How to Create a Life That Feels Healing
HOW TO CREATE A LIFE ThAT FEELS HEALING
From time to time on Instagram I will give out what I like to call "Adult Permission Slips," giving people permission to rest without guilt.
Every time I do I get a ton of people saying “Ok! you don’t need to tell me twice!” and also several messages from people saying how hard it is. How much resistance they feel to resting.
While I’m very sensitive to circumstances that we all might find ourselves in that don’t allow for much down time (multiple jobs, homeschooling, caring for others) as a coach I see the opportunity here to get curious about the resistance. Because that’s where the good stuff is.
So why do many of us feel resistant to something as benign as resting our bodies and minds?
By rest I don’t mean you have to lounge around all day or stop caring for your family to take a day long bubble bath. That’s the first part that gets misunderstood - the idea that rest can only come from vacation or pushing pause on life rather than it becoming part of our life.
We've come to associate the idea of rest with taking a vacation, and this idea that we can only really rest or turn off when we escape from our day-to-day lives. And then people start to think, well I can't because of XYZ… so many different reasons start to come up. What I want to first introduce is the idea that rest is available in lots of different forms. We need to shift away from the idea that we can only rest if we're taking a week off of work. Or that we can’t rest until we give ourselves the opportunity to do it at some set time. Rest can come from five minutes of breathing. Rest can come with laying down for a moment when we feel that our body needs a break. Rest can come from just a few moments of silence. Rest can come from sleep. It can come from taking a day off or taking a mental health day.
It's something that we want to build into our daily lives. We are human beings, not machines, and we've come to live with the idea that our bodies should be able to handle so much. And then we operate from this idea that we can only really rest when we have these long stretches of time. It doesn't have to look like being in a bubble bath all day and completely ignoring the needs of your family and anyone calling for you. Rest is accessible in many different forms.
Rest is simply giving ourselves moments of care. Of laying down for a few minutes. Of meditating. Of being in silence. Of breathing consciously. Of slowing down. Rest is something we build into our day. Because we are human beings not machines.
When we investigate with curiosity we may discover that when some random person on the internet (me) says to rest, and you feel triggered, it’s because there is a belief there that rest is for everyone else but not you. Or resting is lazy. Or in order to be worthy, successful or loved you have to produce and achieve, and resting doesn’t fit into that. If we hitch our worth to productivity then who are we if we take moments of rest and BE without doing?
Coaching hundreds of women dealing with autoimmunity I’ve seen how these beliefs can literally making us sick. Which is why I care enough to challenge you here if you feel resistance to pausing. Because I want to help you create a life and day that is healing, not something you constantly want to escape from.
Some common beliefs I hear that come up around this are: Everyone else can rest, but not me. That's not for me. That's not available for me. I have actually dealt with this myself too, and the idea of, if I rest then who am I then? What am I doing? Because our worth can oftentimes be tied up in productivity or achieving. We might have that belief in our head that resting is lazy, that we shouldn't do it, that we need to continually be achieving and doing and pushing to feel worthiness.
This is one of the most important pillars of healing that I work with my clients on, in one-on-one coaching, where we start to explore the idea of how do we create a life that feels healing and where our healing interventions can take root.
You deserve to rest and recharge, even if it's only for a few moments. So if a few moments is all you have, start there. Rest can look very different for each of us. Drop any expectations around it or ideas of what you “should” do to rest, and just ask yourself what’s available to me today?
I hope that is helpful for you andI would love to continue this conversation because it is has been so important for me in my own life, as well as for my clients! Tune into the video below to learn more.
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If we haven't met before, I'm Christina Tidwell, founder and owner of Live Well with Christina. I'm so excited that you're here and have begun to delve into your health and wellness journey! Here at Live Well we help people with autoimmune disease take control of their health through nutrition, lifestyle shifts and personal empowerment.
If you suffer from:
Fatigue and energy crashes
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Symptoms of autoimmunity
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