Embrace the silent symphony of rest with me, Sally Burlington, as close our Winter Well-Being Series on the Create Harmony podcast. Have you ever considered that our relentless pursuit of busyness could leave us unacquainted with the rejuvenating forms of rest? Together, we dive into the teachings of Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith, who shares the seven types of rest that replenish not just our bodies but our minds, hearts, and souls. This isn't about succumbing to exhaustion; it's about enriching our lives with the rest we so often overlook.
As our series wraps, I invite you to a rest revolution. It's a challenge against the notion that rest comes only after work is done—an awakening to the idea that rest is an integral part of a harmonious life. Listen as I share stories and strategies for integrating rest into even the most chaotic of schedules, ensuring that peace and well-being aren't just seasonal guests, but year-round residents in your world. Share this journey with friends craving calm in the clamor of life, and let's cultivate the art of rest together.
Embrace the silent symphony of rest with me, Sally Burlington, as close our Winter Well-Being Series on the Create Harmony podcast. Have you ever considered that our relentless pursuit of busyness could leave us unacquainted with the rejuvenating forms of rest? Together, we dive into the teachings of Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith, who shares the seven types of rest that replenish not just our bodies but our minds, hearts, and souls. This isn't about succumbing to exhaustion; it's about enriching our lives with the rest we so often overlook.
As our series wraps, I invite you to a rest revolution. It's a challenge against the notion that rest comes only after work is done—an awakening to the idea that rest is an integral part of a harmonious life. Listen as I share stories and strategies for integrating rest into even the most chaotic of schedules, ensuring that peace and well-being aren't just seasonal guests, but year-round residents in your world. Share this journey with friends craving calm in the clamor of life, and let's cultivate the art of rest together.
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Speaker 1:
Welcome back to the Create Harmony podcast. This is episode 62, and I am Sally Burlington, so in this podcast, we take time to pause and reflect about refocusing on peace and joy, raising your well-being and refreshing your life. So this is a place where we consider how life would be enriched if we noticed all the good things around us and we use gratitude as a grounding practice. We embrace the concept of making small changes that make a big difference, and during this winter, we've been continuing through a conversation that we call winter well-being. Throughout this series, we've learned about deep listening, we've talked about house hushing, we've reflected on ways to nourish ourselves with everyday rituals, we've examined wellness topics and how to create a spa right in your very own home. So last week we discussed how to make more meaningful connections with friends. And when we're doing a series called Winter Well-Being, we would be remiss without somewhere folding in the concept of rest. We haven't directly talked about rest yet, but since winter is the time that nature rests, we need to talk about that. We need to focus on how to rest well. Now.
Speaker 1:
We all seem to need and value rest. However, if you are like me, you're not particularly good at knowing how, or you don't always get the how quite right. So if productivity and rest were characters in a story, the story would go like this Productivity would be the superhero. It is the hero of every good story about how life is going. We have so many resources and opportunities to know how to be more productive and feel very comfortable showing others when we've been successful at getting things done, checking off the list. On the other hand, there is a villain in our story that should be feared, and that villain is laziness. We seem to be concerned that laziness will capture us and torture us if we slow down or pause in any way. Slowing down puts us at risk to this villain. Therefore, we don't share with others when we rest or how we rest, if we do it at all. And in our story it seems to me that rest is like an ethereal being. It's sort of like a ghost that most of us can see or recognize, but very few get really close to.
Speaker 1:
Rest seems to be a nice to have, but it rarely makes it to the top of most to-do lists. We treat rest like something we get as a reward for perfect performance on all of our tasks, and it is if the most mighty of us can continue on without needing any rest at all. Scientifically, none of those ideas are sound. We all need rest, and we all need rest on many different levels, in many different ways, and we often find ourselves in periods of burnout because we have either failed to rest at all or, if you're like me, you chose a type of rest that didn't match your needs.
Speaker 1:
My ability to know how to rest in ways that are restorative is sort of hit and miss. The reality is, rest is something that must be scheduled and intentional. It is not ever going to happen automatically. In our packed calendars. Some of you are probably thinking yes, yes, she's right, I know I need to rest, but I just can't afford to take the time. My life is full of real priorities that must have my attention and my energy, and in response to that thought, I will pose this question Is it reasonable to think that God would call you to a life that does not support your best health? Let me say that again Is God calling you to a life that would have a rhythm that does not allow you to thrive? If the answer is no to that question, it's time to work on finding ways to incorporate rest into your routine and, of course, there are always times that you have to push through and you can't take time to rest. We all have seasons that that happens, but those seasons should be short, and even if you're going through an extra stressful season right now, perhaps it's possible that you are called to rest even more frequently. Now the next question, the critical question here, is how and this one is a doozy.
Speaker 1:
I am not an expert in this field, but I've been paying attention to the work of Dr Sandra Dalton Smith. Dr Dalton Smith is a board certified internal medicine physician and a work life integration researcher. She has identified seven types of rest. So if you've seen on the internet or on Pinterest the seven types of rest, those are tied back to Dr Sandra Dalton Smith. So she's helped us to deepen our understanding of how to rest in a more complete way to avoid burnout. So I will go through the seven types of rest now. They are physical, mental, emotional, sensory, creative, social and spiritual.
Speaker 1:
Now if you're finding yourself consistently tired or overwhelmed, if you feel like you might describe yourself as burnout, the chances are high that you are deficient in at least one or maybe even more than one of these areas of rest. At the end of this episode we'll be officially wrapping up our Winter Well-Being Series for this year, and over the next few weeks we're going to more deeply discuss rest. We're going to take a look at that more closely, zoom in the lens and really contemplate its different forms. So we'll delve into how to get rest in all these other areas and each episode. At the end of each episode we're going to have some rest reflections to help you understand the different types of rest and to give you some inspiration to come alongside you as you are working towards a more restful posture. I urge you to consider where you could fit some of these activities into your routine as we journey along Now.
Speaker 1:
It's possible that rest in these deep ways is not possible for you right now because you've already planned your calendar before we started this discussion. But never fear, you can plan some rest in your future. Do your future self a favor and find a way to fit it in. Let's try and see if we can learn to rest more effectively together. It is necessary to carry you through the journey ahead, and so let's try to see if we can all be a student of rest as a group.
Speaker 1:
So for today's closing, we'll have the first of the rest reflections, and this one is written by Donna Ashworth in her book called Wild Hope, and it is called Wintering, and it goes like this you may think yourself lazy or flawed, yet your body is made of almost exactly the same elements as the stars. Your bone composition matches perfectly the coral in the seas and you, my friend, are ruled by the moon and the sun, the tides and the planets, whether you like it or not. No, no, you are not lazy, you are not late. Nature is simply pulling you to slow, like the life, flora and fauna around you. It is not your moment to rise. Look around you. It is winter. You are wintering. You are right on time.
Speaker 1:
Thanks so much for joining us as we wrapped up this Winter Well-Being series. Hopefully, you were able to find some tools during Winter Well-Being to make this season a little brighter, and we hope you'll continue to join us as we examine the concepts of rest over the next few weeks. And if you are still enjoying this podcast, feel free to leave a review so that more people can find us and more people can talk about rest with us. Also, pass the word along to any of your friends who might want to learn more about rest. I'm sure you know some people who need to find some more restful practices. Because we all do so, invite them into the conversation as well. We always welcome more folks to join us here at Create Harmony, and until next time, peace.