Putting Reflections on Rest and Being into Action with Emily and Peter

By Emily Otremba and Peter Simon

As we heard from Erica Steffer last week (if you haven’t heard her interview yet, you can find it in a link at the end of this post), navigating our lives and taking time to rest can be difficult to do in a society which may not always see its importance. We have a tendency to always be on the go, thinking of what we need to do next in order to be productive members of society. Soon, it can become a battle with rest itself, in which we may put it off for as long as we can until our body absolutely needs it. And that isn’t fair to us.

Today, we want to challenge you and ourselves to reframe our minds on what it means to rest. Here at Solidago as we have begun our endeavor as students, we are trying to actively take time to talk about how we can be okay with rest because sometimes that is what we need in order to be productive. That rest is in fact productive. 

We invite you to join us in reflecting on our own rest patterns. What factors disrupt our rest? Is it our environment or the voices in our own heads saying we should do one more thing? Then how would we like to improve those patterns and how do we accomplish them? Also take a look at what we are doing well. This step is just as important.

We will check in at next week's post on Being and Rest as Occupations to see how this exercise went and felt. As we reflect alongside you, we intend to share what we observed within our own rest patterns as well. See you next week, and make sure while reflecting that you are also doing it with love and kindness to yourself. 

The image above was created based on the content shared by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith during the TEDxAtlanta talk.

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGNN4EPJzGk&t=5s

And if you’re looking for the interview with Erica Steffer, you can find it here:
https://solidagovc.com/blog/erica-steffer-navigating-new-paths-the-impact-of-conformity-and-rest-before-and-after-a-life-changing-injury

Happy reflecting and resting.