Make room for rest

to avoid burnout, breakdown, and stress

It usually takes a major moment, something sudden or serious to stop us in our tracks before we come to a halt. Many of us are living lives of perpetual motion, half afraid to jump off the hamster wheel of constant activity.

Even when our bodies are still, our brains never stop whirring, providing a ceaseless background commentary on our desires, our lives, and how we might be living them.

We feel the pressure to perform, to keep going for one more minute, hour, or day. Then we wake up and do it all over again, repeatedly.

We’re like swans. On the surface we are gliding along, seemingly serene. But underneath? That’s where the ferocious paddling takes place.

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Attentiveness


When I get too tired
I might start skimming
stories, blog posts, emails, articles,
conversation, listening,
the stuff of life itself.

Because my attention
wanders, disappears fast,
like my focus,
increasingly blurred, increasingly
lost and furred.

It takes soul deliberation
to go slow,
to truly hear, take time
to care for people 
and things, to want to
go deeper again.

Especially with God,
for he requires
our surrendered lives,
our attentive minds
and receptive hearts.

Whenever I find myself
giving scant attention
to people, 
to God,
to life and things I know
I should, then I’m aware
I must rest and repent.

And only then, only
when I see how I am
reacting,
only then do I discover
how to access my heart
and soul, and offer
myself to all
as broken—becoming whole.
© joylenton

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Truly my soul finds rest in God;

my salvation comes from him.

Truly he is my rock and my salvation;

he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.

— Psalm 62:1-2 NIV

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There’s tremendous effort involved in trying to stay afloat and keep up with things so we don’t sink into stagnation or drown in duties unfulfilled. It’s what drives us.

I used to be like that. Pressing on, never really feeling well, frequently with a viral overload, I lived on adrenaline to the point where I was oblivious of it. Pushing myself, forever chasing my tail, until M.E stopped me in my tracks.

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M.E hit me like a sledgehammer. Not a gradual slowdown. Not a slow awareness to stop. Not a warning sign of danger ahead. I simply came to a grinding halt.

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My body crashed. Entered a state of constant somnolence. Wracked with pain despite doing next to nothing. The tiny amount of self-care I was capable of easily depleted my extremely limited energy.

Unable to work. Weak. Bedbound. Unable to do much at all besides sleep. Hypersensitive to light, to sound, to touch. Everything felt too bright, too loud, too much.

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Pacing and rest controlled my days. They became my mantra, my guides, my way of leading anything vaguely resembling a normal—incapacitated life.

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When you’ve been stuck in one room for weeks, months or years, getting out of it and going outside is a rare, special event. A cause for celebration.

During the initial release from my room, I couldn’t stop looking at the shape of clouds as they drifted across vast acreage of sky. They became a source of fascination and remain that way today.

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Everything felt magical. The birds, the trees and flowers. Small creatures. People. The smell of grass. The welcome warmth of sun on my skin. The sights and sounds of nature. The feel of earth beneath my feet.

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Rest is vital for our bodies and souls. I learnt the hard way that if we don’t make space in our days to pause and rest, then all our efforts to keep on keeping on will only result in burnout, breakdown, and stress.

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They are unpleasant places to be in, as I know from personal experience if I forget to slow down or neglect to adequately rest and pace myself.

Besides the M.E, I also have intense pain and other chronic conditions. The fluctuating intensity of symptoms dictates what I am able to do each day.

Thankfully, the M.E is less severe than it used to be. God has blessed me with a measure of healing and restored a semblance of normalcy to me.

I still struggle a lot health-wise so I don’t take any improvement, however small or short-lived, for granted.

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You don’t have to be waylaid by poor health to see the sense in stopping, even for a little while each day. Take a breather. Regulate. Recalibrate. It is possible to learn how to rest and release.

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We can choose to step off the bus of busyness and the roundabout of restlessness, and climb aboard the soft hammock of hopeful ease, where we seek to still our busy bodies and offer our tired minds rest and peace.

It helps our physical and mental health to make time to commune with nature and notice the changing seasons. To flow gently at their pace rather than rushing forwards or resisting alteration and change. In order to be our best selves, our souls need to switch off. Our bodies demand a break.

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Our spirits are urgently imploring us to stop:

Switch off

Take a break

Outwit overwhelm

Pause and pray

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Without following a regular pattern of rest, we become too exhausted to be of any use to ourselves or others.

Resting is how we eventually gain a greater measure of soul strength and peace.

If you have an opportunity this summertime, go to the ocean or beach. Listen to the cries and squawks of avian life, the sea’s slow beat that soothes our frazzled senses. The crashing waves that distract our clashing thoughts.

It’s been decades since I was able to do that and I miss it so much. There’s nothing I’d love more than to inhale sea air, have frothy waves circling my feet, and feel sand squelching between my toes.

Let the waves of worry and weariness wash over you as you slowly inhale and exhale with the rhythms of the tide.

Close your eyes and let yourself be carried by the water, the waves, the sense of weightlessness, as you release the weights you’ve been carrying.

Let problem pebbles slip from your fingers and relinquish those raw emotions that keep you knotted on the inside.

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“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

— Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

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Restorative God,

Remind us to rest. To regularly take a Sabbath break. Make space for switching off and take good care of our bodies and minds. May we not resist the need for rest or fall into the temptation of pushing ourselves too hard to the point of collapse.

May we, instead, have awareness of our weaknesses and strengths, the ways in which we can nurture rather than extend ourselves too far, and when we are strong enough to do what’s in front of us, as well as supporting and helping others.

If we live with chronic illness and pain, may we rest even more than we think we might need because it’s all too easy to crash and burn when we’ve done too much and failed to pause or stop.

Open our eyes to see that our greatest strength lies in dependence on you, in quietness, in waiting, in rest, in being attentive, alive to life as we live it.

May we learn to imitate your gentle, unforced rhythms of rest, the sacred pathway to greater ease and peace. And lean on you willingly, not fearing our greater dependency but treasuring the surrender and greater intimacy it brings in its wake.

Amen

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If, like me, it’s been way too long since you’ve experienced being close to a body of water, the ocean or sea, here’s a brief reminder…

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