Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity

by Saundra Dalton-Smith

Mental rest involves relinquishing the constant stream of thoughts entering your mind quickly and obtaining a sense of cerebral stillness.

Authenticity is living and behaving in a way that is consistent with your core values, desires, strengths, and weaknesses. It’s being real about your current state of affairs. It’s you telling your current truth. It is independent of the external influences of what others think and their power to manipulate your personal response to situations.

What would happen if you paused for a moment, shut your eyes, tightened and released your neck muscles, listened to the sound of nothing, and let your mind quiet down? The world would not end nor would everything in your life come into alignment. Instead, in that moment, you would restore part of the energy pouring out of you, and you would leave that moment better than how you entered it.

well-rested life requires a delicate balance between pruning and growth. Some things must be cut away to make room for what’s to come.

Find security in the knowledge you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Unlock the passion of knowing you are irreplaceable, a treasure beloved of God. This is the soul-deep rest of a purpose-filled life. Because of your acceptance, you are free to achieve, succeed, and do greater works in whatever way that may manifest. Your life ceases being about the magnitude of work done and more about the meaning of the work you are doing.

Fear can cause you to accept a truth that does not exist. It can lead you down a false path and result in poor choices.

“It’s not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.”

And there are times when my diet is not always the best, I skip exercise, I worry unnecessarily, and I fail to give my family the attention they deserve. But I refuse to let those times define me. They are simply moments in a busy life when I fail to choose what is best for me.

Happiness is not connected to an event or a goal, but in being able to notice beauty in the people and situations around you. It’s a desire to show up and pay attention to life with an open heart. It’s a personal choice to notice the ebb and flow of your successes and your failures without holding on to either.