But this week, even though the phrase still feels right, I’ve struggling to connect to it.

In fact, I’ve spent most of the last couple of days feeling behind. Tired. A bit frustrated. There’s been a gap between knowing that rest and pleasure are what I need, and actually allowing them in.

It turns out that noticing the gap is part of the work too.

So it’s now day 14… I last posted on day 4… and that’s PERFECTLY OKAY! I’m giving myself permission to follow my flow. To let the Substack unfold naturally, to share when it feels good, and not to get caught up in “marketing” it. To allow it to emerge instead of becoming another “should.”

So here’s a round-up of the last 10 days…

Days 6 through 9 were a bit of a whirlwind, really. I started with a glorious morning nap, followed by volunteering which included lovely chats about gardens, bees and teapots. Then came a delicious massage that left me buzzing with ideas… especially a vivid vision of a pink and green painting. Lots of excitement about playing in my studio. Busy Day 7’s rest looked like five minutes snuggling my cat, Layla, which counted just fine. By Day 8, I was feeling inspired but frustrated by the lack of space to act on all those ideas, so I turned to an hour of gentle movement and Yoga Nidra. It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

On Day 10 I listened to a visioning meditation and visioned an exhibition of the paintings I’d been dreaming about earlier in the week, but that led to the familiar question ‘is that what I really want?’ It’s almost as though I have a deep-seated belief that in order to do any visioning I have to know for absolute certain what I’m going to want in the future. Ha! Why on earth would I know that now? Nothing ever stays the same!

Then came the weekend. Day 12 found me a little hungover and rather tired. I felt frustrated by time whizzing by, disappointed by the lack of oomph I’d had earlier in the week. I did some paint play, but it felt dissatisfying. I lounged in the garden, swam in the pond, chatted to Mama. It was a lovely lazy Sunday, but underneath lay a niggling annoyance: I should be clearer. I should be further along.

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The antidote, I realized, was joy, pleasure, rest. The critical voice was driven by the oh-so-familiar “should” energy, and the idea that I was wasting time because I was tired. Compassion was needed.

This tension between all of the inspiring ideas that were coming in and the frustration at not having the time or energy to put them into action became amplified over the next few days.

This morning, on Day 14, I was rather cross and fuzzy. But I decided to prioritise rest for 1 hour.

I lay down with a bolster on my hips and did a beautiful Yoga Nidra on Insight Timer.

It invited us to move between coherence (heart and mind aligned) and incoherence. I have definitely been in incoherence in the last couple of days! Switching back to coherence felt like turning on a switch to allow magick and pleasure in.

It struck me that the abundant inspiration last week didn’t come with a fixed outcome, it just emerged as joyful desire. It was pure pleasure, no attachment!

The heavier energy this week came from getting stuck on things looking a certain way. From wanting the rest to produce something specific.

I noticed that even in my painting play, there was a feeling that it wasn’t worth doing unless it took me somewhere. Where am I trying to get to? Pretty sure wherever that is won’t be good enough for my critical, scarcity-driven self. The self that isn’t connected to abundance, trust, rest, and pleasure. The one that’s not in coherence.

There was something else that stood out during my Yoga Nidra today. We were invited to connect to higher consciousness, to sacred dreaming. And I found myself grasping for something to drop in. I wanted thoughts to come, guidance in the form of words or images. And then I noticed it: the grasping itself. I was trying to think my way into receiving. Ha!

But it didn’t have to be thoughts. My body and soul were receiving guidance even if I couldn’t “think” it. Trusting beyond thought. That was the guidance.

As I look back on these ten days, a pattern emerges. The excitement and pleasure of Days 5–8 gave way to the heaviness and frustration of Days 12–14. But what if the difference wasn’t about doing the things I wanted to do? What if it was about enjoying the surfacing of possibility without pushing for a result?

Sometimes I need the reminder that I’ve given myself permission to let it be imperfect. To forget to rest sometimes. To not feel like I imagined. To notice when I don’t want to rest, or when I’m feeling cross. All of it helps me listen inwards.

The critical voice will return. It always does in the busyness. It tells me everything needs a purpose and an outcome. But rest and pleasure don’t need a purpose. They are the purpose.

I’m learning to trust the process, even when it’s messy. Even when I’m tired. Even when I’m not sure where I’m going.

Because maybe the point isn’t to arrive anywhere. Maybe the point is just to be here, resting, enjoying, trusting, one day at a time. x

Why? Mostly because it removes the decision-making. At this stage, I think I’m less interested in finding the perfect way to rest and more interested in building a relationship with intentional rest itself. Yoga Nidra gives me a gentle structure for that. I press play, I lie down, and for half an hour or so someone else does the guiding.

Later on, I imagine the exploration will widen. One of the resources I’ve been enjoying is The Relaxed Woman’s “10 Ways to Rest”, which is a lovely reminder that rest can take many different forms. It doesn’t always involve lying down or closing your eyes. It can be creative, sensory, social, spiritual or simply a moment of doing less.

The more I explore, the more I find myself thinking that rest is anything that brings renewal. Anything that helps me slow down, soften, reconnect or refill somewhere that’s running a little empty. Perhaps that’s why the words Rest & Pleasure have come to me!

But for now, I’m keeping things simple. Not because Yoga Nidra is the answer, but because it feels like a good place to begin. And it feels DELICIOUS!

The weather was beautiful and I spent most of the day in the garden, assembling various things for our outdoor space. 😂

A firepit table. A hammock frame that turned out to be slightly too small (this is the second frame I’ve bought and assembled only to discover it doesn’t fit my hammock)! Various other bits and pieces that seemed like excellent ideas at the time.

There was also a pond dip, which felt glorious. 🐸

Then later we headed to Nana’s for supper.

All in all, it was a lovely day.

When I woke up this morning I realised... I forgot to rest!

Not accidentally exactly, more gradually. I kept thinking I’d do it later. After this job, after I’ve finished this thing, once I’ve sorted that.

And somehow the day quietly disappeared. 🙊

The funny thing is that the day didn’t feel stressful. I wasn’t rushing around under pressure, I was mostly doing things I thoroughly enjoyed.

Testing out a hammock between two trees probably qualifies as rest-adjacent at the very least. 😂

But it wasn’t intentional rest.👎🏼And that’s what I’m exploring during this season.

The difference between simply having a pleasant day and consciously creating space to stop.

Rest doesn’t seem to happen automatically for me. I know I’m not the only one who finds it hard to stop. ⏩⏩

Not because I don’t value it or I don’t want it. But because life keeps offering me interesting alternatives. A garden project. A conversation. A book. A swim. A meal with family.

A hundred small things that all feel worth saying yes to.

So perhaps the question isn’t how to stop this happening again.

Because I’m pretty damn sure it will happen again… many times!

Perhaps the question is how I create little anchors for rest within the flow of life.

An afternoon Yoga Nidra. A pause before supper. A moment of lying in the hammock before moving onto the next thing.

I’m still figuring it out, but for now, I’m amused that four days into a Season of Rest, I’ve already managed to forget to rest. 😂😂😂

That feels like useful information. And also very human.

I’ve felt really energised... there’s been gardening and tidying and moving furniture around. Visitors arriving. Delicious meals out. A Vision Journal sent off to the printers. Sunshine. Excitement. Possibility.

The kind of days where one thing leads naturally to another and you find yourself happily swept along. On both days I noticed a little thought, ‘What if I forget to rest?’

There always seemed to be something lovely happening and I was really enjoying the energised flow.

At one point I did take a book out into the garden and settled myself down to read.

I lasted approximately three minutes. Haha!

The garden was calling. The jobs were calling. Life was calling.

So I’m noticing that my resistance to rest isn’t always coming from pressure or ‘shoulds’, sometimes it’s coming from excitement.

Sometimes I don’t want to stop because I don’t want to let go of the delicious go-go-go energy of being immersed in life.

And yet, both days I found my way back to Yoga Nidra.

Outside on the grass, looking up at the sky. I continued with the Good Intentions May practice, listening to Pip’s gentle guidance.

One day I drifted in and out, floating somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. The next I felt surprisingly present. Open. Tingling across the whole front of my body.

At one point Pip asked, “What does your body want?”

The words that arrived were pleasure and presence.

(And also, rather unexpectedly, Pilates. Hahaha. Did I just get caught up in all the ‘p’s?!)

The thing that has stayed with me most, though, was something Pip said about resting into the support beneath us.

Resting into the bolsters. Resting into the cushions.

Allowing ourselves to be suppoted and held, rather than striving or stretching.

Something about those words really landed. Not because the idea was new, more because it felt like a gentle reminder. A reminder that support is already here.

The support of the earth beneath me. The support of the people I love. The support of this beautiful place I call home. The support of something larger that I can’t quite explain but have learned to trust.

It’s so easy to slip back into the feeling that everything depends on me, and that I need to push, strive, organise and make things happen. Thinking brain overload!

Pip’s words felt like an invitation to remember that I am already held. To soften… to lean back.

To rest, not just on the bolsters beneath me, but into the support that surrounds me every day.

This felt like a good reminder, and I’m curious about what might happen if I let myself be supported a little more.

The garden seems to approve. At least, that’s the impression I get from the tree!

The funny thing is that, for much of the day, I wasn’t actually resting. I was writing about rest, planning rest, thinking about rest, creating structures for rest and generally being very productive about rest.

At around 2.30pm I realised that despite officially beginning my Season of Rest, I hadn’t actually done any intentional resting.

I’d simply been doing rest.

Hahahahaha. 😂

There was a moment when I considered postponing the whole thing. After all, I still hadn’t sent my email. I was setting up Substack. There were things to organise.

Perhaps I should start properly tomorrow?

But that felt suspiciously like productivity talk dressed up in sensible clothes.

The truth was that today was already inviting me in.

It was the first day of my period. The first day I had access to Pip Robert’s Good Intentions rest series (even though it was released last month I only happened across it yesterday… magick!🌟). And the first day I’d realised that plans I thought I had today were actually tomorrow.

How serendipitous.🌟 So I stopped waiting and began.

We started seated, arriving gently in the moment, before folding forward over bolsters and breathing into the back body. Then we settled down for Nidra.

For most of the practice I was floating in and back out again, aware of the blustery wind outside the window causing branches to gently tap on the roof of my studio.

Not asleep. Not fully awake. Just dreamy.

The intention was, “I am deserving of what I am dreaming and creating.”

At the end of the practise I found myself reflecting on deservedness, on this beautiful home, on abundance, and on how easily guilt can creep in when life offers us something wonderful.

The words that stayed with me most, though, came right at the end.

“There is no hurry.”

I’ve been carrying that around all afternoon, because I can feel the hurry in me.

The part that wants this Season of Rest to produce something. The part that wants insights, clarity, transformation and perhaps a neat answer or two. The part that quietly believes I’m behind and should be moving forwards faster.

Scarcity thinking has many disguises and the need to hurry is one of them.

So today I’m noticing that on the first day of my Season of Rest, I was gently reminded that there is nowhere I need to get to. ❤️

No finish line, no rush. Just this day, this breath, and the next small invitation into rest.

Woohoo…

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🌟 It’s got me hooked on the magick of rest. 🌟

I can see all sorts of possibilities in it, both for myself and for others. Rest as a way to connect more deeply to yourself. Rest as a way to move from slowness rather than urgency. Rest as a way to step outside the cultural current of fear, scarcity and endless striving.

Eighteen months ago we moved to the most magical house outside Bristol. It felt like a little miracle. ❤️

The house is the manifestation of a dream to create a space to share with others, with joy and creativity and pleasure at the heart of it.

Since moving here I’ve spent a lot of time dreaming about what this space might become. A sanctuary. A creative retreat space. A place for coaching conversations, workshops and gatherings. I’ve made plans, changed plans, built websites, followed exciting ideas and quietly let others go.

Looking back, I can see a thread running through all of it... a quiet invitation that kept appearing whenever I thought I was heading somewhere else.

Again and again, I found myself returning to rest.

Maybe it was the birdsong, or being surrounded by such beauty in the garden. Whatever it was, I became increasingly curious about rest. And that curiosity eventually led me to Yoga Nidra facilitation.

And now it’s led me here. ❤️

For the next 75 days (ish?) I’m entering a Season of Rest.

Not a holiday.

Not giving up.

Not checking out of life.

An intentional exploration of what becomes possible when rest is no longer something I earn, but something I choose.

So here I’ll be writing about what unfolds for me around rest, creativity, dreaming, permission, resistance, joy and whatever else emerges along the way.

Not as an expert who has figured it all out.

But as an explorer. 🫧

For now, I’m just going to see where it leads me.

If rest has been whispering to you too, perhaps you’ll enjoy walking alongside me for a while. ❤️

Romilly x

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