This week I wanted to offer you the idea of rest, not the physical kind, the spiritual kind.
The definition of rest is to cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength. We often talk about rest in terms of our physical bodies, but rarely do we talk about rest in our mental and spiritual bodies.
To that end: When was the last time you truly stopped and felt your emotional experience? You weren’t trying to change anything or make it easier. You weren’t trying to act in anyway. When was the last time you simply found the stillness?
Rest is Pause
The first part of the definition of rest is ceasing movement. For a moment you stop acting on what you are feeling. Instead, you are here showing up with your anger or your sadness or your joy without trying to change it. In that, you are putting space between the unconscious predictive process of the brain and its corresponding action. In resting you are pausing the habitual pattern of reaction, which opens yourself up to changing it (to be kinder, more loving, less critical, ect).
Rest is Love
This is where the second part of the definition of rest comes in. We rest in order to relax, refresh oneself or recover strength. What does that look like? It looks like resourcing yourself with love.
Love looks like many things. through the lens of mindfulness, love looks like using your awareness to take a step back from your experience, putting space between you and the emotion, you and your reaction to that emotion, so that you can act respond in a new, more intentional way.
In relation to the body, mind and spirit this could look like the following:
Mind
Love could look like acceptance or even simply neutrality. It could look like understanding and compassion instead of criticism.
Body
Love could look like breathing fully or care giving behaviors of warmth, gentle touch and soft vocalizations.
Spirit
Love could be prayer, or connecting to nature or rooting down into your common humanity that you are not alone in your experience.
Resting in the moment you are in, first by pausing to act on your emotional experience and then choosing to intentionally show up for yourself with love, is the essence of holding space for yourself, fundamentally changing how you show up in your life. This is the power of rest.