14 Ways to Learn the Secret to Happiness
7th Way: Rest
If you are a mother, my hope is your children reminded you how special you are to them yesterday. I know Mary Beth thinks her children did an exceptional job with this. The other important gift she received yesterday was the gift of Rest. As a mother of four and a full-time graduate student, she certainly needed both.
Sometimes we need the time to unwind, decompress, or to put it simply, just “to chill.” Life comes at all o
f us hard and fast. Time, as do the days on the calendar, keeps going forward at its own natural pace, which is not always the pace we would choose. Fatigue, stress and exhaustion may begin to settle in on us faster than we may think, or notice. The best remedy for this is indeed rest.
Allow yourself the time, and the grace, to rest. Use this time to take a mental inventory of your life – consider what’s working and what’s not. After all, you can’t see the leaves on the tress when you are traveling 70 miles per hour. No matter what your life experience or mental blueprint may suggest, resting is an essential strategy for finding, and sometimes regaining, your level of happiness. Rest is also an important factor for reconnecting with what’s truly important to you because sometimes we can confuse frantic activity with accomplishment.
Mary Beth received cards and hugs from her children yesterday. Brandon, Caitlin, Andrew and Emily reminded her how lucky there are to have her in their lives. Mary Beth, in turn, took a day for herself, a day for rest. As a result, I think she is going to have a great week.