Making Time for Rest

When I was growing up I asked a mentor of mine, if you were to live your life over again what would you do differently?

They said “I would reserve every Friday to read and reflect on what I’ve been learning and connect with people I’m curious about. And, every quarter I would take a week off to do the same, and remind myself that my business and the world will not fall apart if I take time for myself to breathe, rest from the pace and expand my horizons”.

At Coralus we practice this quarterly rest cycle as part of our cadence. We have flexible vacation time as well, so if people don’t want to take that specific week off they can swap it out with their preferred week. However, we still keep these weeks sacred - no meetings - ?even if you decide to work. This is a collective practice that helps us to update our story of what kind of life we can live and what happens when everyone isn’t always on and expected to respond to requests. Of course, it helps that we aren’t doing crisis management as our main work, so we can choose to do this as a team.

If a quarterly break is not possible in your current circumstances, what else might you add or take away from your existing pace to better support your desires and needs?

The conditioning most of us have in place has us convinced we can’t take a break. And the spin cycle of being always on depletes us and keeps us from experiencing that another way is possible. Releasing this story of “I’m too important to this work to stop”, “if I don’t do this, the sky will fall”, “I don’t have time”, which is my personal favorite objection. If you don’t have time to slow down and pay attention to what’s working and what’s not working in your life so you can iterate it, you get stuck in a way of being that often burns you out.

I can hear the myriad of objections people have around this. Make your lists of why this is not possible if you’d like, then, for a moment, contemplate what is possible. What micro starting point might you try?

Consider this an invitation to pick one thing that will allow you more rest, and reflect on what it brings to you. More joy? Recognition of what isn’t working for you? An invitation to become aware of where you are stuck, where you are limiting yourself? A reminder that we have the power to create the life we want?

I am still practicing this daily, weekly, monthly after 30+ years and always catch myself overdoing it, taking on things to save others.?It’s a process and it’s a practice. Please share what things you do to rest, to reflect, to replenish so we can all learn about new ways of freeing ourselves from the grind we have all been conditioned to accept as normal.

Let us know by sharing your thoughts below.

Here's to doing things differently,

V.