[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:11] Welcome back to deep in your practice. I'm Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today we're talking about something that sounds simple but is surprisingly difficult for many of us, which is rest. Not sleep or vacation or couch rotting because we're completely exhausted, but true rest, the. The kind of rest where nothing needs to be accomplished, nothing needs to be fixed, and nothing needs to be earned. And for many people, this feels uncomfortable, sometimes even threatening. Maybe you've noticed that when you finally sit down, your mind immediately starts creating a to do list. Or perhaps you've gone to a restorative yoga class and found yourself thinking that this is nice, but I should probably be doing something more productive. And if any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone. So this is why rest is so hard and what yoga teaches us about productivity, worthiness, and slowing down. Today, we'll explore why rest is so difficult in modern life, what yoga philosophy teaches us about our relationship with productivity and worthiness, and how the nervous system becomes trapped in chronic doing, and how we can begin to practice rest as a skill rather than waiting until burnout forces it upon us. So one of the problems here is we might not actually know how to rest. [00:01:29] One of the biggest misconceptions about rest is that it should come naturally. But many of us have spent decades training ourselves to do the opposite. From a young age, we're rewarded for achievement, good grades, good performance, good behavior, being helpful, being productive. And we learn that our value is connected to what we produce. And eventually this conditioning becomes internalized. Even when nobody else is demanding productivity from us, we demand it from ourselves. So. So the question shifts from what do I need? To what should I be doing right now? And I can say I heavily identify with this, especially as a busy working mom who is full of ideas and who loves to create and loves creating classes and tending to my businesses and all of that. It's like the moment I get a second to pause, I'm wondering what I should be doing. And a lot of people find themselves guilty during moments that are supposed to be restorative. A free afternoon becomes an opportunity to catch up on chores. A vacation becomes an opportunity to optimize every single moment. Maybe even meditation gets turned into another self improvement project. So maybe the challenge isn't that we don't have opportunities to rest, but it's that many of us have truly forgotten how. And this is due to this conditioning and this culture we live in that is obsessed with productivity and has this myth around worthiness. So one of the most powerful messages in modern culture is that your worth is tied to your output, that the more you accomplish, the more valuable you become. And while we rarely say this out loud, many of us do internalize this and live as if this is true. Our busyness becomes this badge of honor. And when someone asks how we're doing, many of us might instinctively respond busy, as though being overwhelmed somehow validates our importance. [00:03:31] But thankfully, yoga offers a very radically different perspective. The yogic tradition teaches that our essential nature is already whole. It's already complete, it is already worthy. And this has nothing to do with what we do, but it's because of who we are. The Sanskrit phrase sat chit ananda points toward our essential nature as being, being, consciousness and bliss. Notice that achievement is nowhere on this list of being, consciousness and bliss. Neither is productivity. It's just who we are. The yoga tradition reminds us that beneath all the roles we play, all the goals we pursue, and all the things we accomplish, that there is a deeper self that does not need to earn its value. Rest becomes difficult when we believe our worth must constantly be proven. And I'll say that again. Rest becomes difficult when we believe our worth must constantly be proven, that it's not inherent to who we already are. Now we'll bring in some nervous system perspective here. Many of us are living in a state of chronic activation of hypervigilance. Not necessarily because we're in danger all the time, but because our nervous systems have learned to stay alert. Hypervigilance is a state where the brain is constantly scanning for what needs attention. [00:04:53] We're looking for what's next, what's wrong, what needs fixing, what haven't I done yet? And this survival oriented pattern can develop from chronic stress, from trauma, from uncertainty, maybe from caregiving responsibilities, high pressure environments, from perfectionism. And over time, stillness can actually feel really uncomfortable. Because of this, when the body finally starts moving, the mind gets louder. And this is often why restorative yoga and meditation, or simply sitting quietly can feel surprisingly difficult. Our nervous systems aren't accustomed to safety, they're accustomed to activity. And we might think we're just bad at relaxing. But in reality, our nervous system has simply become practiced at vigilant. So it's really, really good at being vigilant, at looking out for danger, not so good at resting. My last episode was on the Goonas and I wanted to bring those into this conversation as well. They tie very well into nervous system work and yoga philosophy offers this beautiful framework through the gunas the three gunas, are quality of nature that exist within all things. We have sattva, which is clarity, harmony and balance. We have rajas, which is activity and movement and striving. And we have tamas, which is inertia, heaviness, and stagnation. A lot of conversations about rest assume that the opposite of overworking is doing nothing. But through this lens of the guna's, yoga sees things really differently. [00:06:25] A lot of us spend our lives in cycles between rajas or fire, activity, movement, striving, and tamas, or heaviness, stagnation, forced rest. We push ourselves relentlessly, and then we crash. We overwork, and then we binge, watch, and we exhaust ourselves and we collapse. And neither state represents true balance. Sattva lives in the middle. It's the capacity to act when action needed and rest when rest is needed. Satva is clarity, harmony, balance, and carrying those qualities through whatever life throws at us. But we don't have to eliminate rajas and tamas. They're important as well. Rajas helps us to create and build and move through life. Thomas helps us sleep and recover and ground. And the practice is learning how to work skillfully with both of these things while carrying a sense of SATA. We can also think of rest as abasa, or a practice. Most people think that rest is something that happens automatically when life calms down. But unfortunately, life rarely calms down on its own. Yoga teaches us the concept of aba, or consistent practice. And we usually think about practice as something active, like showing up for yoga or meditating breathing exercises. But what if we could reframe rest as a practice? What if it is a skill that can be developed, like flexibility or balance or meditation? [00:07:48] For many people, five minutes of intentional rest is harder than a challenging yoga class. That's important information to know. It tells us where the practice is needed. So what does rest actually look like? It's not always sleeping. [00:08:02] It's not really doing nothing, but it's creating moments when we are not required to perform. [00:08:08] It might look like lying in shavasana without a podcast playing, sitting outside and watching the clouds. Maybe it's taking a slow walk without tracking steps, practicing restorative yoga. Maybe it's reading for pleasure or taking a few conscious breaths between tasks, looking out the window. Maybe it's letting something remain unfinished. And sometimes the most radical form of rest is simply resisting the urge to fill every moment as soon as we have a moment to pause. Are you picking up your phone? [00:08:41] Or sit with lack of stimulation, lack of productivity, maybe to indulge in the present moment and what's around you without seeking the next thing. One question worth exploring is who am I when I'm not producing? Also, who am I when I'm not helping? Who am I when I'm not accomplishing? Who am I when I am simply being? These are yogic questions because yoga ultimately isn't about becoming someone else, but remembering who we already are. It's the moments we stop striving that often reveal something really important. And there is part of us that remains whole even when we are resting, even when we are still, even when we are doing nothing at all. So this week you might consider experimenting with one small act of intentional rest. [00:09:29] You don't have to earn it. You don't have to rest because you've exhausted yourself. But intentional rest? Maybe that's five minutes of legs up the wall, 10 minutes of restorative yoga, a short meditation. Maybe it's sitting on your porch without your phone, or taking a walk without listening to anything. Notice what arises. Notice the discomfort, the resistance. Notice the stories your mind tells you about productivity and worth. Because often, noticing these stories and looking at them through a lens of compassion and discernment are exactly where this practice begins. Rest isn't something we earn after we've done enough. Rest is a biological need, a nervous system need, a and from a yogic perspective, it's a spiritual practice. The ability to slow down, to soften, to simply be maybe one of the most important skills we can cultivate in a culture that constantly asks us to do more. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Deepen your yoga practice today. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, leave a review and subscribe Wherever you listen to podcast until next time, keep practicing. And don't forget that sometimes the deepest practice is learning how to rest. Om Shanti, Om Peace. Facebook.