017 The Power of Rest with Judi Taylor - a podcast by Clare Foale

I am joined this week by Judi Taylor. Spoiler alert! Not only is Judi a wonderful and wise woman but she's also my mum J

Judi has, for 40 years, been a social worker by trade as well as a spiritual counsellor and an events organizer. She has been practicing and involved with meditation across many faiths and traditions and now teachers in the Christian tradition.

She's involved with running retreats at Dango Island with Paul, her husband, and also running groups in jails with marginalized groups and in interfaith discussions.

This conversation explores the idea of rest and what a nourishing and vital part of self-care and life this is.

We explore why rest is so important and what rest looks like. It is not only sleep, but also having space to let our mind wonder, whether that's meditation or walking bare foot or reading or napping or painting.

What rest looks like for each of us on any day can be different. But that is a really spacious and rejuvenating way of spending time and it creates space for us to be with ourselves.

It is something that requires trust. That is a recurring theme in this conversation.

'I am so busy is often the mantra of culture. We amaze each other with our impossibly crowded schedules. Is this how we feel worthwhile? Is there a note of pride in this?

If we do not rest, we'd lose our way. We forget who we are, what we are doing and what we are doing it for.

Rest before we are tired, before we become ill, surrender to this wonderful gift we have been given, remembering who we are and who we have been created to be, knowing all is well.'

What we talked about:

- Judi wrote a piece called Sabbath ponderings, which prompted this conversation
- Everything is within us, but at speed we don't notice it
- In meditation, 'We become the person we were created to be'.
- Intentional resting, as Christians do with the Sabbath, allows us to take stock of where we are, what we've got to give thanks for and to realize how blessed we are, how enough we have. That we don't need more.
- It helps us get off the treadmill of 'go go go' and moves us towards 'enough-ness' and recognising our blessings.
- Rest as a form of activism and rebellion. To stake our claim that this is enough. We are enough.
- Connecting with the natural world.
- Giving ourselves permission with tender generosity to rest. To stop. To take time to follow our curiosity without trying to 'achieve'.
- Juicy thoughts and creativity occur in this space.
- Acknowledgement that neither work nor rest are better.
- We can't listen at speed. We can't love at speed.
- Trust is necessary to be able to rest. We need to feel safe to rest. We need to trust that life will go on without us and trust that it's worthwhile to take this time to rest.
- Sometimes it happens that we don't rest until we get sick, and that is a shame.
- Let the soul meander and dream
- Don't look for large chunks of time, if that is unrealistic. It might be 5 minutes. It can be that you start to notice little spaces of opportunity to rest.
- Be aware of your beliefs around your indispensability or needing to achieve.

To find out more about the meditation Judi is involved with and the work she does, head to the World Community for Christian Meditation here

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