Burnout Cure: 5 Secrets to Rest & Recharge

Mrs. Martin, she was my grade 2 teacher, and she said I couldn’t keep any rhythm to save my life.

She’d be standing there in that red pleated dress of hers, tapping glossy black patent leather pumps:

“For there to be rhythm — there has to be rests. You’ve got to listen know where the rests come,” and she tried to show my little grade 2 self in my scuffed up Mary Janes and green polyester pants, how to clap it out.

Beat, beat — rest. Beat, beat — rest. 

But I’ll just straight up confess that I never quite got the hang of the rhythm of music and moves, and I am far older now than Mrs. Martin was then — but when I saw Mrs. Martin the other week in the produce section of Zehrs grocery, checking out the firmness of the tomatoes, I wished I’d been brave enough to tell her what I kinda get now:

Life beats you down unless you get the rhythm of the rests. 

Wished I’d slipped up beside Mrs. Martin and helped her pick out the best tomatoes and told her how I’m still a slow learner, still learning how to still, so I hear the music in rhythm of things — still realizing:

Rest is a rhythm

you have to keep

so your soul can breathe

all the notes your life was made to sing.

Because …

Iftherearenospacesandpausesofrest —-

life loses its meaning.

But?  If we make S P A C E  in the middle of the PACE of things we find P E A C E.

It’s true: Work has its own rhythm — a steady pace of 30 minute work session, 60 minutes, 90 minutes.

And then? After the work beats — there are rest beats.  There are Rest Rhythms — islands of 10, 15, 20 minutes — to sit in a hammock, a bit of time suspended in space, close your eyes, listen to the wind make a song of its own through chimes, pen something that speaks the language of your soul, breathe long and deep and be more about being — and less about doing.

I’d tell Mrs. Martin that I am daily working on these:

5 Secrets to DAILY Master the Art of Rest & Recharge

1. Daily Glory Soak: Sit outside and stare at the sky.

“If the whole earth is full of His glory, maybe our souls need a daily ‘glory soak.’”

Research indicates that if you make space every day to step into green space you significantly decrease your levels of cortisol — which determines your levels of stress.

So there is this rest rhythm — even 5 minutes in the middle of the day to: Look up into the limbs of a tree and stretch out your own arms and breathe in deep. The Japanese call it “forest bathing.”

And yet maybe —

If the whole earth is full of His glory, maybe our souls need a daily “glory soak.”

Our Grace Case Hammock Artisan: Mirna Hernández of Oyanca is a hammock producer from Masaya, the folklore capital of Nicaragua. She started in 1985 and now employs 25 artisans to execute each step of the hammock making process. The artisans are bringing you an experience of soft comfort and elegance, thanks to generations of traditional weaving by gifted Nicaraguan hands. The work of these hammocks helps to build a sustainable living for artisans and to maintain a traditional handcraft which is part of the Nicaraguan identity and pride.

Natural cotton hammock chair with Bohemian fringes and wooden cross bar. Reinforced hanging loop. Can hold up to 250lbs.

Bamboo and aluminum wind chime with a chevron design. Some aluminum tubes and portions of bamboo are stained dark brown for contrast. Eleven aluminum tubes produce varying tones.
Our Grace Case Windchime Artisan: The wind chime was made by a family enterprise lead by the couple, Daniel and Lourdes Rafon. Lourdes learned to make wind chimes through her cousin-in-law, and decided to begin a wind chime business with her husband in 1996, one year after they married. They now maintain a small number of workers whom they treat as part of their family.
Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.

2. Daily Gratitude List:

It been a habit of more than a decade for me and it has profoundly transformed my life in every way: Curl up with your journal and write down just three things every day that you’re grateful for you and you increase your happiness by 25% — for free!

“Joyfulness is a function of how we see,  and how we see is a function of how we look at everything with gratefulness.”

“Joyfulness is a function of how we see,  and how we see is a function of how we look at everything with gratefulness.” One Thousand Gifts

Take time to give thanks to God — and you give your soul what it wants most: Joy in God.

3. Daily Good Tunes:

I’m telling you: Good days need a good playlist.

Music reduces the stress hormone cortisol, strengthens one’s immune system, and decreases one’s sense of pain. Music is free medicine and soundtracks can help keep your soul on track.

Feel the rest between the beats, and your heartbeat gets the rest it needs.

Good tunes, good times.

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Our Grace Case  Journal Artisan: A few years ago, Lucy (not her real name) took my hand and asked me to come with her. She wanted to show me something.We walked the short block to her house. It was up on stilts and the stairs were questionable as to their capacity to hold me. But she beckoned me follow and I did. We ducked behind the rusty sheet of metal that acted as a door kept closed by the padlock on that moved from the outside during the day to inside at night. She wanted to show me the holes in the floor and how the rats have now eaten themselves a pathway into their space. He despair was over the way that they have now chewed into the thin mattress where her kids sleep. Full of shame and anger and overwhelming feelings of hopelessness she showed me. Not because she wanted pity. But because she wanted more work. More opportunities to provide for her family. That is what your purchase of these pro ducts does. It provides more work. More ways for families to provide for themselves and to build their kids a secure place to sleep at night. Today “Lucy” is building her 2nd solid block house. The first one she now rents to another family and this one she and her husband are building for themselves. Still so modest, but secure and clean. Lucy took in her own sister’s kids a few years ago when her sister died in childbirth. They are raising a family of five. Never doubt the impact of your hard work!
Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.

Goat leather. Engraving “Grace Is Always Coming to Meet You”. Lined paper.
Our Grace Case Journal Artisans: “With endless need and limited resources, we partner with and invest in individuals and communities who actively seek to improve their current circumstances. Our partners are not passive recipients of charity, they are the primary change agent of their future. We are a catalyst for that change.”
100% oil tanned leather. Designed to hold a pair of headphones or a charging cable. Antiqued brass snap closure.

4. Daily Givenness:

It’s a true thing: Taking the time for intentional acts of givenness, instead of merely the one-off random acts kindness — is how to intentionally let your soul exhale.

Research indicates that living given makes you happier than getting more.

“The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.”

Intentionally give it forward in one way every day, and you decreases stress and strengthen mental health.

“The best way to de-stress it to daily bless.” The Broken Way

Live given, be the GIFT and give it forward today: Speak words that make someone stronger, give someone a coffee, choose Fairtrade and live a fair and good story and give someone the gift of empowering hope.

Live given with your life, live given to the wind of His spirit and rest in the music He makes through your life.

5.  Daily God Meditation:

Turns out: A recent study indicates that Bible readers are less stressed than the general population, which is what His Word promises: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you“ (Isaiah 26:3).

Meditate on a verse from His Word all day and you rest in the rest of God.

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100% of all profits from The Grace Case fully funds Mercy House’s transition home in Kenya for young mothers and their infants, young women who were victims of modern day slavery, oppression and poverty, who are now experiencing the redemptive dignity of work and vocation, and the responsibility and joy of learning to provide for their own child.

Nothing says beauty quite the simplicity of grace. Join us in the #FAIRTRADE subscription Grace Case story.

 

I’m thinking Mrs. Martin was one of those who already knew it in her bones:

We are not human doings

working at looking supernatural,

but spiritual beings

doing what is humanly possible

and looking to Christ to do the supernatural.

“Be still and know God — and not forget who you are.”

We are not human doings working to make ourselves spiritually acceptable. We are spiritual beings resting in Christ to do what is humanly impossible.

And the music can come even now, and you can feel the expanse of it right within you, the way twilight seems to exhale at the end of the work: A soul doesn’t work without a Sabbath.

Be still

and know God —

to not forget who you are.

There’s a rhythm that can save your life.

 

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