Some days we come face to face with our biggest fears.  The task before us feels like it could gobble us up.  We may feel powerless.  Life may present us with our own mortality or that of a loved one.  So what can we do when we feel so small and our inconveniences seem so large?

In our hyper active, must be positive, culture we often here, ‘get er’ done’.  As if we can magically shift gears from intense fear, loss and sadness and just knock it out.  Some of us CAN just knock it out some of the time.  However, almost all of us at some point found the force in front of us was larger than our own sheer will.  So what do we do when we are tired?  What do we do when we have showed up, given our all, and we feel spent?

REST

Sometimes we need to wind down, not geer up.  So often we forget to take time for us.  We forget that we need down time, that long term issues may need our long term commitment.  We can only survive the marathon if we stay hydrated.  When we push too hard, too fast and for too long our health may fail.  Our patience and tolerance may be stretched too thin.  We may get the job done but with thoughts like “these idiots I’ll just do it myself”.  We become easily reactive.  Life starts to seem hard.  We are just too tired to face what is before us.

Cut out tv and go to bed early.  Take a half day off for nothing more than recharging the internal battery.  Go for a gentle walk.  Take a hot bath.  Hire a sitter to take the kids out and enjoy some quiet time at home.  Take 15 minutes at work and just meditate.  Stop thinking!  Yes Stop it.  Just let the challenge rest for a bit.  Give yourself the gift of mindful ‘nothingness’.  These are all simple things to give our body and our brains a much needed break.

“Insane thoughts are upsetting.  They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere.  Only chaos rules a world that represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws.  I cannot live in peace in such a world.  I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it.  And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning.” Course In Miracles