Deep Rest

Or what I learned from a week with the stomach flu

Tonight as I write, I sit alone on the silent verandah in the almost dark. If I listen closely I can just hear the sound of the nearby river flowing. The sound of water is comforting and tugs at my heart, inviting me to surrender to this moment.

I am slowly (but surely) emerging from an encounter with a gastro bug that knocked me flat for days.

How often do our bodies crave deep rest and we ignore the cries? What pulls us to keep doing, getting, making, earning when our hearts and our bodies need simple, sweet rest?

Perhaps when we drown out our souls cries for rest, the body takes over and hands us an illness that forces us to stop and lay down.

I'm listening, body, listening to your wisdom now.

When my sister died, I didn't go back to work until three weeks after her accident. I thought that was long enough. I wanted to be busy, craved distraction. And so I filled my life with things. Work, classes, activities for my children. Busy, busy, busy, for months.

I am learning (slowly) that distraction only works to a point. That sooner or later, what needs to move through me, will do so whether I like it or not. Distraction does not fill the void. Does not mend the broken parts of my heart.

It is in the slowness that things begin to move the way they need to. In the quiet nighttime moments listening to the sound of the river and my own breath I can begin to release some of my anger. A little of my sorrow. Begin to find my feet in this madness. It is in deep rest that my heart finds places to plant flowers, and it is only with rest that those flowers will be able to bloom.

I wonder how many people walk around carrying the weight of their loss - smiling and moving as if there is no hole in their heart. How many souls are carrying the loss of a child, the loss of a mother, brother, sister, partner and we simply don't see it. Holding back tears as they battle chronic illness, mourn the end of a relationship, the sadness of their favorite tree being cut down.

How is it that so many people can simply carry on in the face of so much sorrow?

Well, we carry on because we must, of course. And yet...how long before one foot cannot move in front of the other? How long before we break under the weight of our collective sorrows?

I wonder how many of us need deep rest. I don't think we find peace in the distractions or the busyness of life. I think we find peace in rest. In slowing down and simply being, right here, right now.

Here you are. Standing in the kitchen or sitting on the front steps, working at your desk. Right here, right now. You are enough. You are doing enough. You can rest. You can feel. You can breathe.