The Truth About My Rest Practice

An honest look at how I come back to rest, and what I’m practicing right now.

As someone who teaches, coaches, and writes about power of rest, I want to be honest: I still lose my way sometimes. I forget what I know. I slip into old habits. I resist. I push past my limits. And then, like so many of us, I have to find my way back.

For weeks I’ve been burning the candle at both ends, and today my body let me know I’d pushed too far. I woke up feeling bone tired and ragged around the edges. As I prepare to lead a rest retreat in a few weeks, the irony isn’t lost on me: I’m being asked to live what I teach.

When you care deeply about your work, it’s easy to pour yourself into it. As I prepare for this retreat it’s been fun to stay up tweaking this detail or to spend weekend time planning. But working on something every day without real breaks starts to wear you down.

Add to that the opportunity to do the sacred and meaningful work of holding space for a group of incredible women, and my care can tip into perfectionism.

As I get closer to the date I can feel the internal pressure starting to rise. Suddenly there’s urgency and anxiety, self-doubt and that familiar voice that says: If I just fill every moment with productivity, I’ll make sure everything goes perfectly.

That’s when I know it’s time to pause.
To soften.
To practice what I teach.

And to remember that yes, preparation is important. But the most precious thing we can offer each other is not perfection, it’s grounded presence.

So over the next week I’m coming back home to my practice.

• Instead of staying up late, I’m going to bed early.

• I’ll cook myself nourishing food for the days ahead.

• I’ll begin and end each day with a quiet moment outside.

• Instead of telling myself I don’t have time to work out I’ll work from a coffee shop near the gym so movement stays part of my rhythm.

• When I feel stuck on a piece of work, that’ll be my cue to pause, not push. To rest instead of trying to grind through.

I’ll root into the practices that let my nervous system exhale.

Because I’ve learned that how I prepare matters just as much as what I prepare.
And I’ve led enough retreats to know it’s not the perfect plan that creates transformation. Its presence. Spaciousness. And it’s having the capacity to meet and offer what is being asked for in any given moment.

And I can only offer that when I’ve made space to care for myself, too.

This week, as the season shifts, may we give ourselves permission to:

Move more slowly.

Care deeply without depleting ourselves.

Trust the groundwork we've already laid.

And tend to ourselves as generously as we tend to our work and those we love.

💫 Rest Practice Of the Week: Choose presence over perfection.
This week, notice where preparing and planning might be edging into exhaustion. This might be prepping for a meeting, planning something special, or caring for loved ones. Pause and ask yourself:

What would it look like to offer presence instead of perfection?

How might I approach this differently if I trusted that less could be more?

And how can I take care of myself in the process?

📣 I’d love to hear from you: As we move into the Equinox, where in your life are you feeling called to slow down? And what’s one small ritual you might try to remind yourself that whatever you’ve done today is enough?

With you in the practice,

Milicent

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