The next Contemplative Practice night is Thursday, 7/30 at 6:30PM Central Time. We’ll spend a bit more time together so that we can spend some time in creative practice together, making art or writing. I’d love to see you there.

Why hello there, friend. I hope you have been surviving this heat wave no matter where you are.

A quick note that this newsletter will be moving to be published on weekends. Still bi-weekly. Just not on Tuesdays, to give me more time to write and go a bit deeper.

This newsletter is, in part, written from where I am. I just hit submit on my final paper for my spiritual direction certificate with Wisdom Tree Collective, after nearly 2 years. Next month, I hope to graduate and begin 1-on-1 spiritual direction with paid clients (stay tuned).

It feels like this next season for me is one of integration, taking all that I’ve learned over the last two years and beginning to incorporate it into my life in a new, deeper way. To that end, I haven’t signed up for another training program. I haven’t applied to anything. I’ve not signed up for more. I’m just…being, for a while, and I’m going to take my own advice and rest.

Last time I landed in your inbox, we talked about what a spiritual practice is and why they matter.

Today, I want to talk about rest as a spiritual practice. If you are in a human body, you need rest. If you’re reading this, you’re human. In American culture, we’ve long needed more rest.

A couple of weeks ago, a reel was circulating on Threads about a guy who started his day, leaving the house to go to a co-working location at 4:45AM. He’d ride there, working on his laptop. Once he got there around 5:30AM, he’d work there until about 8:30AM, then commute from there to his office, arriving there at 9:00AM. He’d work until 2:30PM, and then eat a sandwich at his desk. He’d stay at the office until 6:00PM, at which point he would get into some autonomously driving vehicle that would drive him home, where he would arrive at 7:00PM. His wife would show him videos and pictures of his kids, who were already in bed. She made him a quesadilla. He would then watch TV until bed at approximately 9:00PM. Before head, he was shown drinking some sort of “sleep tonic” to ensure he got “good rest.”

The title of this reel? “Trying to win at work and at home.” No judgment to our friend, but this isn’t winning. And maybe he genuinely is trying, and maybe this is what his salary or chosen profession requires of him.

And perhaps you can relate. Honestly? I used to live a life pretty close to this one for years. I would get up at 5:00AM so I could get to the office by 6:00AM so I would have an hour or two of quiet before everyone else got there. I’d then stay there until about 6:00-6:30PM to “avoid traffic” (also to actually get something done). I had approximately 28-32 hours of meetings each week. I had 8 direct reports. I had 13 total people on my team. I was not winning - at home, frankly. I was definitely winning at work. I was the most miserable I had ever been. I did not like who I worked with. I did not like who I was becoming. (Ah, that pesky question again.)

When I complained, I was told that, essentially, this is what it takes to “win at this level” and while it “isn’t sustainable for the long-term” it will “pay off eventually.” It did not pay off. After a year of doing that every week day, I was a shell of a human. I was not made for that life.

Fast forward. That pesky question kept cropping up, Who am I becoming?

Do I want to be the kind of person who lives at the beck and call of my work and job? Or do I want to be a person who is able to rest? And what even is rest, really? Why is rest a spiritual practice?

Judaism has the concept of the Sabbath, going back thousands of years, as part of the ten commandments (turns out, Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on the ten commandments). The third commandment is one of rest, to honor the sabbath.

We don’t really have a concept of the Sabbath in the west, but Jewish tradition does. Hispanic culture has a built in siesta during the day. French, Norwegian and many European cultures have the idea of a daily coffee break.

What makes rest a spiritual practice?

We talked about the definition of a spiritual practice, last time, as that of walking a path toward becoming.

Rest is a spiritual practice - true rest - because you have to stop relying on your own productivity to measure your worth, because in rest we have to say that enough is enough, and that something bigger than us is in control. Otherwise, we can never rest.

If we must always be productive, or always be working to be in control, then we can never truly stop - physically or mentally.

I’m pretty good at physical rest. I can sit on the couch with the best of ‘em. And yet… it is nearly impossible for me to shut my mind off. Meditation for me is a forced, mental break saying that I am not my thoughts, and that I can rest from chasing all of my thoughts, because ultimately my thoughts don’t matter that much in this grand equation. If I believe that something greater than myself, God, is in control then what I do and think matters just enough, but not so much that I can’t take time to rest.

One thing rest does is de-center us from the universe. If you can’t take a break from email during vacation lest something fall apart, then perhaps it’s time to become less important and delegate some tasks. Or, perhaps it’s time to let go of the fear that something might fall apart. Odds are they won’t truly fall apart, and the inability to unplug is less a sign of how critical you are but more a sign of how critical you think you are.

Ouch. But I used to be “pretty important” and believed everything would fall apart without me. All the companies I’ve left over the years are somehow still functioning without me.

The world still spins, even if I take a break. I can mosey around, and putter, and play…and yet…somehow, the world keeps going.

Most of us can live without being the center of the universe. We’ll be better off for it.

Types of rest

In her book, Sacred Rest, Saundra Dalton-Smith, M.D. outlines the 7 kinds of rest you actually need to get throughout the course of your life to be a healthy, functioning human being. Her list consists of:

1. Physical

2. Mental

3. Sensory

4. Emotional

5. Social

6. Creative

7. Spiritual

On this list, I believe we have a dearth of all of these in our lives. I know personally I need more rest in all of these categories, but if I had to pick one, the one I am always craving is Spiritual rest. For me, that often looks like time in prayer or meditation.

Prompts for starting a rest practice

Here are some questions that might help generate some ideas for what types of rest you need and where you need it in your life right now.

• What might it look for you to start a rest practice right now?

• How can it be flexible, instead of rigid?

• How can it hold and support, instead of box-in?

• How can it feel like love?

• How can it fill your cup?

• When does your battery feel full?

• What practices are life giving to you?

• If you had to list a practice for each of the areas listed above, what might rest look like to have one thing in each category each week?

• What does your rest practice look like now?

• How could it be different?

• If you were to change one thing, what might feel slightly more supportive?

• Where might you feel slightly more rested?

What rest looks like for me in this next season

First, I just want my weekends back. Between art training, and spiritual direction training homework, and life lifeing, I want my weekends back. While I’ve managed to keep some semblance of a Sabbath, I’ve had to primarily focus on physical rest, and while that’s great, it’s not enough.

I know I need more creative rest, and I need sensory rest. I need more spiritual rest. I need mental rest.

So, my plan is to incorporate those things into my life in a new and bigger way in this next season, as I have more time and capacity for rest. I want my pace to be slower, more meditative.