Rest

On a late summer night walk with Louie, a dog: I watched the sky between the trees, she scavenged for fallen apples on the ground.

I was deep in my training when I discovered what it feels like to really rest. Rest as a huge, warm, velvety hand cradling my body, that releases me into a soft alertness, a sense of wholeness restored, a tadpole dropped back into the pond.

This was interesting—even exciting—because I generally sleep through the night or find my way to an afternoon nap when my energy dips. In other words, I think of myself as someone who sleeps well. But it's also true that sometimes I wake up tired, my mind already occupied and buzzing even as part of me is still (literally) dreaming.

So the felt sensations of settling down into rest and sweetly arising out of rest were new. I'd gone all the way through the craniosacral program, done all the homework, nearly finished the required practice sessions, but I hadn't learned how to rest. Nor was I aware I was missing it.

What is this marvelous rest? It could be a few things. Mostly, though, I believe it's the nervous system letting done, really trusting the connection with another living being, feeling safe. I hadn't been taught to sense my body—and I would say that in school and in my family of origin's culture I'd received concerted training to block sensation and emotion. What that gave me was a fantastic ability to ignore my body's alarm systems (supported by plenty of tools and tricks enhance, such as drinking lots of coffee or alcohol, reading lots of books, staying inside, etc. You may have some of your own). Ignore? Or "happily" not-know my body had alarm signals. In order to fully rest, I had to be able to feel.

One day during Anna Chitty's Blueprint Resonance workshop, I was practicing with a fellow student. Part of the work, whether receiving a session or offering one, is to pay attention to what the body signals, partly in order to put oneself in the most comfortable position possible. (Because overriding the body's ease will become distracting and impacts the connection and session. This leads to curiosity and care for, rather than suppressing, discomfort that won't go away,) In the client role, I found I wanted to lie down, so I did. My practice partner invited me to follow my sensations. In our practice together, our pace had slowed way down. There was a quiet holding. I experienced all the layers of me settling and stilling. Without falling asleep, I found myself resting.

Coming up and out from that state, after some time, perhaps 20 minutes or more, I checked in with its effects. The word "rested" reverberated—quietly— through my body and the field and then out my lips. A feeling of surprise, relief, gratitude. The directionality of "up and out" aligns with my felt experience: Accompanying the rest was an embodied connection to the earth.

The surprise connects to an awareness that neither settling into rest nor the feeling of being rested reminded me of anything, not even childhood. Which makes sense, since I don't think my nervous system got much opportunity to settle when I was little. We can "conk out"—tellingly, a favorite expression of my mom's—which may indicate not rest but an overloaded nervous system, dropping us. When the nervous system comes back online after a crash caused by too-muchness with not enough support and holding, the feeling is grogginess, confusion, fog.

Practicing craniosacral, receiving it, looping into further trainings and investigations, I have grown a more resilient nervous system. Rest is familiar and available to me now. Moreover, many things that used to provoke or upset me now feel, at most, amusing or a little sad. Rest is a beautiful and welcome part of my nervous system's aliveness.