The Art of Doing Nothing

Two summers ago I went to the beach with a few of my friends. I was working my 9-5 job, the front desk at a yoga studio and teaching 3 yoga classes a week.

I was hustling for so many things at once: a promotion at my office job, being a good yoga teacher for my students, extra money in my savings account. I told myself I barely had any time or emotional space for my own practice, let alone to take a nap or do anything just for fun. I was working hard, and I was tired. 

When I finally made it to the beach that summer I intended to read a book, listen to podcasts, and take multiple walks . Instead I did absolutely nothing.

For 3 days in a row, I propped myself up in my pink beach chair and stared at the ocean. I noticed a clump of seaweed next to me. I dozed off. When I took a swim, I felt the water supporting me and the sun shining on my face. I heard a splash in the distance and saw a family of dolphins diving in the waves. One afternoon, we watched a storm roll in and rain poured onto the sand. As the storm passed, the dark clouds were behind us and there were clear skies over the horizon.

A rainbow took over the entire sky. I was so happy and grateful that I gave myself the gift of doing nothing, so I could notice how beautiful everything in my life was, right there in front of me. 

Waking Up

That trip knocked the sense back into me. I felt refreshed. I knew I had to take real steps toward committing to one thing, to stop chasing a promotion I was never going to get, to stop trying so hard to be a good yoga teacher and just practice.

I had to intentionally create the time in my day to rest and be exactly who I was that day. Not work toward who I hoped to be, not reflect on the mistakes I made but a few moments every day to notice who I am.  To notice the little things in my daily life that I was too busy to appreciate, and stop waiting until I was at the beach to slow down and see the rainbow.

I began to see things more clearly and give myself permission to do nothing – to take my rest as seriously as my hustle. “Check me out,” I thought, “I have this whole rest thing figured out.”

Fast forward 3 months and again I found myself on an Emerald Coast beach, this time for a yoga retreat that I was very much looking forward to. I woke up in the middle of the night on the way there, lying in a hotel room in Birmingham, with the distinct pain in my throat of a cold coming on. I blamed it on the bad hotel air circulation, and ignored the voice that said “you’re getting sick and need to take it easy.” All I wanted to do was practice yoga at the beach! I would power through this impending sickness. 

And power through I did. I made it to every practice and continued to ignore the mounting pain in my chest. This cold was clearly going to be a doozy but I refused to listen to my body. I barely made the 7-hour drive home before totally crashing and nursing a chest cold that lasted more than a week. My body forced me into rest.

It’s easy to fall back into the grind culture and burn the candle at both ends, even when it’s things you want to be doing. I wanted to practice and not nap all weekend! My practice was one of the things I committed to the last time I was at the beach. But that’s not what my body needed and “powering through” caused me more harm than good. 

A Lesson Learned

Almost exactly a year after that initial rainbow-filled beach trip, I was standing on a landing in Thailand looking out over the trees and into the sea. I was quite literally resting on my way up the 500 stairs I climbed every morning for breakfast. I’m still not perfect at my rest game but I practice it every day and I’m getting better. “You go on ahead, I’m going to stand here and rest for a minute.”

Through the haze of my jetlag, I stood on that landing and took a few deep breaths and watched the sunlight twinkle on the water and listened to Thai birds I’ve never heard. I soaked up that fact that somehow, miraculously, I had made it here and I wasn’t about to run up the stairs and miss it. 

I did end up taking a big leap and quit the job that was slowly draining the life out of me and started teaching and working for a yoga studio full-time.

It was scary, but in the moments I had given myself to be still and think about what I really wanted, my mind always wandered back to the life I was currently creating for myself. The big, capital-G #GOALS I was working toward didn’t magically disappear because of the one day I decided to sit on the beach for 8 hours on end, the one time I took a nap, the one week I got subs for my yoga classes and mainlined cold medicine.

In fact, the times I spent “doing nothing” helped create the space I needed to listen to my intuition and set my intention on something big.

The hustle doesn’t mean shit if you’re too tired and burned out to enjoy it. 

Allow For Space

Remember to give yourself the space to daydream, to heal. The space to listen to your own voice – not a podcast telling what to manifest, a mediation app telling you what to think, other people telling you how to feel, or the social media apps we use to fill the silence in our days.

Of course it’s more than ok to be inspired by these things but don’t forget that you are worthy of stillness. Ease. Daydreams.

You don’t have to fill every moment of everyday with work and inspiration and movement.  YOUR voice matters. You are entitled to lay down when everyone around you is doing full wheel pose. You’re allowed to mess up, take a nap, and try again. You deserve to take a nap.

Banksy said, “when you’re tired, learn to rest, not quit.” The art of doing nothing and the practice of rest are things we must cultivate for ourselves.

What a gift to learn to rest.