Giving Yourself Permission To Rest

  When was the last time you felt really rested? I dont mean that you slept for a decent amount of time, or you watched a movie or was on your phone for a couple hours, or where you sat on the couch for a little break...I mean actually felt rested? Do you even know what that means? I feel like there are some people and societies that are just more restful. They have been taught the goodness, the beauty, of restfullness and self nurture and so they just innately practice it. Here in our society there is this restlessness, this anxiety that drives us to a place where resting, feeling rested, is foreign and tainted with guilt. Not everyone struggles with this of course and we are a people that struggle with self control and lazieness but resting...that is a whole different kettle of fish.

  Have you ever stopped to think what would help you feel rested? For many it is physcially leaving their everyday life, their house and work, and getting away for a while to somewhere different. Somewhere that ministers to them in some way. We all have souls that need to be blessed and often we are doing the opposite because in some sick way it feels better. We can be exhausted in every way ~ mentally, physically, spiritually, and so hungry for rest, but we feel that we should push harder, try more, give more, and our state is grave.

  I have been thinking of friends, of myself, looking around me at people and wishing for us to be able to be okay with rest. To give ourselves permission to take time ~ to slow it down ~ to enjoy beauty ~ and to feel peace wash over us and for our hearts, minds, eyes, all of us, to be at peace, to be filled with rest.

  Each day melts into another or collides into each other. They never stop. When we keep thinking that something will change tomorrow, or next month, or whenever we tell ourselves that rest will magically come...it wont.

  Rest is a choice we have to make, there are specific actions we need to take, we have to stop wishing or thinking that it will just come to us or that someone else will make it happen. We need to teach it to our next generation and share the concept with the generation before. Years ago Sunday was a day where businesses were closed and people rested. The shift to every day being a work day has not helped us.

  So today might be a good day to think about how you feel rested. What helps you feel at peace, what helps you feel calm and safe and happy. Consider if you feel you deserve rest and if you dont why not? What is driving you to be who you are and do what you do. Self awareness often brings about change and a greater sense of understanding and peace just in itself. Resting will help ~ It will help in all sorts of ways on all sorts of levels. It will open doors to feelings, thoughts, emotions that have been pushed down and ignored in the distractions that this life offers. Rest ~ another cry of our heart.

  xo