Rest.

I am going to be straight up honest with you.  I am exhausted.  I had grand intentions of sharing something entirely different this week. But instead of powering through as planned, I am going to practice what I preach, step back and allow myself to REST.

It's been a very long, exciting, eventful, exhausting week working, virtual schooling, and launching my new Patreon platform.  Not to mention in the middle of the week I took a break from all the regular commitments of life to spend 4+ hours of my evening in the ER.  Don’t worry, I’m fine.  Just a complication from a different issue I’ve been dealing with for the last six weeks that has also left me physically and mentally exhausted.  Again, I will be fine and am on the mend. 

I share this not for sympathy, but to model the importance of the practice of rest.  We are taught from very early on to abandoned ourselves and our needs.  To ignore the messages from our bodies to slow down.  To prioritize doing over being.  Many of us conditioned to believe that resting is lazy or that it requires a certain amount of accomplishing before we are worthy of it.

Let us continue to tear down the beliefs and the systems that not only do they not serve us, but they have a directly negative impact on our health and well-being. 

My message this week is simply this:  Rest easy in the rebellion of rest. 

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Let Yourself Rest

If you’re exhausted, rest. 

If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.

If you don’t feel the urge to make something new,

Just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known.

If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.

If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off.

If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it.

If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today.

Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments.

Time does not always need to be filled.

You are enough, simply in your being.

~Jeff Foster