Practices for Returning
Rest
I am held, not striving.
For many of us, stillness is the hardest thing. We have been moving and doing for so long that stopping feels irresponsible, even dangerous. This exercise is not about achieving a peaceful feeling. It is simply an invitation to let your body remember what it feels like to be held rather than to strive.
01Arriving in Your Body
Find somewhere comfortable, a chair, a couch, wherever you are right now. Let your feet rest flat on the floor and your hands fall open in your lap. Take a slow breath in through your nose and a long exhale through your mouth. Just like that.
Now, without moving, notice a few things quietly: the weight of your body being held by whatever you're sitting on, your feet making contact with the ground, any sounds around you. Just let them be there.
Pray simply: “Lord, You are here. And so am I.”
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Matthew 11:28
Let those words land somewhere in you. You don't have to do anything with them. Just let them be true for a moment.
02Noticing What You're Carrying
Place one hand on your chest. Take a breath and gently ask yourself: What am I striving to hold together right now? You don't need to solve it. You're just noticing.
Maybe it's a relationship, a role, a version of yourself you feel pressure to maintain. Maybe you're not sure, and that's okay too. Where does it show up in your body? Tight chest? Clenched jaw? A kind of low-grade hum of tension?
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:29
Jesus isn't asking you to try harder here. He's inviting you to lean on something steadier than your own effort.
03Setting Something Down
Take a slightly deeper breath in and on the exhale, imagine gently setting something down. Not solving it. Not handing it off to someone else to fix. Just setting it down for right now, in this moment.
Try it again: breathe in and on the exhale, let your body soften just a little. It's okay if this feels hard. Rest often does, at first.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”
Psalm 23:2-3
In this image, God is the one leading. God is the one refreshing. You are simply the one being led. What would it feel like to let yourself be led right now, even for just a minute?
04Being Held Without Effort
Keep your hand on your chest. Feel your heartbeat. Your heart is beating without your trying. Your lungs are breathing without your managing them. Something is sustaining you right now that has nothing to do with your effort.
“There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.”
Hebrews 4:9
Rest isn't just a day on the calendar. It's a posture, a way of being held rather than holding everything yourself. Whisper it, or just let it move through you quietly: “I am held. I don't have to hold it all.” Notice how your body responds to that. Even a small softening counts.
05Taking This With You
Gently bring your awareness back to the room. Feel your feet. Feel the weight of your body. Take an easy breath. Ask yourself honestly: What would it look like to carry this, held rather than striving, into the next hour of my day? You don't have to have an answer. The question itself is the practice.
Place both hands over your heart and close with this prayer: “Lord, teach me to rest in You, not just on a day off, but in the middle of everything. Hold what I've been carrying. I trust You with it. Amen.”
Take one more slow breath. And when you're ready, open your eyes and carry a little of this with you.
A Personal Reflection
I am a recovering perfectionist and a striver. If you have ever taken the StrengthsFinder assessment, you might recognize the Achiever, that relentless internal drive to do more, produce more, accomplish more. It is my number one strength. For a long time though, I didn't experience it as a strength at all. I experienced it as a cage.
What I eventually came to understand is that my achieving and doing had become a coping mechanism. If I kept moving, kept producing, kept taking care of everything and everyone around me, I didn't have to feel the painful things underneath. The striving numbed the emotions and bodily sensations I didn't know how to face. I was busy enough to avoid myself.
When I began my healing journey, I was frustrated and even a little angry when I saw this pattern clearly. I wondered if being an Achiever was actually a problem, something broken in me that needed to be fixed. It wasn't until my Freedom Movement certification that God gently reframed it. He didn't make a mistake when He made me this way. The Achiever is a gift. It just needed to be freed from the fear underneath it.
The shift God has been taking me on is this: I used to achieve in order to feel safe. Now I am learning to feel safe first, and let the achieving flow from that place. The drive is still there. But it no longer owns me. That reordering has changed everything.
The journey toward that began in a season I never would have chosen. In October 2021 I got Covid, and I spent days in isolation away from my family, including my eight children. Lying in that bed, unable to do anything, God got hold of my heart. He lovingly told me that my family was doing just fine without me. And He told me He was going to take me on a journey of learning to rest in Him rather than feeling like I had to carry the weight of everyone and everything around me. He did not tell me what that journey would look like. He just said it was coming.
And it has unfolded, one small piece at a time, over the last five years. I won't pretend I didn't wish for a lightning bolt. I did. I wanted to be healed quickly, completely, all at once. But what I've come to understand is that the slow unpacking has been a gift in itself. Each piece God has brought to the surface has required me to hold tightly to Him. Each step has shown me something new about who He is. The journey has grown our relationship in ways a lightning bolt never could have, because I have had to trust Him over and over again, in small moments and hard seasons, long enough to actually learn that He is safe. That He can be trusted. That I can rest in Him not just as a concept but as a lived, practiced, real experience.
And I have not walked any of it alone. Community has been one of the primary ways God has sustained me on this journey. Whether that has been through ReEngage marriage ministry at our church, my EHS ladies texting group, my online Confessional Community, or divine appointment dinners with friends who were willing to sit with me in the hard places, being known and supported by safe people has made rest possible in a way I could not have manufactured on my own. We were not designed to heal in isolation. We were designed to heal together. If you do not have that kind of community yet, I want to encourage you to look for it. It will change everything.
God loves you too much to leave you to your own coping mechanisms. He wants to take you on this same journey, at whatever pace you need. He is not in a hurry. And He is not asking you to stop being who He made you to be. He is just asking you to let Him hold you while you do it.
That is what rest actually is.