Rest: Still a Radical Act

REST

What does that word evoke for you?

What does it feels like?

What does it looks like?

What is your relationship with it?

What is our relationship with it?

A combination of seasonality and an ongoing exploration of our social conditioning around rest influences me here today.

I wrote this originally as we sat in the darkest part of the year, close to the Winter Solstice: at a time in the natural world of slowing, of composting, of resting. And also a time of year that society pushes us to continue at full pelt.

And yet, rest is essential. Essential.

In the natural world, plants and animals exist in cycles and these cycles include rest and restoration. Nature as our guide has so much to teach in this regard.

And we are animals. We have energetic rhythms, within our days, our months, and our years. Rest sits as as essential within this.

And still…

Rest remains something that is so often couched in terms, at best, of luxury and ‘niceness’ and, at worst, as laziness or weakness.

To rest remains a radical act.

I felt into this myself recently as I sat with a heavy head cold. For years, I knew, I knew deep down on an intuitive level that rest was what I needed when I was sick — and when I was not. I could feel it in my body. And yet my mind was fully engaged in the narrative that we should keep going, push on through, keep ‘doing’, keep serving, keep producing.

It has taken me years to start to soften into rest, to allow, to let go of the guilt of rest. And I notice it still.

Tricia Hersey describes rest as resistance — especially for people of colour and for women. To rest is to resist the colonisation of our bodies. Hear her talk about this here, on the wonderful For the Wild podcast

We’ve been exploring rest and restoration in our membership group this cycle. Feeling into the textures of rest, of what it looks like, could look like, what our obstacles to allowing it might be, what our boundaries might need to look like

This morning, in our weekly Centre and Enquire practice, I free wrote on deep rest and what it means to me. Some of what came was:

‘Slow and intentional

Less noise, less speed, my breath

Not an absence of other things, but knowing — deeply — that I can let go of holding them in this moment. That they will be okay and will be there when I return, nourished.

A difference between deep rest and collapse.

For me, collapse feels disconnected from myself, my body and from the world around me.

Deep rest feels connected, feels anchored — anchored in my core in a soft, easeful and definite way. It feels anchored in my community, held.

Rest feels anchored by a cord of connection to the ground, the earth. It feels like soft, damp, slightly warm earth. It feels like being enveloped.

Rest feels like a dropping down into my belly, a softness in my eyes and jaw; a slight tingle to my edges.

A wholeness

Rest feels like I am all I need to be. It feels powerful and soft. It feels radical. It feels intuitive and against the narrative.’

— — — -

I invite you:

- Create a soft, warm space for yourself. Get comfortable. Take 10 minutes (or 10 hours!) in it. Drop your breath down into your belly. Soften your jaw and your brow.

- ask yourself, how would it be to do a little less in this moment?

ask, what does rest look like to me?

- ask, what boundaries might I need to put in place in order to allow rest?

- thank yourself for this space

— —

I would love to hear how this resonated with you.

Rowena x

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