Rest is a Portal part 2

You can find part 1 here (from 2021)

Rest is a mindset
Rest is a practice
Rest is an act of devotion
Rest is distinct from leisure
Rest is necessary for the repair of the mind, body, and spirit.
Without rest, we cannot heal.
There are many ways to rest.

We can only give from what we have.
Our spirits may be limitless, but our bodies and minds are not.

Rest can be a loaded word. Depending on our personal histories, cultural, and ancestral lineage we may have been denied rest, discouraged from rest, or deemed more or less worthy of rest. As I began writing this, I found myself beginning with a defense of rest. You will find some incredibly wise, compassionate, fierce words about the birthright of rest from luminaries such as Tracee Stanley, Trisha Hersey, Lama Rod Owens, Katherine May, and others, as well as many of the prominent modern and ancient texts exploring meditation practices.

From a physiological perspective it is worth noting that our bodies complete cellular repair mainly during delta states of consciousness, which occurs during sleep and deep relaxation. Our physical bodies, including our brains, require this time of rest to clear away debris, heal our tissues, to digest and integrate vital nutrients, to allow the mind to gently work through conflicts, and to balance the neurochemicals and hormones we need to function optimally.

Rest is necessary. Without it, we are not offering as much as we think. Rest is an inside job, and I invite you to explore what it means for you personally, with all the context and details that are relevant to you.
Let us venture forth without needing to interrogate whether we deserve rest, so that we can explore the resistance to rest that so many of us experience. (And mainly I’ll share my own struggle with rest.)

I am nearing the completion of a 40 day Sadhana, of Yoga Nidra practice. I have been practicing Yoga Nidra, a form of deep relaxation, every day since November 7. More pointedly, I have been integrating the practice of rest into daily life, holding the awareness of those little portals into the void— between breaths, between tasks, between apps and emails…
I’m sheepish to say that I have often mistaken play for rest, that I now realize I have rarely rested. Play seemed like the opposite of work, and therefore the thing I needed to bring balance to my life. Which was true. Play is joyful, expressive, and nourishing. Play is a portal to the “child’s mind,” curious and not so attached to knowing. But playing is still doing. It is generative, active, and sometimes even holding the quality of striving. In play I am the subject, and sometimes also the object. There is a clear sense of “me,” and the many expressions that are possible in the free and expansive space of play.

To rest is to let go of doing. There may be awareness, and awareness of the awareness, but in rest even that fades away. Maybe it yields to a quality of we, but eventually it yields to nothing at all— but also the awareness dissolves into a palpable something that makes clear any questions about meaning.
In the last four weeks I mostly stepped back from any formal writing, from any unnecessary working, from doing much planning beyond what I already had planned. I’m bringing more intention and thoughtfulness to when I am “working” and when I am not, distinguishing between meaningful actions and actions meant to quell a feeling.

Allowing those outward movements to be a natural extension of inner movements, from a steady foundation. But more importantly, to release expectations. To cultivate a practice as a worthwhile venture in and of itself.

I anchored the experience with this affirmation:
I offer myself rest, and ask for nothing in return

I started noticing how I am perhaps working a bit more than I realized in my creative expressions, and I also was aware of what I was “producing” even as I was playing. I realized that when I would finally let go I would often return to thoughts and plans of doing. Somehow doing was a means of existing, but also a need to keep proving myself worthy.
Planning for the future became a helpful tool for not sinking into the past, but it was also interrupting the process of repair that begins when we finally release towards ourselves. I would find myself surrendering to these blissful states of being, and then abruptly yank myself out of them with various thoughts of what I should be doing instead. And that abruptness started to stretch out, becoming slower…it began to hold a pause that offered a choice.

With so much pain, violence, fear, and injustice around us, it is easy to believe that relentless action is the only right path forward. It’s easy to minimize the value of rest, even though this quality nourishes our ability to show up for the the relationships and causes that matter to us. Let’s be nuanced about how we understand our need for rest. Because rest as a practice is not in opposition to being active and engaged in things that matter.

Our actions plants seeds, some of which we will not fully understand until later. Our frame of mind in the present shapes those actions, which shapes our futures. In my view rest is different from detaching, escaping, or “taking a vacation.” While we may be letting go of thought, letting go of aspects of our identity, and letting go of shaping, when we rest we are deeply present with ourselves and every other being. We are watching our experience. We are becoming quiet enough to perceive from the deepest wells within us.

In this deeper space we might feel ourselves as an ocean and time as a current. We might remember that our edges are imaginary. We might traverse a thread that leads us back to ourselves, in other versions, in other timelines,
Maybe in other identities entirely. What is an identity? Beliefs are important, and I believe it is vitally necessary to clarify what your beliefs are, to allow your values to shape your beliefs and vice versa. And these are yet more ideas of who we are. We are the ones experiencing those beliefs, thinking those thoughts, observing those actions. And those observers are also an idea of us.

Or at least that’s some of what vibrates through my presence in the void…

When I return I feel a depth of compassion that couldn’t be cultivated through thinking and feeling alone. There is a quality of feeling an inner light that reflects between us. I can see the anatomy of my own compassion, the frequency of love, and how it burns.

{a diagram of my Inner light}

One of the medium-term effects of a consistent rest practice (that I have observed myself) is the somatic and energetic skill of quickly shifting one’s body-mind-spirit state into a restorative frequency, this shift becoming more and more efficient with practice. Which means being able to access deep, nourishing, rest, during a 5 minute break between calls, or while you’re waiting for your coffee to brew, or sequestered in a public restroom for a couple minutes during a stressful day.

Or taking three deep, meaningful, grounding breaths when you need to find the wave of compassion within yourself, in the midst of feeling angry and judgmental. It also brings more awareness into the sleeping states, allowing us to carry back more wisdom from our dreaming travels. And allowing the body to sleep even when our minds are active.

Well, there’s more of course.

Especially the parts that mean more to discover yourself, and hold close to your heart in a way only you know how.

So I’d like to conclude by offering my full affirmation to you:

Offer yourself rest
You deserve to rest
Offer yourself rest
and ask for nothing in return

Your rest will form a foundation
You can build a foundation of consistent, luminous, nourishing rest each day
Let go of doing
Let go of striving
Return to your true nature