Here it is, time to come clean; I am an addict. That is correct; you heard it from me before you heard it through the grape vine. To my friends and family who might be wondering how they did not know this about me until now; I would have told you but I just realized…

…I had been invited by an inspiring friend of mine, Sylvia Nibley, to participate in the filming of something… I wasn’t quite sure what. I said yes because every time I hang out with Sylvia and her community, I walk away the wiser.

It was Friday the 29th at 1 pm. I showed up to some familiar faces. Shannon Simomelli (The class/lady I wrote Dancing into my body about), as well as other people that I am sure I will be soon writing about, were there.

As it got started Dan Howard was introduced. I had seen him speak before and I was inspired by his calmness and sincerity. I also thought he looked very familiar. Come to find out I have known both of his sons for years (see you guys in Kamas and at echo this year!).

Dan started by telling us that the message he wanted to share would only take minutes. This caught me as strange since I was told we were going to be here for 4 hours. Dan was right, it only took a few minutes for his message… and then 4 hours to start comprehending the depth of it.

He explained what he calls Intentional Resting. Sounds simple enough, to intentionally rest for ourselves, right? He went on to explain how, because of the chaos/distractions of the world, we never let our bodies reach homeostasis, we keep our attention (and intention) so distracted that we very rarely have time to heal.

I am sure you are no stranger to meditation and have probably paused to send your headache some light, received a massage, spent a day relaxing to recharge, etc. This is in the same vain that Dan spoke about but his was a little simpler and for me it was a piece I have been searching for.

Just a week before I listened to Dan speak about Intentional Resting I was speaking to a friend about stress. I was mentioning how I couldn’t figure out why I was getting ill all the time. Yes I live a very active and stressful life (or so I am told, I think my stress meter is broken), but I take time out to relax, meditate, go on vacations, etc.

The person laughed and pointed out that even when I meditate, I meditate in an extreme way. They were joking but I got the message. I realized that my idea of relaxing was working on the house, cleaning, etc. My idea of meditation was using SyncCreation to remove energetic blocks and manifest things into my life, or take the Zen approach and send energy through me by actively clearing my mind. My idea of going on vacations was to see and do as much as I could.

I realized that I didn’t know what relaxing was. I spent that night and many sense thinking about it as I lay awake (yes I even sleep intensely)…

Back to the class, here was Dan, telling me about rest. I had heard this word but it wasn’t part of my vocabulary. He told me that we can rest for our wounds. We can rest for our aches, we can rest for our bodies, our immune system, etc. and after telling us this he showed us.

He had us say, I am resting for my _____ now. I did it for my lower back because it was a little uncomfortable. He had us say I am resting into my ______ now. After I said this not only did my lower back feel better, I felt more present, but most importantly I felt true rest… that simple.

The more he talked about rest; resting for ourselves and others, the more I realized, just like my friend said, there wasn’t one thing I did that was actually resting! I have been told I was addicted to extremes before. But I wrote it off because I also relaxed. But I wasn’t relaxing and in fact I was just juicing up doing a less active way of using, creating and burning up more energy.

In that moment I got it and now I am okay with telling you. I am addicted to the highs of everything! Yes I know the power of affirmation. But if I started the article out with I now rest it wouldn’t have captured the addictive irony of this article.

My new affirmation is that I am a well rested person. I have the thought that the more rested I am the more I can be awake (I know there is a quote or something like this). All last week I caught myself jumping from extremes to extremes. But now I know! And now I pause and rest!

All ready I have felt it affect my health, I have noticed it in my ability to be in tune with my body, I have even shared this with others and felt it bring whole rooms together and rested in minutes.

To all the other addicts of the extreme; take a moment, pause and rest… we could all use some! And imagine a world of well rested beings, present and peaceful… now that is the stuff!

Here is a side story. I was in Vegas last weekend to see Preston and Kimball (A.K.A. Fyzyk and Litmus One) play a show (hip-hop with a soul and conscious lyrics). Before the show I was sitting with Preston (one of my best buddies in the whole universe) and I was having a hard time connecting with him.

I thought it might be due to the long (but awesome) car ride or that we were just on different pages. Then it clicked that he wasn’t really there with me. He was 4 hours a head thinking about the show with nervousness. Some how the conversation got turned into a discussion about meditation and energy (happens all the time with Preston and I. If you don’t believe me listen to Preston and Kimball’s lyrics and read my other blogs).

He asked me to walk him through a meditation. I had been thinking about Intentional Resting a lot so I explained it to him and asked him if he would like to give it a try. He said yes so I invited him to close his eyes and repeat “I am resting for my body now”.

When he said it the room went still and so did his jitters (twitching leg, etc). I then asked him to repeat “I am resting into my body now”. I felt all of his energy that was somewhere else come and settle in his body. I got goose bumps! I looked around the room and I could tell by the expression on everyone’s face that they felt Preston arrive.

He went on to rest for his brother Kimball and the crowd that would be at the show and then sat in the rest for a few minutes. The rest of the time before the show was beautiful, everyone there felt connected, present, and in the moment and it set a beautiful tone for the evening.

As for the show later that night; ask anyone there and they will tell you that Preston and Kimball were the 2 most present people that performed. The energy flowed through them like water. There crowed was connected and engaged. It was beautiful, powerful, inspiring and fun as heck!

What an awesome experience of resting!