Give Your Doer Muscles a Rest

~A suggestion from Cheryl Richardson

“Many of us have been running a marathon for most of our lives and at some point, we need to stop and give our legs a rest. A long rest.” – Cheryl Richardson

from me:

At the beginning of 2024, a series of a few events forced me (and yes, I mean I was forced) to take a breath, examine my schedule, my thoughts, feelings, and my emotional and physical state.

The message that came through loud and clear was: “Stop. Take a break.” I felt like I had physically run into a brick wall.

Events from my childhood, and others in my adulthood, which I had pushed down and pushed aside, got together and came knock-knock-knocking at my door. "It's time", they said. They needed attention.

Like many of you, I’m a do-er. One of my favorite sayings used to be “I’d rather wear out than rust out”. But in that explosive moment earlier this past year, wearing out or rusting out was not what was happening. It was a far deeper sense of exhaustion, of being completely turned upside down and inside out, as I desperately tried to cling to my life and my schedule like a life preserver. I think I thought, if I just keep on going as usual, everything else would shake itself out.

Come to find out, that’s not necessarily true. When your 3 bodies - physical, emotional and spiritual - all line up together, linking arms, shouting the same loud message, it’s best if you listen.

I decided to take 3 months off to ‘right’ myself and then, I thought, I’d get back to it. The decision to take an entire 3 months off was revolutionary and extremely uncomfortable for me. I was filled with the deep sense I was failing people, letting them down. I had spent my life trying to be the person that was count-on-able. Plus, you can go back and read the sentence that includes “I’m a do-er”.

3 months turned into 4, then into 5... as the months stretched on, I experimented in little ways like adding a few things back into my schedule, and each time, those 3 bodies (that we all have), linked arms again and refused to be silenced. "Not yet".

If I am truthful, I felt relief.

As the year wore on, I decided to give it a name (because...why not?) – “My Year of Healing”. And what a crazy, tumultuous, challenging, self-examining, sometimes painful, year it has been!

In Japanese culture there is a concept called Chinmoku, which translates directly to "silence" and represents a deep cultural value where silence is seen as a gateway to inner peace and true insight. In this past year, I practiced a LOT of Chinmoku!

I followed Cheryl Richardson’s advice: “Give your “do-er” muscles a rest and start building your “be-er” muscles.” Besides accessing western medicine, I dove into all of the 8 Limbs of Yoga, and also pulled out my yogic toolbox, and utilized many of the "tools" there that I have learned work for me.

As would be expected in any new adventure, I was constantly challenged. I made mistakes - many of them - and I had some successes. As time went on, I had more successes than mistakes. I think that’s what growth looks like.

According to Thich Nhat Hanh, “Calming allows us to rest, and resting is a precondition for healing. When animals in the forest get wounded, they find a place to lie down, and they rest completely for many days. They don't think about food or anything else. They just rest, and they get the healing they need."

This has been my path for the last bunch of months. I think a new me is emerging from this, but I'm not quite sure what that will look like, or what will be the life, that this new me, will create. Not yet anyway. Uncertainty sucks.

It feels a bit scary to share this with all of you. It feels like I'm doing ‘personal’ publicly! But I share my journey in case it helps even one person. Maybe youjust need permission to rest.

Approaching this new year, I've replaced "I'd rather wear out than rust out" with "This time...This place...This moment" (one of my favorite ways to come to the mat), and I've entered 2025 with more optimism and much more peace.

I wish the exact same for you.❤️

If you’d like to read Cheryl’s entire letter about giving our doer muscles a rest, click HERE.