Rest: Safe-keeping the Soul

The New Year often suggests it’s time to enthusiastically set goals or take on new challenges. Most goals share a common theme—do more. The health and wellness industry offers many suggestions: walk more, lift more, eat more protein, drink more water, etc. Even when "get more sleep" makes the list, truly slowing down or prioritizing rest rarely gets the spotlight. This year, I thought it would be interesting—if not a bit unconventional—to make rest my primary goal for January. To try to do less.

When I think of rest, my mind immediately goes to napping. My husband is a pro-napper. He stretches his full height across our just-long-enough couch, puts on his noise-canceling headphones, tucks under a blanket, and he commits to a good long nap. I, on the other hand, am more of a power napper. I honed this skill in university, where I’d find a comfy library bench and set my timer for a quick 10-minute nap. If I woke up with a little drool, I knew I had succeeded. Later, while raising babies and toddlers, I tried to follow the wisdom: "Nap when your kids nap." Most days, I would let my thoughts settle, and—as my sister puts it—just leave the planet for a few moments. It wasn’t long, but it was always enough to leave me feeling a little more refreshed.
My January rest challenge was simple: practice the art of napping daily. I was looking forward to hunkering down, getting cozy, and embracing the slower pace of winter. I did manage a few good naps. Something is inviting about the way the winter sun streams through the window in the late afternoon, landing perfectly on the couch. It stirs a primal, cat-like urge to curl up in that warm sunbeam and surrender to the moment. But to my surprise, instead of settling into a series of snug snoozes, more often than not I found my mind buzzing with ideas and my energy levels unusually high. Most days I felt enthusiastic, creative, and excited. The projects I was working on meant my days were full and deeply satisfying. I didn’t want to nap, and I didn’t feel like I needed to.

While I didn’t spend my days "resting" in the way I had expected, overall I felt internally restful. As I reflected on this, I realized that my experience of rest became less about doing or not doing and more about a state of being.

In the fall, I found myself struggling with both internal and external pressures to be more productive and perform at a higher level. As I began putting more of my writing online, I also became more exposed to the noise of the internet. The advice for writers often revolves around boosting productivity: “Five things I do each day to improve my writing,” “How I built an audience of _____ people,” “Best tips to get people to read your work.” There’s no shortage of articles, how-to guides, and “do more” tips. The hustle and urgency around content creation is relentless, and by December, I was feeling pretty burned out from absorbing all this messaging.

 As part of the theme of rest, I decided that I would give myself permission to say “That’s enough for today.” It wasn’t really about whether or not I took a nap, it was about knowing I could choose to stop. I could do less. In the past, I took breaks or rested because I knew I had something else later in the day or week that would require more energy. Rest was about storing up energy for the tasks ahead. But this new way of being restful marked a shift in my thinking.

We don’t rest just to be more productive later. We rest because we understand that our worth isn’t defined by what we produce or how we perform.

I can give myself the gift of rest because I believe I am valuable, that my personhood is my contribution, and that what I bring and who I am is good. This act of granting myself permissive rest feels not only kind and generous but also a little subversive. In doing so, I’m saying, “I won’t bend to the gods of productivity, to external pressures, or to the internalized expectations of what it means to be good, valuable, and worthy.” I can simply say, “That’s enough for today” and be full of rest.

But, also, naps! One of the simplest ways to practice “that’s enough for today” is by taking a nap. These days, my eyes are bombarded with images, videos, messages, and endless information. If it’s true that the eyes are the windows to the soul, then to safe-keep my soul, at times, I need to draw the curtains. The world can continue with all its noise, but taking a moment to just rest my eyes means that I’m also taking care of my soul. It’s saying “That’s enough for today” —not just in terms of what I’ve contributed or created but also in terms of what I’ve consumed, and what has come in through those eye-windows. Resting my eyes or settling into a nap becomes a subtle, soul-nourishing, spiritual practice.

In the end, rest is a declaration of self-worth, a form of resistance, and a way to safe-keep my soul. In today’s world, we're often encouraged to express ourselves in dramatic ways: take up space, live boldly, dance like nobody's watching! While these messages can be empowering, they need to be balanced equally with encouragement to rest, slow down, and find rhythms that nourish us. Our inherent worth remains constant, whether we are being active and bold in the world, or whether we are tucking in for some much-needed restoration.

Rest is a subversive act. It’s a reminder that we are enough just as we are, and that sometimes, the most radical thing we can do is give ourselves the time and space to simply say “That’s enough for today.”