The Power of Rest
I sat down recently to check in with my inner voice (second voice as I call it in my previous post), and I wasn’t able to hear it. I sat there patiently, but nothing came. I was hoping for guidance on what to do on this given Saturday—unplanned weekends often overwhelm me. There’s something about the transition from a structured weekday to the freedom of a weekend that throws me off balance. There’s an inner battle that commences between the part of me that wants to keep working and the part of me that says, “weekends are for play, you fool!” Here I sat, left with the struggle going on inside me, so I decided to take a nap.
Upon waking, I noticed that my inner voice wasn’t quiet any longer—in fact, it was speaking incessantly without the slightest of nudges.
It gave me endless seeds: articles ideas in beautiful clarity, the desire to cook a delicious homemade lunch, and the deeply satisfied sense that even if I just stayed inside all day it would be enough. All it took was a twenty minute nap for my inner voice to wake up. But is that surprising?
When I’m tired, or my mind is racing, or I’m feeling rushed or pressured, my inner voice is harder to hear. I often don’t want to hear my inner voice in those moments at all. I would rather rush along with whatever I’m doing, in that state we call “ignorant bliss” (that we often later realize wasn’t so blissful after all). It turns out that our inner voice speaks to us best when we are open to hearing it, and it sure as hell doesn’t like to be hunted down. It wants to come to us on its own terms, without the burden of our expectations or our timelines. How inconvenient!
The data that has led me to these conclusions has been simply observing when my inner voice speaks to me most clearly. It’s after I wake up from a nap, it’s when I go on an aimless walk in nature, during my morning stretches on the patio, during long car drives, and when I’m camping by myself. I’m not alone in these observations. If you read the books Rest, The Creative Act, Big Magic, If You Want to Write, or any number of books written by people who create through a connection with their inner voice, you will hear the same conclusions.
I’ll admit, a part of me is frustrated at this finding. I wish that I could call up my inner voice for guidance while I’m also cooking breakfast and texting a friend. But I also recognize that there is something deeper at work here. There is a second lesson in all of this—that in our rush to find answers and “figure things out” we miss the beauty around us. Our inner voice is almost begging us to see what we already have at our fingertips.
We believe we have to build the stage instead of realizing we are already in the audience and the play is unfolding in front of us.
When I engage in a creative project, I often use the metaphor of an ice cream sundae to help me remember this perspective. I allow myself to see my life as already whole, complete, and perfect as it is (a delicious ice cream sundae). Any outcome from the project is just a cherry on top. In that slight shift I find immense creative freedom and expression. The pressure goes away, my sense of self importance diminishes, and I’m left with the true blank stage in front of me—not one that I need to tirelessly labor and worry over, but one that I get the privilege to build on.
In Practice
Practice 1: Notice when your inner voice speaks to you in a supportive, caring, inspiring way. Pay attention to the details—where are you, who are you with, what time of day is it, what are you doing? How might you create the conditions for this to happen more often?
Practice 2: The next time you take on a creative endeavor (writing, cooking, taking on a work project, etc), first envision your life as whole and complete, just as it is now. Remind yourself that your happiness or sense of achievement doesn’t rest on the project in front of you. Visualize the project as a cherry on top of the already delicious sundae that is your life. Notice how your experience of the project changes when you do this.
Practice 3: Take a nap 😉
For Further Reading
Rest by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
What if you viewed life as already whole, complete, and perfect as it is (a delicious ice cream sundae)?
