How Well Do You Rest?

I have taken every October for the past 8 years to rest.  I literally pair down my schedule to just the basics; turn off the TV for the month, cancel most social engagements, minimize work events, pare down my workout schedule, pull out the books that I never finish, find my crochet basket of half done creations and allow my body, mind and spirit time to rest, repair and regenerate.  The juicer comes out, all processed food goes away and I focus on nourishing me for the next 30 days.   
This is my favorite time of the year, I like to call it the ‘calm before the storm’.  Summer has ended, everyone is adjusting to their new schedules, it’s almost as if things get put back into place for a moment (I say 31 days) before we begin the frenzied pace of heading into the holiday season.  My intention for the 31 days of October is to allow my body, mind and spirit opportunity to reset itself. My cleanse plan consists of eating raw foods, juicing, fasting (no food), and then reversing the cycle to taper my way back up to eating cooked foods. I incorporate a kidney, liver, gallbladder, lymphatic system, heavy metal and parasite herbal cleanse.  This break from most all of my compulsions (food (processed & cooked variety), TV, internet, eating out, shopping) prepares me mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally to move gracefully into the holiday season rather than at a breakneck pace.  I give myself permission to ‘be’ for 31 days. Each years month of rest gets better.  

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"Rest is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be."

This year I was having a tough time finalizing the exact dates for the extreme portions of my cleanse (fasting = absolute rest/solitude).  Then I received the call that my mother was transitioning into her final stages of life upon this earth.  I needed to drop everything and make my way up to her bedside in Northern California.  I wrapped up my affairs in both the home and office so I could be gone for a time and left the house thinking I was in for a 5 ½ hour ride to Morgan Hill California, where I had moved my mother to be close to my sister and her family back in December of 2013.  I hopped on the 5 freeway and was rerouted to the 101 to save 2 minutes due to traffic (gps angel).  What may have been an hour later I realized I never got back on the 5 freeway and was now headed north along the coast, a beautifully scenic 10 hour drive.   As I took what was probably the first deep breath of the day to begin to calm myself and figure out what to do next. I felt God resting on me, telling me to relax, take my time, choose His peace and enjoy the scenic ride.  That I would arrive at the right time and that I would bring His peace with me.

It takes much courage and surrender to choose to remain in peace and allow your mind, body and spirit to rest while in the midst of life’s storms.  I was fortunate enough to spend my mother’s final week on earth with her.  Since her passing on Oct 12, I have been struggling to find my rest.  The revelation that I needed disengage from “caregiver mode” was the first step towards me sleeping through the night.  Over the course of this next year I will be walking out my healing and exploring ways to rest in Gods love.

REST is the conversation between what we love to do and how we love to be. Rest is not stasis but the essence of giving and receiving. Rest is an act of remembering, imaginatively and intellectually, but also physiologically and physically. To rest is to become present in a different way than through action, and especially to give up on the will as the prime motivator of endeavor, with its endless outward need to reward itself through established goals. To rest is to give up on worrying and fretting and the sense that there is something wrong with the world unless we put it right; to rest is to fall back, literally or figuratively from outer targets, not even to a sense of inner accomplishment or an imagined state of attained stillness, but to a different kind of meeting place, a living, breathing state of natural exchange…

Excerpted from ‘REST' From the upcoming book of essays CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. ©2014 David Whyte  To be Published in late November 2014

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