The Radical Power of Rest: RSC’s Rest Month Guide

In 2020 the RSC team had a radical idea: what if we took a whole month off every August to rest? A whole MONTH! Isn’t that indulgent? How could we justify it? There is so much work to do! (Have you ever had a thought like this regarding taking time off?)

Well… wild as it felt when we first said yes, it turned out to be exactly what we needed, and we are about to head off into our second annual rest month. We invite you to join us!

Read on to learn more about what a rest month is, what it’s for, and how you can design your period of rest whether you have a month or a few hours.

Why Rest Month?

In this fast-paced, optimize-everything, prove-your-worth society that we live in… an alternate vision for the future is emerging — one in which we live with ease and know that we are enough as we are. That future calls on us to slow down and learn to rest now. Learning to rest well is a strategy for getting to the future we desire.

Rest is vital for building power to resist systems of capitalism and white supremacy, and as @TheNapMinistry says, “in a rested and open state, we will wake up.” By practicing rest consistently (rather than occasionally) and resourcing ourselves to do meaningful work that brings us joy, we actively create the future of justice and liberation we want out of the world we have now.

What’s A Rest Month?

For each us, rest month includes some “vacation time” in the traditional sense, but we’re also going deeper by stepping away from our normal routines (and emails) to make abundant space for learning, spiritual development, and uninterrupted quality time with loved ones. We’ll be practicing and exploring ways of resting and nourishing ourselves that we would love to integrate back into our daily life so that we can be well-resourced for the long haul ahead.

Declaring a rest month is a way to intentionally practice rest, and to discover new ways to bring rest & joy into your day-to-day routines.

Yes, rest takes practice! Many of us assume we’ve got the hang of rest by now and don’t think much about it, but what if you treated it as a skill you could always improve — like playing a musical instrument? What would become possible if you leveled-up your ability to rest, even as you continue to work for a life sustaining future?

The purpose of this guide is to help you see how to integrate rest & joy into your life by practicing diligently for a whole month, even while continuing to work hard on what’s most important to you. You need not take “off” any time from your regular work to take a rest month, though you could. You might want to do one every year!

Why focus on cultivating our skill for rest & joy? Learning how to be really good at rest & joy is a powerful skill for longevity in doing anything…especially in social change work! Passionate people like you are very skilled at working hard, so this is a way to play for a month with what it would look like to make rest & joy part of your daily life and work.

And remember that joy is different from happiness. Joy is the experience of deep satisfaction that arises when we take action on what’s meaningful to us, and happiness or even elation is a feeling that often (but not always) accompanies that experience. You might even consider doing some grief work during your rest month! Grief can be a powerful gateway to rest and joy. For more on that, check out the book Active Hope by Joanna Macy.

Part 1: Create your “rest & joy” blueprint

Your finished blueprint will look something like this:

Step-by-step:

1. Put “rest & joy” in the center of your blueprint. This is the core purpose of your month.
2. Go to http://li.radicalsupport.org and choose 2–3 life’s intentions from the inventory that you want to focus on doing restfully. Write them around your core purpose. (Your life’s intentions are the underlying directions, aims, and purposes that give meaning to your life. If you want help exploring yours, reach out to one of our coaches!)
3. Identify 2–3 “areas of focus” per intention, and write them on your blueprint. These are ways that you could demonstrate your life’s intention through rest. Make sure they’re all things that create ease and joy for you! They might stretch you a bit, but in a playful way and not a “more work” way.

An area of focus is…

1. Not as broad as a Life’s Intention — yet provides a meaningful, ongoing pathway for acting on those intentions.
2. Not “stretch-requiring” like a goal — so it’s easy and even fun to do.
3. Not as specific as a single action — so that it inspires our creativity as we take action on a daily basis. The most useful areas of focus help you generate ideas for a bunch of restful actions, whether they take 5 minutes (like reading a page of a book) to a whole day (like reading the whole book).

• Let your areas of focus be ways that you can play and experiment with bringing more rest & joy into your life.
• This is a great opportunity to experiment with your ideal daily work flow. What would it look like if your work day was productive and also restful? What would you be doing?
• What if you were to go on a walk after lunch every day before going back to work? What if you were to start taking naps regularly? Or to set aside time to go hiking or make your art?

Some examples of life’s intentions & areas of focus:

Life’s Intention: to be physically fit & healthy

• Exercise 3x/week
• After-lunch walks
• Visit farmer’s market

Life’s Intention: to be an adventurer

• Explore new parks
• Kayaking on Lake Champlain
• 3-days screen-free

Life’s Intention: To be a creator of beauty

• Writing
• Drawing
• Gardening

Notice that most are broad and could be acted-on in any number of ways, some are routines that you might want to practice (like exercising 3x/week), and a few are specific (like a 3-day “screen fast”). Play with a combination that would bring you joy!

When you’ve sketched out your Blueprint, look back and ask, “If I were to do at least one small thing in each of these areas this month, would that support my rest & bring me joy?”

When the answer is “yes!”, make your blueprint beautiful and hang it up.

Using Your Blueprint

Put it somewhere that you’ll see it every day, and come back to it daily to ask where there are small, sweet opportunities to take action on one or more of your areas of focus!

You can ask yourself these questions each time you look at it (and you might want to write them on your blueprint itself):

• What are one or more areas that I would like to acknowledge myself for demonstrating recently?
• What is one area I’d love to focus on today or in the next few days, and what is one small, sweet step I’d love to take in that area?
• What support would I love to do that?

Other ways to use your blueprint:

• Practice daily! Even if you have a full schedule, see where you can take 5 minutes to demonstrate an area on your blueprint in some small way. It might be as simple as setting a timer to daydream or doodle for 5 minutes!
• Share your blueprint with someone who can support you to keep these intentions and areas of focus at the center of your attention.
• At the end of the month, take some time to reflect on what you did to demonstrate your blueprint, what you want to keep doing after the month is over, and what you still might like to do more of in the future.

Part 2: Take a “solo retreat”

A solo retreat is an intentional break or change from your normal routine where you get to create your own purposeful space to practice rest.

A solo retreat is an opportunity to rest deeply and to PLAY!

There is no right or wrong way to do a solo retreat, and it can be any length (though a day or more is ideal). What’s important is that you set aside an extended period of time to practice doing one or more of the areas of focus on your blueprint (or other things that are restful and bring you joy).

Set aside a day or two (or more) that is your sacred time to spend practicing rest & joy. If a whole day isn’t possible, you might dedicate 2+ hours per day over a couple mornings, afternoons or evenings to be your “retreat”. Put it on your calendar and make sure other people know your plan so there aren’t any unexpected demands on your time for that period. Keep this time sacred and dedicated to YOU!

Set up a retreat space, either at your home or some other special location where you’ll be comfortable. If you stay at home, you might want to plan to do your chores beforehand so you’re not thinking about cleaning the toilet or going grocery shopping while you’re on your retreat. You may also want to do some rearranging so your space feels extra special and a little different. You could even build an “altar” of objects that represent certain memories, loved ones, or feelings that you want to be present to during your retreat. I like to write some intentions for what I want to get out of my retreat on a piece of paper that I keep with these objects on my altar, and then I take apart the altar at the end of my retreat as a way to acknowledge how it unfolded and close-out the space.

What to actually DO during your solo retreat? Rest! Play! Anything you want!

At least a day before your retreat is scheduled to begin, invest some time (at least 30 minutes) setting intentions and a simple vision for how you would love to spend your retreat. You can use your Rest & Joy Blueprint as a guide and/or do something entirely different.

Here are some ideas for what you could do on your retreat:

• Set aside a whole day to go to the park to lounge in your hammock, read, paint, and explore.
• Plan a day or two to focus on just one or two things on your blueprint: an adventure, an art project, time with a loved one, reading a whole book…
• Rest deeply. Give yourself a day where you can sleep as much as you want! Set no alarms, turn off your phone and just unplug and bask in the glory of doing nothing.
• Connect with something you’re grieving about the state of our world. Feel into and honor your pain so you can release it and connect to the abundant love & joy on the other side of that grief. The book Active Hope by Joanna Macy has some wonderful exercises for this. It’s remarkably freeing!
• Dedicate a day to spaciously explore and write your vision for the next 6 months or year.
• Practice the Gratitude Protocol 3x/day as a way to train your brain to more easily observe monkey mind and shift to a more interesting conclusion. You can practice with gratitude as the article suggests, or a “next level” would be practicing visualizing yourself demonstrating one standard of integrity or one life’s intention you hold dear. This is a great practice to bring into your day-to-day too!
• Set aside a day to reflect and honor recent transitions and transformations in your life. You could write about this, make art, or even seek out and gather objects that symbolize these transitions.

Some questions to consider:

• In what ways have I grown in the past 6–12 months? What would I love to acknowledge myself for? What would I love to keep nurturing in myself?
• In what ways have I deepened my relationship with myself and my community? In what ways would I love to continue deepening & nurturing those relationships?
• In what ways have my communities and the movement landscapes changed around me? And how have I adapted? What would I love to do to continue to transform myself as I adapt to that change?
• Who would I love to share these observations and desires with? When and in what way?

Some additional tips:

• Set aside your phone. Turn it off if you can, and let important people know what you’re up to and how they can contact you in case of an emergency. If you can’t turn it off, put it on airplane mode and set an alarm to check for critical messages a few times throughout the day.
• Allow yourself spacious amounts of time and flexibility in your retreat so you can move slowly. You might even practice walking and moving slowly during your retreat time to see what that’s like! Play a game with yourself by exaggerating the slowness of your movements and see just how slowly you can do something.
• If you notice yourself getting sucked into work, email, or social media, then consult your “rest & joy” blueprint and consider what you might like to do instead.
• Avoid the urge to schedule anything. Let your retreat unfold. Sleep in as long as your body needs. You might even turn off or hide all your clocks to see what it’s like to just be without marking the time!
• Let go of any attachment to what you thought you’d do when you started your retreat. Don’t try to “accomplish” anything in particular. Your blueprint will give you a way to see what you might love to do, but stay open to what emerges.
• If you start doing something, and you notice you’re not enjoying yourself, then play with something else instead! It might even be time for a nap :-)
• Let a significant portion of your retreat be solo time, without anyone else around. Of course being with friends and family can bring us so much joy, but let this time be about YOU. (Again, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. If doing all or part of this with your sweetie or friends would be nourishing, go for it!)
• Avoid alcohol and recreational drugs during your solo-retreat. Just like anything you practice, all that rest and play is actually rewiring your brain to more easily see how to incorporate rest into your life and notice moments of joy more often. Alcohol and recreational drugs, while enjoyable, inhibit our brain’s ability to rewire itself and could work against you in this case. So save that fancy whiskey for some other time!

Part 3: Two check-ins with your buddy!

This is for participants in our We Are The Ones Coaching Group. If you don’t have a buddy, you can join one of our upcoming groups, or find a friend to do this together with!

• Set aside two 30–60 minute times to meet with your buddy during your rest month.
• Share your blueprints with each other and discuss:
• What I’m learning about cultivating the skill for rest & joy in my life is…
• Things I’ve done that I’m celebrating are…
• The next area of focus that I want to put my attention on is…
• One next step that I promise to take is…
• You can also share your plans for your solo retreat with one another and talk about how you’d like to support each other to make it a great experience.

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