Rest and Rise Renewed
A month ago, my body began signalling to me that I needed to rest. Rather than resist, I began to listen. However, it wasn’t so simple or easy.
In March of 2025, I was hit by chronic fatigue, which I later learned was a symptom of an undetected parasite. To cope with the fatigue, for months, every day, every hour and a half or so, I would close my eyes for 5 to 10 minutes and try to focus on my breath and simply rest. At first I found this process extremely frustrating. My mind raced, telling me I was being unproductive. I became agitated and angry, as I didn’t understand what was happening to me. However, I didn’t have much of a choice. If I wanted to function at all, I needed to rest.
As the days and then weeks passed, I began to notice something. I started to notice the subtle cues of my body and spirit. I began to see the moment when fatigue or anxiety appeared, and the initial impulsive reaction of my mind to push through. I began to notice the moments when my spirit was bored or sad, and simultaneously the reaction of my mind to shut these feelings down out of fear.
By being forced to rest, I was creating spaciousness that had previously been occupied by reactivity. And with this spaciousness, I began to give myself the opportunity to respond differently. As I started to respond differently, my life began to transform. Ironically, I found that by working less, I was actually more ‘productive’ because I responded to the wisdom and knowing of my body and spirit. However, when my parasite was diagnosed, and I began to heal, I abandoned my rest practice.
So, last month when my body started to que that I needed to rest, I knew that I needed to listen. I started up my rest practice once again and began to rest for 5 minutes in between tasks. However, after a week, I realized this wasn’t enough; my body and spirit needed a bigger rest, so I pulled back from my weekly newsletters. And my mind responded as it did in March of 2025. It told me stories of how I was being irresponsible and unproductive. And at the same time, a deeper knowing within me knew that my body and spirit were telling me something. And so, I soothed my mind as best as I could, and pulled back from work altogether.
A week into my rest, I had already planned a women’s festival followed by a work trip to the UK. These experiences were so deeply nourishing because I had chosen to rest. However, it was as though my rest only gave me enough energy to do these activities. When I got back from the UK, once again I felt exhausted. Again, my mind wanted to revolt, telling me that I couldn’t take more time off work. However, again I knew deep within me that I needed another week of rest, and so I took it. However, something unexpected happened when I returned to work this week: my spirit still felt exhausted!
I have been in the process of gestating a new idea, and my mind has wanted me to birth it into the world. However, there has been a deeper knowing within me that I am not ready. This isn’t the typical I am not ready because my mind is telling me that I need to learn more, prepare more, and get more experience. Rather, it is quite the opposite. It is my spirit telling me that I need to come into a deeper space of ease, trust and joy before something new can be birthed from me.
At the women’s festival I went to, I went to a workshop guided by Emma Moon called The Conception Portal. In her workshop, she shared something deeply powerful that affirmed my inner knowing as to why I wasn’t ready to give birth to this new idea yet.
Emma shared how the souls that are wanting to incarnate on Earth right now are of a frequency that Mother Earth has not experienced before. These high-frequency souls want to incarnate on Earth to help in Mother Earth’s ascension. However, what this means is that these high-frequency future babies need high-frequency mamas. In the material world, this may look like women wanting to get pregnant and struggling to do so. This isn’t because there is something wrong with them and that they are not destined to be mothers. Rather, they are being called to upgrade parts of themselves in order to support the frequency of their future babies.
Emma spoke to the fact that the process of conception doesn’t only relate to physical babies, but to all our dreams, whether that be a baby, creative idea, project, or business. Although this concept was not new to me, it landed within me in a new way. If mothers are receiving soul babies at a frequency that the Earth hasn’t experienced before, then could our new creative ideas, projects, and businesses also be of a frequency that the Earth hasn’t experienced? Are we all being called to upgrade parts of ourselves continuously in order to birth our ideas into the world?
As soon as this idea came to me, I felt the truth of it resonate deep within me. I saw how I needed to upgrade parts of myself to sustain the new project that wanted to emerge through me. I needed to create more relaxation, ease, trust and joy in my life. My body and spirit were telling me that I needed to stop and rest.
For most of us, there is a deep conditioning that exists within us that it is unsafe to stop and rest. This conditioning that was once the voice of a deeply unhealthy culture has now become internalized and confused with our own. The inner critic has become so strong within ourselves that we are the ones who force ourselves to keep going. We tell ourselves that it is impossible to stop. We may be mothers, business owners or financially in a really tight spot. We each have our own list of reasons as to why we can't stop and rest. And to keep going, something has to give, and that is our relationships with our bodies and spirits. We overmedicate, overcaffeinate, and overalcoholize ourselves in order to overwork ourselves. The end result is that it makes it even harder to hear our true selves.
It is interesting that the 5-day, 40-hour work week was established by Henry Ford in 1926, and was seen as revolutionary for its time. Ford’s research showed that rested workers were more productive.
This Monday, when my spirit felt sad, I decided to surrender once again. I decided to stop and listen to my body and spirit, and allow them to guide me. And in doing so, something magical happened. In a moment of exhaustion, I lay in the grass and truly surrendered, and I felt this deep holding pattern in my body unwind. I had felt like I was trying to hold everything together all by myself for months, and when I relaxed, I realized Mother Earth had been waiting to hold me all along. An ease entered my body, and a wave of trust overcame me. A knowing moved through me that by listening to myself, this would create the upgrade I need in order to birth my ideas into the world.
It is now Friday, and rather than becoming frustrated by the fatigue that I experienced throughout the week, I stopped to honour it. The week felt sticky at times as I tried to navigate what was right for me, stopping and starting as I fell into a new rhythm. By creating softness and spaciousness, inspiration and creativity naturally filled this space. The week was not productive in a high-output way, but it was highly productive in establishing a foundation of self-trust and guidance into how I need to move forward. I had this huge aha moment, realizing that I am probably never going to work a 40-hour week, and am not meant to. I am meant to walk a new way forward.
When we stop holding our value to working a minimum 5-day, 40-hour work week, that was designed for men who were kind of expected to work like robots, we allow ourselves to come back home to our bodies and spirits and allow them to establish the foundation for a new way of working, thriving, and showing up in the world.
I don’t claim to know the way; however, I am actively choosing to find my way, and sharing it as I walk alongside you. I love you, fellow soul journeyer. May our journeys be more easeful and joyful as we realize we no longer have to walk them alone because we are stumbling and figuring them out together.
With love,
Laurel