I went to a rest coach because apparently I need coaching in rest
Rest coach almost sounds like an oxymoron.
And some of my friends made me feel like a moron for going to one.
Aren’t coaches there to help you do the difficult, challenging things?
Um, yes, actually.
It turns out for a lot of us (myself included), resting IS the difficult thing. Way more difficult than going going going all the time.
here’s the thing…
What I learned from Ruth, the rest coach, is that there are
7 different types of rest,
which can lead to 7 different types of exhaustion, overwhelm, and burn out.
Ruth with the worksheets and books from our session. It may appear to be more work but they’re just resources for me to turn to in the future, to avoid burn out by nipping in the bud the signs of this modern predicament.
It all made a lot of sense and I found it super helpful. But when I told a few friends about it, they laughed!
“A rest coach?! Are you mad? You paid for that? If you need rest, then just rest!”
But what is rest?
If you feel exhausted, and like no matter how many hours you spend on the sofa scrolling on your phone or binging a TV show, the energy you once had is nowhere to be found…
Or if you go to bed at night feeling totally spent, like you could sleep for a day, only to toss and turn with your mind brainstorming solutions to problems that belong to the daytime…
Or you feel like butter scraped over too much bread…
Then just “switching off” in front of a screen ain’t gonna cut it.
Because most of the time when we’re drained like that, the physical exhaustion is just the beginning.
These are 7 areas of your life where you can become depleted if you don’t give yourself the necessary space and time to rejuvenate and recover:
physical
mental
emotional
spiritual
social
creative
sensory
What was most helpful for me was to go through these types of rest and identifying the “buds” of exhaustion in each area; the first signs that I’m beginning to get overwhelmed. This way, I can nip those buds, instead of letting them grow into a triffids, and thus burning out.
There’s a lot more to what a rest coach like Ruth can offer than what I’ve included in this short blog. I highly recommend a session with Ruth if you’re feeling burnt out, or if you always seem to end up with too much on your plate.
Ruth’s website is www.reflectandrefocus.com
And for the record, I paid full price for Ruth’s session, and she didn’t ask me to write this! I just really wanted to share :-)
book recommendation
It’s pretty hefty with the science, so for me that means audiobook all the way. Click to see the options!