Tag: recharge

"Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

I have always been restless and prone to being busy. I love my work and have for so long confused who I am with what I do that most days I find myself doing it from dawn until late into the night. Consequently, it has taken me years to learn the true value of rest. In this way, I am also a perfect product of a culture that encourages rushing, celebrates the frenzy of the chase and equates resting with laziness. It has taken me decades to understand that rest is not the opposite of effort, rather it is the source, the nourishment, the energetic food for all that we aspire to accomplish.

A relationship burns out when there is no more energy to give. A relationship should have energy, hopefully positive energy, but sometimes the energy runs out. When that occurs the simplest path for people is to go into avoidance mode (leaving the relationship) in order not to trigger troubling emotions: fear of not being loved, of being rejected, of not being enough—or they will fight those same emotions in a desperate attempt to save the marriage.

From the cells in your calf muscles to your brain neurons, the same holds true: you use up energy and then you need to refuel. How? You stop, rest, and nourish yourself.

We don’t push ourselves to workout after running a marathon, and yet we often overlook our need for soul recovery.

Just like the heart, the brain gets fatigued from too much time-on-task. "If you overtax your heart, the next thing you need to do is relax, or you'll die," says Jeff Stibel, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. and author of "Wired for Thought," among other books. "The same thing is true of the brain.