😴 REST LIKE A PRO 😴

Resting is one of the things I find the hardest. I’m learning to give as much importance to it as I do to creating and moving forward.

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I’m not naturally comfortable with resting. My default mode is being on the go, getting stuff done constantly. I didn’t allow myself to rest fully, up until 6 months ago. I would rest only if I do everything I promised myself to do. Even then, I’d create new tasks to do so the resting bit would never actually arrive.

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Few weeks ago, on a Sunday, I cancelled everything and took a whole day just to myself. I realised I haven't done that in 6 months. It’s weird how you plan to do things with people for hours even days but sometimes not even two hours with yourself.

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In the morning it felt comfortable. It felt selfish, uneasy and a bit pointless. I did it anyway, as I felt that was what my body needed. I went to a common nearby and sat at the bench for an hour, feeling, reflecting, watching children play, couples hug each other. I let myself a whole day of not having to do anything. It felt weird in the beginning but I started loving it towards the end.

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If you’re a woman and have your period regularly, period is the time when your body naturally needs more rest. That’s why you might feel way more tired or you might need to sleep more. Rather than forcing yourself to power through it, when you honour the need to rest, once this stage of the cycle is over, you’ll thrive at the next stage. As woman, we’re not meant to be linear working hard all the time, we are cyclical. When you see and respect that, your body literally thrives. You might allow yourself to sleep more, go out less on these days etc and just be with yourself a bit more.

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I’m on my period now, its the 4th day. This is the first ever cycle I’m on that I fully rested, truly honoured what my body needed. It feels pretty amazing. I write way more when my period comes, inspiration just flows to me and I just have to write. I don’t prefer seeing people in person but I’m still good to do sessions, speak on the phone, text etc. I cancelled few events I was going to go to, rearranged few other things because my body needed rest.

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So how do you get over the resistance to rest?

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You stop, breathe, you imagine yourself letting go of the need to work more, knowing that you’ve done your best within what you can do, now your body needs to rest and you surrender to something greater than you that will take care of things for you.

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You can remind yourself that if you rest now, you will naturally build a momentum from this and go full speed later on.

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Here are some ways how you can start practicing resting:

- If you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur working for yourself full day, stop everything, leave laptop, phone at 9pm. Grab a book, run a bath, watch a movie and just spend time with yourself or your children, partner, your family. if you don’t stop at some point, this might lead to burnout. Give it a go for a week and see how things work out, if it’s a no after a week, then that’s fine, just ditch it.

- Don’t multitask. When you’re doing one thing, just do one thing. Even if it’s hoovering, just hoover. This will wire your brain in a way to help you to rest better when you’re actually resting, doing one thing at a time.

- Go into nature. Turn your phone off and just lay on the ground. There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go here. Feel your body sinking into the ground, feel the Earth holding and supporting you as you feel more and more grounded and centred.

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Resting is an art to master. It’s as important as getting stuff done. You might get to a place and it might feel like nothing has changed. Be patient with yourself and be kind to yourself, just like you are to other people 😍

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And if you want to take a bath in the middle of the day if you want to, not because you earnt it but you want to, go for it 💃🏽

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How is your relationship with resting? How do you rest? ❤️

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Wishing you a beautiful evening 💛

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Loads of love ✨

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Art by elreygrafico.com