The Wisdom Of Rest - October 13

Taking time to rest is just as important as facing physical or mental challenges. In today’s 5 Minutes in Nature, Liz observes a puppy she visits and recognises a simple truth about life. She notices how the puppy pours boundless energy into short, joyful bursts, then falls asleep to recharge. In watching him, Liz realises there is profound wisdom in the way he lives—balancing effort and rest with perfect harmony.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott and I'm high up on Dartmoor looking down onto the Glazebrook Valley. The Glazebrook is a river that runs down into the river Avon eventually and I can see it in the wooded valley below and as I trace my eye up the valley I can see Aysheridge and I know that there's a burial cairn near there called Corringdon Ball and just looking at it and seeing it I feel this rise of energy and thinking I really want to go and visit those places again. It's quite a walk to get there it'd probably be a good three miles maybe to get there but yeah I'm very tempted to head on there one day soon and just experience that part of the moorland again. I want to share with you something that's happened recently and relate it back to the importance of resting and having downtime. My friend has just got a new puppy a little black Labrador puppy called Reggie and I couldn't resist going to see Reggie and he is as gorgeous as you would imagine this bundle of aliveness energy and curiosity that just bounds across the ground playing with toys and wanting to say hello and greet everybody he sees and the other day when I went to see Reggie I played with him for a little while and then we got talking and I suddenly said oh where's Reggie and there he was fast asleep at my feet. He's like a little dynamo he goes really fast and then suddenly the batteries wear out so he he crashes out and has a good sleep and my friend said you know he actually sleeps for 20 hours a day that's what puppies do they tend to sleep for 20 hours a day so they have these moments of intense activity and then they sleep and that's what I want to reflect on today is the the rest the slowing down that is a vital part of doing things quickly and my client this morning we also had a conversation about it because she told me that she had had two weeks of intensity an intense amount of work that she needed to engage with and get through and she was feeling exhausted and she said I need to slow down and it reminded me and I told her this story of me actually at the gym so yes it's another story about me at the gym it's one of the things I do quite regularly so I'm learning a lot both physically and psychologically from what I see at the gym but one of the things we do at the gym is that in between exercises part of the exercise is a resting time so you don't exercise the muscles intensely and sustain that for the whole session it's a matter of intense activity and then rest and that's exactly what Reggie the little black Labrador puppy does is he has intense activity and then he rests and I just shared this with my coaching client I explained how important it is to rest and to have moments which aren't intense not because you're not resilient um it's that there are no badges or prizes for people pushing through when their body is crying out for them to rest the the test is not that you keep going the test is that when you have intense periods of activity and you rest it means you can go on for longer that's the way you've been designed we aren't designed to be on the go all the time that's unhealthy and for some reason there is a little bit of a cultural sense that when we aren't busy working that there is something wrong maybe we're lazy but that isn't the case we are designed to have times of intense activity and we're also designed to rest and that means that we're able to continue for longer so today I'm just reminding you of the importance of slowing down and resting it might be that you do need to be busy and if you are busy I want to remind you of the importance of taking time to rest too so busyness is sustainable if it's punctuated with rest remember Reggie the black Labrador puppy remember take time to rest

Reviews

It has also been my experience that if I don’t listen to my body and rest when needed, my body will just shut down and I get sick. And then in forced to rest. I’m in a resting phase now. Thanks for this Liz. 🙏🏻
PS-are you sneaking up on getting a new puppy?

Thanks for this reminder Liz 🙏🏼 via Reggie.
Black labs are so sweet and aren’t puppies amazing how they bound with energy then just crash out into deep sleep.
🐾❤️🐾

Thank you Liz! I’m so stretched right now with caring for two stage 4 cancer clients, getting my certification to become an end of life doula and my husband’s increasing dementia, I need to remember to rest myself.