Rest

September 18, 2021 Susan McCulley

Rest.

Just take that in.

Rest.

When is the last time you rested?

Rest is different than sleep. Rest is stopping. Pausing. Feeling. With awareness, not sleep.

If you haven’t rested in a while, you’re not alone. Rest, in our culture is equated with failure and death. So no wonder we avoid it.

A couple of years ago I wandered into a Restorative Yoga class. That experience opened my eyes, my body and my heart to our human need to rest. While Restorative is one of my favorite ways to rest, I also love to swing in a hammock, be near water, listen to music or sit in the sun (not for too long).

A favorite book about the power of rest is The Way of the Hammock by Marga Odahowski

One of the Essential Nutrients of Movement is REST. The invitation this week is to consider how you do (or do not) rest and how you might incorporate even a few minutes of rest into your day. Make a list of the ways you enjoy resting or imagine you might enjoy and specifically when you could do them.

If it feels awkward or even uncomfortable to rest, think of it like finding ways to get more vegetables into your diet. Like sneaking some greens into your smoothie or carrots into your pasta sauce, see how you might sneak some rest time in a way that feels RESTorative.

Here is a simple practice to give yourself the Essential Nutrient of Rest using one thick bath towel for support

Lie on your back on a soft and firm surface like a carpeted floor, a yoga mat or blanket, or a firm sofa.
Fold the towel into a square and put it under your head so your neck is long and your chin is just slightly tucked.
Breathe deeply. Notice your body. Relax whatever you can. Stay here a minute or two or longer if it feels good.
Fold the towel so it is a little thicker and put it right under your heart and rib cage so your chest opens and there is no strain in your neck.
Breathe deeply. Notice your body. Feel the support under your heart and let it soften as much as you can. Stay here a minute or two or longer if it feels good.
Move the folded towel under your sacrum at the base of your spine. Avoid your low back and instead let the big flat bones of your sacrum relax into the support of the towel.
Breathe deeply. Notice your body. Unclench anything that you notice is gripping. Stay here a minute or two or longer if it feels good.
Move the folded towel to under your knees. Let your feet relax out to the sides and the backs of your knees give in to the support of the towel.
Breathe deeply. Notice your body. Relax whatever you can. Stay here as long as you like.
When you are ready to end the practice, roll to one side slowly. Pause there for a moment, then gently push up into sitting. Pause there for a moment and then gently transition into whatever is next.

This week, the mindful movement practice I’ve posted on Insight Timer is the first in a restorative rest series: Full On Goddess/Goddex/God. It’s a Restorative Rest practice that offers some stretch and movement and then one of my favorite supported poses using pillows and towels. You can find the practice here. I hope it inspires you to take more time to rest.

Explore All The Floors

September 8, 2021 Susan McCulley

Illustration by Hilary Knight from Eloise by Kay Thompson (c) 1955

My favorite picture book of all time is Eloise, the sweetly quirky, playful and poignant story of a six-year-old girl who lives at the top floor of the Plaza Hotel with her Nanny.

When I was young, I spent hours gazing at Hilary Knight’s detailed and imaginative illustrations of Eloise traipsing around the Plaza like she owned it. I delighted in the naughty, messy, all-over-the-place Eloise and her antics with her dog, Weenie and her turtle, Skipperdee.

My favorite page of the book was a big fold-out section that showed Eloise completely messing with the elevator operator as she would hit the UP button and then run up the stairs ride the elevator up and then run down the stairs, hit the DOWN button and then run up the stairs again. That Eloise, she loved to explore all the floors.

If she had been a girl like me, who followed directions and stayed in the lobby and her room like she was supposed to, it would have been a much different … and frankly, boring story.

One of the Essential Nutrients of Movement is Explore All The Floors, and it is inspired by Eloise.

Our bodies love to move down near the Earth,

in the middle in the heart plane

and up high, as far as we can reach.

Explore All The Floors is a practice that is both physical and highly practical no matter what you do with your body. Moving low, middle and high can increase your strength, your cardiovascular fitness, and your youthfulness simply by moving your body up and down in relationship to the floor.

Side Body Spinnaker

September 1, 2021 Susan McCulley

Think of your side body like a big, beautiful spinnaker sail on a sailboat. It’s often squished up and unnoticed but when we let movement and breath in, it expands with grace, beauty and power.

A beloved yoga teacher called the side body the most over-worked, under-paid part of the body. And it’s true. We are using the sides all the time to reach, twist, move and breathe but rarely pay much attention to them.

And most of us, even those who move mindfully with regularity, don’t notice how much tension and contraction we carry in our sides. Focusing on side body movement opens and release the torso and core, and allows for deeper, more nourishing breath. I feel a relief and release like I put down a heavy bag. What I notice when I move the side body is that I feel great.

Cup & Saucer / Travel Mug & Cup Holder: Shoulder & Hip

August 25, 2021 Susan McCulley

My Nana drank Sanka talked with her hands. She loved to sit and “visit” with friends and serve them Sanka (“Sanker” in her Massachusetts accent) in her lovely strawberry tea cups.

She could rest the cup and saucer in her hand and sip and talk and gesture without losing her stride.

Those strawberry cups and saucers are like the shoulder joint.

My Nana drove a racy red Mustang convertible. As they loaded her bags into the back seat, the grocery boys at the BPM gawked with envy. She didn’t drink Sanka (or anything else) in her Mustang. There were no cup holders back then and if she’d taken the strawberry tea cup in the car, she would have spilled it in her lap before she got out of the driveway. If she had wanted to drink Sanka on the way to the BPM, she would have needed a travel mug and a cup holder.

Travel mugs in cup holders are like the hip joints.

Screen Doors: Knees & Elbows

August 18, 2021 Susan McCulley

In front of The House in the Woods with the Red Front Door: my grandfather, uncle, sister and father after winning the neighborhood regatta (September 1973). Still looking for a photo that has the screen door in it!

Most of my girlhood summers were spent at my Nana and Grampa’s cottage near Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts. Built in the early 1950s shortly after Grampa came home from the war, it was their simple, summer escape. The cottage was an uninsulated, cedar-shingled place for my grandmother to sunbathe and drink Fresca and my grandfather to sail his boat, Sabrina.

In our family, the cottage was never called “the cottage.” It was always called “The House in the Woods with the Red Front Door.”

Not only was the front door red, but the screen door, too. The big wooden red door was almost always propped open with a big rock from the beach. The red screen door was the door we actually used. It was much more screen than door, attached to the jamb with loose-ish hinges and a big spring.

That screen door was the flow of the house. Grownups and children and dogs were in and out all day. Even when it was closed, it was where the inside spilled out and the outside spilled in. Smells of pine trees and salt air, coffee and ripe peaches, sounds of sea gulls and blue jays, laughter and barking, rays of sun, sprinkles of sand, pinecones and puddles of rain flowed in and out.

Knees and elbows are much like that old, red screen door.

BLOG

Here is a simple practice to give yourself the Essential Nutrient of Rest using one thick bath towel for support