Rest can look like staying mindful in each activity currently at hand and engaging in the presence of mindful attention and engagement with the people in front of us. Rest can look like not rushing through the day with back to back tasks and simply do one thing with full presence. The energy it takes to place the full attention is the mindful engaging we talk about in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. 

Being can look like processing and staying mindful of our own thoughts at any given time. This is called Mindfulness of thoughts in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Watching the thoughts go by like a cloud in the sky or leaves on a stream empowers us to choose our own thoughts and acknowledge  them as just that – thought. Having this observer mentality shows us that our core self is separate from the thought itself. This empowers us in knowing that what we experience as negative thoughts does not have to define us in any given moment. This separation from identifying with the thoughts themselves and not giving into the flurry of thoughts flowing through the mind helps calm the mind by bringing this mindful awareness into our own emotional experience. We do this by also identifying the sensations in our body, the images and metaphors that come up to us as we experience the emotions in the moment. This helps us connect to the right brain and bring the narrative around our emotional experience through the left brain. This whole brain approach is helpful for everyday life being modeled in society to be predominantly left brain oriented. Engaging in art or music helps heal through this mindset. To relatively feel relaxed through these techniques feels like rest too. Giving the mind a reprieve from the daily hustle from time to time is indeed the breath of fresh air we all need. 

Here’s to taking better care of ourselves!