Sacred Rest
In the final episode for Season 3 of “Coping”, Kathy and Kevin have a dialogue where they discuss the seven types of rest outlined in Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith's book, “Sacred Rest”. Kathy and Kevin go into depth on each type of rest, explaining what it means and giving examples of how to practice it. They emphasize being intentional about rest, assessing your life to see where you most lack rest, starting with small rest practices, involving accountability partners, and recognizing rest as essential to wellbeing and thriving in all areas of life. The episode concludes with a beautiful blessing for rest.
To take Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith’s rest quiz: https://www.restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/
Kevin: Hi everyone, welcome back for another episode of "Coping".
Kathy: Yes, I'm so excited to begin a new series today, but before that, we want to say that this is our last episode of this season.
Kevin: That's right, this is the end of season three. We've had three great seasons of Coping. Kathy, thank you so much for joining me this last season. It's been really fun to have this time to talk with you every month. It's been really nice.
Kathy: It has been. So, this season, to recap what we've done is we've taken listeners through some of the retreats and journeys that our community has been through. So we began talking about fear and anxiety and some tools for that.
In the spring, if you recall, we just finished up this series on grief and loss. We hope that's been really beneficial. And we're now in the midst of a season where we're learning about a very important topic, rest.
Kevin: That's right. Man, we've covered so much this year. As we launch into this new series and new season starting next month, when we think about the word rest, what are some of the ideas that come to mind for you, Kathy:?
Kathy: Yes. So I think that rest is very complicated. What happens is a lot of times I hear people say, "I'm getting my eight hours of sleep. I don't understand why when I wake up in the morning, I'm still so exhausted." And I totally relate to that personally as well.
Kevin: Yeah. And for me, I'd say it's when you lay down to go to sleep at night after a long and busy and exhausting day, and then you can't fall asleep. Clearly, I'm tired, but maybe I'm not just physically tired. That sleep isn't the kind of rest that I'm needing. Maybe there's other kinds of rest that I'm lacking.
Kathy: Yes. And we're so excited to share with you this series on rest. So let's get started.
Kevin: So back to our question: Why aren't we feeling rested after a full night's sleep? Or why can't we fall asleep after a really long and hard exhausting day?
Kathy: Yes, excellent question. So one of our favorite authors is Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith. Her book is called, "Sacred Rest". And one of her basic premises is that there are seven different kinds of rest. Seven.
Kevin: Seven kinds of rest. That sounds like a lot of rest that we might be missing out on.
Kathy: Yes, definitely. And she begins the chapter talking about physical rest, which is the first kind, the one that we know about the eight hours sleep, the naps, active and passive rest is what she begins with.
Kevin: That's so good. One of the things that stands out to me having read this book and knowing her material is the two different kinds of rest, right? The active and the passive. We often think about rest in terms of laying down to sleep, but exercise – going for a run at the end of a long exhausting day can be rest and rejuvenating as well.
Kathy: Yes, and active rest as well --for those of you who aren't athletic like myself-- there are ways stretching, breathing, and one of my favorites she talks about is taking a bath, is actually part of active rest.
Kevin: Oh, that's cool. I never thought about it that way. So what about these other kinds of rest? What's the next kind of rest that she talks about?
Kathy: Yes. So the one that we are just discussing in our recent course right now is mental rest. And this is defined as the ability to quiet cerebral chatter and focus on things that matter. Does that resonate with you?
Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, part of the reason why I can't fall asleep at night is because of all of the thoughts, conversations, feelings of the day are scrambled in my head. And it's often the time of the day that I remember all the things that I've forgotten and I pull out my phone, I keep adding things to my list of things I need to do. There's just so much going on in my brain that I can't shut it off. There's like an on switch and it's stuck in the on position.
Kathy: Yes, she tells the story in the book in this chapter about how her desk, she talks about her desk and how it's like littered with a whole bunch of things and how our cluttered home spaces are very related to our cluttered minds. And we have to go through the process of decluttering our mind and mental spaces, not just our physical spaces. So those of us who -- this is not me -- obsessed with decluttering my home and spaces, I'm more obsessed with decluttering my mental spaces, constantly putting things in order, even in digital spaces so that my mental space is clear as well.
Kevin: That's so good. I love that visual of things being cluttered. And what I'm recognizing as we're talking is that when you lay your head down at night to go to sleep, that's not the time to start decluttering your mind. That's the time to be doing a different kind of rest. So maybe building up in a practice of decluttering as you're winding down your night, rather than going from working on your computer, sending emails and then shutting it down, closing the lights off and then trying to go to sleep. Like, there needs to be a wind down process. Yeah, that's good.
Kathy: And one of the ones that, one of the techniques that we've talked about is this idea of building an on-ramp to sleep. Instead of thinking of our rest and our sleep as an on and off switch, instead thinking about it as a way to build the on-ramp. Like, for those of you who are parents out there and when we had young children, we built in at least three hours before we thought they were actually gonna fall asleep. Why do we think that we as adults can automatically when our alarm goes off or the bedtime reminder goes off that all of a sudden we're going to go to sleep? Our bodies don't work that way.
Kevin: Yeah, that's so true. This is true for kids, true for adults for sure. And our next kind of rest is emotional rest. And she describes emotional rest as the freedom to authentically express feelings and eliminate, this is important, people pleasing behaviors. By show of hands, how many of you listening is guilty of people pleasing? My hand is raised. This is something that I struggle with a lot. And certainly one of the things that keeps me up at night, thinking about all of my negative interactions during the day and all the things that I could have done to win somebody over, emotional rest is definitely needed in my life from all the people pleasing. What else, what other insight do you have about this kind of rest?
Kathy: So she also discusses this idea and I think you've talked about it before, is that we sort of have an emotional tank of what we can offer. And sometimes when we come in contact with people who are, let's say challenging, let's say difficult, let's say a handful. Because of their anxious energy, because of their pain, their emotional issues, they require a lot of our emotional investment. And if we find ourselves in places with these types of people, often, we are draining our emotional energy and not having the correct boundaries is what's making our emotional rest tanks deplete very, very quickly.
Kevin: Yeah, definitely. That's so true. And what I'm learning from her work is that a lot of these rest practices are building on one another so that if you find yourself stuck in people pleasing behavior, it's probably because you're exhausted in some of the other areas. And when you begin to practice really good physical rest, better mental rest, then this emotional rest becomes a little bit easier because you have that margin, you have that boundary for yourself to make good decisions and to discern when it is that you're seeking after people pleasing as a way of affirming and making you feel better getting that endorphin kick, right?
Kathy: Another area that she talks about with emotional rest, I think is key, is related to our self -talk. During this week, we are exploring this idea of how do we talk to ourselves? Are we building ourselves up emotionally? Are we allowing ourselves to feel our feelings? Are we stuffing. In our last grief podcast, remember, we talked about the stuffers and the sharers? That whole emotional exchange is very healthy if we're doing that in a healthy way. But if we're not in tune with our emotions and we're also not giving ourselves permission because we're constantly beating ourselves up, that's also depleting our emotional rest.
Kevin: Yeah, that's so good. What I wanna do is jump to one of these other kinds of rest. I think it's very much related to this emotional rest and what you just shared. And that's creative rest. What does she say about creative rest?
Kathy: I love this one. This is one of my favorite ones. In the first time I read the book many years ago, creative rest is really the experience of allowing beauty to inspire awe and to liberate wonder. That's her quote.
Kevin: I love that.
Kathy: To inspire awe and liberate wonder. Well, it sounds beautiful, but if we think about what that looks like in our lives, I know specifically if I think about during the time of COVID, I was really missing being able to be out and see beautiful things and experience beautiful experiences. So concerts, for me, it's live theater. It was very, very difficult to not be able to be in a place that would -- places and spaces -- to evoke the beauty and the art of life.
Kevin: That's so good. And I would say for working professionals who find themselves with those mental writing blocks or if you're a student and you're just like, "if I have a student, have to write one more word on one more paper I think I'm going to die." You probably are in need of creative rest. Those mental blocks that interfere with your ability to work is because you're lacking inspiration and awe. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, but in those times that you're stuck with the work that you have to get done, going and participating in some type of creative rest can be the very thing that unlocks those mental blocks for you.
So quite literally getting up from your work, going outside into the natural beauty of the world, going into nature --
Kathy: Listening to music --
Kevin: Taking a vacation, watching a movie. All of those things can inspire you and spark in you the kind of rest that you're needing. And again, although it's counterintuitive walking away from your work, it'd be the thing that brings you back to your work much more productive, much more rested and filled, and with the ability to complete the tasks that are in front of you.
Kathy: Right. I think one of the things that...When we discuss this week, we're gonna talk about is what we're consuming, is that giving us creative rest? Sometimes we are doing it to numb ourselves, or we're like, "oh, we need to watch that program because everyone's watching it." But the creative rest is very important again like we've been saying with all these rest to be super intentional.
Kevin: Yeah, I think that that's such an important point about intentionality, right? There's nothing wrong with scrolling Instagram. There's nothing wrong with watching YouTube There's nothing wrong with playing video games. It's about setting that as an intentional practice of rest. When you find yourself just scrolling aimlessly through Instagram or you just have the TV on in the background and you're not intentionally using it as a practice of rest, it can be numbing and then you're really not doing anything intentional and not really filling up your tank. You're just numbing yourself from all the exhaustion of the day and it's not gonna have the benefit that's intended. So I think everything in moderation, but also everything with intention, too.
Kathy: Correct. Yes, for sure, and that brings me -- we talk about YouTube Instagram; she mentions another kind of rest. Let's talk about that: the opportunity to downgrade the endless onslaught of sensory input received from electronics, fragrances and background noise. As you mentioned the mindless scrolling this is called sensory rest. We all know we can benefit from unplugging.
Kevin: Yep.
Kathy: What do you think about that?
Kevin: Yeah, for sure. We live in such an over-sensitized world from our cell phones in our pockets our Apple watches on our wrist The TVs that are on, you know 24-7 in our room, the news that goes 24-7, all of the alerts that we're getting. Working in the hospital this is especially true. I talk to the staff often about how you know, you sit at a computer all day documenting, but then you have the IV pump that's beeping, you have the codes that are being called overhead you have your your avaya phone that's ringing with the doctor that needs to put in orders, you hear the helicopter landing you have the ambulances that are sirens are going off down the street. There's just so much sensory overload in the hospital setting -- I think this is true in many workplaces -- and then when you go on your break to take a break, what do you do? You open up your phone and you scroll Instagram. You're there being hit by this blue screen off your phone and no wonder we're feeling so exhausted. We have all of this sensory -- all of our senses being triggered throughout the entire day and then as a break we do more things that are heightening our sensory receptors. So, I think of all of the rest practices, this sensory rest is the one that has been most transformative for me.
Kathy: Right. What she says here is what we really need to do is get back to the minimal -- the basics, not the minimal -- the basics. Let's get back to the basics. What does that mean? That means that we have five senses. They're now completely overloaded 24-7 and so some of the practices related to sensory rest are not just turning down and turning off notifications or putting on screen time on your phones or powering down your phone at night. Those are all excellent, but one of the techniques for sensory rest is to get back in touch with the five senses. For example, one of the suggestions we had this week related to mental rest which goes also to sensory rest is to do a practice called mindful walking, where you just go on a walk and you are gonna use your five senses without devices. Unplug from the headphones or the AirPods and walk quietly thinking about finding one thing you can see, one thing you can touch, one thing you can hear, one thing you can smell --
Kevin: That's really good --
Kathy: And getting back to the basics of what our senses were intended for.
Kevin: Yeah, we talk about decluttering with it as it relates to the senses. We're talking about desensitizing or Like re -regulating ourselves when we get so unregulated by all the senses in the world. And I think there's something to say about the organic senses, the things that come from nature versus the electronic manufacturer. Senses that are triggering us.
Kathy: Absolutely.
Kevin: Our body needs to be regulated to those organic senses. Those are organic sensory output as opposed to how we are typically regulated is by all these manufactured senses.
Kathy: Yes, this is a huge one. This is a big one: technology.
Kevin: Yeah, for sure. I think that leads us perfectly to this next rest practice, and that's spiritual rest. Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith describes spiritual rest as the capacity to experience God in all things and to recline in the knowledge of the Holy. And I would even extend this definition of God to higher power, wherever your meaning comes from, tapping into that and the knowledge of the Holy, the thing that transcends us all. And the thing that sets us apart from all other creation is our ability to be aware of things that are greater than ourselves, to be very meta about things.
And if we're not taking time to tap into that part of us that's spiritual, that spiritual side of us, we are living in survival mode. And so here we see ourselves needing spiritual rest as part of our holistic approach to well-being.
Kathy: Very often when I meet with students I have students say, "I'm looking for significance. I'm looking to make a meaningful contribution to the world. I'm attempting to figure out why I am here." And I think these are all spiritual rest questions as we attempt to connect back to the essence of who we are and taking care of our souls. What does soul care look like? And it's not about a religion. It's about the essence of who we are.
Kevin: Yeah. And I would say if you're listening today and you're like, well, I'm not a faith-filled person. I didn't grow up going to church or I used to go to church, but it's not really my thing anymore. We have to recognize that regardless of our faith background, of our belief system, we are all spiritual beings. And so whatever spirituality looks like for you, we need to build a practice of rest as it relates to our spirituality. And I would even go as far as to say, if you are somebody who's struggling with your spiritual life and you want to grow your spiritual life, but you're hitting a lot of roadblocks, it's possibly that you're exhausted in all the other six areas. And that's the thing that's preventing you from flourishing and blossoming your spiritual life. And so if you wanna grow your spiritual life and you've hit a lot of roadblocks along the way, focus on these other rest practices, the other six.
I assure you, you will begin to see some flourishing in your spiritual life. You'll have the space to start to contemplate the things that are bigger than yourself, to start to tap back into your values and your beliefs once you can declutter some of the other areas. And I'll speak now to those that are faithful people. If you find yourself going to church every single Sunday, you serve your community as part of your faith practice and you are somebody who serves in your church and you're very involved, all of that's really wonderful. But I want you to feel the challenge of asking yourself if those practices of faith, of your spirituality, are giving you rest. Because sometimes those of us that work in full-time ministry need a sabbatical as well.
We need to take a break away from the routine, from the schedule, from all of our commitments to connect with God. So where is your spiritual rest? If your daily practice, your weekly practice is to be serving and to be very involved in your church, what would it look like for you to take a rest from that and to connect with God on a different level?
Kathy: Yes, very, very, very important. Something that we haven't had time for, just like everything else that we're talking about today.
Kevin: Have to carve out the time for it.
Kathy: And finally, the last rest that she describes is something called social rest. Social rest is the wisdom to recognize relationships that revive from ones that exhaust and how to limit exposure to toxic people.
Kevin: I love that she is brave and mentions toxic people as it relates to rest. I struggled at first with this idea of calling out toxic people. We're supposed to be loving and understanding and, you know, love our enemies and all of that. But I think it's, as I've grown in my spirituality, I've recognized that it takes a certain level of faith to have the discernment to recognize who in your life is a toxic person. And what I mean by toxic is that there's somebody that's going to be draining you. If you are not preparing ahead of time for those kinds of interactions with people who are toxic in your life, you're not able to support them. You're not able to serve them and to be present to them. If you are clumping everybody in your life together as the same person and the same interaction, you're not going to be able to meet them where they're at with what the needs that they have that they're presenting to you.
And so in faith, we discern the different kinds of people in our life, the different kinds of relationships that we have, and when we recognize toxic people that we have to interact with because of work or they're in our families, limiting those interactions or being mindful of them as we go into them. We've talked about attentive awareness in the past. Having that pre-attentive awareness is going to be so important to maintain our stores of rest, but also to be present to them, to be able to show up for those people when we have to as well.
Kathy: We have two comments about that. I think it's very crucial what you said as a person of faith. The very famous pair that has written the Boundary series, Cloud and Townsend, have a book called, "Safe People". I think this is key because they address this ongoing issue for people of faith who have a hard time saying, oh, this person is toxic, where we're taught that everybody is good or we should treat everyone fairly.
So that it's an excellent resource. “Safe People”, Cloud and Townsend and look it up. We use it in our community a lot.
Kevin: It's really good.
Kathy: The second thing I would say what I often say when people say, oh, "I have a hard time" is -- especially people of faith. -- again, we're speaking to that group right now. Jesus had very clear boundaries with toxic people. You see this in scripture, even to the point where he does not speak and refuses to give any words to his perpetrators. And we see clear boundaries against the confrontation, but then also giving away his emotional energy to literally not throwing pearls to swine, as he says in scripture.
Kevin: Yeah, that's so good. And what I really like about Dr. Saundra Dalton's definition within this chapter, this type of rest. She talks about toxic people as we're describing, but she also uses this other term. She describes energy vampires. And I love that so much, because I feel like even if the people in your life are not toxic, but they are the people who are mostly taking rather than giving, even that awareness can be really important. So when you're on the way home, on your commute, after a really long, busy day, maybe not call the energy vampire. Maybe you call the energy vampire on the weekend where you're feeling filled and you enjoy the fun that they can be, but maybe they're not the person you call when your energy stores are low, right?
Kathy: I wanna know what the Halloween costume for that looks like!
Kevin: Energy vampire, oh my gosh, I can imagine what that looks like. But I feel like just such an important reminder of these two types of people in our life.
Kathy: Yes, absolutely, very wise words. Because as we're ending on this last one, it's very key. Our surgeon general this year, Vivek Murthy, released a report in May. I don't know if you all are familiar, you heard about this. This is a very significant finding. And basically the report says is that there's an epidemic, and he used the word epidemic of loneliness in our country. And that this is very detrimental, not only to the fabric of our nation, but also to the health of people.
So the studies have shown that people who do not have connection, do not have community, are lacking social rest. And that is so important for us to try to figure out the places where we can be heard, seen, valued, we find belonging, and we find connection.
Kevin: Yeah, that's so important. There is an epidemic of loneliness. I know I have suffered from that at times, even in all the places that I am connected. So I think one big step in well-being and wholeness as it relates to good mental health is all these rest practices.
Kathy: Yes. And so we've talked about the seven rest practices. My question is, "what do we do now? Like, how do we get to the next steps of this?"
Kevin: I think we do an assessment on ourselves. And as we think about these seven rest practices, what's the one that resonates most for you? What's the one area that you feel like you're lacking the most? I would say start there. What works for you as it relates to these rest practices? Yeah, I think that that's true. There will be a link to a little, a quiz that Dr. Smith gives in our podcast links. So go ahead and take that quiz. And then come up with a list of very simple practices that you can do. each week to fill up those tanks. And a little goes a really, really long way is what we're finding with our community as they practice this. So be encouraged that it does take time. It's not an overnight fix, but small but steady wins the race here with the rest.
Kevin: Yeah, and I would even just say to end: find somebody else, a close friend, a trusted ally, who can join you in that rest practice. Sometimes when we have that accountability in that partnership, somebody joining in with us with a particular kind of rest, it makes it that much more enjoyable.
Kathy: So we just want to say thank you so much for joining us this season. We've enjoyed having these conversations and our hope is that it has brought you some more tools for wellness. And we want to end as a gift to you the end of the season, a blessing of rest that will also be kicking off next year's podcast. And Kevin:'s going to read that. So wherever you are today, we want to offer blessings to you.
Kevin: This blessing of rest is from author Kate Bowler:
Oh God, again, I lie here awake, too tired, too restless for sleep to come. How will I ever get through tomorrow? Oh God, bring peace to my mind and body, and blanket me in the heaviness of slumber. Blessed are we still awake in night's loud darkness who say, oh God, help me. You know the state I'm in. My mind is a runaway train and my body It's captive. You know all that troubles me. Take hold of me. Study the racing of my heart. Breathe fresh comfort through the whole of my being. Wrap me in the secure knowledge of your love. Remind me that tomorrow's worries can wait because tonight has enough of its own. Blessed are we who wait in the silence, who remember that darkness is not dark to you. Who pray, oh God, receive me. Gather me. Strengthen me. Sustain me. And free me to tell you everything. Bless our we who listen in the quiet. for you to breathe life into all that is spent and gone, filling mind and soul and body with hope, and the beauty of your peace that passes all understanding gentle as the dawn. Welcome one sweet thought. Follow it until it grows into genuine gratitude. Rest there. Amen.
