I just finished a four day workshop called “Awakening the Illuminated Heart”.  It taught us how to go from our head filled with doubts and fears to our hearts where there is no fear.  Only unconditional love.  It was powerful and hopefully life changing.  If I can hang on to it!

As I connect with my heart I instinctively know it is time for a rest.  The weather here is a lot for me.  My kids have been sick and I am tired.  I am alone caring for them during the week.  I feel the need to be kind and easy on myself.  I feel the need to connect with my family.  I need a rest right now.  And yet…

I latched onto fitness and running as a powerful tool to pull myself back on my feet after a hard time.  It was a life line.  But it also took driving myself pretty hard to make it happen.  This is something I am a little too good at I am afraid.  Driving myself too hard.

Since finding fitness and running I have only been able to take time off to rest when it was FORCED.  Either by injury or illness.  So now I want to choose to take a rest.  I guess what I am working on in my head is “Why is embracing rest so damn hard for me?”

Here is what I came up with.  I think I went a slower easier pace naturally as a child.  My family likes to joke that I have one speed and one speed only…SLOW.  I was a skinny little bookworm.  A favorite day for me was sitting on my couch with a pile of books and not moving until I finished ALL of them.  Or spending the entire day at the barn with my horse.  Or the beach or the farm.  I don’t remember getting bored much.

But somewhere along the way I got the message to speed up.  That I was going too slow.  So I tried to adapt to the faster speed.  I FORGOT my natural pace.

I came in the house the other day thinking about something I had not gotten done and feeling inadequate.  I had an “aha” moment.  I realized that I never ever focus on what I have accomplished in the day.  I mostly focus on what I did NOT get done.  I actually think of myself as slow to move, slow to get motivated, slow to accomplish anything, slow to focus and get things done.  I really see myself this way.  And in our society slow equals bad.

I am always feeling the pressure to do more, more, more.  Drive, drive, drive.  Never let down your guard or let yourself have down time.  Be here and there on time.  Go go go.  I look at other moms and see what it looks like they accomplish on the outside.  It makes me feel like I get absolutely nothing done.

Yes, there is a lot I don’t get done.  But I think it is time to slow down to my natural pace.  It is time to look at what I do accomplish.  I sit every single night for over 2 hours with my kids reading, talking and praying with them.  Rubbing their backs and sitting with them while I put them to bed.  I never watch TV or accomplish anything after 7pm.  By the time I get done, I am either asleep or comatose!  That IS something and I think it is time to look at what I am pouring into them.  They might not be in a lot of after school activities or be accomplished musicians, but this is not something they seem to want right now anyway.  They just want free time to be with family and friends.

This week while they were sick, I just let us sink into comfort and recovery.  I let go of the “shoulds”.  Like making them suck it up and go to school until they could prove they were sick with either fever or vomiting.  I took the time to really look into their eyes and feel how these little creatures naturally live from the heart.  I didn’t drive myself to run and work out.  I let it go.  And it felt so incredibly good.

I am fighting back against that nasty little voice that likes to drive me.  The one that feeds on fear.  The fear that I won’t get back to the running.  The fear that I will get old and frumpy.  Of course I will.  As Frank Forencich http://blog.exuberantanimal.com/ so wisely said, “remember death and loss are on your agenda”.  No matter how hard we want to deny it, no amount of fitness will prevent it.  Frank went on to say, “Develop your health so you can give it away”.  I think it is going to take letting it go to get it back.  Not letting go of my health, but letting go of this addictive drive for health.  Other wise it is just another form of enslavement.  Something else to measure myself and come up short.  No I want to choose it…from the heart.  From that place of pleasure and joy.  Not fear.

I did this yesterday and it was such a pleasure.  I snuggled in bed with my kids as long as they wanted.  We made pancakes from scratch.  We played.  I don’t know the last time I just sat and played with them, frankly.  There is always to much to DO.  That “has” to get done.  We watched a movie in the middle of the day, then they went out and played in the snow after dark.  I showered just so I could change into clean pajamas.  They were happy.  I let myself listen to that and enjoyed resting too.

Sometimes I forget to listen to their happy sounds and follow that path.  My own forgotten path.  Usually I am listening to the something we “should” do in my head.  I interrupt that pleasure of just being to push them to rush off to something no one really cares about.  I hope I can hang on to this.

It is possible that by resuming my natural pace of slow, I will accomplish more than when I am always trying to push faster, faster and end up so tired.  I wonder?  I just so want to hold onto the love of the heart that gives us the real connections.  I know that I can do this.  I just have to remember what I have let myself forget.