It’s the rest of the week—what do you want to rest from right now?
If you pause and ask yourself that question, what comes to mind?
Maybe life is pleasantly status quo and you’re just looking forward to a good night’s sleep?
Or perhaps you are suddenly aware of an exhaustion in your bones from holding on tight without even realizing it?
Maybe you are suddenly aware of a grudge weighing down heavy in some overlooked corner of your soul?
How does your body respond?
What do you want to rest from right now?
It’s been almost two years since I got up early one Saturday morning for some much needed quiet time. I began by reading the newsletter I’d sent out the night, but didn’t get past that opening line:
…What do you want to rest from right now?
The question caught me off guard and punched me (gently, but quite literally) in the gut.
“This!” came the immediate internal response—with an imagined wave at a whole host of frustrated and offended feelings.
“I want to rest from this.”
My response was as automatic as the response of someone whipping their hand off a hot surface. At the same moment, I felt a visceral response of letting go in my abdomen.
I don’t know what surprised me most—the fact that I had actually been holding on to resentment, or the fact that I had been holding it in my abdomen.
(As an MFR therapist, I am very familiar with how common it is to hold tension in the pelvis—I just didn’t realize I had been doing it myself).
Taking that question seriously allowed me to realize that, as offended and angry as I felt, I did not want to carry that tension around inside of me—I wanted rest.
And in that moment I understood that having rest meant letting go of a certain list of offenses.
In turn, my brain sent out the signal that it was safe to drop the defense, to relax. No further need to stay guarded, on the alert, tensed up and ready to act.
I’ll never forget how it felt as my abdomen suddenly softened—like it had turned upside-down and dumped out a load of rocks.
Our body’s unconscious guarding is meant to protect us against pain and injury—like bubble wrap—only tense muscles are nothing like the soft air in those bubbles. Ongoing tension causes chronic guarding. The increased pressure restricts the fluid in our fascial system, producing restrictions that then press on sensitive tissues, causing pain that has “no explanation” (because fascial restrictions don’t show up in the traditional technologies used to find pain sources). Left untreated, these restrictions spread (it’s connective tissue and it’s all connected) to the point that some describe the feeling as one of wearing a straight jacket on the inside.
Body awareness is good and can nudge us towards rest, but what freed me to let go in that instant was the realization that I was holding on to something I did not want.
It’s a powerful thing to remember what you really want and to realize you have a choice.
Sometimes we are like that paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda who, disillusioned after 38 years of false hope, got stuck.
Jesus asked him:
“Do you want to become well?”
I wonder what went through that man’s mind. He didn’t say “Yes!” Instead, he complained about people and circumstances. Thankfully, Jesus read his heart, and, speaking right past his defenses, told him to:
“Stand up! Pick up your mat and walk.” (see John chapter 5)
Which, as you know, he did.
And how fitting that all this happened on the Sabbath—the day of rest.
So, what do you want to rest from—right now?
May your rest be sweet.
Alicia