Can you practice the radical act of rest?

Welcome back from your brief respite and first taste of the holiday break season. 

A small part of me wants to play into the countdown game of how many days until the next time off, but most of me wants to just use this time to offer you another way to view this entire teaching experience.

Instead of white knuckling it to the weekends and the holiday break, for the rest of the year, can you find ways to prioritize rest?  

Can you see REST as a radical act rather than something you allow yourself to do once everything else is done?

Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry, argues that’s exactly what we should be focusing on. She says “rest can be a form of radical resistance and healing,” and that it’s essential if we want to dream the big dreams that will help construct a better future.

She says rest has nothing to do with “wellness,” and everything to do with creating a more just world.

You can listen to an entire interview with her HERE.

Davis echoes those sentiments when she doesn’t hesitate to state that the importance of our own self-care is paramount in manifesting change.

So this is a short and sweet well wish…when can you radically rest?  

Rest doesn’t need to be sleep. It doesn’t need to be doing “nothing.”  What REST is can be defined by you.  It’s one of those things where you know it when you feel it. Rest might be taking a 10 minute nap, or going for a walk.  Some days rest could be going for a run or it could be quietly  sitting with a hot beverage.  Rest could be journaling or reading.  Rest could be putting your phone away for a few minutes or driving with no sound in the car.  
 

So experiment with the radical act of rest.

How can you bring moments of rest into your life so that we can create a more just world for our students, our communities and ourselves?

How do you feel about this idea of radical rest?  I’d love to hear from you.