Rebellious rest

Look at Alfie, how relaxed he is. You can tell he’s recharging, can’t you? I’ve had to learn a lot from him this year, and now I am taking a deep breath and sharing some of that learning with you.

Over the last decade, I have come to be grateful for most of my health challenges as I know they have given me wonderful guidance. If I was completely well, I would probably be working full time in an office. Although that would generate a welcome income, I would not be able to care for my family as I now do, and I would not be writing and teaching meditation – missions which I have come to believe are part of my life’s current purpose.

Just recently, however, my health has been more challenging and I have been unable to do a lot of the things that I usually believe are essential. I’ve turned down freelance work, slowed my plans for promoting my meditation workshops and I’ve let the housework go. I don’t feel good if I sit at my desk for too long so I’ve been writing a lot less than I would like.

So what have I been doing? I’ve been resting. And not just resting, but, whenever possible, putting my feet up or better still lying down. My body tells me loud and clear that it wants me to lie down as much as possible. I prefer to listen to my body in the moment, hearing what it needs me to do right now, than with hindsight. (It is so easy to analyse our bodies’ reactions to our lifestyles and realise that we should have done more of this or less of that, and then take action to get better. Many books have been written and whole professions exist to help us to work out what we have done or not done to result in a particular health issue, and then to put that issue right. Preferable, however, to listen now, to act now and avoid the need for hindsight analysis.)

Far from easy, however. Resting, lying down when there is so much to be done, takes courage. Courage to be different, to discard those values I’ve inherited and absorbed which tell me that hard work, self-sacrifice and drivenness are the ways to go. Courage to stand up (well, lie down!) for myself and declare that my own health and well-being are among the highest priorities in my life. Courage to go against the grain of the society in which I live.

It also takes commitment. It is easy to rest for five minutes between tasks, to do a little less or cancel something inessential. Harder to say, ‘I will rest today,’ and then do it. My meditation teacher, Sandy Newbigging, says that commitment is:

Continuing to do something long after the feeling you had when you decided to do it has gone.

Resting as an emergency, applying a little first aid in an over-filled life is one thing; committing to rest at the expense of everyday tasks that, at a push, I could get up and make myself complete, is quite another.

And finally, it takes not just faith, but trust. Every ‘sensible’ cell in me says that I should force myself to work until I collapse, because my financial situation appears to demand it. Logic tells me that if I don’t drive myself to earn money and grow my business, and if I don’t clean the house, no-one else will do it and this spells impending disaster. My sensible cells and my logic don’t know about my body’s wisdom, however, and they don’t know that if I don’t listen to it, a different kind of disaster might result.

Courage, commitment and trust just to lie down? For me, today, yes. Surrendering to the moment, I do what I know, deep down, to be right in that moment. I let go of fearful thoughts, both mine and those that are offered to me so freely by others, and I let go of thinking it through.

Acquired knowledge and logic are wonderful things. But if, by middle age, we follow those aspects of our selves above all others, discarding wisdom, intuition and inspiration, what are we but living encyclopaedias and computers?

So for now, I am drilling deep into each moment, asking it for its unique wisdom, acting according to the truth of Now, forging a path into an unknown future existence using mysterious navigation aids. Don’t think that I’m not afraid or that I don’t have negative thoughts; but instead of living those fears and thoughts, I watch them, knowing I am the watcher that watches my mind.

And being the watcher, at the moment often the horizontal watcher, I watch and wait to see what the wisdom of the next moment will bring. I trust my thinking mind to spring into action when it’s appropriate, but until that time I’m apprenticed to my dog.