The Art of Rest

How do you rest? I would argue with the majority of you that you do not. That all of the passive, leisure activities you partake in are not actually giving back to you in a calming and restful manner.

Imagine this. You have a stressful day at work so you want to come home, sit on the couch and throw on something mindless to veg to. You believe this is “rest.” In reality this is escape, detachement, avoiding. You are avoiding the stress from work and the thoughts and feelings associated with it, and you are avoiding the work of sitting with yourself and processing through all of that, which in turn would actually bring you the rest you so desperately crave.

I always tell people, go home and stare at a wall. If you don’t like mindfulness or meditating, just sit, without your phone, without any distractions and be. I understand it is uncomfortable for the untrained brain. At first it may increase your anxiety, your thoughts will be racing. That is because they don’t normally get this space to run free. You may cry, because you don’t normally sit and connect with your body. When was the last time you were fully present? Immersed in one activity and fully in touch with your whole self. When we slow down and sit still our feelings arise. Our thoughts swim to the surface begging to be given attention. Some people fall asleep. All that is telling you is that you don’t get enough rest, and your body is now taking advantage of what you are giving it.

In our society we input so much knowledge and stimuli each and every day, but when do we ever fully disconnect to process it? We wonder why we can’t turn our brains off and sleep at night. I wonder, after 8 solid hours of taking in new information and ideas, how many hours might one need to work through and process this information? And how much on top of that to create enough to space to get to your original thoughts and ideas. To reconnect with your dreams and daydreams and allow your mind to run free and wander.

Is that a crime now? Do we all feel it is a problem for our minds to think independently and get lost in thought? How do we believe ideas are created if we never have uninterrupted down time. Everyone is so focused on not “missing” anything and multitasking to distract ourselves from being who we truly are and feeling deeply. Feeling has become a foreign and sometimes scary process we’d rather avoid. But I promise you once you create enough space to process through all your backlogs of emotions and information you will find peace.

I always encourage my clients to do one thing at a time. Shower without music, clean without a show on in the background. Allow your mind to focus on one task at a time. When we practice single tasking, our brain develops its ability to focus and be content in the moment without loads of external stimuli. We can learn to be more present and enjoy the simple tasks of life again. Plus who remembers shower thoughts? These are great places for new ideas and to work out our current roadblocks and struggles. We need space to think creatively to solve a problem, rather than staying busy 24/7 hammering away at it with no thought at all.

I dare you. Spend two hours doing your favorite leisure activity, be it netflix, video games, scrolling on your phone. The next day spend two hours sitting in a park without your phone or a book or anything. Observe how you felt before and after each activity. Tell me you don’t feel remarkably better after being present in nature than plugged into a device.

I have a theory that being in front of a screen at the end of a day is a neutral activity. You tell me you’re doing it to relax, but you just hit pause on your life. As I said before, you are not continuing the stress from the day, nor are you relieving or dealing with it. Your are simply losing two hours of your life, being less aware of yourself, because you don’t know how to be with yourself, to feel and deal. How many activities in your life actually make you feel more connected to yourself, more in your body, more aware and in tune with yourself and your surroundings? What is your downtime activity giving back to you? How can your favorite pass time love you back? Because I bet you it isn’t.

Here I am on my pedestal and I am begging you to do less. Carve twenty minutes into your morning and night to be, dream, journal, pray, cry. And then turn that into an hour. See how much time you truly need to be with yourself and work through your masses of stress and trauma built up in a lifetime. Restructure your whole life to be with yourself everyday. Yes, you are going to miss that newly released video game, the next season of your show, and whatever some random person you don’t actually care about posted online. And I promise you won’t be missing anything. This is your life. Be present for every moment of your own time, serving your souls needs, and you’ll be just fine.