Rest is not Deserved - It is Sacred

Chapter Two - Rest is Sacred

You do not deserve rest.
Rest is not something to earn.
It is not a reward, a prize, or a privilege that appears once you have done enough.

In the same way you do not deserve food, water, shelter, or sleep - you simply need them. They are essential to your human existence. They are not measured or justified.

So why do so many of us feel that rest must be deserved?

Somewhere along the way, rest became entangled with productivity and achievement. As if the body must prove its worth before it is allowed to soften. As if the mind must push itself to the edge before it is granted permission to pause.

But rest is not something to qualify for.
Rest is a birthright.
A natural rhythm of being alive.

I have been teaching this truth in my restorative yoga classes for some time now, yet only in the past month have I truly begun to understand and embody it in a deeper way.

I quit one of my jobs, and a week later my other job ended too, after the passing of my dear client. Suddenly, life placed me in a space I had been unconsciously avoiding - free time. Room to breathe. Room to feel. Room to rest.

It was only then that I realised how I had been flying through my life without pause, without softness, without spaciousness. No room for error, no room to land.

With this sudden abundance of time, I noticed my mind trying to fill every moment with something - anything. Movement, planning, doing. Instead of falling into that old rhythm, I chose rest.

And in this rest, something opened.
A softening.
A releasing of tension, expectation, and the limitations I had unknowingly placed upon myself.

I realised it wasn’t only my body that had been tired - my mind had grown tired too. And through this space, I began reconnecting with my own flow, my own breath, my own practice.

I feel rested.
Calm.
Still.
And from this stillness, my creativity is returning - natural, unforced, true.

Rest is not deserved.
Rest is sacred.

ॐ