Restfulness
The topic of rest keeps popping up, maybe as a response to the recent self-care article in the New York Times. And this idea stuck with me from one of those posts:
Work is active and valuable: it’s where we prove our worth and create a legacy … Busyness is a badge of honour, even a sign of moral superiority. Rest, in contrast, is often treated as if it’s passive and pointless. Indeed, I’ve noticed many people hardly think of rest as its own thing. It’s just a negative space defined by the absence of work.
The point of the post is that you need to know how to rest and get good at rest. It’s a skill. And many people are never taught how to rest and therefore don’t know how to step back and not do anything related to accomplishment. Not do a task for work or home, check a box, or take care of one tiny thing.
I love the idea of getting other people to rest with you.
3 comments
This was always a bone of contention in my house! When I worked 2nd shift, I would come home and need an hour or two to unwind before I could go to bed. That stuck with me as a necessity through my life – I could not be active all day and then crash into bed. I needed some downtime. Once I had my daughter, after she went to bed, I would just…hang out. I wouldn’t take care of any tasks or anything. I’d watch TV and play games on my computer. Then I would be ready to go to bed and sleep. My husband was someone who wanted to be doing something all the time. If there were chores left to do, he would want them completed. So, when he’d be doing nonsense chores in the evening, and wanted me to help, I would tell him that I was busy and couldn’t do it. I’d tell him exactly when I would be available for the nonsense chore. It drove him insane that I would prioritize relaxing over nonsense chores. He preferred to lay in bed in the mornings to do whatever relaxing he was capable of, but it was mostly just going back to sleep. That’s not the same thing.
It’s actually incredibly sad that society sees rest as just the “absence of work,” don’t you think? I love that “a” prioritised her winding down time. We even build “rest days” into our overseas trips – because we know we won’t be able to truly enjoy the busy days if we’re exhausted. And rest days can provide some of the best times – people watching in a cafe, wandering and just getting lost, or lying in bed hearing the exotic sounds outside the window (calls to prayer, church bells, market sounds etc).
This really resonates. Isn’t it bunk that we have to tell ourselves that we “deserve” to rest? I loved the work nap-ministry does. https://thenapministry.wordpress.com/