When Rest Becomes Medicine

In this episode of the New Ashla Podcast, Michael and Justin explore the concept of rest, reframing it as a vital aspect of self-care and personal growth. They discuss the misconceptions surrounding rest, emphasizing that it is not a reward for productivity but a necessary discipline for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. The conversation delves into the different types of rest, the importance of setting boundaries, and the need for self-trust in allowing oneself to rest. Ultimately, they advocate for a holistic approach to rest, encouraging listeners to prioritize it in their lives as an act of self-love and a means to achieve clarity and balance.

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Takeaways

Rest is often framed as weakness or laziness.

True rest involves shifting the nervous system from survival mode.

Rest is a discipline that requires practice and intention.

Boredom can be a sign that you are detoxing from overstimulation.

You do not need to earn rest; it is a basic human need.

Setting boundaries is essential for maintaining rest.

Self-trust is crucial in recognizing when to rest.

Rest is not just about sleep; it encompasses mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects.

Choosing rest is an act of self-love and self-care.

Presence is more important than perfection.

Keywords

rest, self-care, mental health, productivity, boundaries, self-worth, emotional health, holistic healing, mindfulness, discipline, healing, spirituality

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Rest is often framed as weakness, laziness, or something
you earn after burnout. Most people do not rest until
they're forced to by illness, breakdown, or emotional
collapse. This episode reframes rest as a
form of intelligence, discipline, and above all, self
respect. My name is Michael Perry and I'm
joined today by Justin Gates. This is the new Ashley podcast.

(00:32):
Hello and welcome to the new Asha podcast, Home of Shadow
Work and Self Mastery, where psychology and spirituality come
together to help you build a road map to your best life.
So rest. I know we've touched on this
subject a lot in other episodes,but I figured this is a topic
that deserved its own episodes. Yeah, I think we, I think we did
have an episode on it, but it's one of those that needs

(00:54):
repeated, bears repeating. It's actually really important,
you know, because none of us do it.
We keep talking about it. Exactly.
Well, this is again just a good reminder for not just you guys,
but for me too. Well, especially around this
time of year, the holidays, everyone's being busy getting
gifts, making dinners, bringing people together, and it can be

(01:16):
exhausting when you're managing a whole bunch of other
responsibilities like normal daylife.
So I know this is a reminder formyself as well.
Right, well, and, and, and none of us do it right.
We talked about that before. I don't think a lot of us do it
good, do it well. Or at least intentionally.
Do it good, or we certainly can.You can always do it's.

(01:36):
Like, I know I've been catching myself.
I've been having these little moments where I can catch a
break between this and school and work.
And it's like all of a sudden I realize I'm doomed scrolling on
my phone or I'm lost in a video game.
And it's like, hey, you need to take some of this time to really
recuperate and sit in stillness.And yeah, that's it's easy to

(01:57):
fall into the many traps we havein our lives, the many
distractions. Yeah, it's amazing.
Rests, when you think about restand you think about doing it
effectively, it really becomes ablend of like stoicism,
spirituality, theology. You know, it's our ancestors
from thousands and thousands of years have been doing it better

(02:18):
than we are. Of course, they didn't have all
the stuff that we have to distract us.
Now I know we'll get into that today because and, and in the
notes, you, you put this in there and it was really, really
good because a lot of people will equate the kind of rest
we're talking about, the really,really good rest with boredom.
And you know, just a little spoiler for later.

(02:39):
Boredom is actually your cue. If you're bored there, that,
that there's your sign, right? So we'll get into that later
though. Well, I think man, so much of us
think we do rest, whether that'shanging out on the weekends
again, binge watching or playinggames.
We get lost in these activities.We consider rest, but we don't

(03:00):
give it. We don't stop and think about
the impacts it has on our nervous.
System. Yeah, yeah.
Well, and and I think most of usdon't realize this, but we have
really forgotten what what rest really means.
And as you said, we confuse thisstimulation with restoration or
distraction with nourishment. And it doesn't, it doesn't at

(03:20):
all. Like you said, we collapse on
the couch and we'll scroll for two hours or we'll watch, you
know, 5 episodes of Tulsa King or something, or the new Fallout
show that's coming out. See, like as a side note, side
note, Heather and I will wait for shows we want to watch to
kind of get like two or three inthere so that we don't binge
watch because it's easy to do. It's really easy to do.

(03:45):
And you know, it's like, becausewhen you just watch 1, you have
to wait the next week. That's rough, that's hard to do.
But 22 is a good number. Maybe but.
See, I love the wait. I love the anticipation, trying
to come up with the theorizing, what's going to happen in the
next episode. And it's like, I know most
people love the binge watching the whole wait for the series to
come out. And I'm like that.

(04:07):
It's over so fast. Yeah, but we'll wait for, we'll
wait for two. Sometimes we'll we'll miss a
miss a week and it'll be 3. But we never, we never try to
let it get more than one or two ahead because then we will sit
there and watch it. We really will because we just
can really get into it. But but that's not, that's not
relaxation, that's not rest, that's not, you know, that's not

(04:28):
on all four fronts, the mind, the body, the heart and the
souls. And we really, with all this
distraction, with all this, all this stimulation, we do miss out
on our our soul and our heart sometimes, or our mind or our
body really. Especially the mind piece
because I think that's the big issue people run into as people
what as far from their minds as they can get.

(04:49):
And there's so many people that are stuck in these loops.
And one of my the greatest concerns is like, I see so many
people operating from burnout nowadays and they don't even
realize that there's just this deadness to them because they've
gone so hard and so non-stop, even if that is working, coming
home, playing games, whatever. And it just they get to this

(05:10):
point where they don't have energy to do anything outside of
work. Right.
Well, and we call it unwinding. You know, like like we'll say
I'm going to come home and and unwind, relax and I'm going to
relax, I'm going to unwind. But you really just kind of
couch potato in it, right? GAIL, when it's easy, man, bad
habits are so easy to cultivate,especially once you get into a

(05:33):
routine. Like, I mean, you talk about
good habits. How many days do you have to go
to the gym consistently before it becomes something that's
routine? Well, same goes for something
like eating at night or watchingthose shows.
I mean, it's just it's so easy to start becoming compulsive
with it. Right.
Yeah. And that's something, you know,
something I'll consider for Heather and I like, you know, we

(05:55):
have, we try to have our weekly,our weekly date nights and maybe
those we do those on the couch. But that's a purposeful thing
that's, you know, planned and purposeful instead of just, you
know, so there are lots of ways that we can do this, but let's
talk about what rest is not. Well, as we were saying earlier,
you know, doom scrolling, I think that's one of the biggest
traps people fall into. You know, we go back to our

(06:16):
self-care episode and it's like I need me time and it's like me
time is something that needs to be intentional.
It's not let me just veg out foran evening and scroll through
everything I can just to try to have noise going on in the
background. Yeah, yeah, or, or the the the

(06:36):
popular activity, the second most popular activity, numbing
self medicating with alcohol andor over indulging in food.
Or, like we said, just watching tons and tons and tons of
mindless tea. When again, those bad habits,
they're so easy to cultivate without you even realizing they
have hold until they do. But it's so true.
I mean, again, numbing, distraction, these all coincide

(07:00):
for a reason. And it's that escapism that
people want to chase after. You know, another big one is,
you know, you sleep for 10 hours, but you're staying
emotionally overstimulated. You have all this baggage you're
accumulating and you're not processing, you're not sitting
with. And I mean, it follows you into
your dreams where you're having you're, you're dreaming.

(07:21):
You're still at the keyboard at work answering emails.
Yeah, oh, dude, dude, I used to.I used to do radio calls.
I used to call out radio codes in my sleep.
That was probably the PTSD from all the crazy stuff we dealt
with. But do.
You know, just a little bit. You know, a little bit, you
know, procrastination, you know,that's an interesting 1.

(07:42):
You put those in the notes. Take take me through that.
Man, so a lot of people when they procrastinate will try to
give it this air of rest. I can't remember exactly what
the term is, but it's we are ignorant to what we are doing
until we become aware of it. And often procrastination comes

(08:03):
around as like, oh, I'm working 40 hours a week, I'm doing all
these things, I don't need to doanything else.
Further, again, we're talking about rest, which is important,
but procrastination often will become busy work with no
outcomes. Yeah, yeah, which which just
ends up causing you more stress.It does me.

(08:24):
I'm getting better at at checking myself.
You know, I'll sit down and I'll, I'll have a, I'll have a
thought that I need to start doing something and working on
something. And then because everything is
too slow for me, right? I mean, you follow so far,
everything's too freaking slow all the time.
Like the internet's too slow. I've got 2 gigs and it's too

(08:45):
damn slow for me. Sometimes where my computer runs
a little slow when I'm working on some things, I get, I get
annoyed by that. So then I'll click over to
something else to keep me busy while this is doing its thing,
and then it'll be 15 minutes before I get back to the thing,
right? What it's also that hold that
law where it's like if you have something really important you
got to do and it's only take 15 minutes, an hour of your time,

(09:07):
you will do anything else but that thing.
And if you got that thing done, it would be a way for yourself
to just feel complete for the day.
Now one thing I just got to say to that though is rest isn't
something you earn. No, rest is something that is
not a need. We are we all deserving of BS.

(09:28):
We need it. It's mandatory, we.
Need. It Yeah, because in the self in
in the self-care episode we talked about burnout that was
kind of the central theme and dude burnout is rough we talked
about that before but it could cause some serious serious
issues so in. Every realm of your life.

(09:50):
Yes, it's it's mandatory. It's mandatory.
So what is true rest? REST.
Then If these things aren't REST, what is true REST?
You know, I think the best way to know if you are resting is
are you shifting your nervous system out of that constant
gride, that survival mode? Are you shifting it down where
you're able to relax it? We're able to sit with it again.

(10:11):
I was talking about stillness earlier.
Stillness is something I have become more and more apt to
implement to my daily rituals because that is where I find the
deepest rest. It can be some of the most
chaotic rest because my nervous system has all these charges
that's built up and it's starting to overflow, but I
allow it to process through and the calmness that comes after is

(10:32):
so profound. So so then rest is a discipline
by. Far it is.
It is not something, again, we talk about people going into
escapism and even like you brought up earlier, the
beginning of this episode, this is not something you just master
one day. It is a constant intentional
effort. Yeah, it's a state of being.

(10:52):
You know, when we think about state of being, well, that means
that I'm actively doing something.
Yeah, you're actively resting. I know that.
I know that sounds kind of paradoxical, sounds kind of
counterintuitive, but it is a discipline that you must develop
through practice, practice, practice, practice.
You haven't said that in a while.
I just want to call you out on that.
Yeah, I have it man. I'm dropping.
You know, one of the first self help books I ever read was The

(11:16):
Seven Spiritual Laws of Success.And in there one of them was
talking about how you need to take a weekend away.
No distractions, no music, no books.
You can go into nature, but yourgoal is to let your mind just go
crazy. And I think one of the reasons
that stillness is so scary for people and so overwhelming is
the way it describes it as it's like a pressure cooker.

(11:38):
And the more stuff you have bottled up in there, the more it
just wants to overflow. And that's why you distract.
That's why you numb and you got to give yourself that time for
that pressure cooker to release that steam.
Yeah, well, and you definitely there are there are things
you're hiding from. You should be honest about him.
And there's nowhere to hide whenthere's nothing to distract you.
Yeah. So rest is a state of being.

(11:59):
It's not a lack of activity. You know, this is a discipline
and real rest is, as you said, when you, when you can feel and
notice and identify the shift ofyour energy, of your nervous
system, of your whole being, really.
Because this is where the body repairs.
Literally. It can't repair if it's

(12:20):
constantly under stress stimulation.
Yeah. Yeah.
And this is where the spirit starts to breathe.
This is the place where emotionsstart to settle and we sit with
them instead of stacking and adding more to that bill that we
talked about that comes due, Right.
It's where you start to hear thewhispers that we talked about

(12:42):
and the nudges and the taps instead of just random noise.
When it allows our minds to integrate itself, all these
thoughts, all these experiences that allows, it gives space for
the experiences of our lives to start integrating with our minds
and our perceptions. Yeah, this look, this rest is,

(13:03):
is again vitally important because it affects all the
systems of our being. You, you cannot properly even
digest food if you're under stress all the time.
Your cells cannot, cannot repairand heal, right.
All those vitamins and supplements you take, none of
those are going to stick to you if you don't give yourself a

(13:23):
moment of rest. Your body just doesn't have have
time to deal with it. You know your mind has time to
process memories and process both good and bad things that
happen in your life, right? Your hormones, your hormones
can't balance and regulate you just there's a lot of things you
can't do if you're constantly under stress.

(13:44):
And the only other big one with the only go ahead.
One of the big ones with the mind is It's one of the greatest
ways to sharpen your discernment.
Mm hmm. When you're allowed to sit in
that stillness and allow these experiences to integrate, you
allow yourself the ability to see things from a perspective
that's not so immediate. Because often when we go through

(14:05):
something, we only get that front flash of the emotions we
felt and what happened in that moment.
But through that rest, through that time away from that, it
allows us to really look at things from outside ourselves
and see situations for what theyare and how we should proceed.
You know, if you're constantly clinched up all the time and you
could, you'd be sitting in the the most perfect meditation pose

(14:25):
ever and still be clenched up, You know, this rest is literally
built into us to keep us healthyand to keep us sane and to keep
us from losing it and freaking out.
And so, yeah. Another important thing with
REST is it really helps U.S. Open up to our creative, our
creative juices. You know, it's like, I know so

(14:45):
many people, myself included, I struggled with the longest time
finding ways for creative outlets.
But when we find times of rest and we're able to channel that
anxiety we get, we end up cultivating over time, it can be
channelled into some of the greatest pieces.
It can go into our intuition. It allows clarity to come back
online. Yeah, yeah.

(15:06):
I, I, I think the big distinction here is, you know,
we're not talking about sleep, we're talking about rest, right?
Rest, rest isn't what your body is doing.
Rest is what your nervous systemis doing, what your energy
centers are doing. What, how you repair those
bridges between your 4, the fourparts of yourself, you know,
those get wore out over time andyou need to have time to rebuild

(15:27):
those and rest, right? And if you're always clinched
up, which means you and you're always under stress, then the
light that we saw, that we saw fondly talk about on the show
cannot reach those places until you soften, until you relax that
inner world so that the light can reach those places that

(15:47):
you've been guarding with tension and stress.
And that's really the only placewhere we can find our true
Sinner, our soul, you know, and it can be moment to moment.
You can only have 20 minutes of rest, but man, 20 minutes of
rest is way better than 10 hoursof just nervous sleep.
Oh by far. Well and I will say it doesn't

(16:07):
mean that sleep isn't a bad thing, but when you are over
stimulated your your nervous system does not check out, at
least not to the capacity it needs to.
But good deep rest after you've allowed your nervous system to
calm down can be so healing. Well, and we, and we intuitively
know this, when you're sick, what does the doctor always tell
you to do? They don't tell you to go home

(16:27):
and sleep. They tell you to go home and
rest, right? I mean, yeah, sleep is
important. But if all you're doing is if
you're sleeping under these conditions and not actually
resting, not getting a restful sleep, then you're just barely
getting through it. You know how many show of hands
how many people wake up tired every freaking morning, right?
That's not sleep, man. That's not rest.

(16:49):
That's sleep. That's not rest.
When you got when you got, you know, a pile of cans next to
you, Red Bull cans, you're not resting.
You're sleeping. You really, you know, so and
that's, that's kind of what I meant.
You know, 20 minutes of true rest is better than 10 hours of
bad sleep. Yeah.
Well, I think that that brings up another good point that isn't

(17:11):
really in these notes, but man, caffeine, caffeine and rest,
they, they do not like to go hand in hand sometimes.
No, they don't. They don't, because yeah, it's
chemical energy. You know what it's like.
The whole point of it is to stimulate your nervous system.
Right, right. But caffeine also increases

(17:34):
increases cortisol, which is thestress risk.
So if you're stressed out, don't.
So if you're stressed out, you're stressed out, you're
burned out, you're tired, drink more caffeine just so you can be
more chemically stressed. Yeah.
Right. You should be drinking just
water. Water.
This is decaf by the way, so you're.
Smart about that, I know it's like.

(17:54):
I don't do a lot of. Caffeine weekend.
Late nights. Well, I just try to get better
sleep, you know what I mean? Just better restful sleep.
So yeah, I mean, nicotine is something people use to stay
awake or to keep them going, keep them stimulated.
But again, nicotine, nicotine triggers cortisol response too.
We need to get Jenna back on here and talk about just dive

(18:16):
into cortisol and what causes itbecause cortisol, and this is
kind of an aside for this, but we are talking about stress.
Cortisol is that stress that hasno 'cause, which is why it's
really becomes that silent killer because we have this, we
have this stress hormone going through us and we don't have an
external cause other than, you know, actually drinking caffeine

(18:37):
or drinking too much caffeine. You know, I'm never going to sit
here and say dietary. Things.
Yeah, and I'm not going to sit here and say stop drinking
coffee, stop drinking Red Bulls.You know what you do you, you do
whatever works for you. I'm just telling you what what
happens when you drink too much of it.
You know what I mean? It's like, you know, you, you
create more cortisol, which mustbe released to the body, which

(19:03):
really can only be released to the body through, through moving
it and stuff. So, but if you're tired, you're
not going to want to move very much.
So then you just keep drinking more stress.
That's all I'll say about it. Now, you're absolutely right
though, when it's a perpetual cycle, when you go through that,
and when we talk about rest, we're talking about moving from

(19:25):
those stress responses. Life is stressful.
There's nothing you can do aboutthat.
But it's about finding time to switch out of the sympathetic
nervous system into the parasympathetic nervous system,
which I mean, when you get into rest, I mean, it activates
repair, digestion, emotional processing, recovery, all sorts
of things. And it's, it's so important.

(19:46):
And when we don't allow that system to come online hardly
ever, I mean, you're stressing your system.
You see people aging so quickly,like I wonder what percentage of
the population operate from highcortisol levels.
Well, according to according to the show you do with gender, it
was a lot most of us probably. But again, it's it it's it's
mostly nutritional. You know, the body will create

(20:08):
and, and and look cortisol again, we talk about good
feelings and bad feelings and good chemical.
Nothing is good or bad. These things have purpose.
Cortisol has a purpose. It keeps us from dying.
Right. It keeps us alert, it keeps us a
little bit stressed out so it can heighten our, our survival
instincts, our, our senses. It's just, you know, again, we,
we over indulge in this society in the modern time for the last,

(20:33):
you know, maybe 100 years that Iknow that I can think of.
We over indulge in a lot of these luxuries, you know, and we
do it for not great reasons, forbottom lines and for, you know,
just so we can spend 16 hours inthe office instead of eight
hours at home with our family orwith our friends or whatever.

(20:55):
So you're going to get me. You're going to get me to spin
off on a tirade here. It's the hustle culture that and
then instant gratification. Everything's so easy to obtain
now from sugar, sugary foods to whatever you could want.
I mean, Amazon, I can order whatever I want to my doorstep.

(21:16):
I don't need to leave the house.I don't need to be active or
social, which these little things where we start to drop
the ball. I mean, we, we shrink our
capacity where it starts becoming stressful to go to the
grocery store. Right.
Well, I'll give you a perfect example.
This morning my youngest isn't feeling good and she needed some
Gatorade, but it was like 15° outside and everything was

(21:39):
covered in snow and ice and I was not feeling it.
I, I had the thought I was like,I can just DoorDash this.
But then I'm thinking then someone else has to get in a car
and maybe crash to get here to bring me my Gatorades when the
store is like, you know, 222 blocks down the road.
So I just got my, I got my butt dressed and just went down There
is, is, but the thought, the thought occurred to me.

(22:01):
The thought occurred to me because I can just have someone
else do it and I can just stay here and do what I want to do,
right? So you're right.
We have, we have been conditioned with comfort.
And boy, when someone takes our comfort away, do we not, do we
not get the pitchforks and torches?
We are ready to kill? I'm not going.

(22:21):
To go down a tangent with this, I can go down a rabbit hole
here. I know, I know so.
So why do people struggle with this concept of rest?
You know, I, I think for a lot of people, they equate
productivity with worth, which is so caustic because we end up
when we want to seek validation outside of ourselves, we will do

(22:41):
everything we can to try to put on that air of success of having
it all together and having it all in general.
It's, it's this all consuming need for expansion, which is
partially human design. But when we allow it to, when we
allow our shadows to run the show, it can become detrimental

(23:03):
to our health. Yeah, And this is where the
ethos of truth comes flying in like a Mack truck, right?
This is time to get like kind ofa little brutally honest with
ourselves because most of our battles aren't with this, aren't
with exhaustion itself, but withthe things that we're forced to
confront. We like to just tell ourselves,
I'm just too busy. I can't get to that right now.

(23:25):
I'm just too busy or I don't have time to rest.
But as all things the truth werealways runs deeper than within.
We, like many people, just don'tknow how to rest because rest
feels not great. Or even scary.
I know it's like I spent most myadult life.
I had all these different drives, all these things I
wanted to accomplish that I never went anywhere with.

(23:45):
But you bet your butt I was constantly staying busy with
something because that was world's better than having to
sit there and realize where my life was.
Yeah. So another one is stillness
brings emotions to our surface. It brings them up.
It's like, hey, you're not doingnothing right now.
Let me talk to you for a second,since you've been ignoring me

(24:06):
for 13 years, Right, Because movement is a distraction.
Busyness is like anesthesia kindof numbs us to it puts us off of
it, takes us, you know, out of sight, out of mind.
But when we finally stop, everything we've been avoiding
rises. And that's good things and bad
things. But the things we don't, we
don't try to avoid the good things.

(24:27):
We always try to avoid the things that are uncomfortable,
right? Could be grief or anger or
whatever. People don't fear rest.
They feel what they fear, what stillness and rest reveals.
No one wants to confront those demons, especially when they're
so close to the surface. Everyone.
I first got into shadow work andit's like it took me a while to
like grasp how the concept really worked because it's like,

(24:49):
all right, I can tell I've been running from a lot of stuff.
How do I shine the flashlight, man?
Once you start seeing some of the stuff at the beginning, it's
like, oh, do I really want to godown this rabbit hole like.
This is dangerous. No, but you must.
You must. I'll sit in your pocket,
Michael, like Jiminy Cricket, and we'll do it together.

(25:10):
You know I can't do it for you, but I'll go for the ride.
Well, I, I think so many people just, they have these
insecurities that amplify and amplify and amplify and no one
wants to, I mean, not no one. People in general, especially
ones that avoid rest, are avoiding having to confront

(25:30):
these shadows that are lurking in the corners, quietly
dictating their lives. I love the Michael Singer wrote
about it and he talks about it like a thorn in the side.
And it's just like instead of pulling the thorn out, we build
little barricades around and do all we can not to bump it again.
Because it hurts. And still is letting it get
bumped. Wow, that's perfect.

(25:51):
I like that. Me, I just get in there and get
it, man, and I hate it. Where we live for how many
years? What's that?
The relief after is so worth. Because yeah, it hurts for
another 3 or 4 seconds, then it's gone.
You forget about it, it's gone. We have these things we call
goat heads and they don't reallyhave them here in Colorado, but
in Nevada, goat heads are everywhere.

(26:13):
And they are these, they're like, they're like natural land
mines, but they're only like thesize of a pea, the size of a
pea. But man, you take 4 steps
without your shoes and they are all in your feet and.
They are just as. Yeah, I've run into those
before. I know what you're talking
about. They are horrible.
I don't know what they call themout here in Colorado.
I don't know what you guys, whatever you guys call them, put

(26:34):
them in the comments, but we call them goat heads because
they look like they have like these little goat horns that
come off like every other angle,you know, but you know, you got
to pull them out. You got to pull them out, man,
you got to pull them out. It's.
Like stepping on a pimp needle. A lot of people will avoid rest
too, because we've been taught through hard lives, hard living

(26:57):
right, that letting down our guard is dangerous.
Well, it's like we can, I mean, as we're talking about how the
shadows are there and how we're going to feel all these
emotions, like of course, staying in motion feel safer.
I mean, I think one of the most important aspects of this is too
is it's like until you learn to sit with those emotions, you

(27:17):
don't know what true peace feelslike, true safety.
Yeah. Because we never knew what we
never got to experience what safety was.
Yeah. And in our tradition, our
philosophy, this one might hit and hit the heart a little bit,
but but I do it with love and and care, as much love and care
as I can. But if rest makes you anxious,
that is not a character flaw. It's a sign that you just have

(27:40):
never been taught how to feel safe sitting with yourself,
Right. And for us, this, this is our
shadow being misaligned with us.It's just misalignment.
It's, it's not the end of the world.
I know it feels like it, but it's not the end of the world.
It's misalignment. It's just disharmony, right?
Because for whatever reason, we have fear inside instead of

(28:04):
letting the light shine. And for us, learning to rest
isn't about relaxing, relaxing. It's about reforming and re and
changing and, and integrating those patterns that frankly
stole your peace. But but there's always, there's
always good news, right? There's always good news here.
When that rest, when you start to this process, this practice
of rest, and when it starts to feel unsafe or really

(28:27):
uncomfortable, that is your signthat you are ready to push into
healing. There's always good news.
Go ahead. No, I think that's an important
point because even though it seems unbearably uncomfortable
at first, the more you practice,practice, practice, practice,
the more you sit with it, the more you allow yourself to reach
these higher states of peace. And that's really what the goal

(28:51):
is. And then I was just going to
say, when circling back to worthis often so many of us, we were
praised for doing, not for being.
And that perfectionism can hauntus because we feel like we're
constantly having to achieve, constantly having to build

(29:11):
something in order to maintain our worthiness.
Or be obedient. Or perform, yeah.
When it's like Part 1 of the biggest pillars of this work is
realizing you are enough as you are now.
Everybody deserves rest. It's built into our system we
were designed to to use. It's a fuel.
You can't go forever without it.You just can't.

(29:35):
You can't. And, and you know, like, like
when you're truly resting, when you're truly sitting and, and
being still and finding the center and all these big, all
these big fancy spiritual words that we use, it's, it's
basically you and you. So there's no validation there.
There's no one, there's no gold stars, there's no applause.

(29:57):
It's just you with yourself haveto find, you have to find a
place where that's enough. And that can be tough to do for
some. It can be tough to do,
especially people with a lot of siblings, right?
If you had a ton of siblings, that's really tough to do
because you know, you're literally fighting for you're
you're spot in the pecking ordera lot of ways.
So, so you really have to perform.

(30:19):
You really have to be the obedient one or the strong one
or the whatever. So what are some types of REST
that we can start practicing? What are some ways people can
start integrating REST more intotheir life?
So I'll start off by saying, youknow, most, again, most people
think that sleep is rest. That's just one dimension of
restoration. That's just one.
You can sleep still. Like I said, you can sleep 10

(30:40):
hours and still wake up exhausted.
I do it. I do it sometimes, right?
Because what if the rest you needed wasn't physical?
What if it was emotional or mental or spiritual, right?
Our bodies are amazing things. They could do a lot on very
little, right? You can go three weeks without
food and three days without water and so on and so forth,
right? But, and we usually take care of

(31:02):
our bodies better than we take care of the rest of ourselves.
So we're going to talk about some some things that we're
going to talk about the other things too.
And of course, the first, the easiest one is physical rest.
And this is what the most peoplethink of first, if you're lying
down or you're chilling on the couch, you're just, you know,
you go get a massage and that cures the tension or you pop

(31:25):
some Tylenol or whatever physical rest is that that time
in your sleep when you're like in deep, deep, deep sleep,
right? That your body starts to restore
and repair muscle tissue and energy reserves.
And but again, you can be physically still and asleep and
still mentally or spiritually oremotionally in chaos.

(31:47):
So that's why physical rest alone is never the solution.
Well, I think another important one's mental rest, which I mean
removing the inputs. No decision making, just a quiet
escape. One of my favorite things to do
is to go wander in nature. It allows the mind to process
everything it needs to. You allow yourself to not have

(32:09):
any real inputs and it's quiet, it's peaceful and you have the
abundance of the world around you without it being over
stimulating. Yeah.
And well, This is why, you know,sitting still in silence and
being in nature, she said. Meditation.
That's why they feel so good because they they start to
interrupt those flow of the flood of thoughts and the flood

(32:31):
of responsibilities and agreements that we make.
Emotional rest, of course, wouldbe the next one.
This one is tough though, because it requires a ton of
authenticity, a lot of a lot of honesty and self honesty and
what this kind of looks like. It could be, you know, just
refusing to stop performing for people, right to stop managing

(32:53):
everybody else around you. Well, it's a emotional.
Mass, right? Yes, to stop holding it together
all the time because you really don't need to.
You don't need to hold it together all the time.
Dude, I, when I hear that phrase, just hold it together.
That sounds like a cry for help to me.
Whenever I hear that. Is that right?

(33:15):
Come here and fall apart. I will make sure all the pieces
get picked up and we'll figure that part out later, right?
Just holding it all together, that's such a damaging thing.
But that's what we are. That's what we are taught to do.
That's what society really requires of it expects us to do.
I won't say require, but expectsus to do.

(33:35):
You know, it's, it's those moments again where you say, you
know, instead of saying I'm holding it all together, it's
like, you know what? I'm not fine, I'm not good.
I'm, I'm, I'm being held by ducttape and super glue at this
moment and I really just need tofall into pieces.
Well, I think even another big one with that is it's it's
speaking your truth. Yes.

(33:57):
You know, that was one thing that I didn't realize till I had
my aha moment because I was 1 where it's just like, unless
you're really crossing a boundary, I'm not going to
express myself. But man, I realized once you
started speaking your mind in those moments, and especially
when it upholds those boundaries, it creates this air
of peace that otherwise your soul can feel the infringement.

(34:19):
It creates that stress, that anxiety.
Yeah, yeah, it's OK. And it's important too.
I won't say it's OK. It's important that you let
yourself be seen and you let yourself be supported and you
let yourself fall into pieces with someone you trust.
It is important because that gives you that, that gives your
heart and your inner world a wayto soften so that you can start

(34:43):
to do more things and grow more things and and shine more light
in there. You know, this ties right into
social rest, which I mean, you've got introverts and
extroverts, the levels vary here, but being able to be away
from the demands and relationships that are going on
in your life, being able to takethat space for yourself to
recharge, re energize. You know, it's you work those 60

(35:05):
hour weeks for a long period of time, you're going to start
getting burnt around the edges and having all these emotional
flare ups and not performing to the best version of yourself.
It's learning to set those boundaries with others and with
your lifestyles. Yeah, You know, Heather and I
don't get sick very often because we check in, we check in
a lot, right. We check in with each other a

(35:28):
lot and we don't get sick a lot like, you know, typical like
flus and stuff like that. Just during the during the
holiday was the first time I really had a stomach flu in
years, you know, and I'm coming out of a lot of whole stressful
period as we've talked about on the show from time to time.
And that is definitely part of it, right?

(35:50):
But we check in all the time andsay, you know, she is working 55
to 60 hour weeks right now. I'm working kind of a hybrid
where I'm working about half at home and half at work.
So that frees up more time for me to do more things around
here. And I, I stopped her yesterday.
I said, hey, you know, she came home and she was just exhausted.

(36:11):
She was physically, just mentally tired.
And I said, Hey, what are some things I can do around here that
that take this burden off of you?
Because I really want you to spend your days off resting and
doing the things that you want to do, right?
So for us, that equates to really no, no stress in our

(36:31):
relationship, but it literally translates into physical healthy
health, right? So it's really, really important
for the social rest thing. When the four of us went on our
little trip a couple weekends ago, we didn't have to make any
damn decisions. Just hey, is it time to eat?
Yes, I'm hungry. And we just meandered off into

(36:52):
this town, ate, you know, sharedsome quality time.
And then we came back to, to the, to the boiling pits of hell
there. And then, you know, we jumped in
and got out and but it, it just flowed.
It was just, there was no, we made no decisions.
We really couldn't get on our phones or anything because,
well, the, the service up there,it wasn't great.

(37:13):
But we, we kind of got that, that, that physical arrest, the
mental arrest, the emotional rest and the social rest.
But, but that's only because of the way we went about it.
You know, you don't have to go on trips to, to find these
things as we'll get into right. But so, yeah, I mean, even
though we were socializing, we did it in a way that was like we

(37:34):
weren't making any decisions. We weren't, we weren't under any
demands or time of restraints and stuff like that.
So. Yeah, we had to be here at this
time. None of that.
Well, and, and yeah, and of course the four of us, you know,
we, we are who we are everywhere.
So, you know, there was none of that, you know, performing or
any of that masking or any of that kind of crap going on

(37:54):
either. So it doesn't mean that we don't
do those things from time to time at work or whatever, but we
do, right? Even the best of us still do it.
But that's what that kind of rest looks like.
The next one is sensory rest. Before we jump into that one
thing I just got to add to a point you were talking about
earlier. If you are doing demanding week,
60 hour work weeks, like one of the things I've had to learn
this year, managing school full time, work full time, This

(38:17):
podcast is it's like just because you got a busy load
doesn't mean you can't make timefor rest.
If anything, it means be as intentional as you can with the
time you got, which I think it'sgreat, like you were saying with
your relationship, like you guysare partners, so you're able to
sort of fill in the gaps with her longer days.
But it's so important that you do stop and take time for

(38:38):
yourself to have these moments of rest, especially if you're
someone who is pushing crazy hours.
Yeah, and, and, and look, it doesn't matter what kind of work
you're doing. If you're sitting in front of
the computer for 15 hours a day,that takes a toll.
If you're, if you're digging ditches all day long, it takes a
toll. If you're managing a busy
restaurant, that takes its toll.If you're working in a library,

(39:00):
it takes a toll. Work is work, right?
It, it doesn't matter what kind of work.
You just tend to get tired in, in, in different parts of
yourself. But it doesn't mean that the
other parts can't also get burntout.
You know, people tend to tend toforget that, you know, if Joe
Bob over here is digging bitchesall day, people just assume all
he's just going to be physicallytired all the time.

(39:21):
That doesn't mean that just because that's the work he's
doing, you know, he still has worries, he still has concerns.
He still has a boss, he still has deadlines.
He still has all this stuff thatwe all have.
Right. And the same goes for for the
for the programmer who's there 15 hours a day trying to get
GTA6 out released, which you know, we probably will never

(39:42):
see. But but you know, they go
through through all kinds, even physical, physical exhaustion
too. So I think I'll let you take the
sensory rest. This is kind of your, your
thing. You you do the sabbaticals from
from the phones and stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, it's, it's so
important to unplug from life, you know, reducing noises going

(40:05):
on around you, that silence which can be so important.
Lights. One of the biggest things we
loved about this apartment. We have no overhead lights.
Yeah. So we have very subtle lighting
in the apartment which is so good for the senses and then
above all screens like. I.
Will watch myself. I end up catching myself doom
scrolling for a couple hours. That app is off my phone for a

(40:29):
month if not longer because it'sone of those black holes that's
so easy. Again, habits are easy to form,
and that's one of those habits that can easily weed its way
into your daily life where all your free time is spent just
doom scrolling. Yes, it's about about 10 years.
So for about the last 10 years, give or take, Heather and I have

(40:50):
had, no, haven't had ATV in our room, which is pretty, which is
pretty typical I think for the average person these days to
have ATV in their room, right. But, but we don't and, and in
fact, and we used to do that because the TV in the living
room, you know, all of our kids were little.
They grew up together, you know,so they were always on the TV or

(41:10):
doing something in there, whatever.
And we never could have time to just sit and chill and watch TV
together. So it was always in our room.
But about 10 years ago, you know, we decided we're not doing
that because we sleep like crap when we have TV in there, right?
And our room is, our room is dark.
It is dark, you know, and and there's just there's nothing
better than getting into bed andlaying down and there be

(41:32):
complete silence. Well, except for her stupid fan
that she has to she has to run or whatever.
But even in the winter time. That's me and my relationship.
As far as the sensory stuff goes, I do the same thing
though. I'll come home from work and I
turn off most of the lights. I'll go sit in the room.
I have a very light. My side light is on, which isn't

(41:52):
very bright, you know, it's verycalm.
I try not to be on my phone too much.
It just yeah, I'm the same way. When the TV ID I mean.
On my way to work, it's super quiet because that's my reset
time. When drives are really good to
utilize, so many people blast their music, turn on a podcast.

(42:14):
I'm guilty of it like, but it's important to have those moments.
I know when I've been really over stimulated for the day I
might put on some jazz or something really mellow, but
I'll use that time to just allowmyself to process the day.
Yeah, her and I, her and I drivearound most time of the radio
turned off. Honestly, these days, you know,

(42:35):
it gives us more time to to pay attention.
You know, it's what's going on into whatever we're talking
about. We.
Do the same thing on our days off.
I don't even take my phone with us.
That way I have no distractions,no phone.
That's an effective method rightthere.
So until I wanted to look something up, I've gotten too

(42:58):
used to Google, Google Maps and Google.
And then we got spiritual rest. And, and for us, for me, this is
the deepest point of restorationbecause it's the one that's most
often left out. I think it's that, it's that
reconnecting to our purpose, to our meaning, to the light.
It's where, it's where all things are good.
That's where, where we can go tofind safety within.

(43:21):
Because after we shed these moral coils, our souls will
still live and and our souls arejust kind of chilling.
Yeah. I don't remember who it was.
I think it was Courtney when we had her on last, she was talking
about how the, the soul was justlike, like a like a hippie at a
festival. It's just like, whatever, man,
whatever. I'll be fine after all this.
You guys can you guys can just, you know, deal with all this

(43:41):
crap. I'll be fine.
Right. But when you can reconnect to
that, you can start to, to really sit in that you can feel
like you like you're seen and you're heard and you're guided
and most importantly, that you're never alone, right?
And we practice things like meditation and prayer and nature

(44:02):
again, perfect place for that. And of course, you know, things
that that requires stillness because really it's spiritual
rest is important because it restores alignment.
And really at so so at the end of the at the end of this
segment, it's like most people try to fix their exhaustion with
sleep because that's what our bodies just do.
It just collapses, right? Just collapses and sleeps.

(44:24):
But often times what we really need is emotional peace and
mental quiet and spiritual grounding to help us truly rest.
Well, it's one of the most effective ways to just allow
ourselves to be in the present. Like, I think that is part of
the phobia of rest, as everyone's either living in the
future or living in the past or bouncing in between the two.
And we forget about how important this moment is, how

(44:47):
much power we have in this moment.
Right. Like when I was going through my
PTSD at its worst points, one ofthe greatest things I was able
to do to help ground myself was to realize in this moment, I am
safe. It's the only point in time you
have power, man, I know I say this a lot, but it really is,
you know, PTSD is trauma and PTSD and stuff is stuff about

(45:09):
the past. Anxiety, panic is stuff in the
future, in the moment. In the moment is where you have
power. It's where you have choice.
It's where you can can discern what can I actually control.
And if I can control any of this, then I can be safe.
I can have power. Lack of power is scary, but you

(45:31):
have power. Just got to remember.
Just remember it. So how do we actually correct?
What's that? We should do an episode on that.
Power of the moment. We should do that.
Look for that soon. It'll be out soon.
I can talk about that. I like that.
I could talk about that. So, so I could, because I love,

(45:53):
I love talking about it. I love talking about a lot of
the stuff we're talking about. It's very hard to have these
kind of conversations just out in the wild, you know, because
people are either thinking that you're trying to sell them
something or people are trying to hide from themselves.
And, and none of this is bad. This is conditioning.
You know, we, we are conditionedto be leery and think everyone's

(46:16):
trying to sell us something or somebody's trying to, you know,
con us into something or whatever.
But no, these are conversations people should be happy having
with each other every day. This is the stuff that actually
matters. I think.
You know, sure, the weather's nice.
We talk about the weather, but that's a what, 48 second
conversation? You know, you open the curtains.

(46:36):
Yep, it's snowing. You know, I, I don't really have
any use for the average snowfallover the last 50 years because I
may not even be here for another50.
So let's just talk about right now, what's happening, right?
You know, so how do we actually start to practice real risk?
How do we develop this discipline in practice?

(46:58):
So I've talked a lot about habits this episode.
I think one of the greatest things you can do is schedule
rest. For me, my rest is very much
routine. I rest for the 1st 10 minutes of
my morning when my day starting off and then I also do it the 20
minutes before bed. Usually I'll take a shower if I
really want to ground myself because I love being in water.

(47:19):
So I'll just take a hot shower, sit there and that forces me
with no distractions to really be dedicated to just sitting
with myself. So scheduling it's probably one
of the greatest things you can do it you just start small.
Do like 1020 minutes. You do not need to do more of
that at first. You can cultivate the ability to
sit with yourself. Yeah, And, and look, I want to

(47:40):
point out that we're kind of talking about this in a way that
it might seem like we're talkingdown on people.
I, I, I have faith that everyonewho's listening to this podcast
today, this episode is smart andis smart enough to understand
rest, right? I think we all kind of
understand it here. But where we're disconnected is

(48:02):
the practice and discipline of it, right?
So scheduling is really good one, right?
Not that your nervous system really cares about your To Do
List, but if you don't plan it, your body will eventually force
it, you know? What's just the best way to
start integrating it into your lifestyle?

(48:23):
A habit stack. Like James Clear and Atomic
Habits, he always talks when youwant to add a good habit, you
got to either stack it on top ofanother habit or use it to
replace a habit but make it routine because that's how you
start getting making it a real habit.
Well, and that's how you make itand that's how you present it to
your to yourself as important, right?

(48:43):
It must be a part of your routine, not just when you
emotionally collapse or physically or burn out or
whatever, right? And, and you really do need to
start small. It needs to be an unfolding.
You got to give yourself some grace here.
You're not going to nail it the first thousand times you do it.
Maybe some of you nail it in thein the 12th time, but if you're

(49:04):
like me, it took me a couple hundreds of times to do it.
So you know, 10 to 20 minutes isperfect.
Here's here's something that that plagued me early on, and I
know it did you too. Adding more stimulation instead
of removing and unplugging, right, because real rest is is

(49:25):
very much subtractive. Turning off the screens, turning
off the scrolling, the podcast, you know, please, you know, come
back to listen to this one when you're done unplugging.
But the news, the notifications.Stimuli in general, like it's,
it's crazy we live in a society especially with like shorts.
You look at the neurological damage it causes, binging, short

(49:46):
form of content, the ADHD it cultivates in your brain because
you're constantly, constantly new stimulation, new
stimulation. Like we live in a society that's
full of distraction and full of stimulation.
Now before we continue, this is going to sound very, very,
what's the word I'm looking for?We, we make short videos for you

(50:10):
guys. We do and we make a lot of them.
So Michael, what are you actually saying about?
I mean, is it OK to consume someshort videos?
Are we evil for making them? I mean, are we just contributing
to the problem at this point? I mean, we're jumping into the
algorithm, but the key is moderation.
Moderation. And all things, there you go,
there you go. You made me feel bad a little

(50:32):
bit there. I thought you were shaming me
because I make all the shorts and I'm like oh man, I I put out
like 30 a week. That's why you do it.
I don't want to contribute to that darkness.
I know. I know.
So, yeah. So you see, you make me do it.
I see what I see what you're doing there.
Listen to your body's natural rhythms and needs and wants,
right? Everyone of us has times,

(50:53):
moments of the day where our energy will dip or we just our
eyes are glassed over and we just kind of not breathing great
and we're just in a fog. Pretty sure that's that that's
our bodies asking us for a pause, right?
For a breather for a moment at least.
And as we talked about earlier, most of us say, Nope, we got

(51:13):
stuff to do bro. Down the down the Red Bull, and
on we go. You know, be intentional with
your breaks at work. Like, I'm very thankful that I
can make my breaks whenever I want to work, but there's times
where I get into that fog and it's like, all right, I'm going
to go take a walk right now because I need to get myself
back online. So I just.
Take a restful walk. No, no distractions.

(51:35):
Maybe a little music in the air and I just walk around the camp
compound just to get my mind clear and get back on track.
Practice. Doing one thing at a time, we
say this a lot, multitasking is,is it just taxes your system,
right. So when you slow down to do one
thing at a time, and this goes back to the, the episode of

(51:57):
mindfulness, you know, mindful eating, mindful walking, mindful
breathing, mindful, doing the dishes, mindful, wax on, wax
off, right? Being mindful.
That's what Mr. Miyagi was really teaching us was to be
mindful doing these normal, boring everyday things, right?

(52:18):
He was also teaching us karate, but you know, we were teaching
us to be mindful. Sand the fence, paint the fence
stone wax off, do your dishes mindful, do your eating mindful.
Enjoy the moment, be in the moment as much as you can.
That's how you slow down. That's how you rest.

(52:38):
The rest is just the rest of thestuff we do is just motion.
We're just moving. We're not really, you know, it's
not really. I mean, some motion is, is for
purpose, but most of it it's like our just like our
subconscious just kind of happens.
It's just people in motion. One like one of the most
important parts with those motions is, is it's not thought

(52:59):
work. Now, I'm not talking about
mundane tasks like, you know, working manufacturing, which I'm
not dissing on. I work manufacturing.
A lot of those jobs, as simple as the movements are, require a
lot of focus and a lot of thought.
But it's learning to just feel what you need to feel.
It's learning to be present within those emotions as they

(53:20):
arise, even if you're doing something very simple.
So most people will. I won't.
Maybe not most, but a lot of people will say that they're bad
at resting. Michael.
I'm I'm just bad at that. I'm bad at that.
What do you say to them? I think a lot of people just,
they have this guilt like rest feels so unnatural to them.
But when we, when we realize that it's something that not

(53:44):
only are we worthy of, but it's something we need, it can help
sort of mediate that guilt we feel.
Because for many of us, I know for me, before I started this
journey, I thought I rested all the time and I never rested.
I. Slept 3 to 5 hours a night.
I was constantly moving and I always thought, well, while I'm
being distracted with this thing, that's me, that's me

(54:05):
resting. But if I were to stop, I would
start feeling such strong emotions and to me, what are
they paraded around in my mind as is that I'm not doing enough,
that I'm not being enough, that I'm that I'm wasting my time
right here doing this. Would it surprise you if I told
you, and maybe I probably did tell you this?

(54:26):
Would it surprise you if I said that feeling guilty for this is
very natural and normal? I could believe it.
It is, it is these things are very natural things that we go
through. We must go through.
We're integrating our shadow. The whole purpose of every show
is to integrate shadow, right? That's that's kind of our whole
thing, right? And all of this is natural, even

(54:49):
the even the feeling guilty part, because this comes from
conditioned beliefs and agreements that we make with
people, with the world, with things that we can't even see
with parts of our self that we're that we're not in the mood
to deal with, right? Your value is inherent.
One of my favorite axioms is theinherent greatness of all things

(55:11):
and all people, right? It's one of your favourites too.
I know Your value is inherent. You don't have to earn shit.
It's, it was already granted. It's a birthright, if you will.
It's granted. Now you just have to believe it.
Yes, you just got not. No, you just have to remember.
You just have to remember because believing is maybe not

(55:32):
knowing, but remembering. I know, I know you must remember
and you will give yourself some grace because this is all very
normal part of this process. Going back to something I said
earlier, rest feels boring before it starts to feel like
it's working or nourishing, right?
It feels like the excuse you give yourself.

(55:53):
You start getting agitated in your nervous system.
You want to reach for your phone, you want to stand up.
It is so uncomfortable. Yes, well, yeah, because you're
detoxing, bro. You're detoxing from over
stimulation period. It's just, you've always got so
much crap going on and you get bored because I mean, I, I see
it a lot in the, in, in the really younger kids, you know,

(56:15):
kids, kids that are the age of my youngest and, and even, well,
hell, all my kids, maybe, maybe not the older ones because they
were kind of came into, they're more millennial type.
So they kind of closer to the USGen.
Xers, But, but the, but the alphas and the Zers, man, they
get bored easy and it's crushingfor them.

(56:36):
It's crushing because they, you know, probably were born with
iPads. I don't remember mine being, did
they come out with iPads? I've.
Read studies on this. It's called Brain Rod.
Yes. With kids who have access to
YouTube and stuff like that, where they're we're talking
about how how unhealthy it is for adults to be going through
shorts. It's so much worse to the

(56:56):
developing mind. Yeah, yeah.
So, so, so you know, boredom is boredom is really just kind of
you're just detoxing from that over stimulation and you must
give it time. Boredom.
Nothing in this universe is empty, truly empty.
And boredom is not emptiness, it's it's just creating space.
You know, the more time you giveit, the better off it'll be.

(57:18):
And, and, and it will start to feel nourishing.
It'll start to feel rest will start to feel like it does make
a difference. You'll see it.
And rest is not passive. As we've said, it's a
discipline, it's a practice. It's not just a spiritual
practice. It's a physical practice and a
mental practice and an emotionalpractice.
It is a holistic practice for your whole being.
But it's certainly not passive. Certainly not passive.

(57:41):
It it is a conscious act. And when you learn to do this,
and when you discipline yourselfand you condition yourself to
rest everything in your life, your mood, your clarity, your
relationships, your intuition, everything comes back online in
ways that you could imagine. Well I think one important topic
to just circle back around to his rest and self worth.

(58:05):
You know, so many of us are constantly trying to achieve we
are so afraid of being lesser than that we forget how much
rest is vital to our existence that we does all the time we
need to recuperate doesn't mean we're going to necessarily get
it in this day and age when it comes to having to work a job,
pay bills, but we can grant ourselves the respect to a lot

(58:30):
that time within our lives. One of the greatest things I
became aware of is how when we have chores and tasks in our
life, often they are so much greater in our minds as far as
that time and effort it's going to take to complete them.
But if we can be structured withour lifestyles, we can create
time almost any day for this rest.

(58:55):
And you can call me out in the comments on this or not, but
life requires this of us. And the more we ignore it's
called, the more it'll eventually comforts tab that
bill will come due. Yeah, yes, it does.
And the more you stack, the the harder it is to pay it.
But this idea kind of moves us from that physical practice into

(59:15):
holistic practice of healing. This takes us beyond rest and
into healing. Holy, right?
Because really, as you're pointing out here, it's not
about time. It's about worth for a lot of
people. So there are lots of you out
there that only allow yourselvesto rest when you are completely
unable to move physically, or when you're sick, or when you've

(59:38):
just crashed out, as the kids say.
Breakdown was what I was thinking.
I was just. Well, we used to call it
breakdowns. You know, they call it crashing
out. Now, Michael, get with the times
you get crashing out or are you,like I said, when you're just
forced to stop, literally stop. And this kind of this may reveal
A deeper pattern that you that you have with inside you.

(01:00:01):
You know, this, this whole I only deserve rest when I've
earned it. This that's a prison.
That's not just a pitfall, it's a prison.
And what sucks is is that you may not have you may not have
laid the foundation of that prison.
You know how you were raised andthings like that Probably did
that, but you certainly built the walls over the over the
years and built the. Instead of building bridges with
your bricks, you built walls. You do not need to justify your

(01:00:23):
existence for anyone to anyone, for any reason.
You certainly don't need to justify your existence by
constantly doing or producing orfixing or helping or rescuing or
whatever, right? You, you.
You have to shake this belief that rest is a reward, because
it is not. It is a basic human need.
We need this or we will die, right?

(01:00:45):
This is where this shifts into healing because there is a
different the truth, the real truth is you are allowed to
pause even when nothing is wrong.
You don't need my permission, but I'm just telling you this is
this is just what it is You don't need.
You're allowed to pause. You're allowed to fall apart.
You're allowed to do these things because that's how that's

(01:01:08):
what you were built for is what you're built to do it from time
to time. We need this stuff sometimes.
When it's breast is not quitting, it is choosing not to
destroy yourself in the name of proving you are enough.
You do not need to collage to deserve peace.
Yes. Proving to whom?
You know, I get it, I get it, I understand.

(01:01:29):
But I'm here to tell you, you don't have to prove shit to
anyone. You need to learn to love
yourself, trust yourself and take care of yourself.
Radical responsibility. You are allowed to do these
things. And again, I I'm not giving you
permission, just I'm trying to help you remember right, This
was put into you are a sovereignbeing in a vast infinite
universe. Everything we do has
consequences, of course. And I won't say you can do

(01:01:51):
whatever you want, but really you can.
I mean, so why not do the thingsthat hurt that help you too?
We do a lot that hurts ourselves.
We could do the good things too,the things that help us, the
things that heal. You know, your value does not
depend on your output. It doesn't show me someone who
show who's who's literally able truly to show up with their 100%

(01:02:12):
every day. They don't exist.
They don't. And if they do their masking,
they tell you they can. They're masking and they need a
break. They need to rest.
How important are boundaries forrest, Michael?
Oh, boundaries are vital. If we can't tell people no when
we mean it, when we can't express our needs, when we feel
it, we end up creating a life that drains us, that overwhelms

(01:02:36):
us, and it will eventually take its toll.
Yeah, this, it's constant pouring, it's constant giving.
That's trauma. That's that's lack of
boundaries. That's not generosity.
We talked about what true generosity looked like in a few
shows ago in November, right. And generosity is important.
It is a cornerstone of a night. It's a cornerstone of

(01:02:56):
Illuminaria, what we, what we seek to do in the world.
But this is not generosity, thisconstant pouring and constant
giving. And when you provide those
boundaries, you start to acknowledge your limits and your
needs and your humanity. We have axioms for that too.
How important is self trust Forrest?
It's another vital one because you've got to be able to trust

(01:03:17):
your intuition to listen to yourbody when it gives you the
signs. So often we bulldoze right
through it and that's that's when we really start getting
into trouble. Yeah, self trust is everything.
Really is it's, it's, it's the heart of it's the it's, it's at
the heart of shadow work. You must trust yourself, all
parts of yourself, even the stuff that we'd like to avoid.

(01:03:38):
You have to trust yourself, right?
Because self trust, really what it really means here is
believing that you can stop without everything falling
apart. It won't.
It won't. If you die at your desk
tomorrow, they will replace you in a week.
Everything else keeps going whether you're here or not.
But you can. You cannot allow yourself to, to
think that everything will fall apart without you.

(01:04:00):
You have to take care of yourself because your job won't
take care of you, right? They won't.
They won't. You have to.
And to your point also, not onlywill things keep going as they
are if you perish, things will go on if you give yourself time
to rest. Yes.
The world will not burn down if you stop for a little bit.
That's right. That's right.

(01:04:22):
But you'll be better for it. The world's going to do what the
world is going to do. It's just the way it is.
But you can do it. You can.
You can do it in a way, because I could say we can allow the
world. We don't allow the world to do
anything. The world's going to do what it
does. We must look out for ourselves.
We must have trust in ourselves and love for ourselves and grace
and all the things, all the things that that I teach for you

(01:04:45):
to give others, You must first give to yourself.
You must because you know, like,like we've, we've talked about
this, you know, rest and identity kind of have a problem
sometimes because depending on how you were raised or how you
developed over time into adulthood or even whatever kind
of masking you developed at workor or at church or wherever you

(01:05:06):
go, a lot of that comes from performance.
So again, those identities aren't who you are.
It's who you thought you had to be, or maybe who you did have to
be for a moment, right? Yeah, sometimes life does that
demand out of us, but it's important to take the time when
we can. In the Way of Light, rest is
sacred and it must be protected that way.

(01:05:27):
It must be seen as sacred and purposeful and and necessary.
Stillness is spiritual discipline.
Rest is communion with source. Those who muddle through life
will never understand it. Rest clears the mind.
So you stop muddling and start seeing.
Start discerning having clarity in your life integrity.
We must live aligned with our needs, the sanctity of life.

(01:05:48):
We must honor our own life as sacred responsibility.
We must care for ourselves and care for our energy and care for
our whole being. Grace.
We must grant ourselves rest without ever requiring
perfection. What is more important than
perfection? Being imperfect, Max.
Presence. Presence over perfection every

(01:06:11):
time. When you practice your rest,
you're not being lazy, you're not being difficult, you're not
being whatever you're healing. So all these hard parts of it,
those are natural. And if you need some guidance,
hit us up in the comments. Happy to answer.
We're happy to engage, we're happy to help you through it.
We're here for you. Do you have any other closing

(01:06:32):
thoughts before we get to the affirmations?
I do so this is a returning to source for me.
When I think of rest, it's a returning to that rhythm, that
flow, right alignment. It's not an absence of effort.
It's those moments that we give our mind, our body, our heart,
our spirit to return to that original rhythm, that natural

(01:06:55):
rhythm, that flow again. And if you take anything away
from this episode, let it be that you're not meant to live
just clenched up in tents all the time.
You're not meant to be here and be exhausted all the time or
stressed. You're not here.
You're not meant to live as a machine.
Rest is not a luxury, and it's certainly not something you

(01:07:18):
earn. It is a discipline that keeps
you steady and keeps you in balance and keeps you stable and
it keeps your intuition alive. And the truth is, choosing rest
is an act of self love and self-care because nobody's going
to take care of care of you better than you.
In this way. It's really an act of spiritual.

(01:07:38):
Well, I won't even say spiritual.
It's a it's an act of holistic rebellion, Michael, in a world
addicted to hurry. Yeah.
It's choosing to value your lifemore than your productivity.
It's choosing to listen to your body instead of all the pressure
around you and all the demands and all the expectations and

(01:08:00):
agreements. So rest is how you protect
yourself from from destruction. It's how you remain that vessel
of clarity. So this week I want you guys, my
call of action this week is choose one intentional practice
of real rest. Not just sleep, not just
numbing, not zoning out, but real rest.

(01:08:22):
That could be 10 minutes of silence, a slow, good session of
box breathing before you pick upyour phone, or saying no to
something that just utterly drains you right, or laying down
not for the purpose of sleeping,but for the purpose of just
letting your body relax, meltinginto the couch or sofa or floor

(01:08:42):
or whatever. So and, and, and and let today,
the day you're hearing this, lettoday be the beginning of a new
relationship with rest. That's what I'll leave you.
With beautiful for affirmations today, I do not need to earn
rest through exhaustion. Slowing down restores my clarity
and strength. My nervous system is allowed to
soften. Rest is a part of my purpose,

(01:09:04):
not a distraction from it. I'm allowed to exist without
performing for our journaling prompts today.
What do I feel when I try to truly rest without distractions?
What comes up? What are you feeling?
What are you running from? Where did I learn the
productivity equals worth? What kind of rest does my body
need right now? Not theoretically.
And I would just say for the second one, that's going to be a

(01:09:26):
tough one for you guys if you'venever done that introspection,
but try not try not to blame andtry not to feel shame when you
do the second one. Thank you so much for joining us
today. Please give us a subscribe, a
comment, a like a follow. Also check us out on YouTube,
Instagram, Tiktok. We're all over the place.

(01:09:47):
And don't forget to check out the best website
evernewasheville.com. Make sure you she watch our
shorts in moderation or Michael will find us.
Yes, with love and gratitude ad Lucia.
Ad Lucia.