Sometimes doing nothing is everything: reflecting on rest

What do you think of when you imagine rest? The gift of time to relax? Laziness? Do positive or negative feelings arise? What messages have you internalized about time spent soley for yourself?

I write this morning from a near ethereal highly caffeinated state in the heart of Hobart, Tasmania. It is the southernmost city in Australia, the farthest down one can go in the great "down under." It is a place that feels on the edge of the world, as if you could walk a few just a bit further south and fall off the horizon. A place overlooked by the spread of busyness, a corner of the Earth left more natural. The perfect place to relearn to rest.

Don't get me wrong moving, let alone to a new country, is quite the ordeal and has required endless hours of research, appointments and coordination. Since arriving my boyfriend and I have secured housing, bought a car and gotten insurance, gotten a national parks pass linked to our address, and bought an array of home appliances. We've signed up for a membership to our local grocer, already bought two huge tubs of peanut butter from the Saturday market, and have been dropping off resumes to different cafes and stores in town. We've had quite the agenda.

Yet despite our busyness, here at what feels like the edge of the world, I am embracing a laid back energy. There is an air of relief, slowness, ease. One of the first things I was told when getting to Australia was that people live by the saying "no worries mate." It rings true.

Moving to a country where people are so warm, friendly, and less obsessed with careers and packed schedules and assigning purpose to everything allows me to see how our environment impacts how we feel about ourselves. Coming from the United States, I feel like I've grown up with a lot of "shoulds" about how to live a successful and meaningful life. I've often felt like I need to be in a near constant state of productivity to feel worthy. Like every day must build upon the last so I am properly becoming someone great. I stressed myself worrying that I wasn't doing enough.

Australia is showing me another way.

Here my roommates take two hours to cook elaborate meals and another hour to eat and savor them. And when they come home and I ask them about work they say "work is work." It doesn't define them and their working mind is shut off by the time they get home. There is then time and space to sit on the porch and read, hang in the garden, go for long evening walks. Some are in their late twenties and starting their undergraduate degree after taking time to travel and work. There is little stress, a lot of peace.

I'm inspired to rush less. Stress less. Be more present. This week I've done plenty of logistics to settle into life here, and I've also made time to read, write poems, weed in the garden, make homemade oatmilk and hummus. I've sat on the porch in the sun alone and just let my mind drift. I feel grounded and nourished. I am happy.

How and when do you feel at rest? Is it easy for you to make time to rest? How might you find/ make time to connect with yourself even on your busiest days? I know the answer isn't traveling across the world nor forgoing work (I am certainly not taking this opportunity for granted!) And I know my life will get busier again soon, as so many of your lives currently are. So how do we make time to breathe, connect, listen even when life is full of responsibilities and commitments? How do we find balance?

Here is a little poem I wrote to inspire rest. I hope it can act as an antidote to a world that tells us rest is anything but beautiful and necessary.

Rest darling rest

Put your hands in the dirt

Stretch and scrape the clouds

Unwrap the canvas in the corner

Or flip open a book

Or do nothing at all

Rest darling rest

Close your eyes and listen

To the heavy humid air

And the wind blowing the curtains

Hear that one incessant kookaburra bird

Squaking behind the blackberry bushes

Rest darling rest

Sit and sip three coffees a day

If you’d like

Or sing or walk barefoot

Or clip your nails straight into the compost pile

Become the earth

The breath turned wind turned breath

Rest darling rest

Your worth isn’t determined by

Productivity

It is innate

Your life is a gift, for you

For the world

So slow down and rest

Listen and feel and taste the treasure

Of this moment

Rest darling rest

There are shadows dancing under the doorway

Have you seen them?

There are ripening apples

High up on the trees,

Have you reached up to taste them?

There are people saying hello as you walk by,

Have you heard them?

Rest darling rest

This is the medicine.

One final offering: here is an impromptu poetic recording made sitting on the porch, listening to the birds. I talk here about how embracing a new environment has helped me slow down and connect more with myself.

To listen to this 6-minute audio click HERE.