relaxing is a practice

I don't think it's uncommon to expect that a few hours of "doing nothing" will result in "relaxation" or "rest." But I do think it's totally wrong.

It's incorrect to assume that you can go full-tilt every hour of every day, then think that just because you've stopped sprinting, you should feel rejuvenated.

I took time off Friday afternoon to rest and think. I submit my life to unnecessary analysis way too often on a daily basis, but I thought the restful, reflective time off I planned to take would actually help me go a step beyond that anxious stage. I thought that several hours of sitting in a pretty park would yield some startling revelations about my next steps in life. Or at least some good poetry.

Or...neither.

I sat. I let the breeze remind me of my skin, my self, open to the summer sun. Tiny ants played hide-and-seek in my sandals. My mind buzzed around looking for something to land on. My traffic controller brain insisted that my thoughts be either inspired or productive. Life-changing, hopefully. Seriously revelatory or charmingly anecdotal. Blog-worthy? Maybe.

I don't know how long it's going to take me to really realize that my mind works best unattended. That I need to get the heck out of my own way. To LET GO.

And that the kinds of unexpected insights that really guide my life aren't going to come from sitting down and planning to have them in a two-hour time frame, sunny afternoon or not.

I got up and walked. I looked at old homes. I took in the view from a bridge over I-70. I admired a flourishing vegetable garden beside a tall house. I bought a cookie. I stepped over trunk-sized tree pieces. I tiptoed along sidewalk tiles that the earth and air had jostled into disrepair. I found a book of poems in a library, and read in the parking lot. And I realized that two hours was only enough time to get started finding the rest, and answers, my soul needs.

Too often, I find that the unrealistic expectations and demands I place on myself, my time, and my resources lead to chasing rest rather than finding it, and substituting superstition and self-reliance for the real faith I want to have. "If I open the book to something that speaks to me..." is more an effort at time-saving than it is listening. "The right thought will come to me in this time frame; I just have to catch it" leads to hyper-awareness that stifles mental freedom and the gentle leading of spirit and mind, melding of heart and head.

It feels like it's taken me a long time to realize this -- and maybe it has. But I hope I'm learning to allow myself the freedom to experience these revelations as they come, and to receive them, rather than filling my head with nonsense that doesn't belong but gives me something to hang onto for the time being. I hope I'm learning that rest isn't something I can play hide-and-seek with, but will come in its own time -- and the part I play is patience. I hope I'm learning that practice is the goal, not perfection. Rest, listening, release. When so much of life seems to be about seizing time, opportunities, attention, it's a deep choice to drop everything and be present. Here I am.

Send me.