What if it Was Your Pet…

This is a continuation of my series on regulation, building on the last two weeks that focused on connection and emotional processing. Regulation to me is generally feeling peaceful, present, calm, and creative as I go through life.

For the past four years I’ve been attending silent meditation retreats. On the recommendation of a friend, I initially started with daylong retreats (and would pass this on as a good meditation retreat tip!) and then last year I started going to five-day retreats.

One consistent phenomenon my teachers describe is folks coming on retreat with great intentions around improving their meditation practice, only to find out in the silence and safety of the space that they are exhausted.

One of my meditation teachers has shared that she throws away the first two or three days of her retreats as she gives herself permission to rest.

I have spent an entire daylong retreat drifting in and out of naps.

And I’ve seen and heard many other participants having a similar experience, including one mom of young kids at a recent retreat who shared that normally she could sit and meditate just fine, but she kept falling asleep on the retreat. My teacher said, “You’re just tired. Your body needs rest. Let it rest.”

Another one of my teachers asks the disappointed meditators turned nappers that if all they got out of this time together was plenty of rest, wouldn’t that be something?

It would.

This culture can push us so hard, and chronic stress is often normalized.

Think about if we treated a dog the way we treated an average worker. Woke them up before they were done resting. Gave them caffeine to perk them up. Asked them to stay focused throughout an entire day and fight any of their body’s signals for rest by staying up with sugar and caffeine and social media. (Ok, though dog social media would be fun.) And then gave their worn-out selves hyper compelling toys and entertainment that they couldn’t resist in their tired state that kept them up late.

Would it be any wonder that they’d be tired, cranky, and disconnected from their natural rhythms?

This is the same for us.

My sense is that we all need a lot more rest than we’re getting or accustomed to getting.

It’s not just sleep (though sleep is a part of it).

Rest is time without input, time to let your system work things through, time without pushing yourself to meet your obligations, and time to just be present.

On Memorial Day my rest wound up being time connecting with friends an afternoon nap.

Tuesday my rest was going for a walk in the morning that helped me figure out why I was so tired and what I needed to adjust moving forward.

Other times my rest is coloring, where my mind just kind of zones out. Sometimes dancing is restful for me, because it takes me out of my mind and into the moment. And more generally there are days when I see my to do list and decide it’ll get done, but just not today, and I wind up taking things slow and relaxing instead.

Sometimes rest can be something as simple as the right song, or a hand on my heart, a few deep breaths, doing some neck or shoulder rolls, noticing nature, a hug, or pausing for five minutes to check in with myself and what I need before moving straight into the next activity.

* Caveats here are I do not have small children and am single, so I can be attentive to my needs and regularly have the quiet and space to fulfill them. Also, I’m an introvert, so quiet activities are restful for me. Your situation and what’s restful for you might be totally different! And yet incorporating rest and recovery are universal concepts.

Here are some signs that rest could be in order for you.

• Something not that hard looks incredibly daunting. I remember one day I came home with fresh flowers for myself (hey Miley) and the thought of putting them in a vase looked like an insurmountable mountain. I wound up taking a big nap that afternoon and realized, oh, I was really tired. I’ve seen this with a range of work tasks and emails as well. Before rest they look so hard and then after I’m more rested, they are simple.

• You’re experiencing physical symptoms of fatigue like yawning, rubbing your eyes, nodding off, or having the munchies. (Are you hungry or are you tired?)

• You feel cranky or like you don’t have much patience.

• You’ve been doing a lot, and you don’t want to do any more.

• You are a human having any kind of day. Rest is an ongoing and pervasive need for all of us.

I know that sleep can be a really charged topic for many people, so please know that my intention here is not to be the rest police, but to gently point you in the direction of setting up an environment that is supportive of you getting more rest, so that you have access to being present and available to your life. Rest occurs best in a context of safety.

Lastly, one of my favorite mindsets about rest is that when we aren’t doing much things are still moving forward. Resting can actually speed things up!

This is because our unconscious mind is working behind the scenes, putting things together even when we aren’t consciously thinking about them. The world can step forward to meet you in one of your goals when you aren’t moving so fast, and you might notice an opportunity that you could otherwise miss when you're more present. And things that we can’t solve when we’re stressed and overwhelmed can click into place when we have more bandwidth and perspective from resting.

Here’s your gentle reminder to take it easy! The world will keep spinning while you take a break.