Credit Elmer Canas
Episode Summary
What does your body need in order to rest fully? What does your heart need to soften a bit? What would it feel like to rest - not with one ear out for the next crisis - but actually fully rest?
Basic Steps of a Ritual for Deep Rest
1. Set aside concerns
2. Nest building
3. Set an intention
4. Invite guides/guardians/Ancestors
5. Rest in the space
6. Listen in the space
7. Return slowly
8. Have some water
Episode Resources
→ Reparations for Black People Should Include Rest: https://www.vice.com/en/article/d3bbay/sleep-gap-black-slavery-reparations-black-power-naps
→ Black Power Naps: https://blackpowernaps.black/
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About the Show
Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
My coworker described how she spent some of her time this past summer. She said she just needed to be on the beach staring at the water. So she did that, while her kids built sand castles and looked for shells. She sat there for several days, just slowing down and doing nothing. Listening to her words, I realized I'd done my summer break completely wrong!
Life is super dynamic right now. There's never a dull moment from the election on the horizon to health issues, natural disasters and a huge leap forward in social justice. How can we be our best? How can we show up as fully as possible? Maybe resting is part of the picture. Not resting with one ear out for the next crisis, but just fully resting.
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas.
Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.
Today we're going to talk about resting deeply. Like, actually letting go for a whole series of minutes. Putting the world on pause. Putting the phone on do not disturb. Noticing any aversions we might have to letting go and actually doing it.
We'll talk about why rest matters, why we avoid it sometimes, and create ways to find out what is truly restful to us. If resting isn't a challenge for you but you know someone who's chronically on edge, please share this episode with them.
So, what is the point of rest? I often find myself wondering that when I'm feeling short on time, or in crisis mode. Sleeping and even eating can seem like an awful waste of time. Why can't I just get on with it?
Rest actually has several functions. It allows our body to do some basic healing without the added strain of pushing forward. It helps to create a little more space in our heads. It gives us some breathing room. And, it also allows us to process our experiences.
Years ago I was checking out a graduate program in spirituality. During my first visit to campus, I asked several of the students what they wished they had known before they started. They all said hands down they wished they'd taken their time with the program, to have had more time to absorb everything on both an intellectual and a personal level. That was a huge insight for me and it turns out that they were right. That program offered some deep lessons that it would have been a shame to rush through and lose the chance to fully absorb.
This wisdom on integration aligns with what I learned from my favorite yoga teacher about savasana, or corpse pose, which is often done at the very end of yoga class. He said that savasana is actually half of the yoga practice, because it allows our body to integrate the work we've just done. So without those 10 minutes of lying still on our backs on the floor, significant benefits of the class would have been lost.
If resting is so great, why is it difficult sometimes? I invite you to pause for a moment and look around the space you are in. Check out the colors and shapes. Notice a few sounds. Notice your breath. Notice any tension in your body. And I invite you to take a breath that's a bit of a deeper breath than usual or maybe experiment with any wiggles or any small movements that your body might like to make in this moment, in “this now moment” (as the saying goes).
Throughout this pandemic, I'm learning that “this now moment” can be a pretty uncomfortable place. The liminality, the uncertainty, the watching, the waiting... all bring challenges I've never had to deal with before. And they can be very unsettling and uncomfortable. And I think that's why rest has eluded me. Because resting is an in-the-moment thing. Deep rest, where I'm not trying to figure things out, or creating small problems as a distraction from the bigger ones, or distracting myself with excessive work or eating or television. But actually resting in “this now moment”.
Alongside thinking about rest I’ve also been thinking about how to unpack my white privilege. I decided to learn about how rest is different for different people. I know that white people can have expectations of safety and comfort that are not shared by black indigenous and people of color. I found a great article by Janine Francois who researches race, racism and cultural heritage. In her 2019 piece called "Reparations for Black People Should Include Rest", she writes the following.
"Time, as we know it, is a colonial invention and forms the backbone of American society, making the racial distribution of time inherent to white privilege. As whiteness dictates freedom, education, pleasure, and social mobility, have you ever wondered why so many of those considered to be our “greatest” artists or philosophers are white men? Who among us has the access to time to make “masterpieces” or to “think,” without dealing with the impacts of oppression? Racism robs us of our time to be creative, to dream or simply be."
Janine goes on to share an elaborate description of her experience of the Black Power Naps exhibit at the Matadero Madrid Contemporary Art Center in Spain. Black Power Naps, created by Navild Acosta & Fannie Sosa, is a sculptural installation, vibrational device and curatorial initiative that reclaims laziness and idleness as power. I encourage you to learn more at https://blackpowernaps.black/
When I think about what kind of rest I need right now, I notice that I need different rest than normal, deeper rest than normal. With so much going on that's so heavy and important, I need extra time to process right now. I need a serious savasana. I need time to, as I call it, stare at the walls. That time needs to be very slow. So I made a list of thing that are slow and nurturing to me, things like reading, bird watching, cloudspotting. Being at the beach, being in water. Wordless time. Time in silence. Time surrounded by the music I love.
At my graduate school, there was a room called The Cave. It was an interior room with no windows, and it was kept very dark. It had an altar with a few candles burning all the time and some beautiful Tibetan wall hangings. When it wasn't being used for drumming circles or meditation classes, it was available to just go sit in. I loved walking into it in the middle of the day, feeling the quiet pressing in on me. Getting lost in the dark. Sometimes I could hear a bit of conversation at the front desk, because there was a vent in the wall right there, but usually it was quiet. The Cave was the heart of the campus, because we all knew how important that deep, quiet, personal resting place was. That place where we might better hear the wisdom inside of us, that place where we could process the experiences of the day.
If the first step is making a list of the things that are deeply restful, the second is to schedule time for them. I've been playing with this for a month or so and am finding it to be a rich source of self-support. So I encourage you to consider calendaring some deep rest. Maybe a half hour a day of deep rest?
Another way to drop into deep rest is to use ceremony as a container. Here is a simple ritual sketch to do just that.
A first step might be to make a quick list of everything we don't want to forget, everything that we need to hold onto. Make a list, honor the things we wrote down as very important and worthy of our energy, and make a conscious decision to set them aside for a while. Let them go, let them be held by something or someone. We could set the list in a box where we know it won't get blown away or lost, or even give it to a friend to hold (in real life or in our imagination).
Then, when we’re ready, we might do some nesting. Gather everything that we will help our body relax completely. Pillows, blankets, cover the windows, put on some relaxing music, maybe a bath would be nice. Maybe if we have a stuffed animal, that might even be nice to hold. What feels deeply nurturing? What helps us feel safe?
Then we might create sacred space or create the container in whatever way feels right to us - calling the circle, casting the circle, saying a prayer, lighting a candle - creating the container.
I think with deep rest it can sometimes be helpful to have some company. We might call in a beloved Ancestor or Spirit Guide or a deity we work with. Call them in, invoke them, welcome them to the circle.
And then we can rest, relax the body, do some deep breathing to balance out the hard edges, follow the flow of any emotions that arise, let ourselves drift, dream, imagine, journey. Rest in the space. Listen in the space. Allow some of that deep healing to filter up through us in the space. There is no one way to do it. There's no right way to do it. Our intuition will lead the way, allowing our breathing and our body to follow.
When the music ends or we feel complete, we want to come back very gently. If we're lying on our back, we might roll to one side and lie there for a bit. Then sit up slowly and have some water and maybe journal.
Just as we took time to create the space as we went in, it's really important to come out slowly. And it's also nice to thank and release anyone we called in, and then open the container. The very last thing we might do is to really honor and appreciate ourselves for having taken the time to do some deep resting.
I encourage you to think about what would be most nurturing and restful to you this week. It might be nature, some kind of making or crafting, dance, movement, meditation, taking a nap in sacred space, taking a nap in regular space, anything that helps you slow down and be in the moment - your moment that you create as your "this now moment".
Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. That’s one of the best ways we can help other people find the show. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.