To move and to rest

As a leader, I learned to move.

Success came from pushing and pivoting.
Rewards came from acting and reacting.
I craved and cultivated increased speed and intensity, regardless of the cost.

I obsessed over my productivity. 
I obsessed over my calendar.
I believed that if I could just optimize my time 10% more, my results would eventually match my intentions.

Big breakdown.
Big questions.
Huge waves of guilt and shame.

Everything I built began to crumble. 
The cost caught up.

A new way was needed, but I no longer knew how to move toward it.

I desperately needed rest.
Yet my whole body resisted what it so deeply required.

One night, while sitting around a fire, I shared my story and my struggles with my dear friend, Veronica Palmer.

She gently guided me toward Octavia Raheem’s Devoted to Rest® cohort–a program designed for women of color to explore rested leadership as a restorative practice.

Since that beautiful connection, I’ve been held and supported by Octavia’s teachings as I’ve learned how to build rest as an intentional and ongoing practice. 

My studies have deepened this year as I’ve become an inaugural member of Octavia’s Pause, Rest, Lead® School of Sacred Studies.

Alongside a cohort of remarkable women of color, I am learning to reclaim rest as my birthright.
Together, we are stepping forward into facilitation of rest practices for the communities and causes we lead.

We learn from our resistance.
We cultivate devotion.
We know such work is sacred.

I love that leader I once was–her dedication, her commitment, her drive. 
And I know now that what I needed most back then was to be wrapped in a warm embrace of compassion.

I needed to be held and supported.
To be shown that another way was possible.
Proof that power could come from pausing.

I now have undeniable evidence that 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗺𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀.
I now recognize that 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴.

I now know that every area of my life has been transformed by my choice to breathe, to be, and to allow the sacred pause to illuminate the way.

If rest calls you and you don’t know where to begin, you are not alone.

I will sit with you at the fire.
We will clear the way.
You will find what you’re looking for within.

The deeper dream.
The deeper calling.

To move without strain.
To align with ease.

That’s what awaits us, dear leaders. 
Let us be moved by rest.

*I celebrate and honor Octavia Raheem and all the teachers who are guiding my rest journey. I celebrate and honor my dear amiga Veronica Palmer for showing me a new way could be possible.