Learning to Really Rest

 Do you know how to rest?

Really rest?

I'm not talking about sleeping each night.

I'm not talking about your time off work or school.

Rest can, and often does, include those things, but in and of themselves they're incomplete rest. They're not the important things that refresh us and restore us.

I've been learning a lot about this recently. It's easy to not be at work, but still be thinking about work, planning things for work, checking emails and chat messages on my phone. Or to be planning the next evening for the Bible study I lead - what we're going to study, the details of each night. Or to be looking after family stuff that isn't always as urgent as it seems. Or to just be busy cleaning, laundry, errands.

None of those things are bad, wrong, unnecessary. They're part of life and important parts of life.

But, if they're all we ever do, we'll quickly find ourselves in trouble.

It may all look good on the outside. We get things done at work. We lead or serve at church well. Our family knows we'll be there whenever they need us or just ask us to do something for them. Our house is always very clean and organized.

But, we come home and collapse on the couch. Too tired to do anything but numb ourselves with binge watching a favourite show or scrolling social media before we crawl in bed to try to get some sleep. Morning comes and we do it all over again. Hoping for the day where we won't feel so exhausted and overwhelmed - the day when we'll do the things we used to do that brought us joy.

If we can actually get to the point where we admit it's not working, we can learn what real rest is. We can learn a different way to live. But, it means we have to be intentional about it.

This is where I found myself almost six months ago. I took my vacations from work, but all the notifications still showed up on my phone each day. I took the scheduled breaks between Bible studies I was leading at church, but I spent all that time putting together the perfect plan for each upcoming night we would meet - even though I knew most nights would likely not go exactly according to my detailed plan. I'd decide to take some time to do something I wanted to do, and a family member would phone or text with a request, and I'd drop everything to help them out immediately - even if it could have waited. My house always had to look perfect, even thought I was the only one who was going to see it.

And I thought I was resting regularly. Except coming home from work or whatever else I felt I needed to do and zoning out in front of the TV for a few hours wasn't really rest. But, it was all I could do with the way I was living.

I knew something had to change, but I had no idea how to make that happen on my own. I needed help to figure it out. I still need help figuring it out some days. I needed someone to help me see how I could make those changes.

And I sought that out. I found that help and began to make those changes. And I began to learn what real rest looks like.

It includes sleep. It includes time off work. It includes what I called rest before. But, it's so much more than that. It's meant boundaries around my time. It's meant intentionally scheduling time to do the things I enjoy and protecting it.

I can't tell you exactly what it should look like for you. We're all different. And what's restful to me, might not be to you.

But, I know for me, it meant setting quiet hours on my work apps on my phone so the notifications only appear when I'm supposed to be working, and turning them off completely when I'm on vacation. It means leaving my phone behind on purpose, or turning it off when I'm out for a walk or coffee with a friend (have you ever thought about how much our phones interrupt us when we're with other people?). It's meant learning to only drop everything for emergencies with family and making plans for another time when they phone with non-emergencies.

More importantly, it's means doing things I enjoy more often. Sitting in a coffee shop with a good book. Going for a walk with a friend. Playing a game with my niece (and usually losing to her). Reading that book that's been sitting unread for too long. Getting together with friends for games, food, conversation. Regularly phoning a friend just to talk about the last week for both of us. 

Really, it's been rediscovering what brings joy. What makes me smile. What energizes me.

That's been what learning to really rest has been about for me.

And as I watch people in my life and people around me, I wonder how many more of us need to learn how to really rest. How to make space in life for what really is important.

So, how about you? Do you know how to really rest?

When you look at your calendar, is it just filled with things you feel like you have to do? Or are there things on it that refresh you, restore you, leave you feeling energized?

How can you make sure you have these in your life consistently?

How can you learn to really rest?