Speaker 1: US Studio US. Welcome to the Stillness Journal. I'm Maya,
Speaker 1: and today I want to talk about something we have
Speaker 1: been taught to resist, the gift of letting yourself rest.
Speaker 1: There is a kind of exhaustion that sleep does not fix.
Speaker 1: The kind that comes from carrying more than is yours
Speaker 1: to carry. The kind that builds in the chest, behind
Speaker 1: the eyes, in the spaces between the shoulder blades. The
Speaker 1: kind that has nothing to do with how much you
Speaker 1: slept last night, and everything to do with how much
Speaker 1: you have been holding without letting anyone see. That is
Speaker 1: the kind of rest we are going to talk about today,
Speaker 1: Not the rest of the body, the rest of the
Speaker 1: soul sett linge. Let your body find the surface, be
Speaker 1: in me, let it soften, Let your hands rest wherever
Speaker 1: they want to rest, and let your eyes close or
Speaker 1: soften or simply drift. There is nothing to do here,
Speaker 1: nothing to perform, nothing to prove. Just this breath and
Speaker 1: the next one and the one after that. When was
Speaker 1: the last time you allowed yourself to truly rest? Not
Speaker 1: the kind of rest where your body is still but
Speaker 1: your mind is running through the list. Not the kind
Speaker 1: of rest where you collapse into bed but wake up
Speaker 1: feeling more tired than when you lay down. The kind
Speaker 1: of rest were for a few minutes or a few hours,
Speaker 1: you put down everything you have been caring. You stopped producing,
Speaker 1: you stopped striving, you stopped earning your place in your
Speaker 1: own life. For many of us, the answer is hard
Speaker 1: to find. We have been taught that rest is something
Speaker 1: we have to deserve, that it comes after we have
Speaker 1: produced enough, accomplished enough, being enough, that it is the
Speaker 1: reward at the end of a long list of shots,
Speaker 1: and so we pushed through. We tell ourselves we will
Speaker 1: rest when the work is done. We tell ourselves we
Speaker 1: will rest when we have proven we can handle it.
Speaker 1: We tell ourselves we will rest when we are no
Speaker 1: longer needed. And by the time any of those conditions
Speaker 1: are met, we have forgotten how But rest is not
Speaker 1: a reward. Rest is a foundation. It is the soil
Speaker 1: from which everything else grows. Without it, we do not
Speaker 1: actually have anything to give. We are simply running on fumes,
Speaker 1: convincing ourselves that fumes are enough. They are not. They
Speaker 1: never are, And the longer we run on them, the
Speaker 1: more depleted we become, until one day we wake up
Speaker 1: and do not recognize the person in the mirror, until
Speaker 1: one day we realize we have been leaving from the
Speaker 1: outside inn performing a version of ourselves that does not
Speaker 1: match the truth inside. I want to invite you to
Speaker 1: consider this worthy for rest were not something you had
Speaker 1: to earn. What if it were something you were allowed
Speaker 1: to take simply because you're alive. What if your words
Speaker 1: were not measured by what you produce, but by the
Speaker 1: fact that you exist. What if the deepest kind of
Speaker 1: productivity were not the constant doing, but the willingness to
Speaker 1: be still. These are not small questions in a world
Speaker 1: that measures us by output, by followers, by accomplishments, by
Speaker 1: the speed at which we respond to emails. The idea
Speaker 1: that we are valuable simply by being here is a
Speaker 1: radical one. It goes against everything the cuature tells us.
Speaker 1: It goes against the way most of us were raised.
Speaker 1: And yet when I sit with it, when I let
Speaker 1: it land in my body, it feels like the most
Speaker 1: true thing I have ever heard. You do not have
Speaker 1: to produce to be worthy. You do not have to
Speaker 1: accomplish to be enough. You do not have to keep
Speaker 1: going to deserve care. You are worthy because you are here.
Speaker 1: You are enough because you are breathing. You deserve care
Speaker 1: because you are a person, and that is what people deserve.
Speaker 1: The exhaustion that does not respond to sleep usually has
Speaker 1: something to do with this. It has to do with
Speaker 1: the belief that we have to keep proving ourselves. It
Speaker 1: has to do with a constant, low grade performance. We
Speaker 1: are running even when no one is watching. The body
Speaker 1: keeps the score as the saying goes, and the body
Speaker 1: is tired of performing. The body is tired of being
Speaker 1: the vehicle for someone else's expectations, even when those expectations
Speaker 1: live inside our own heads. So today I want us
Speaker 1: to practice a different kind of rest, not the kind
Speaker 1: that comes at the end of accomplishment, the kind that
Speaker 1: lives inside the accomplishment, the kind that is allowed to
Speaker 1: exist at the same time as the doing, The kind
Speaker 1: that does not require permission from anyone, including yourself. Bring
Speaker 1: your attention to your breath, not to change it, just
Speaker 1: to notice it. Notice the air coming in, Notice the
Speaker 1: warm air going out. Notice the small pause at the
Speaker 1: top of the inhale and the small pause at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the miha hal. Noticed that the breath has
Speaker 1: been doing this work for you automatically since the moment
Speaker 1: you were born. You did not have to learn it.
Speaker 1: You did not have to earn it. The breath simply happens,
Speaker 1: and in the same way. The body knows how to rest.
Speaker 1: The body knows how to soften. The body knows how
Speaker 1: to release. It has been doing these things your whole life.
Speaker 1: The only thing that gets in the way is the
Speaker 1: mind that says you do not deserve it, The mind
Speaker 1: that says there is too much to do, The mind
Speaker 1: that says you will rest later. The mind that says
Speaker 1: later never comes. I want to offer you a reframe.
Speaker 1: Rest is not the opposite of productivity. Rest is the
Speaker 1: soil from which productivity grows. The most creative ideas, the
Speaker 1: most generous ads, the most loving words. They almost never
Speaker 1: come from a depleted place. They come from a place
Speaker 1: that has been given time to refill. They come from
Speaker 1: a place that has been allowed to be still long
Speaker 1: enough that something new can rise up from underneath. This
Speaker 1: is what the natural world knows. The trees do not
Speaker 1: produce leaves all year long. They have a season of rest.
Speaker 1: The fields do not grow without lying fallow. The rivers
Speaker 1: do not run without being fed by springs and rains
Speaker 1: and quiet places where the water can gather before it moves.
Speaker 1: We are part of this same natural world, we are
Speaker 1: not separate from it, and we too need our seasons
Speaker 1: of rest. We two need our fallow times. We too
Speaker 1: need the quiet places where the water can gather. So
Speaker 1: I want to invite you to claim rest as a
Speaker 1: part of your practice, not as a reward at the
Speaker 1: end of the list, as a part of the list itself,
Speaker 1: as something you schedule the way you schedule the other
Speaker 1: things that matter, as something you defend, even from yourself.
Speaker 1: There is a story I love about a teacher who,
Speaker 1: when asked what he did every day to keep himself whole,
Speaker 1: said simply, I rest, not in the evenings, not on
Speaker 1: the weekends, throughout the day, in small moments, I let
Speaker 1: myself come back to myself. I let the doing pause,
Speaker 1: I let the striving pause. I let the proving pause,
Speaker 1: and in that pause, I remember who I am underneath
Speaker 1: all of it. This is why we are practicing today,
Speaker 1: noticing the pause, letting the pause be enough, letting the
Speaker 1: pause refill the cup, and trusting that what is done
Speaker 1: from the pause is better, kinder, more true than what
Speaker 1: is done from the running. Notice what is happening in
Speaker 1: your body right now. Notice the shoulders, notice the jaw,
Speaker 1: Notice the small places you might be holding without knowing
Speaker 1: you are holding. You do not have to do anything
Speaker 1: with them, Just notice them, just allow them to be there,
Speaker 1: and know that noticing is itself a kind of rest.
Speaker 1: It is the mind stopping it's chasing, and the body
Speaker 1: being allowed to be. One of the things I have
Speaker 1: noticed in my own life and in the lives of
Speaker 1: people I love, is that we often mistake exhaustion for importance.
Speaker 1: We feel busy, so we feel needed. We feel tired
Speaker 1: so we feel significant. We feel overwhelmed so we feel
Speaker 1: like we are doing something that matters. And the culture
Speaker 1: reinforces this. The culture celebrates the busy, The culture rewards
Speaker 1: the depleted. The culture treats rest as something only the
Speaker 1: lazy or the unsuccessful can afford. But this is a lie,
Speaker 1: a gentle, well intentioned lie, but a lie. Nonetheless, the
Speaker 1: truth is that the people who change the world are
Speaker 1: almost never the ones running on fumes. They are the
Speaker 1: ones who knew how to come back to themselves. They
Speaker 1: are the ones who knew how to refeel. They are
Speaker 1: the ones who could see clearly because they had given
Speaker 1: themselves the gift of stillness. You do not have to
Speaker 1: change the world. You just have to live your life.
Speaker 1: And to live your life well, you need to be
Speaker 1: in it. You need to be present for it. You
Speaker 1: need to be rested enough that you can actually receive
Speaker 1: the moment you are in instead of running through it
Speaker 1: toward the next one. So take this as a permission
Speaker 1: slip if you need one. Rest is allowed, rest is required.
Speaker 1: Rest is the way you come back to yourself. And
Speaker 1: the self that comes back after rest is the self
Speaker 1: that can do anything. The self that comes back after
Speaker 1: rest is the self that knows what matters and what
Speaker 1: does not. The self that comes back after rest is
Speaker 1: the self that the world needs. Let us sit here
Speaker 1: a little longer. Let the practice settle into the body,
Speaker 1: Let the breath continue its quiet work. Let the shoulders
Speaker 1: soften a little more, Let the jaw release, Let the
Speaker 1: eyes be soft behind the lids. Let the whole being
Speaker 1: remember what it feels like to not be running. There
Speaker 1: is nothing to do, nothing to fix, nothing to figure out.
Speaker 1: Just this breath, just this body, just this moment, just
Speaker 1: you being here, in all your tiredness and all your beauty.
Speaker 1: That is enough, That has always been enough. The world
Speaker 1: will wake, the list will wait, the proving will wait.
Speaker 1: Right now, you are allowed to just be when you
Speaker 1: are ready, Gently bring your attention back, wiggle your fingers,
Speaker 1: feel the surface beneath you, take a sip of water
Speaker 1: if you have it, and as you move back into
Speaker 1: your day, carry this with you. The permission to rest
Speaker 1: does not expire when you stand up. It does not
Speaker 1: end when the meditation ends. It is yours always to
Speaker 1: claim again whenever you need. You are allowed to rest,
Speaker 1: not later, not when the work is done. Now, in
Speaker 1: the middle of the doing, in the middle of the meeting,
Speaker 1: in the middle of the ordinary, unglamorous, beautiful moments of
Speaker 1: your life, you are allowed to take a breath. You
Speaker 1: are allowed to close your eyes for thirty seconds. You
Speaker 1: are allowed to put the phone down. You are allowed
Speaker 1: to step away. You are allowed to be a person
Speaker 1: with a body that needs care instead of a machine
Speaker 1: that needs to keep producing. Thank you for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you for choosing, even for these few minutes, to
Speaker 1: put everything down. Thank you for letting yourself be still.
Speaker 1: Thank you for letting yourself be held by your own breath,
Speaker 1: by your own presence, by the quiet that is always
Speaker 1: available when you stop to listen for it until next time.
Speaker 1: Be gentle with yourself. Rest is not a reward you
Speaker 1: have to earn. It is the foundation you are allowed
Speaker 1: to build your life on. Take it it is yours.
Speaker 1: No must stay, no must stay now, must stay. No
Speaker 1: must stay now, must stay