Give it a Break

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Have you ever had a situation where your phone freezes up and you can’t get it to do anything? You drag your fingers across the screen to no avail, so you have to just restart it and hope that after it reboots it works again. Your brain is just like that phone and we often treat it the same. When our bodies cry out for rest, we sit down, we sleep, we eat. Maybe not exactly when we should, but eventually we answer the call. Not with our minds, though. We tend to let our brains go on overdrive because we’re used to them handling more and never turning off, just like our phones. We never really turn off our phones and let them rest. Instead, we turn off the ringer, mute a chat, etc… but despite not getting the regular reboot it deserves, the phone just keeps on working. And so do our minds. But just like our phones freeze up and stop production, our brains do that when Stress reminds us of all the pressures we’ve put on ourselves.

I start each week with a to-do-list. Sometimes that list lasts me the entire week because it’s so long, or it gets broken into smaller lists for each day. Last Monday, my list had 25 things on it. Yup, you read that correctly, 25. And each day I added 5 more things to it, just based on what came across my desk. By the end of the week, the list wasn’t complete and I was needed by the many people calling and texting me to do things. But I was still getting it done. My eyes were tired from staring at the computer screen. My back was achy from the demands of upright posture when sitting at my desk. Let’s not forget about all the social distancing I’ve been doing which means there’s no one else in the house to help with anything. And my brain? Don’t ask me what day it was because I promise I had to check a calendar or I would have told you wrong. Burn out was approaching and I could feel it. Not because anything was too hard, or I didn’t want to do it, but because after the 45th thing was added to the list of things to do, my brain was screaming at me for a chance not to THINK.

God’s plan for us does not include a life of no rest. His words to us are “come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) He invites us to give our Stressors to Him and to just take a break from time to time. He is the keeper of the entire universe, can’t He handle our little problems compared to all of that? And since He can, and He’s saying He will, why do we have such a hard time letting Him? Because Stress makes you feel like the walls are caving in and when the walls start to crumble, self defense says put your hands out to catch it and try to put it back together. We have to combat that thought of Stress with one of Peace. And God has the peace that passes all understanding.

Our brains deserve a reboot from time to time to just do nothing. To not focus on the stressors of life, but to just be present. Mindfulness activities are great for that. Just close your eyes, breathe, and be in the moment. Let your mind fill with the little sounds, smells, and touches around you. Force yourself to focus on what you can see, hear, tast, smell and push down any follow ups that may take your mind elsewhere. Shut down. Refresh. Restart. Give it 5 minutes, or 8, or up to an hour if you can (that is HARD, believe me. I’m just now able to attempt 20 minutes and I have to force my mind back to the yoga mat) but once you’ve done it and done it right? There’s a freedom there that I can’t describe. Stress is relieved.

Yesterday, I slept in. What does that mean? It means I didn’t get up at 8:00 like I normally do, I got up at 10:00 instead. I did an extra yoga workout instead of just my normal one. I chopped veggies and put dinner in the crockpot. And then I sat down for a couple episodes of one of my favorite sitcoms. I video chatted with my girls and listened to my niece beg us all for attention. My to do list sat in the other room waiting for me, and I even sat down to write this a little later than I originally planned, but that’s ok. Because I earned my rest and I deserved to take it. The world didn’t explode and neither did I.