The Fine Art of Rest

I have a love hate relationship with rest.

I long for it, I know the value and need for it, and yet I fight granting it to myself tooth and nail. I dangle the concept of it in front of me over and over, like a treat for a dog… but rarely, if ever, actually allow myself to consume, partake, ingest it. I just keep chasing it around and around, like a dog chasing his tail. It’s always in front of me, but I never can quite catch it, grab it, hold on to it.

I allowed myself to cash in a few more hours of PTO, and arranged to go in a little late to work this fine Monday morning. For a few more glorious hours my son and I are here enjoying the stillness of morning at the lake. Summer is flying by, and while we’ve enjoyed lots of regular weekend time up at the lake, I’m finding it hard to squeeze in a little bit extra time, bonus time, intentional “me” time. I’ve tried a few different times and have had to either cancel and go back due to various work needs, or the weather has been uncooperative and has sent me home early.

I should have probably canceled my time off request for this morning and gone in early due to some things at work, but I choose not it… I choose to stay a few extra hours, and I was blessed with the most amazing evening with my family last night. God blessed my decision to not pack up early and rush in to work, and I am grateful.

I ended up staying up until midnight just enjoying the quiet, enjoying the aftermath of thee most amazing sunset experience, enjoying looking at all my photos from the weekend, enjoying some alone time after a few sacred hours of chatter and laughter with just the three of us, after a day of fun and sun, boating, tubing, biking, and being with friends.

I’m half marathon training (sorry, I realize I mention this a lot lately… I honestly hesitate every single time I write or say those words, wondering what people are thinking and how hard they are having to try not roll their eyes and outwardly groan… but unfortunately, it’s what’s taking up a huge chunk of both my time and my brain space right now, so I simply apologize). Next weekend is another huge running weekend for me - another 13.1 on the calendar, and I spent a lot of time this weekend in my tennis shoes out on the road. I got up early every single morning and got every single mile in… and by last night, my body was tired. My mind was tired and I decided that maybe I would let myself sleep in in the morning.

Maybe I would allow myself this gift of rest. Lord knows I wanted to… but I confess, I struggle with rest. I’m a list maker, a people pleaser, and a highly motivated goal achiever. And I am on a mission right now… a mission to run, to rest, to relax, to be filled, and to enjoy every tiny little second of this season of summer. And this season is flying by, so I feel like I need to be crazy intentional with each and every one of these remaining minutes and moments as to not waste a single one.

This “restful” summer mission has left both a little rested, and a little exhausted.

I read a book this weekend, Unstuffed - Decluttering Your Home, Mind, & Soul by Ruth Soukup. In it she had a section on rest that really struck me. (The entire book struck me, but that is another entire blog post {wink}). As I read it I knew it was speaking to me, it was about me, it was about my current lack of success in this area, despite all the effort and emphasis I’ve been trying to put towards it.

Here’s just a few words that I underlined in her book…

“I don’t think there is any one factor that can contribute more to stress than a lack of sleep, and no one solution can help alleviate stress more than a good night’s sleep. Many of us - especially those of us under a lot of stress - are chronically sleep deprived. There aren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done, so we chip away at our resting hours, staying up too late, getting up too early, and never allowing ourselves a full night of sleep…”

“An area to focus on in the battle against stress and fatigue has to do with adding more downtime, and it’s hard work to simply learn how to rest and do nothing. When there is always so much to do and not enough time to get it done, allowing ourselves real downtime - unstructured, unscheduled time in our day to simply relax - can actually be really difficult. We live in a busy world that is constantly calling us to do something…”

I am so guilty of all of this. I immediately thought of an earlier blog I’d written about why I get up early… to give myself more time in my day, and how the math and logic in my mind is actually allowing me extra days in my life. And I grew up in a home where rest, true rest, and doing nothing, was never modeled well. I don’t honestly think I have ever once in my life witnessed my father actually sitting and resting. (I do not blame him by any means for any of my calamities.)

Rest for me is a mind game… a battle between need and want, logic and desire, realistic expectations and accomplishments. I want to rest, but I want to achieve, and resting might equal lazy, resting might equal quitting, resting might equal failure. So I feel guilt, and shame, and I deny and under play these needed moments.

I know I wrestle with allowing my body and mind to truely rest, even though I know they need it. I have a hard time even with the concept of yoga. I did it once and really enjoyed it, but in my mind it didn’t actually constitute as “exercise” so I haven’t allowed myself to explore it beyond that one time, because I hardly have enough time getting my training runs in, so surely I will not have enough time to add yet something else,  no matter how beneficial it may actually be…

I know I can’t be the only one out there battling this war with rest. I know I can’t be the only one walking around weary from lack of sleep and overworked, overstressed schedules, despite my greatest effort to remain aware and balanced. I can’t be the only one doing all the things, drinking all the coffee, while tackling all the to-do lists in hopes of tricking myself to actually think I’m resting, really resting.

Resting is not a natural strand structure in my DNA. For whatever reason it’s hard, it’s unnatural, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s something I deeply deeply desire to be able to do more gracefully.

If I look back over my life, I can see how far I have come in the last several years when it comes to scaling back, delegating, saying no to, walking away from, not committing to… but as I sit here this morning fighting an inner battle over if I should be proud of myself or utterly disappointed that I didn’t force myself to get up and get my five mile Monday morning run in… I realize that perhaps I still have quite a ways still to go when it comes to this whole rest thing.

This actually makes me smile… grateful that God is continuing to whisper and direct what I need but don’t always see or hear clearly. As I’ve come to learn and love these past few years, my life is about the process, about the journey, about the trusting, releasing, and simply enjoying of what is gifted and granted to me. And apparently I need more rest, real rest, true, deep, honest rest…

So today I will again attempt to simply rest for a few minutes longer before packing up and heading back to face the reality of life beyond the morning silence of this sacred little campground, in the middle of no where, in this amazing season of summer.

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