I’ve seen many friends were in Empowered Yoga’s Restorative Teacher Training this weekend and it reminded me of when I took it last year. A weekend filled of conversations and mini naps. It was wonderful. I learned a lot about stress and restoring my mind and body. Since then, it’s most of what I find myself reading about.
Since that training I have added restorative yoga to my own practice a lot, tail ends of vinyasa practices I teach and to the athletes I teach. There are many benefits to restorative yoga.
This post isn’t exactly about that though.
It’s about the fact that we generally SUCK at slowing down.
In conversation with my close entrepreneur and work from home mom friends just today in fact, we were all sharing how we have been sick. Sick, injured, brain fogged etc. We have all been going a million miles an hour and run ourselves into the ground.
You don’t even have to be a bad ass entrepreneur like my friends. We all hustle in our own way. We’ve come to a time in the year we need to rest and restore and what do we do?
Make ourselves busier. This concert and that party. This person’s perfect gift and that stressful family situation. Volunteer. Help out at school. Take on extra work to make a bit more money. Blah blah fucking blah.
So back to the fact that we SUCK I repeat we SUCK at slowing down. Even if we say to ourselves “I’m going to rest this weekend”. Maybe we end up watching tons of scary movies (and not really relaxing the body) or binge eating popcorn or drinking too much wine and feel the guilt about it all?
Sound like anyone you know??!?!?
We HAVE to be intentional about rest. Plopping ourselves on the couch simply isn’t enough for our busy ass lives anymore. Put the effort into properly relaxing the body and be mindful of “relaxing activities” and how they ACTUALLY make us feel.
Let’s take the example of A Simple Bath, a self care blog post I wrote a while ago. I gave a few tips for making it more relaxing, the big one being TURN OFF YOUR PHONE! Does Facebooking in the tub actually relax you? Like actually? Or do you get irritated every time you see so and so’s post and then that sneaky stress creeps up without you ever noticing? It’s super sneaky like that.
So you ask me, how Jen? Just how do I become intentional in my rest?
PLAN. Plan it. Know on these days you are turning off the tv or drawing yourself a bath or going for a massage.
CHECK IN. Check in with yourself during said activity. Just because you are doing something that’s “relaxing” doesn’t mean you are. How do you feel? What could make you feel better?
GIVE GUILT THE MIDDLE FINGER. Yeah. This is the sneakiest of sneaky stressors I think. Especially if you are a mother. That Mom guilt is something from out of this world. Taking time to rest and restore is NOT A LUXURY. I repeat NOT A LUXURY. It is a KEY link in your survival! Think of it that way, because it’s the honest to goodness truth. Then treat it that way.
Love,
Jen