#43 - The Art of Rest, Part 3: with Wisdom from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

In this episode we’ll get into why rest is an instinctual, innate part of being human. Animals naturally rest  -  lions spend the majority of their days lying around and resting. And when an animal is wounded, they look for a very quiet place and stay there for many days, letting their body heal itself. They don’t think about their next meal. They fast. Animals have the wisdom of stopping and resting.  

We humans also have this innate capacity to rest, but we’ve been conditioned to go-go-go, and this tendency continues to increase as the pace of technology increases.  

So in order to get back to our instinctual primitive behavior of rest, we need to reset ourselves. We need to first use reason and intellectualize why rest is natural, which we are doing right now, and second we need to experience it on a soulful level by actually doing it more.

And its not just the body that needs rest. When animals instinctually rest their bodies to heal, they are also resting their minds. They’re not thinking of their next meal or anything else. They’ve simply checked-out.

We know the body needs rest because we can see signs or we can feel that we’re tired or sore. But even though the mind doesn’t raise flags in the same way, it needs rest to heal too. As Nhat Hanh discusses it, in our consciousness there are wounds and sores, fogginess and burnout  – all from the thoughts, the memories, and so on. Our consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore itself, just like our body. He writes the following in his book, “How to Relax”: “When we get a cut on our finger we don’t have to do anything except to clean it and to allow it the time to heal, because our body knows how to heal itself. The same thing is true with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself if we know how to allow it to do so. “

Resting the mind doesn’t have to come solely through meditation and mindful breathing. You can rest the mind by unplugging from the grind for a few minutes, hours, or a few days or by taking a walk and staying present with the nature around you, or by spending time with someone you love – immersed in that time without distraction. Or by reading a book or by simply getting out of your left brain, the side of your brain that involves facts, linear thinking and logic, and more into your right brain which is connected to intuitive thinking, rhythm, imagination and art.

In the end, what we’re talking about here is that rest is inherent and inborn. We’re set up naturally to rest more, we now just have to relearn how to make it manifest and prioritize it in our lives. Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to just take a pillow and lie down for a few minute, or roll up your jacket and take a rest on the train or in the Uber. Rest is you. Rest is your birthright. Rest is your superpower.

Reference Links:

https://www.lionsroar.com/resting-in-the-river/

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For more from Host Pooja Mottl:  www.PoojaMottl.com

Podcast Producer: www.Go-ToProductions.com

Twitter: @PoojaMottl

Instagram: @TheCalmandFreePodcast and @PoojaMottl  

LinkedIn: @PoojaMottl

Special Thanks to Kris Kosach of the TPR Podcast for lending her VO for our Podcast Intro!