagine, this “work yourself to death” approach to life did not lead to the best results in my private life or my business. I was intrigued and started to question the beliefs I had held so firmly, without recognizing that they weren’t even my beliefs. I had to run an experiment and test the rest and play strategy for myself, because something I actually do agree with, is Steve Chandler’s invitation to “not just trust it, but test it.”

 

So, I tested what happened when I allowed for rest and play. How did I feel? What was my energy like? How did I show up at work and in my relationships? Turns out feeling rested, grounded, happy, and playful is amazingly beneficial to both business and relationships.

I have gone from treating rest as something I allowed for on rare occasions, to it being a non-negotiable way to fill my tank and ensure that I have the energy, the drive, the joy, the passion, and compassion to show up the way I want to in my life and work.

During these months of grief, allowing for space to cry, to rest, to sleep, to go to Bhava Yoga, or sound healing, and float therapy, has been my lifeline to having the motivation to get out of bed, and go after things in my life. I now understand that there is no thriving when we are running on empty all the time.

And for chronic over-functioners – or those with really large internal cups who tend to have more capacity than everyone else – the only way you will ever stop feeling so overwhelmed, so thinly stretched, so exhausted, is if you are willing to examine and perhaps shift the relationship you have with rest and play.

In The Gifts of Imperfection, Brené Brown describes wholehearted people (read, “those who are thriving in life”) as people who embrace play and rest and who have put down the need to prove their self-worth through their productivity. They no longer choose to see exhaustion as a status symbol, even though the world wants us to believe that we are only good enough, or can only succeed, when we are chronically exhausted and depleted.

Slow down and consider when last you felt truly alive and present? When last did you feel like you had the energy to really enjoy life, not just get through your day? How often are we chasing the next break in the hopes that we will get some downtime, only to fill our calendars to the brim with all kinds of activities that we deem “so important.”

My kids will be on Spring Break next week. I listen to all the parents talk about the day camps and activities they have booked for their children and how stressed they are about having to stay busy for the next two weeks. And the first question that arises within me, is who said we have to be busy? When did busy become simply what we do now?

Ask any person how they are, and often their first response is, “busy”. So many of us are running at 100 miles an hour every day, urgently trying to empty or inboxes, or get more things checked off our to-do lists, and I’m not sure we even know why we feel the need to get it all done, or why we feel guilty when we are not busy. My guess is it’s simply a result of conditioning from living in a manic society…

Guess what we are doing over Spring Break? Nothing. No activities. No day camps. No urgency. No rushing anywhere. Just time for morning walks, and to have breakfast together. Time to read, and do art projects. Time to play. And a few play dates with special friends so we can really savour friendships, connection, joy, and play. I’m consciously choosing to be incredibly unbusy right now, because I’ve discovered the clarity and creativity that comes from living a focused, intentional, and slowed down life, over a busy, and frazzled life.