“The first increment of rest that we can practice is a pause.” – Octavia Raheem
Who has time for rest? Too many of us would say, not me. Rest is devalued in society, but we NEED rest. I’m so excited to share this juicy conversation with Octavia Raheem, a rest/restorative coach and founder of Devoted to Rest™. If you feel like you can’t stop, even if you’re on the edge of burnout, you need this one.
Octavia talks us through the tiniest bit of rest, a pause for three breaths, before we begin. Try it as you listen. See how it feels to pause, to breathe, to rest. Octavia came into rest because of a health crisis. She says she didn’t know how to stop, so life stopped her in her tracks. It took being in a hospital bed for her to see the hamster wheel of doing she had been on.
Rest is a daily practice, and it’s easy to slip out of that practice. We get into how to build rest into your day, how to keep it a regular part of your life, and how a system that supports and values rest helps a lot.
We talk about:
- Recognizing the tension between work and rest and feeling worthy of rest
- Productivity versus a spirit of creativity and generativeness
- Ways to slow down, like learning to be with your breath even when you are in motion and simplifying your morning (or other) routines
- Teaching our kids that it’s okay to rest and go slow
- Recognizing where you are pulling more weight and disrupting old systems that keep you doing it
- Having the courage to experience your life, not just do it
ABOUT OCTAVIA
Octavia Raheem is a wife, mother, author of two best selling books Pause, Rest, Be and Gather. She is a rest/restorative coach, yoga + meditation educator, and former wellness studio owner. She is the creator of Devoted to Rest™, a transformational rest focused experience for visionary women leaders making a high impact in their fields. Within her rest and work she threads time tested practices, depth skill and knowledge about what supports rest and what doesn’t, wisdom rooted in Black American Southern traditions, and intuition into a blanket of experience under which individuals can gather and rebuke stress, fatigue, and burnout. Her offerings lead driven, inspiring, creative, and purpose centered individuals and companies to awaken the fullness of their potential and power through rest.
Octavia has over 20 years of experience and well over 10,000 hours of designing and delivering classes, restshops, workshops, immersions, and trainings that transform, heal, and restore individuals and organizations. In 2021 Yoga Journal magazine recognized Octavia as one of fifteen experienced yoga professionals who have elevated and changed the field on a global scale. Closer to home and as a beacon in her local community, she was named one of four luminaries who have lit the way and created new avenues to yoga in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Southeast in September 2019 by Natural Awakening Magazine. Additionally her writing, rest, and work have been featured in Mantra, Tricycle, Well + Good, Atlanta Magazine, CNN, and at Essence Festival Wellhouse Atlanta.
She has an academic background in English Literature, creative writing, and middle grades education as well as 10+ years of professional experience developing curricula for innovative learning and teaching Language Arts in K-12 settings. Most recently, she combined her passion for yoga, creativity, language, and community through her four year tenure as co-director for Yoga, Literature, and Art Camp for Teen Girls at Spelman College Museum of Fine Art founded by Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.
Octavia is committed to herself, family, community, and our world being well and rested- in body, mind, heart, and spirit.
LINKS
DOABLE CHANGES
At the end of every episode, we share three doable changes, so you can take what you've heard and put it into action. Change comes from action.
Sometimes action gets a bad rap. You can be kind to yourself. You can practice being AND doing, but for change to happen you have to take steps. The way we take care of ourselves is making the steps doable and focusing on one thing at a time. We take time to integrate the change and then move on to the next one. Pick a Doable Change that resonates with you the most to start from.
Here are three Doable Changes that we chose from this conversation.
- PAUSE WITH BREATH. The first increment of rest is a pause, and you can use your breath to pause. Take a breath in, and then out. And another. Then a third, slowing and deepening that breath. Notice how that feels. You can do this anywhere—at your desk, waiting to pick up kids, at the grocery store. Try doing it once — or several — times a day.
- SIMPLIFY YOUR MORNING ROUTINE. We often talk about a morning routine as things we do for ourselves to start the day. For this practice, think about all the things that have to happen for you to get out the door or start your day. How can you streamline that? Think about what could happen at another time, or not at all. Think about ways to bring more ease to breakfast or lunch making or getting bags packed. Try the simplified routine and see if it helps you slow down.
- PULL LESS WEIGHT. Start by recognizing all you do. Is there an imbalance of work that goes unnoticed in your house? Pick one thing to give up and one thing to delegate. Work with this for a while. Pick a new set of things.
