Week 22 - Does "too much of anything is bad" apply to rest and relaxation? How do we know when it is time to trade comfort for tough love - in our own best interest?
5 of Swords, 8 of Wands, 10 of Swords
To understand rest, we must first understand our need for it.
Every time you fought a battle, you met your limitations. You walked away from the war zone, carrying lessons, insights and realizations - about yourself, the world and the nature of life itself. But this knowledge cost you a lot. A cost that you are trying to recover through rest.
Yes, like most cliches, this too is true - that too much of anything is bad. But when it comes to rest, this cliche falls short. Because rest isn’t just what it looks like. While you lay down and allow your body and mind to recover their strength and energy, you are not just receiving. You are continuing to give to the act of living. It is like pouring water into a bucket that has invisible cracks. It will fill up but never past a certain mark because of the cracks that cause tiny but significant leaks.
There are cracks in us too. Despite them, life’s demands on us are relentless. To be alive, is to answer those demands. And as we rest, we fill up with new energy, new vigour, but we are never quite the same as we were before. Now, the rest serves a different purpose. It isn’t a temporary solution that once applied, can restore you back to your wholeness. It becomes a necessity. A way of life. As important as salt in your food. You know when you’ve had enough. And if you need more, it is simply because you cannot taste the flavour your life is brimming with. To rest is to become capable of experiencing life in a way that allows us to taste all that it offers us.
From this lens, rest and relaxation are no longer something you turn to in terms of crises. They become your safety net against them. And the cracks that remain in you may heal with time. They may yield to your determined desire to hold more and more of life within you. When you allow yourself to sleep peacefully, walk slowly, eat intentionally and connect purposefully with the world, the cracks will turn leaks into surface tension, protecting what you are holding within.
Rest is a new way to be. Like salt, you will know much you need each day, as it appears on the table of your life. Sometimes you need more. Sometimes, very little. And at other times, not at all.