Rest
What is rest?
For infants and small children, it’s NAP TIME.
For children, it’s a time to be quite, or bedtime with sleep ahead.
For teens, it’s time to chill with friends or to be solo.
For parents, it’s time to sleep or relax without the children.
For me, it’s a time to bow out in order to tune in to myself.
Down time
We all need down time. In our hectic world, it can feel like there’s precious little of it. One of the positives about the Covid period was forced down time. Many people suffered loneliness and isolation, but for others, it was a season of peace and quiet — of rest.
Mothers
We can “go go go” but all of us need a break, a rest, a time of peace and quiet to regroup, from time to time.
So, herein is a simple message: from time to time, we need to stop and smell the flowers. I would say we need a rest time daily, to allow ourselves to reflect, to gather our thoughts, and connect with our own hearts!
Moments of reflection allow us to recognise our deepest thoughts and feelings. This helps us to recognise our greatest, deepest needs and to address them. In turn, this keeps us emotionally healthy and emotionally available to our children.
Inner life
It has been said that our emotions are driven by our thoughts. In other words, we don’t have a feeling until a thought comes to mind. For example if I think of a threat, that triggers a feeling of fear, whereas in a vacuum, fear will not rise within me.
When we are self aware, aware of our deepest thoughts and feelings, we can nurture, protect, comfort ourselves. All of this takes time, attention, and rest. Rest gives us room to recognise our feelings and the thoughts that reside deep in our souls.
Rest allows us to tap into our inner life, to reflect and if relevant, to heal.
Shall we all take some rest time every day, even if, sometimes, it is only a snap-time, to reconnect with ourselves, to comfort, to analyse and to heal. This will make us more at peace and therefore, more calm and accessible to our children.