Hey there, welcome to season 2 of Discovering Breadcrumbs. This is a part of the Cultivate Project, a once a month project where I explore practices and mindsets we can cultivate for growth. I started this as an exploration of lettering art and illustration. As I created the art, discovered words that flowed out with the art. This podcast is the place where I share those words. You can see the art in the link below. And I’d love it if you followed along in my journey by signing up for my weekly emails.

Those emails are kind of like a road trip . . . they include adventure, good music, some wrong turns, a couple of right ones, and maybe a snack. For real though, it is a journey, this artist thing and I’d love to have you here with me.

It’s where you’ll see behind the scenes of the art process, you’ll receive opportunities to purchase new work available only to my subscribed collectors, you’ll get special sneak peeks and for each collection release, we celebrate with free shipping for you. Oh, and you have access to a library of free downloads that include bookmarks, digital background wallpapers (there are 15 to choose from right now), and monthly calendars (you can get this art as a calendar right now) and I added a 2023 planner. You will love it, I promise.

Let’s get on with the first episode of season 2 now.

It has been 2 months since the end of season 1 and 2 months since I’ve written words to go with my art. My fingers feel rusty and there are a few cobwebs stuck in my brain but as I sat down to write this episode it came back. I was nervous about it not coming back, but it has. That’s the scary thing about rest.

I started running again this week as well, and I realized it’s the same thing with my body and my brain. I was sick for 3 weeks in the beginning of December so I didn’t run. When I started back again, I was dreading it. But because I was doing it so much before, my body picked up where it left off. I didn’t start over from scratch and begin with only 1 mile. I started with the mileage I was doing when I got sick. Yes, I was a little sore after but I was still able to jump back in without losing too much conditioning. Your body remembers. But so does your mind. Which is why rest is not so bad. We tend to think we’ll lose everything if we rest, but actually we don’t and we may come out better because we did rest.

Writing and words aren’t easy things for me and I had some trepidation about taking a break from it. So, I put in my planner to work on writing for this podcast around the first of December but it never happened. I definitely took a rest and the result was a motivation to start writing again. And I was able to get back in and find the words again.

The scary part was at times during those 2 months I considered whether I should continue. I questioned what I was even doing. And I questioned whether I could continue. I only publish once a month but between creating the art then writing the words, then editing the words then publishing, this is time I could put to other things.

I also started to question if I could make episodes twice a month. That’s even scarier and one I’m still tossing around in my head.

All these things I described are why rest is so scary to so many of us. Maybe you don’t use the word scary. Maybe instead you avoid rest, pretend it doesn’t exist. Or maybe you use words describing rest like useless, boring, or you say I have so much to do. I’ve used all those but learned that actually rest was scary to me. And I use the word scary because there is fear there.

Fear of the unknown. Fear that we might find out something deep down we know is true but don’t want to admit. Fear that we might need to change and resting will bring it to light. Fear we might have to sit with ourselves and we might not like who that person is.  Fear that sometimes our thoughts bring on anxiety that we can’t cope with so we keep ourselves busy enough to not let those thoughts creep in. In this way, rest is scary because of what’s inside. I equate it to the difficult process of sitting in stillness (listen to that episode next if this strikes a cord).

Resting can also be scary because we’re afraid others will get ahead, we’ll fall behind, or we’ll become irrelevant in some way. It can also feel like we are letting others down, or we’re expected to do things and resting means those things people expect of us won’t get done. Finally it can mean others will see us as lazy, unmotivated, having no work ethic, and not working towards goals. These are fears we carry about other’s perceptions of us.

Yet, none of this is true. We need rest to be motivated, to be productive, to be on top of our game. We need rest to know ourselves and discover the journey we want to be on, the one meant for us. We need rest for new ideas, to synthesize ideas and to create.

Two key benefits to rest for everyone though:

Rest allows us to get back to the heart of it all. To rediscover and remind ourselves of our why.

Rest allows us to keep going, to not quit.

When I talk about rest, I hope you understand, I mean taking a full break. Doing nothing or doing something that feeds your soul. I don’t mean something to fill the time, or to just be doing something or even to knock something off your bucket list. Doing something to feed your soul means doing something that allows you to connect with yourself. It takes love for yourself and in doing it, you feel that love. If you’re unsure of what that might be, then do nothing. Just be.

The first time I encountered true rest was after my second child we made the decision for me to quit work. I never understood resting until I was forced into it. It was unusual for me to sit around and not do but just be. I was used to going to work sick. I was a teacher and year round coach working from 7:15 am until 6:30 at night and constantly on. I was also that teacher the administrators knew they could come to if they needed something. I never rested. But staying home with my kids brought on a rest I didn’t expect. Don’t get me wrong, staying home with kids is crazy busy and hard, but they taught me to slow down. To be fully present for them, and when they were both napping I began sitting in silence. Then I began getting up earlier to just be by myself for an hour in silence.

From this came a new journey. One that I started to discover me, the me I’d been pushing away with busyness and things to do. Today when I start to feel out of sorts, overwhelmed, or just off, I rest. It may be only for a couple hours or it may be for a whole day but I sit in silence and just be. It is in these moments that I think about what I want, where I’m at, and my feelings. I think about how I’m feeling but more importantly, I start thinking about why I feel this way. The answers usually lead to new perspectives, realization, enlightenment, and sometimes change. But always after rest, there’s a motivation, an appreciation, and a direction.

What does rest look like? That’s up to you. My rest is often sitting in silence, reading, walking, or creating without needing an outcome. It’s also watching a movie with my family, hiking, and cooking for them.

What does rest look like for you? It’s what feeds your soul, what allows you to gather in ideas and marinate them, or what gives you time to think and most of all what gives you time to just be. To be you in the purest sense.

Rest can feel boring at first or even useless. You might feel lazy and your brain is yelling at you to get up and get all the things done (there is always so much to do). Resist these things and as your brain gets used to it, you’ll begin to see the benefits.

We need rest. We need it for our health – both physical and mental. We need it to get to know ourselves. We need it to make decisions. We need it to recover. We need it to grieve. We need it to celebrate.

Rest restores us to ourselves as we were created.