Are you rest deprived? Even if you’re sleeping eight hours a night, you might not be getting enough rest.
Rest isn’t the same as sleep. But it doesn’t mean you must sit around doing nothing or space out in front of the TV either.
Rest involves being more than doing. It’s about returning your awareness back to your body, mind and spirit and tuning into what each area needs in order to restore your life’s balance.
To heal, we must address all five aspects of the body: the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and energetic. When one is overworked, it affects the others.
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If you’ve ever felt exhausted, despite getting lots of sleep, try employing more rest in your life.
Rest at the physical level might look like taking a slower-paced walk without distractions like your phone, music or a podcast. Taking a bath or swim, being in nature, walking barefoot on the earth, sitting and gazing at a tree or peaceful scene, meditation, gentle movement, breathwork and bodywork are all great examples of how to rest your physical body.
Emotional rest might look like journaling out something that’s been on your mind, talking to a friend or doing a practice of self love, acceptance or soothing yourself. We can extend this to mental rest, which involves practice quieting your mind, even if it’s just for a few seconds at a time. With practice and time, it will be easier to extend the silence.
One of the best ways to rest energetically is to clear your energy throughout the day. So many people come to me mentally distraught and physically exhausted, but when I look at their energy, I see them taking on other people’s negative emotions and problems without realizing it. This can feel so draining over time and it’s one of the easiest things to remedy on your own.
Spiritual rest is equally as important. I define this as taking breaks from trying to fix ourselves, raise our vibration or keep striving for the next level. Stopping to enjoy the view of where you’re at in this present moment, is one of the best forms of rest you can give yourself. There will always be more to do, more to be and more to learn, but it doesn’t need to be done all at once, all the time.
When you rest, you take time to absorb and process all the work you’ve been doing. Healing and self development work is cyclical, just like the seasons. We all need a winter in order to have a more fruitful spring and summer.
Rest gives us space to come to our own realizations, to hear our intuition and to reflect back on our journey and celebrate how far we’ve come.
I’d love for you to share, how have you been resting? What are your favorite practices?