My friend just left a very stressful job. What was once an inspiring, challenging and satisfying workplace became a place of dishonesty, disrespect and stress. It wasn’t until she finally left the job that she realized just how deeply exhausted she was feeling. She had planned to take the weekend to rest and relax and then put her newly acquired time and energy into work that was more life giving but when Monday rolled around she found that she just didn’t have the energy stores to get started.

Does any of this sound familiar? Most of us have no idea how exhausted we are until we stop. We jokingly say “I can’t stop because if I do, I’ll never get started again!” It is said with humor but there is also an undertone of fear – fear that you really won’t get going again – because deep down, you know you need to rest for a really long time.

Instead of listening to this deep inner wisdom you push through the tiredness, the stress, the challenge, the difficulty until one day you are forced to stop. Unfortunately we are not usually forced to stop by someone handing us an all expense paid month at a high end spa! No, we are usually stopped by a cold or flu bug, a sprained ankle, a fender bender or if that doesn’t help us pause we may experience a longer term illness, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or a life threatening disease.

My friend is going to need more than a few days to recover from her stressful job. If you are in a stressful job or dealing with something challenging (happy or unhappy) in your life you will need to rest more than you think in order to recover. I was taught in one of my yoga trainings that for every one day that you are sick, you need to give yourself and your body three days to recover! This also applies to stress. It’s not actually the stress that causes our health issues, it s the lack of recovery from stress that causes the problems.

Please give yourself some extra time to rest and recover my sweet readers! Everything that you think you have to do will still be there waiting until after you are rested. The bonus is, because you are rested, you actually get more done! (But don’t go thinking you can add more to your to do list just because you have a moment of feeling rested – that is definitely NOT my point here!!).

For some ideas of how you can fit rest time into a busy schedule, visit my Facebook page throughout this month for “Restore Yourself” tips!
Now, it’s time for my nap….

Love,

P.S.  If you feel like you need permission to get some rest, let me know and I’ll send you a permission slip!

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I will be taking a short break from teaching yoga classes over the summer but keep an eye out for a quick offering of a drop in class here and there through the summer if I’m feeling inspired!!  You can check my Facebook page for last minute class offerings!

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