Rest-oration

The paradox of a pause is that it stops things but things don't stop. Pause is just as much a verb as a noun. The pandemic paused a lot of things but that did not equal rest. Time & life marched on.

Slow Not Steady
With many things stopped that we needed, we spent more energy finding new ways to stay on the conveyor belt of life. Yes, it forced us to slow down, to stop things that weren't crucial or urgent. It showed us there was more room for margin than we thought. But it felt a bit like using a broken remote where we had to keep our finger on the pause button, holding it in, actively ready to let go as soon as we could. It's really hard to rest when you are actively waiting for it to end.

I've been learning a lot about what rest really is the past 4-5 months.  That's because I let myself get extremely depleted 7-8 months ago. I had mistaken a pause for real rest.  I figured that out the hard way when I ran full steam into several situations that were emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically draining. But they were all things I could not say no to. I knew I belonged in the midst of these difficult but important, and even good, situations. 

Yet I didn't count the cost. 

I didn't counter balance, I didn't make enough space to intentionally refuel myself along the way and ended up running not on steam but vapors.

Thankfully I had people in my life who kept looking for me, finding me sitting on the side of the highway on empty, they were like angelic jerry cans of fuel. They reminded me what I needed to do to refuel myself.  I went back to the things that restored me.

Restoring Foundations

There's that word again. Rest-ored.

See, I knew all along what steps to take to take care of myself, to keep me feeling healthy, to keep me fueled up. But I didn't approach them as a kind of rest, they were more like a to-do list I loved checking off. Like being dehydrated and drinking from a fire hose.  So even when I did my restorative things I wasn't getting the rest benefit from them. The last several months I've been re-educated on the nuances of that. The book Sacred Rest has really helped, as well as several wise people in my life, and of course, God planting many nuggets of wisdom along the way.

Just in time too.

Because seeds He's also been planting along the way are beginning to explosively blossom! And my temptation is to act on them all, immediately. Once again pulled to move at full steam ahead. But I think I've learned my lesson this time. As I shared in my last post, writing and creativity have been sparked, and the fire is now near raging, but I'm pacing myself. I'm no longer demanding I have a blog post to share every week, or even every other week. I want it to be organic, no one wants to read a forced post. Same with social media in general. Even though I know algorithms mean only 10% of my followers will read this because I'm not posting several times a week. Working from a position of authenticity and freedom is rest for me.

Gone are the days of me letting my fires consume me to the point of being vapor.  Sleep is no longer my only idea of rest. The crazy thing is that my brain woke me up at 5 am Sunday morning (for the 2nd time this week!) with these thoughts rattling around trying to escape, wanting to be written down and shared.  So I got up to right them down. Don't get me wrong, I definitely took a nap later to compensate, but it's not just about that, it's about finding the rhythm of give and take in my passions, and keeping myself in the flow of rest & energy so that I'm always receiving and giving out of an overflow. 

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