Rest

Years ago, a three-treasures herbalist told me that the way to recover is to ... recover. That what we tend to call "taking it easy" isn't real rest, and it certainly isn't recovery: We don't go in to work, we work at home, but we keep working; or we do some of our work instead of all of it (possibly doing things badly and thus creating more work for later, maybe also accruing additional guilt/negativity in the process); in the modern "wired" era, we just take a "few minutes" to check our work e-mail, just to see how things are going...

It goes on, in ever so many ways. What doesn't go on is healing.

So, he told me, you want to rest? Then rest.

Seems obvious, doesn't it?

So when was the last time you really rested? Really?

I thought so. About the same time as I did, probably.

Over the last month or two, I've taken a couple of days really, really off. Did nothing. Didn't do some-but-not-all of my work and mislabeled it as "taking it easy." Actually, I barely got out of bed.

Danged if I didn't feel better the next day. Got more real work done the next day than I had over several days previously.

Strange, isn't it?

So on my doctor's orders, I'm taking next week off. Really off. Really, really off. And really, really resting.

It's been a long time since I've done that. Wonder what that'll be like.