Let Yourself Rest
Time doesn’t always need to be filled (with doing)
You may recall in a recent post on Having Enough that it’s about choice.
I would put ease and rest in that category as well: something that we can actively and consistently choose, not some last resort step to reach for when we’ve hit our wall.
We can take Permission to Rest out of the default setting and put it front and center in the setting where it belongs: not negotiable. We just have to find the ‘switch’ and turn it on.
And remember to keep it on.
Not sure where the switch is, or how to turn it on? The beautiful poem (copied and read aloud below) by Jeff Foster will help you find it, or at least give you a place to look.
What is something you’d like to consciously and purposefully not do today?
Key word: consciously.
Ahhh…🙌🏼
The Way of Rest
A poem by Jeff Foster
“If you’re exhausted, rest.
If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.
If you don’t feel the urge to make something new,
just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known.
If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.
If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off.
If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it.
If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today.
Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments.
Time does not always need to be filled.
You are enough, simply in your being”1
Speaking of rest…
(in case you missed it)…
Just what I needed today. Now home after walking the Camino de Santiago and feel quite lost! Deep tiredness and an unwillingness to take any effort in processing what has been and where i’m at so not doing much at all. Trying to avoid people who ask’ How was it?’ The words aren’t ready yet… it’s a strange place to be. Off for a week to Ithaca, Greece soon. Will sleep and reset. Great post today. Thank you
I am enjoying this quiet time of no doing this winter. It will be gone soon enough, but now I will build it into my spring, summer and autumn. It rejuvenates me!