The Beauty of Rest

Eking out time and space for creativity

Château de Saint-Félix, The Cévennes. Photo by author.

For the third year in a row, I spent time in the Cévennes, a gorgeous rural area in the south of France. The first year I spent a month on a writing sabbatical, where I completed my first novel, Bread Pudding in Barcelona. The second and third years I spent a week at a writers’ retreat at the Château de Saint-Félix, working on books two and three in the series, Something Will Sing to Your Heart and A Thistle in the Cévennes. But more than writing, I rested. I sat in the sun and listened to the goats’ bells ringing as they wandered in the meadow. I breathed into the silence of a dark night punctuated with a million stars.

Good Lord, that sounds bougie.

The truth is, I worked very hard to save up enough money for the travel and the time off work. Another truth is that many people would scoff at the notion—“Saving up” is for special events like buying a used car or getting braces for a kid. I know, because that was my reality for decades and I’m deeply grateful for the life that now allows me such luxuries.

But rest shouldn’t be a luxury. Rest is a necessity. And regardless of our socio-economic status, we all too frequently neglect it.

Especially in the US, we prize activity. We boast about our 80-hour work weeks and our lack of sleep. I once had a parent call my martial arts studio looking for classes for a six-year-old. I described the Little Dragons program, 30-minute classes twice a week that featured basic skills and a lot of play. The mother interrupted to ask me, “Do you have something on Tuesdays at 6:00?” After a bit more discussion, I learned that she was trying to squeeze in martial arts between music, foreign language, and ballet lessons throughout the week. I often wonder what happened to that poor child, a little human never allowed to simply…be.

Even God took a day off.

We need to ascribe as much value to rest as we do to activity. It’s when we stop moving that our imagination can ignite…when it can soar. And it doesn’t take a trip across the planet to achieve it. Telling ourselves “That’s for other people, I can’t afford the money or time” limits us to viewing rest as some huge thing requiring significant resources. Instead, what if the words we used were something like, “Rest is good for me and I will commit to carving out time and space to experience that goodness.” Words do matter—and using words like this can prompt us to view rest through a different lens.

If the only rest I get is a week in France once a year, I’ve missed the point entirely. I have to find time every day to sit, meditate, breathe, dream…and imagine. Mark Twain wrote, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” Focus comes when we take time away from all the “have-to’s” and allow ourselves to sit with our creativity. That can be as simple as a walk around the block at lunchtime. It can be ten minutes before going to bed.

I talk to people who bemoan the fact they only get five hours of sleep because their schedules are so packed. Fun fact: five hours already isn’t enough sleep, so getting four hours and 50 minutes isn’t going to wreck your life. But taking those ten minutes to breathe and allow your creative self to emerge could very well change it. Humans are built to be creative. Whether it’s writing, painting, baking, or designing a fascinating spreadsheet, we must create to fully experience our humanity.

We need to stop making excuses for the lack of time. We need to stop idolizing those who hit burnout because they are supposedly so committed. We need to use words that promote health, wellness, and joy.

As I’ve written in the past few weeks, 2024 is a year of crazy activity for me. I’m jumping from one thing to the next at breakneck speed. It would be all too easy to push myself to exhaustion now that I’m home from the retreat and doing the final preparations for my black belt test in five weeks. My to-do list is currently four pages long and growing.

But the words that matter most are these: Rest is not a luxury. I deserve the time to sit peacefully with my creativity. I am not a victim of my calendar and I will carve out the time I need to rest.

Sometimes it’s listening to goats in a meadow in the south of France. Sometimes it’s not. Either way, it’s my ten minutes.

What will you create with yours?