Edison Rex: guest post

Good morning! I'm so happy to share with you today a guest post by Audrey Hyvonen of Hinky Pinkie. A few weeks ago I wrote a post about my morning ritual, which includes writing and rewarding myself with a gold star. Audrey responded with a comment that intrigued me:

A star for resting! This blew my mind. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. Knowing I'd be a total fraud if I tried to write about rewarding myself for rest (which is different than rewarding myself with rest), I asked Audrey to sponsor the blog by writing a guest post on the subject. Which, kindly, she did.

Here it is:

SHINY STICKY STARS

Maeg writes about her morning ritual and practice, as a way of setting routine for creativity and for creating rhythm in one's life. I responded to one of her notes about stars, describing my own practice of marking my physical practice of workouts and rest days with little sticky stars. She asked me to elaborate on the recognized rest part and for many days, I have had that near the top of my to-do list.

In the meantime, our region of the world was slammed with a mighty storm. The slowed pace that ensued forced some rest of many kinds, especially as we lost power in our house for four nights so bedtimes were understandably early. However, the physical rest that came with the dark evenings was offset by the physical work of shivering and playing pioneer.

The mental and social rest resulting from being disconnected from phone and internet was just enough to meet the demands of the high level of perkiness required to engage a flow of optimism in my children in the midst of schedule changes, frigid temperatures and the disappointments around missed holidays.

I found myself doing more childcare, dishes, sweeping, jumping and game playing in the past restful week than I'd done in two months! My predicted emotional breakdown took three full days to build to a climax, and the tension broke with a full flood of tears and exasperation. These had not been days charted with physical workouts balanced with rest and marked with shiny stars. They were the kinds of days you cross off with a thick blackmarker and the “X” shape, and then you turn the calendar to the next month and don't look back.

I retreated to my in-laws home, where rest is always promised. This is a place where I can wake early, wash my face and then rush to the paper and pen as the thoughts I've collected can finally flood. (It reminded me a bit of Maeg's dreamy morning ritual practice of free writing and made me think perhaps I should se tan alarm clock that wakes no one but me.) As promised, on this little trip away, my fingers warmed, my defenses relaxed and my ideas coalesced nearer to something worth sharing.

Here are the thoughts I gathered:

Here in this world, we want success, to be liked, to make a mark and to help others. We sometimes say yes to everyone and to everything because there's so much to say “Yes!” to.

Aside from a personal practice of also saying, “No!” in order to be in control of my own time and how I spend it, balancing this abundance of goodness with restorative time is the only way I've found to make it sustainable. I'm not as good at the balancing yet as I'd like to be, it's nowhere near automatic. I still need a plan.

What I've found is that if I plan my work to meter out intentional scheduled restorative time, and then work my plan- I come much closer to my personal goals.

It helps with kin-work, housework, homework and creative work. It works best for me for physical workouts, but those are the things I need the most motivation around.The system I use to measure, schedule and chart my intentions varies but I always focus on acknowledging and celebrating the accomplishments.

Little stars or other shiny stickers work really well for me, as does crossing off items on my hand-jotted lists. With a focus on baby steps and praise, you can keep moving. The direction is often irrelevant. It's the balance hidden in movement that you're after. The trick is, you need to include the restorative rest items on the list to then get the pleasure of crossing them off!

Examples of the things I need to include are:

read for pleasure while the kids read
make and drink tea
watch birds
lay in the hammock and do nothing for ten minutes (it took me a whole summer to get this off the list the first time I tried it!)

What are some of the things you'd like to add to your menu of rest? What do your shiny stars or stickers look like?

By Audrey “Busy Bee” Hyvonen, who in high school was comically drawn, slouched down in an arm chair, resting, with a cool drink in one hand, and labeled, “Things that will NEVER happen unless the world is coming to an end.”