thecreatives.org

“Because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we do not rest. Because we do not rest, we lose our way.”

-wayne muller

I’m not very good at resting. I thought I was, I thought I could handle a day of rest just fine, thank you very much. I could even enjoy it. I’ve never been a total workaholic like the rest of my family, I have always bragged.

Well.

As it turns out, I’m good at resting for short periods of time. Resting that includes productive things like making stuff in the kitchen or the studio or growing stuff in the garden. Actual lying-about resting? Not so much.

Pregnancy has shown this to me loud and clear.

I’m trying to learn to rest, to learn to let go and not be able to check things off a to-do list. It’s hard. I have to learn the lesson and be okay with it over and over again. But I am learning. Little by little, I am relaxing and letting myself truly rest- rather than just lying there tense while others around me move about and get to do things. I’d rather learn how to grow a new human being and keep my energy up. But apparently, things like gallons of caffeine and many herbal energy boosts are frowned upon right now. So, I learn to rest. And learning to rest, as it turns out, teaches you all sorts of things about yourself other than how to let your body relax. Slowing down, go figure, really does help you notice yourself and your life and what you already have. Instead of chasing after what we want, we get to take stock in all the amazing things in our lives.

I hate to admit it, but so many of the good things in our lives are not thanks to our scurrying about. Our lives are not, as it turns out, so much better because we strive to be successful. Our lives are wonderful because it is Life. It is not necessary for me to keep doing Stuff, accomplishing More, keeping things in Line, for life to be beautiful.

Life is beautiful, even without our adding to it with our little accomplishments and success stories. We are not as important as we’d like to think. It doesn’t need us as much as we’d like to think. Once we can let go and be okay with that, it’s quite a good thing to grasp. It’s like having to ask for help: we are realizing that we are not in control, getting back to humility of not being the center of whether things can work or keep going, and understanding the real role we play instead of puffing up and then heaping expectations on ourselves. This is good.

Rest. Try it. Look around. I’d love to find out what you can then see.

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