The Necessary Law of Rest

Well-being spreads like honey into every corner of your consciousness.
~Elizabeth Lesser

Newton’s famous law provided that a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless external forces are applied. Today, it seems like an obvious observance, but in the intervening three centuries there has been little conviction to apply outside force in order to allow our bodies to rest. In modern life, true rest is rare. We take rest in those hours when we finally turn off the lights at the end of day or land on a beach for a week’s retreat. But the rest we are missing is the rest that comes when we fully surrender, put aside the strain of toil, and be calm in the spaces that exist every day.

There is an irony in our culture. We chase after desires to live care-free lives and yet, we seem to never feel at ease with relaxation. Few people believe they deserve such kindness onto themselves or they believe they can not afford to slow down. It can be no wonder that stress levels continue to rise year after year as one of the most necessary practices of all of human life eludes our reach.

One factor that hinders our practice of rest is our ego. Our egos cause us to boast how little rest we need and how much we have produced. Sometimes egos have the persona of a bully on the playground—flexing muscle, talking loud, and proclaiming successes. The bully ego in me sets off alarm bells when I am stopped by a student after class and my focus on the student is impeded because I think I have to rush off to the next thing. It is there when a neighbor asks me to take a walk and I draw upon excuses about deadlines and to-do lists. Yes, at times my ego keeps me on task and helps me attain my goals, but when I am rushing and running, achieving and accelerating, I fall short. For what holds me and all of us steadfast is not the omnipresent existence of the mind-centered psyche, but the heart held soul.

To cultivate our heart held souls, we must feed our well being with moments of rest–moments where we are fully present with another person, a place, or ourselves. Each day, space exists where we can surrender the ego and let our souls be bathed in the sweetness—a sweetness like honey spreading into every corner of our consciousness.