Daily Rest: 5 P's to Practice Restful Moments
Making the transition home isn’t always an easy thing to do. I knew I couldn’t go back to my old ways. But how to move forward in new ones?
Now, after almost ten years, when people ask me this question, my suggestion is this: start with daily rest. It’s the lowest hanging fruit, easiest to start with. Here are some suggestions.
Pause for Spiritual Rest
As Christ is the source of our rest, this is the first commitment we can make. I didn’t need to go on a retreat to find my rest in Him. He makes Himself available to me, even in the midst of a busy and full schedule. As a busy mom, here are some ways I made time to find rest in Christ each day:
Begin the day by kneeling to pray to orient and remember 3 things: 1) He is my Lord (truth about God), 2) I need Him for today (truth about me), and 3) I am here to serve Him, not myself or please others (truth about my purpose). This minute sets me right before I start going.
Listening to Scripture as I get ready for the day using the audio version. Even if it seems like “cheating” to listen instead of read the Bible, I have found it better than waiting till I had time to sit down.
Play worship music so my mind focuses on God even as I do dishes or laundry. This gives my thoughts another track to follow, not spiral downward into despair or discouragement.
Pray as I take a walk in the morning (leave my headphones at home!). The exercise, sunshine, and space can help your soul to settle down. Walking is the great multi-tasker if you want to exercise with your baby and/or dog!
Try fixed-hour prayer to check in with God at beginning, middle, end of day. I set my alarm for the midday prayer time as a reminder to reconnect with the Lord.
Pause to pray before you know something hard is coming; pray in the midst of the circumstance or frustration—this is challenging and requires a strong focus and commitment to do something different.
Take a few minutes to meditate on or work on Scripture memory.
Work through a book appropriate to an area of growth in your life. I can read about 10 pages in 20-30 minutes.
Read your Bible or book with your child next to you—build up a good habit of reading in their lives as well.
Different seasons will allow for different lengths of time so adjust your expectations accordingly. These little practices go a long way to fill my mind with truth that leads to hope and joy: things I desperately needed in my mundane days.
Prioritize Physical Rest
As physical rest was such a game-changer for me, I also knew that training myself to sleep regularly would be something I could start practicing. This, admittedly, took awhile to work out. Even now, it is a challenge for me to get the rest I need.
Here’s a rough process to help you:
Figure out how much you need consistently each night to feel your best. This can vary from person to person.
What hours can get you this amount of sleep every 24 hours?
Work backwards to figure out when you’ll need to go to bed.
Shut down your tech (or at least put it away) about an hour before your targeted bedtime. Admittedly, this is the hardest part. (More on dealing with tech later.)
Develop a bedtime routine that helps you prepare for bed. For me, this includes washing up and preparing for the next day. I pick out my clothes, reflect on the last day and sketch out a rough outline of the next one. This gives me time to pull out that meat from the freezer to defrost or find the paperwork for my appointments beforehand.
If your kids are young and you are at home with them, consider using one of their naps as a time to rest as well. When they got older and down to one nap a day, I would also pause as well. Use it for a short power nap or take the time to spend time with the Lord.
As moms, we are working too—just like you do on the job (and sometimes even harder!). Every employee gets time off for lunch or at least a break. But unlike your employer, you will need to discipline yourself to take the time, not because you deserve it, but because it honors the limits we have. So find time to pause in your day as well.
With that said, how do you take breaks that actually help?
Part With Your Tech (Just for a Little While)
While our devices are modern wonders, they can also be a great source of unrest. By keeping us always “on” or by distracting us, all the “white space” we used to have disappears. Here are some suggestions to help:
Do a time audit. Seeing for yourself how much time you actually spend on your devices or social media can be the wakeup call you need to consider this as an issue.
Decide if you should take a break from social media for awhile. This was something my time audit revealed, so I took the plunge and did it for a month. It made a huge difference for me—and I haven’t really gone back.
Turn off any unnecessary notifications. I learned this from Justin Whitmel Earley in The Common Rule and it has been so helpful—where he does a great job in addressing rest from tech.
Designate “no tech” times in your day. Silence your phone for a period of time each day, like during meals or dates. (Warning: you might feel anxious or fidgety—that’s normal. Consider it a hint that maybe you’re more attached to your phone than you think you were!)
When you are on your phone, limit the time spent on it. Commit to not being on the phone when there are people with you, as much as possible.
Let others know about your plans. If you are concerned that key people can’t get a hold of you, let them know alternate means of notification. We have even kept our landline for that reason.
Turn it off and keep your phone in a different room when you’re sleeping.
Resting without my phone was a challenge but also pointed out issues I needed to deal with. I had to work out my fears of not being available in a true emergency with God. This is where I needed to work out my delusions of grandeur with God and learn to trust Him who is always present, the Good Shepherd who keeps watch over His sheep in ways I cannot.
Parent With Rest in Mind
Sometimes, when it comes to the rhythms of routine of our home, parents can actually set their own households up for burnout.
Here are some things to consider.
Start with what you desire and envision for your family culture. What do you want your kids to remember and enjoy about your family? What kinds of relationships do you hope to share? Let this vision shape your decision making in regards to activities.
Consider why you want your kids to participate in activities. And not just why it’s good for them. Are you trying to assuage some guilt or keep up with all the other parents?
Does this one pursuit have multiple time commitments? One sport can have both a practice and a game. Likewise, playing an instrument can involve both rehearsals and performances. Now multiply that by two or three children and you can see how it can easily get busy! Is it the best way to use your time as a family?
Think about the impact on the whole family, not just one child. Younger siblings often need to tag along. While kids should learn to support their brothers and sisters, how does this impact your family culture as a whole? Are you unwittingly setting up unhealthy competition for attention or favorites?
Are there alternate, less time-consuming ways to develop my child’s interests, especially if they are young? Stock your home with good books, building toys, craft supplies, sports equipment and let them play around. Let their interests develop and when you find a true interest you’d like to invest in, then start considering classes.
On top of that, are we, by keeping our days full and busy, depriving our children of the rest they need? Are we actually building in them an addiction to activity so that “doing nothing” on a restful Saturday is actually a negative thing for them? Might it be that if we try to avoid the “I’m bored” complaint, we rob them of the opportunity to learn to make their own fun?
If you do find yourself with a full slate of activities, be intentional. Use times driving to practice as times to talk. Prioritize family dinners. Block out days every month where you “do nothing” together as a family. Put the rest in first and then hold to it!
Pepper Your Day With Simple Pleasures
As a busy mom, it is hard even to find five minutes to yourself. So I’ve learned to do the next best thing: find little ways to fold in some simple pleasures in your routine. This will vary from person to person.
Here have been some of my favorites!
Chores. Take advantage of the chores you can do on autopilot like driving, doing dishes, or folding laundry, lunch breaks to enjoy a simple pleasure (a cup of coffee, check in with a friend, your favorite podcast or audiobook).
Do the “opposite.” If your work is “mind-heavy,” take time to do something physical. If your work is more physical in nature, find restful pleasures that refresh your mind, like listening to a book.
Fun. Find little ways to enjoy something you like. I don’t do these every day, but try to save a little time, like half an hour at the end of the day to journal, soak my feet, polish my nails, stretch, make a card, or yes, catch an episode on Netflix!
The difference between enjoying these now at the end of the day is that I no longer view them as things that I “deserve.” They are not things I look to for rest but things I enjoy as gifts from God in my rest. If I don’t have time for them, I’m not frustrated that I’m not getting what I am due.
What About You?
Planning little rests during the day requires intention. It’s so easy to schedule what we will do, but I encourage you to think a little about how you might inject a spot of rest, whether it’s prayer or a nap or a thoughtfully planned break.
Though the impact is not quite the same as a longer rest on an overnight retreat, these little “sips” of rest can still add up. Because these are shorter pauses, these rest opportunities are available more readily. When practiced in a pattern or incorporated into your day’s routines, they can combine together to keep you going until it’s time for a longer rest.
So decide first when you will have time to rest with the Lord. Define your sleeping hours next. Set tech-free zones in your day. Look for ways to bring some rest into your daily routines by noting when you will enjoy a simple pleasure, even in the midst of your chores.
This principle applies to weekly rest, which we’ll turn to in our next post, but start here today. If you’ve already got the spiritual piece down, then move to the sleeping piece. If you’ve got that, then work on the tech or the simple pleasures.
Then take note of how these small moments of rest impact you as they pave the way to longer habits of rest.
