We Never Get Taught This

Worthiness & Sacred Rest

Do you see rest as a reward for completing a certain amount of work?
 

That rest needs to be earned?

Is rest perceived as a disruption to your work - something which holds you back from the deep need for productivity?

These are some of the contemplations that have come up for me this month.

I know how well the body keeps the score following a cancer diagnosis back in 2013. Since my recovery I have placed physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing  as a priority and by body has rewarded me.
 
Even during periods of deep emotional healing, I have stayed physically fit and well with high vitality. 
 
These past weeks have seen me  emerge from a deep cycle of healing. Another death rebirth cycle that, this time, took its toll on my body.
 
Healing is the alchemical purification of emotional toxins held in the tissues of the body. Being an intelligent vessel, the body knows exactly how to release these emotions when we create the safe container for it.
 
There are some key stages to the healing process. One of them is a clear intention and the qualities of safety, patience and self-love are paramount.

For me intention comes more effortlessly, and creating a nourishing container is an art I have mastered but the sacred rest, that healing relies on, is a challenge that I repeatedly witness in myself and other women.
 
We are wired for productivity and our capacity to ‘be’ has been suppressed by our conditioning that rewards doing. We keep going until the body says no!
 
I took a week away from my soul led work to honour my own healing process, but I was very aware of the resistance that rose up and I felt into an even deeper wound of unworthiness which took me even deeper into the healing journey
 
When did we stop honouring our need for sacred rest or did we even get taught how important this is?
As I sat with this contemplation I went deeper into a collective feminine wounding of worthiness and how we have been shaped trough conditioning and experiences, denying our bodies what they need to firstly do the healing and then to integrate.
 
I also sat with the desire to show up for others, to see the validation I could give myself for being in service to others more than the gift of rest.
 
I choose to cherish my body and revered its capacity to do what it intuitively knows how to do.
 
Aging well will require us to rewire our nervous systems for ‘being’ not perpetual ‘doing’
 

Growing up I never knew a relaxed Woman.

Successful Women. Yes. Productive Women. Definitely.

Anxious, afraid, and apologetic Women. Heaps of them.

But Relaxed Women?

At ease Women?

Women who aren’t afraid to take up space in the World.

Women who prioritize rest and pleasure and play?

Women who give themselves unconditional permission to Relax, without guilt, without apology, without feeling like they need to earn it.

I’m not sure I’ve ever met a Woman like that.

But I would like to become one. I would like us all to become one.

By Nicola James Hobbs