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In this day and age, our body, mind, and soul needs the kind of rest that is free from the mindset of over performing, free from keeping up with the façades presented online, free from overall feelings of inadequacy inspired by our inability to commit to the ideals of others. We need the kind of rest that is born in the present and breeds satisfaction; the kind that multiplies our joy and takes us out of the competition.

Today we are talking about the importance of rest for the body, the mind, and the soul, because rest in all three of these areas is vital to the process of coming back from flat.

So often in this day and age people are on a mission to do more and be more. Like the busier we are, the more important we feel; like the more productive we are, the more valuable we seem. We run more errands, do more exercises, accumulate more things. Do and get, do and get.

On top of all of this, many of us are striving to compete with the façades people present online. How many times have we been left with our mouths, literally, open when a couple who appears online to have the perfect life and relationship split up? Meanwhile, we’re over here exhausting ourselves trying to create some semblance of a life that matches up to their magical online image? How defeating is this? To feel like other people can attain this level of so-called happiness but it is unachievable for us?

There is all of this, and then there’s the Pinterest worthy birthday parties for our kids, and the travel magazine worthy vacations and photographs we must take. There is the rescuing of a dog versus the buying of one, and the growing of our own food, as well as the composting of it.

I don’t know about you, but I have never felt so guilty to use a paper towel in my life!

What would happen if we just stopped the hamster wheel?

What would happen if we took a second to acknowledge that we can be some of these things, but that we are not expected to be ALL of these things? We can’t put our energy into EVERYTHING, we need to establish OUR personal thing.

What would happen if we unsubscribed to the overperforming mindset and focused on protecting our body, mind, and soul?

I think I know what happens when we try to stop. We feel guilty, like we’re a bad person, like we’re even letting our generation down.

And, guilt is so huge. Guilt causes us to feel restless and it steals us of our peace. It steals us of our ability to be able to just exist in the present moment, and where are we if we’re not in the present moment?

Come down a rabbit hole with me for a minute. If we are not living right now in this present moment, then we are either living in the past or we are living in the future. Let’s dive deeper on this. A Brazilian motivational speaker by the name Junia Bretas suggests that if our mind is focused on the past, we are living with regret and depression, and if our mind is focused on the future, we are living with worry and anxiety.

In the spirit of helping us to truly rest our body, mind, and spirit, let’s walk through this together. What are we thinking about from the past? Maybe a relationship that ended? Maybe words we’ve spoken that we can’t take back? Maybe a parenting decision? Maybe a job we left? A home we sold or never purchased?

How does it make us feel to focus on these regrets? Does it bring us down? Make us sad? Prevent us from moving forward because we don’t want to feel like this again? But, if this is something that makes us feel so horrible, why are we living in it? Why are we staying there? Why are we wearing our mind out daily with these regrets?

On the other hand, what is it we worry about for the future? Do we fear never finding love? Do we fear losing our job? Do we fear getting a disease? Do we fear death? No wonder why our body is not resting, we are too filled with anxiety.

Here are some ideas I would like you to put into your toolbox.

First, 99% of what we worry about never occurs. (Test that. Think about the last ten, or more, things you worried about. Did they happen?)

Second, our only reality is the present, and all we can control is this very moment.

And third, we can train our brains to live in the present, this is in our control.

A simple way to get started living in the present right this second is to be grateful. (Example: I am grateful for this gorgeous day, this warm cup of coffee, and the puppy snuggled on my lap.) Nothing else matters in this moment of appreciation.

Try this and pay attention as the energy inside your body changes. You will feel your body fill with positive energy and THAT is what we want more of. So often we discount the importance of this feeling. But it’s important because it is joy and positivity, and if you’ve ever heard of the law of attraction, then you know that what we put out into the world comes back to us multiplied. Put joy and positivity out into the world, let THAT be what comes back, instead of regret or anxiety.

One final thought before we end our time together today: Do you remember back in your childhood how hard it was to function the day after a sleepover or when you spent half the night on the phone with a friend? I don’t know about you, by I was miserable and I couldn’t function. What if we have gotten so used to feeling this way, so used to functioning at half-capacity?

What if we are functioning at half-capacity while trying to create a life that’s based on someone else’s half-truth?

Instead, what if we slowed life down, took time to discover who we are and what’s important to us and our family, and just lived that way? What if we were confident in those decisions? What if we were satisfied with our life choices?

I can only share with you my specific experience in what I did to get my head and heart back in the game after losing site of my passion. I can only say that I made a decision to make serious change in my life. I barred excuses, I took responsibility, and I held myself accountable.

What we at Motivate Me! have always tried to do for our audience is share the experiences of others in order to give you tools to make change in your own life. Each of us has a choice. We can sit back and negate why something would work for someone else and not ourselves, or we can look at what worked for someone else and massage it into a form that will work for us.

The choice is ours.

I am going to leave you with some truth talk from me to you: If we don’t just stop, just rest, just be introspective, just figure out our unique perspective on life and create our family and our world around it, we will just continue to mimic others and we will never find the kind of peace that lives in the present. The kind of peace that brings with it true satisfaction and happiness. We each deserve this, we all do, and what easier way to start than with rest?

I give you permission to rest.

Remember, you Motivate Me!