Rest
This morning I had a conversation with a friend and the topic of rest came up. We talked about how for our entire adult lives we have been going, climbing, maintaining, surviving, coping, reinventing, delivering, creating - in short, doing. When I think about rest and relaxation, it’s set aside for that once a year vacation which for me, is not very easy to achieve because I have three small children. When I tell this to other busy working parents, we all shrug and with tired eyes and weak voices say, I guess we’ll rest when we’re dead? There is something wrong with this. Our world is much too stressful, growing worse with every news cycle. And our workplaces are mirroring that stress as the economy changes and new technologies threaten our livelihoods. And then there’s the business of caring for our families - small children, aging parents, spouses, siblings, friends. Our bodies weren’t made to live in constant stress. In fact, stress causes some of our most chronic illnesses, from depression to heart disease to cancer. When I was younger, I was able to regulate stress much more easily and the mechanisms I had in place to help me snap out of stress worked. But as I’ve entered into mid-life, these mechanisms aren’t working anymore and I can’t destress quickly enough. This has resulted in my own health taking a hit, forcing me to reexamine my life.
This summer, I’m taking a courageous step forward and attempting to push my ‘slow down’ button in an effort to reclaim my health and embody my life even more fully. I’m joining a new gym so I can try out a dj dance workout class and water aerobics; I’m expanding my global search for the best chocolate chip cookie and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with friends. I will be putting myself in nature, looking and listening more intentionally to the world around me. I plan to write and create and be.
In order to heal from my own health crisis, I will be stopping, reassessing, and living more fully so that I can relearn the importance and power of self-care, boundaries, and healthy habits. I’m excited for what’s on the other side of this for me. And I can’t help but think what a better world we would live in if we all could push the ‘slow down’ button and rest.
