rest in 2022
26 Feb 2022resting as hard as i worked (ht luana!) was one of my 2021 mantras. i stepped up my rest game in major ways. more baths, more solo dates, more naps (thank you, nap bishop/minister), etc.
that line isn’t going to be one of my mantras for 2022 but i am finding over the years that when i focus on a mantra for a year, i don’t need to focus on it with intensity in future years because it’s integrated into who i am now.
so this year, even as i turn my primary growth focus in other directions, i am still thinking about ways to up my rest game. three points have come up so far:
things that calm my nervous system
rest must calm my nervous system. we live in a massively overstimulating and overwhelming world. as resmaa menakem says, in order to heal, you need a settled body. a settled body is one that has a nervous system at ease. so, when i think of rest, i will be prioritizing things that calm my nervous system. things that rile me up won’t count anymore and i think that’s a good thing. movies with lots of excitement and emotion: out. recreational things: out. it doesn’t mean things that don’t settle me aren’t important; it just means i will have a sharper lens towards what is restful versus what gives to me in other ways but can’t be considered rest.
things that make me look farther than 6 feet away
listening to this interview with staci haines on the coaches rising podcast i was reminded of how shocking it is that many us spend most of our days looking at things (digital, physical, and/or alive) that are very close to us. and for centuries of our lives, we lived in places and ways where we could see across long distances regularly. that has got to be impacting us. i’m not going to try and revert to living a life on plains where all i do is look out across the plains/savannah and up to the big starry night sky. but i am going to prioritize activities that get me looking at things farther than right in front of me. remembering there is more than my hands reach out and grab just feels important.
many types of rest
two people now have shared this article about different types of rest. i’m excited to keep digging into it and seeing what is possible as i explore more nuanced understandings of rest. i already feel excited by creative, social, and spiritual rest. here’s a couple quotes to entice you to read the whole piece:
Have you ever tried to fix an ongoing lack of energy by getting more sleep — only to do so and still feel exhausted?
Sleep and rest are not the same thing, although many of us incorrectly confuse the two. We go through life thinking we’ve rested because we have gotten enough sleep — but in reality we are missing out on the other types of rest we desperately need. The result is a culture of high-achieving, high-producing, chronically tired and chronically burned-out individuals. We’re suffering from a rest deficit because we don’t understand the true power of rest.
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