This Is How You Rest

The thing is, there will always be more on the to-do list. There will always be people who need you, things to accomplish, deadlines to meet. You will never find the time to get into a hammock for an entire day and truly collapse into the knowledge that you got it all done. The best time to rest is today. You do have time, you do have the tools, yo... See more

Rest is shame-proof. This is the most vital thing. You can’t feel guilt or shame while you’re resting. It is the state of feeling GOOD.

Rest is soft, or sensual. It’s massaging your own palms with your thumbs, or touching a purring cat, or holding a warm mug of tea, or smelling flowers or coffee beans or cut-up herbs. Rest should softly pleasure the senses, is what I’m saying.

Rest is quiet. It’s not noiseless; music is an incredibly important element of rest for many people. But it can’t hurt your ears. You can’t be feeling uncomfortable or suddenly stressed by sounds that are taking up all of the space.

Rest is slow. You can’t feel rushed while you’re resting. That doesn’t mean that you can’t rest for an incredibly short period of time; it just means that, if you’re time-limited, you’ll need to have a timer. You cannot be in charge of the time as a resting person.

Task-doing can be fun, and it can fill an entire weekend day without feeling at all like a waste, but it’s still work. Work is the opposite of rest.

Mindless activities in front of screens are what I like to call “being dead while conscious.” These are the most readily available tools that allow us to leave ourselves, which can feel pretty good, or at the very least, pretty necessary. I am not against being dead while conscious. It’s hard to be a human living in a body. Sometimes it helps to be... See more