Rest & Work Refuel Your Soul

In this episode, listen in on one of my recorded client sessions from my summer series “Fill Your Soul with Sunshine”  about the value of rest, joy and work, and putting these three ideas in THAT order. 

So many of us think rest and fun can only be after all the work is done.  But as our work is never done, it’s critical to incorporate rest and joyful activity throughout and even BEFORE work. 

All three are important, equally important, but need to be in that order. We need to rest until we're no longer tired, fill our own soul with sunshine, with the things that bring us joy, and fill us with energy, and then go and do our purpose filled work. 

Main Points:

• Consider that rest is not laziness—it is a game-changer for your soul and your productivity
• Use simple tools to reclaim your aligned energy—every day,  not just when you’ve reached burnout or once a year on a vacation.
• Choose stillness & silence rituals you can do anywhere.
• Notice what you enjoy- find what sparks your energy and make it happen on a regular basis.
• Discern where your energy gets depleted—and how to replenish it fast. 
• Connect to a community for essential support, accountability, and encouragement.

Links  

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program

Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:09

Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Titz, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started.

Speaker: 0:30

Today we're going to talk about the value of rest and work and putting these ideas in order. Rest, then joy, play, fun, whatever word you want to use, and then work. All three are important, equally important, but need to be in that order. We need to rest until we're no longer tired. Fill our own soul with sunshine, with the things that bring us joy and fill us with energy, and then go and do our purpose-filled work. When I was a pastor, one of the first sermons I preached was from the Book of Genesis, and it talked about how both rest and work were created by God, and both are good. I don't know where I got the message that rest was laziness, but somewhere along the line I did. It was hard for me to rest until I discovered that rest should not only take place after work, but needs to take place before and during. What we're trying to notice is where does our energy get depleted? Where does it get brought back into our lives, and what are the special tools that we need in order to rest mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually so we can be aligned in our energy? So if you were able to just take a moment now and close your eyes if it's safe to do so. Put your hand on your heart. Take a few breaths. Do you know what your aligned energy is? Would you say a word like peace, enthusiasm, authentic joy? See if you can notice at least one word that helps you to know when you are in aligned energy. When you move away from that aligned energy, one of the first things you need is rest. And rest is not just physical. Sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's emotional. When I began teaching, some of this material, one of the things I noticed is that many women I know. Are not only physically tired, they're mentally tired. And so they would go to sleep at night and their physical energy would return to the point that their brain started to have some energy again. And then they would wake up at two or three in the morning fully energized, mentally, but still really tired physically. And so their thoughts were coming and they were thinking about things in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. And so noticing that you are mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, in need of rest is really important. And it's not urgent. There's probably no one else in life that's coming alongside and saying, Hey, did you take the rest you need this week? Mentally, emotionally, spiritually. So rest is the series of actions that you're going to take that are part of your daily self-care, and you use your rest to restore your energy. Your rest restores your energy, and it needs to be woven in around your work and responsibilities. One thing that I love from scripture is there is this call that humans cannot go twenty four seven over and over and over again without rest. God actually says to put a whole day aside once a week, very hard to do, but as you're on the path to doing that, is it possible to find 30 minutes, 10 minutes, five minutes, where you can rest in between your work and your responsibilities? When you can rest between caring for people and going and making dinner, can you make it small little action steps that are intentional? And when something's important but not urgent, if we don't schedule it, it's really hard to have it happen. So it's as important as anything else that you have your rest and your joy and your work all scheduled in a way that serves you. So you're going to need a bunch of tools and practices because every day is going to look different in the different areas of your life that need rest are going to require different tools. So what you use to rest mentally might be very different than what you have in your life to rest emotionally. And it's going to look different in the different seasons across the year. Think back to when my kids were younger. What I needed for rest when they were home during the summer was very different than what I needed when they were going to school all day. So it's not just sleeping, it's not just recovering. Many of us end up resting after an injury or an illness. We don't want to wait until we're exhausted. We want to be able to notice when we're moving from that yellow to red energy and have some tools and practices that we can apply right away. So not saving up all your rest for that vacation once a year, and to be really intentional, that rest rarely happens with our phones. Our phones actually deplete us mentally and emotionally. So what is your work? Your work has many areas of life. There's energy that you give out with relationships. There's energy you give out with the responsibility, some of which maybe you are paid in money, some you might be doing as a volunteer responsibility, but you might have a home to care for. You might have people that you are putting energy in. Your work is more than just what you do for pay. When I first began my path as a coach way back in 20 16, 1 of the things I noticed is many of the women in the world around me in this church world that I was in were willing to get paid by praise. And so they were doing things past their capacity so that people would say, thank you. You're amazing. I'm so happy that you're in my life, and that's not a great way to get paid. It is just with words of affirmation, so see if you can notice what is it that you sort of receive in exchange for the work that you do emotionally, mentally, physically. It might be words of affirmation, it might be money, it might be just connection. And see if you can even begin to notice right now the different areas of responsibility You have the different areas where you're working. You might have a home and a yard. You might have elderly parents that you give time and energy to, and children, pets. Maybe there's two or three volunteer areas that are important to you. See if you can just for a moment, notice them. I notice that I do the following things as purpose-filled work. I love it. I want to keep doing it. I notice I keep doing these things because I have thoughts that good people do this a good daughter should see. If you can notice any of the difference between things that you feel are purpose-filled and intentional, and things that you may have been doing on repeat that maybe you're ready to say, I need a pause because I need more rest or more joy in my life in order to do my purpose-filled work. So one of the most important ways for us to stay aligned in our energy is to align ourselves to our values. Can you write down three to five words that. Help you remember who you are. You are loved, you are good, you're made on purpose. You are strong, you are successful, you are enthusiastic. What words would you use to describe yourself and your identity? And you, whether you know it or not, are a hundred percent valuable. A hundred percent loved just for breathing in and breathing out. And how do we know this? If you ever hold a new baby, they don't have to do anything. You just hold them and know their innate value. Some of the tools I've learned from other coaches is perhaps find a photo of yourself from when you were three to five years old, and would you say things to that sweet little version of you that you sometimes say, oh, you're so lazy. Get up. You are not trying hard enough. So many times on social media, I will go on and I will see somebody that I care about really giving themselves a hard time because they're exhausted and they had made a plan of the things they wanted to do and they didn't get to it. Instead of noticing that maybe they're exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, they're kind of complaining that they're not being as productive as they should be. In general, when we have purpose-filled work to do and we've set apart the time and the energy that we need for it, and we're not getting to it, it's usually because we're tired to deplete it, exhausted, frustrated, overwhelmed, mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. So we need to pull those things apart so we can notice where our energy is going. And do we need more rest? Do we need more joy, or is it time to do the work that we said we wanted to do? So when your soul gets depleted, when you're emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, relationally, exhausted and depleted, every area is now affected. When you get depleted in one area, it's hard to find energy in any area. So that's why we want to take the time that we need to take now to take those very small action steps that move us back in the right direction. So if you're listening today and you close your eyes and you take a deep breath and you're noticing, I am feeling 10 out of 10 in all areas of my life, maybe you don't need to put any more rest in. Maybe that is covered. But if you're noticing you're tired, overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, resentful, depleted, not in your aligned energy, then maybe you need more rest. And I would just ask you, what do you think when I offer you the idea of adding rest into your life? I just know for me for a long time until I began to do this work, I had thoughts about rest being lazy and it wasn't being productive, and I should be using my time and my energy better. But I think rest is the beginning of being able to do everything that I want to do with my purpose-filled work. And rest isn't just sleeping. It can be an active rest. You can be doing something slowly and carefully. You might have some movement involved. You are the only one that can take care of you and your soul. You're the only one who really knows how you're doing mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually. So we're going to take that responsibility today as our primary responsibility. What do we need to do to take care of our soul to rest really well? So do you have a practice that does work and you're not currently doing it, or do you need a new practice? So the first one is stillness. If you close your eyes and you take a breath, when was the last time you were still. How about silence? Is that a part of your life? I know some people do something as simple as when they return home from work, they might sit in their car for a moment with no music or anything on, just to have that moment of silence. How about solitude? Is it something that you find space and time for? I know when I get overwhelmed, I try to do a lot more multitasking, and instead of doing one thing with excellence, I'm doing many things at once. And so maybe you're noticing that could be a path back for you, is to do one thing at a time, do it well, and then move on. Maybe you just need a pause between activities or some more white space in your calendar. Instead of putting activity to activity, to activity, could you put some white space? And that way if something goes long or you need to pivot, there's a way to do that. If a whole day of Sabbath feels too hard and out of reach right now, could you do a mini Sabbath this next week? Sometime in the next seven days, maybe it's one hour a half day or even a whole day. And then finally, I love the Artist Way by Julia Cameron. It was really pivotal to me. I began doing it in 2021. It's something I bring back every summer. And one of the things that she talks about that I think could be very restful is an artist date. To love ourselves so much that we would go spend time and energy doing something that restores us. So what would your inner child like to do? Would you like to go to a park and sit on a swing? Would you like to go to the ocean and watch the waves? Would you like to go get a cup of coffee in a quiet place and just watch people walk by? Could you pick one small thing? Maybe it only takes 20 minutes, but you would find it restful. If you decide what it is, could you put it on your calendar? Could you choose a time and a space and a place and hold that as tightly as you would if you said to somebody, I'll happily pick up your child at the bus stop. You would never, ever just let that child stay at the bus stop. You would make sure that you were there on time and you stayed and did the thing that you said yes to. Could you hold that space and that time and that energy for what would give you rest in the same way one day over the next seven days? And in the artist way, I discovered that the creator has made me creative. And I think every single human was created on purpose for a purpose. And part of our purpose is to find the creative way we might communicate. Maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to bake something, maybe you want to sing a song. Is there something small? Nothing huge that you could think about that might give you a little bit of joy, and as you're learning to do something. It's not easy. It might not bring you joy right away, so could you make it a little bit smaller? So I do really enjoy watercolor painting, but I'm not excellent at it yet, so I don't love it yet because there's a part of me that likes to do things and be successful at them. So I've made my practice much smaller of writing a simple word that is meaningful to me and then just coloring around it. I'm finding that to be a small enough creative practice that it is serving me, it's giving me some quiet time, some time where I'm doing something that's more of a stillness practice and intentional, without having to make it so big that I feel bad that it's not going the way I want. What I'd love for us to consider is that you can nurture your own soul. Maybe you want to go strawberry picking and then just sit down and eat a strawberry so slowly that you taste it. Maybe you want to decide that for the next few weeks of summer, you're going to say no to something that you often do, just to create some white space. Maybe you want to do something that's fun like cooking, or maybe you just want to get a blanket and go to the park and lay down and look at the clouds. Could you decide right now one small practice that you could do over the next few weeks? Put a time and a place with it. If you'd listen to your soul, you are going to remember what it is that brings you joy, what brings you rest? Decide one small thing. I know the easy thing is to listen and keep learning. Let's make one small decision today. I'm going to decide to do this on this day. At this time, I'm scheduling it. I'm going to hold it for myself with all the value of a doctor's appointment. We're going to notice, decide, and schedule.

Speaker 5: 13:38

Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.