Training Days 25, 26, 27, 28 & 29 of 71: Rest

I returned from New York Sunday night after a long 10 days of slogging around the city. It was very good to see friends and family but it was also so exhausting. Even if my knee were feeling good, I don't know if I would have been able to continue my training there. Between the late night glasses of wine, long subway rides, and early morning construction I barely had the energy to keep up with my social engagements. I didn't even take one yoga class the whole time I was there. And throughout days 25, 26, 27, and 28 of training my running shoes were left untouched in an old plastic Gap bag in a corner of the closet.

The good news is that my knee is completely healed and this morning when I took off down Orange Street in the bright sunshine for my scheduled three miles I was fully invigorated. I didn't even bother tempering my speed. It felt so good to be running that I went as fast as I wanted, which was much faster than my usual plod. So many things have happened over the last week that it is hard to choose which topic to write about, but I think the one pulling at me most is just this idea of allowing yourself to stop.

Life as most of us live it is so very tiring. In order to keep striving toward our goals, the goals that will make our life "better" or more "secure", we drive ourselves forward with little room for rest. We feel that we must make each moment more productive than the last. We must check more and more things off the to-do list. However, this hyper-productivity is actually quite taxing on the body and ultimately undermines the end goal. A balanced yoga practice includes both energetic/heat-building/strengthening asanas and also relaxing/releasing/restful poses. If you do not include restful practices, the body cannot recuperate and instead of getting stronger and stronger, it starts to break down. Quite often this is when injury happens. Then of course, if you continue to push through the injury, it only gets worse and can even become chronic.

So I guess my main thought here is that we must take the time in our daily lives to consciously rest from the constant activity. We must discipline ourselves to slow down just as we discipline ourselves to do our work. We have to create the space to just be. By doing so we allow our internal organs and immune system to function better, we allow our muscles to heal and become stronger, we allow our minds to stop clinging and really experience the world around us. We become more compassionate and understanding. And we become more efficient when we do return to the work of life. I don't think that stopping and resting is a luxury, I think it is a necessity. I don't think it is an ideal, I think it is each of our responsibility to ourselves and to the world at large. If we cannot find balance and equilibrium within, how can we ever expect it to come to be on this rapidly changing planet?

Hyper-productivity has become an epidemic in our culture. I hope for you and for myself to find a little space to breathe in coming days - some time to get absolutely nothing done. I'm grateful to my knee for giving my whole body a good excuse to rest. It made getting back out there so much more enjoyable this bright sunny morning.