Daring to Rest

by Karen Brody

  •Write your worn-out woman’s story. Who is she? How and why was she overdoing? Be vulnerable. Explore issues of worthiness. Then write your well-rested woman’s story. Who is she? How and why is she giving herself permission to rest? If you don’t feel the well-rested woman’s story yet in your life, imagine it and write it as a fairy tale with you as the protagonist. If you wish, dance or draw these two stories instead of writing them.

  •Write or act out a scene of your well-rested woman coaching your worn-out woman. Share lots of details, including what they’re saying to each other, where they’re meeting, their body language, and what they’re wearing. At the end, notice how you feel in your body.

  •Freewrite in your journal about your soul whispers.

  •Look at the five bodies and the qualities you’ll feel when they are balanced (located at the beginning of this chapter). Identify a body you need to focus on balancing. Why? What steps can you take to balance it?

  Key Points in Chapter Ten

  •Well-rested women own their Wild Woman—their intuition, awareness, and sensitivity—and lead from this place.

  •Our soul needs both being and becoming. Well-rested women feed both sides of themselves.

  •Model feminine leadership by leading from empathy, emotions, rhythm, and consciousness.

  •The purpose of meditation, including yoga nidra, is to find your gold, not goals. Your gold is the lost part of you that you rediscover when you go on a journey of self-discovery, like your Daring to Rest journey.

  •Your gold helps you discover your big dreams in life. Your big dreams may involve an outcome, but like an intention, they still are an expression of your true nature.

  11

  LIFE

  Daring to Rest Forever

  Days 36–40

  For these final five days of the Daring to Rest program, the focus is bringing together all the principles you’ve learned to help you envision deep rest as a lifestyle. Instead of complaining about what doesn’t work, a well-rested woman creates the lifestyle that does work for her. You now have the yoga nidra road map. Of course, you’ll be tempted to fall back into the worn-out woman spin because the hypnotic pull of our culture has trained us to hide our true selves, accepting norms that feel unacceptable in our bones, for a long time. But now you know that your health and well-being depend on you not following the worn-out woman model. This is what’s been expected of you, and it’s not working. It’s time to create the life that’s right for you—not a perfect life, but one that includes daring to rest.

  Basic Instructions for Days 36 to 40

  1.Practice the Phase Three: Rise Meditation daily, using your big dream statement as your intention. Continue to use this intention until a new intention makes itself known during your yoga nidra or through your soul whispers.

  2.Continue to listen for and track your soul whispers at the end of yoga nidra. This is forever medicine.

  3.Optional: Continue to practice connecting with your Council of Women outside of your yoga nidra meditation.

  4.Optional: Use additional practices to check in to see how rested you are and to make use of your touchstone.

  5.Optional: Use the Diving Deeper prompts to reflect on your Daring to Rest journey, envision your well-rested self, create a plan to practice yoga nidra in the future, and explore who to share it with.

  Daring to Rest Principles to Live By

  While I’ve taught you about yoga nidra meditation in a linear way, using the trinity of rest, release, and rise and the five-bodies model as our map, you can expect to circle in and out of each phase again and again, depending on where you are in your life. Following are some concepts within each phase that can act as guiding principles for your new, well-rested woman.

  Lead from your heart. Yoga nidra always invites you, through body sensing and breath, to connect with your heart. When we disconnect from our hearts, we lose our connections to our souls. Soul whispers are your compass back to your heart and soul. Whenever you’re feeling directionless, spend a week listening to your soul whispers, during or after yoga nidra, and then see what messages rise from that to steer you to a better place.

  Meet darkness. When we shine consciousness on the shadow parts of ourselves, we exercise our bravery muscle. Meeting and greeting emotions or thoughts that feel dark is some of the healthiest release work we can do. Meeting darkness reveals the light. Yoga nidra teaches us that what we meet, we can safely go beyond. When you meet an emotion or thought during yoga nidra, this creates the potential to defuse the hold it has on you, and this permeates all parts of your life. Bottom line: Make friends with the dark.

  Welcome everything just as it is. Resist the cultural tidal wave trying to pull you into separateness and into thinking of your life and the world as an either-or dichotomy; persist in believing in a both-and way of thinking. Jungian feminist psychologist Marion Woodman tells us that wholeness comes from “holding the tension of the opposites.”1 Allow yourself to feel the discomfort of holding everything and changing nothing. Yoga nidra teaches us how to do this when we hold opposites. In chapter seven, you learned how to use Holding Opposites in your everyday life too. Use it often and everywhere—during family dinners, at work, when you’re feeling pain during menstruation, and while giving birth, when you think you can’t, but know you can. It will help you feel free from the exhausting mental loop.

  You are always supported. Yoga nidra connects you to a universal feeling of oneness. It’s here that you realize the universe always has your back. As extra assurance, and to help you take this support into your everyday life, be sure to call up your Council of Women. After you have been calling them up regularly in your yoga nidra practice, you will be able to more readily call on them as support outside of yoga nidra, at times in your life when you feel you need mentorship or guides. These wise women guides always see you for who you truly are, and this helps you see your true nature.

  Unleash your Wild Woman. Your Wild Woman, the highly intuitive woman who carries and honors the stories of your outer and inner worlds, is always there; you just have to stop and listen for her. Spending time in your inner world, using practices like yoga nidra meditation or sitting in nature, will call your wildish nature forward. You need your Wild Woman fully turned on in order to lead.

  Everything will be okay. It’s easy to fall into darkness when we hit rough patches in life. But in the depths of yoga nidra, at the deepest state of consciousness, we are reminded that everything will be okay. We become grateful. We even touch into joy. Have trust and faith in your everyday life that the divine is always listening and whispering to you that everything will be okay. You’ve got this.

  Telling a difficult story will set you free. There are portals to our souls, and telling a difficult story that you’re holding is one of them. Clarissa Pinkola Estés says, “Stories . . . bring us news of just what to do about the women’s wound that will not cease its bleeding.”2 Storytelling in a safe setting is a beautiful way to explore your wounds and stop the drain they have on your energy. Listening to the voice of your soul, through your soul whispers, clarifies the truth and gives you the bravery to tell a difficult story.

  Imagination is free. One of the first childlike traits to leave adults is imagination. Adults have responsibilities, and often it feels like responsibility sabotages our ability to imagine our lives any differently. If my friend Faith can still believe in imagination, so can you. The only person stopping you from imagining yourself healthy, whole, and complete is you. In addition to yoga nidra, many of the freewriting practices in “Phase Three: Rise” are excellent for helping you free your imagination.

  Stand in your authentic self. Feminine leadership thrives when women are leading from their authentic selves. Forget who everybody tells you to be. Be you. If you don’t like a model that’s out there in society, create a new model. This includes everything from executive leadership to teaching to parenting. The more you stand in your truest self, the more you feel whole. Yog
a nidra is a pointer back to your authentic self, so whenever you feel you’re not sure who you are, lie down, practice yoga nidra, and listen to your soul whispers. You may also want to give attention to whichever of the five bodies needs watering by practicing some of the optional tools in that body’s corresponding chapter.

  Serve you first, then others. I end every yoga nidra meditation with the words “be good to yourself” because if there is a single lesson the Daring to Rest program teaches you, it’s how to be good to yourself. This lesson is for life. It’s the lesson of receiving, something women entering my rest programs have a hard time doing but desperately need to do. Yes, we can and must give, but we also must receive. The moment you understand this, you break from the long history of women serving from an exhausted place and begin to serve from a place of abundance. Yoga nidra is the tool to teach you this, again and again, until it becomes second nature.

  Stay awake. Yoga nidra will help you wake up in your life, but staying awake takes consciousness of both the big and small things in your daily life. Notice how in rhythm you feel in your life, and when you’re needing to go inward and make time for it—demand it. A nurtured inner world is essential for women and helps balance our outer world. Without our inner world, we fall asleep, wandering through life not fully engaged. All the practices in this book help you stay awake. An awakened woman is a well-rested woman.

  How Much Yoga Nidra Meditation Do You Need Now?

  Many women who have gone through the Daring to Rest program like to continue practicing yoga nidra daily. It just feels right because yoga nidra and rest have become a part of their lives. Now that you have a yoga nidra meditation practice, it doesn’t matter how often you practice; what matters is how consistently you practice. Even if it’s once per week, make that your nonnegotiable time to practice yoga nidra meditation.

  In times of crisis, you may need a full day or a weekend of what I call Daring to Rest cave time to get you back on track. During this time, you’ll take yourself through an abbreviated version of the Daring to Rest program. Begin by doing the fifteen-minute Phase One: Rest Meditation, and then you might choose to do a few optional practices from the phase one chapters. Freewriting in your journal about your soul whispers is my favorite optional practice because it’s easy, powerful, and reveals very quickly how in or out of rhythm you feel. Then practice the thirty-minute Phase Two: Release Meditation and a few optional practices from phase two. And finally, end your day or weekend with a long, forty-minute Phase Three: Rise Meditation and maybe an optional practice from phase three. Remember to listen for soul whispers and use your touchstone throughout.

  You might like to take an approach that considers the five-bodies model. Think about which particular body needs attention. For example, if you want to turn around negative thoughts, then you might want to focus on the mental body, practicing the Phase Two: Release Meditation and complementary practices in chapter seven. If you sense a disconnect from hope, then use the Phase Two: Release Meditation and focus on the bliss body to regain a connection to spirit. If you feel your heart needs attention, perhaps because you’ve been hurt and are unable to forgive someone, focus on the optional practices for the wisdom body. If you’ve not been resting much or feel your vitality is low, focus on the Phase One: Rest Meditation and nurture yourself with optional practices for the physical and energy bodies. You determine how long you focus on a specific body, but often either a twenty-one-day or forty-day practice in that one body is an ideal amount of time to feel a shift.

  You might need yoga nidra daily. Caretakers such as postpartum moms and people like nurses, who are also shift workers, often need daily yoga nidra. The Phase One: Rest Meditation is excellent to use during these times, as are any optional practices for the physical and energy bodies in chapters five and six. It may seem impossible to practice every day; often people who practice daily do so in the morning, before they get out of bed, or in the evening, at bedtime. Eventually, practicing yoga nidra becomes as routine as brushing your teeth.

  Menstruation is another important time to practice yoga nidra meditation more often, especially because hormone fluctuations can affect our sleep. This could mean doing just fifteen minutes of yoga nidra meditation daily and tracking your soul whispers every day during your menstruation. Or you may want to not practice daily, but commit to long yoga nidra naps on weekends when you have more time. You may wish to add some of the optional practices in this book on weekends. Women are particularly creative and “juicy” during their menstruation. If your flow is heavy, long yoga nidra meditations are useful, and freewriting in your journal about your soul whispers is essential because they will give you insight into the meaning behind the heavy flow. Also, you may wish to set an intention that you use just during your menstruation, to address heavy flow or discomfort.

  If you’re pregnant, you will have a dramatic change in your birth experience if you practice yoga nidra daily. If you are just starting your pregnancy, you could go through the Daring to Rest program three times, once in each trimester. Or you could go through the Daring to Rest program once and then continue practicing the shorter Phase One: Rest Meditation daily because pregnant moms need lots of rest. You could also continue practicing the longer yoga nidra meditations regularly until you give birth. Optional practices in the mental body chapter (chapter seven) are particularly useful during pregnancy—especially the Holding Opposites practice because it will help you manage emotions that may come up during the birth.

  Also, you can practice yoga nidra meditation in the early stages of giving birth. Lots of women listen to yoga nidra meditation at this time; and as I mentioned in chapter seven, pregnant moms tell me it’s deeply relaxing and helps them hold both the fear of giving birth and the deep knowing that they can give birth. You can use a yoga nidra meditation from any phase, but in your third trimester, the Phase Three: Rise Meditation is excellent because, with birth, you want to be relaxed but hold rising energy. Then, in the late stages of labor, you can use any of the breathing practices from the program or get up and move your body to get your life force flowing. During birth, the practices for the energy body in chapter six, and particularly for activating the second power center, will be useful. And you’ll want to keep using the Holding Opposites practice because it helps you to hold intense emotions and thoughts and to disidentify with them, allowing you to come into a place of stillness, which is an ideal place for pushing a baby out. (Don’t worry, you’ll still have lots of warrior energy to push the baby out.)

  If you’re postpartum, when you truly have little time and are often up in the middle of the night, consider staying in the Rest phase for the first year or more. A consistent fifteen minutes of yoga nidra and listening to your soul whispers will make a huge difference and help balance all the activation with “rest-and-digest” energy. Many new moms I support will practice yoga nidra for fifteen minutes when the baby naps or just before bedtime. If you don’t practice daily, then at least consider right after birth dedicating yourself to a forty-day period of yoga nidra. In Latin America, a custom called la cuarentena (“the quarantine”) allows mothers forty days to recover from birth, bond with their baby, and rest. Makes sense, right?

  For women in menopause who no longer bleed or who bleed irregularly, I suggest making a monthly Daring to Rest date in accordance with the full moon. Tune in to your deepest need to determine what phase you’re in (Rest, Release, or Rise), and use the yoga nidra meditation for that phase. (For guidance, see “Assess How Rested You Are” later in this chapter.) Remember, all yoga nidra practices are restful, so you’re tuning in to your deepest need, not just the surface need for rest. If you have a hard time choosing a phase, create guidance cards. On the full moon, write rest, release, and rise on three pieces of paper. Place all three pieces of paper face down, take a deep breath, and pick one with your left hand. Then practice the yoga nidra meditation for the phase you’ve picked. If you have time, also do one or two optional practices from that
phase.

  You can also choose to take one full day every month, like a spa day, and practice all three meditations. The days of the full moon and new moon are excellent days to choose. Full-moon energy helps us let go, as it symbolizes endings and completions, and new-moon energy symbolizes new beginnings and starting anew. One full day devoted to Daring to Rest is enough time to complete the following steps:

  1.Practice yoga nidra meditation for the Rest phase.

  2.Do one of the optional practices from the Rest phase.

  3.Take a break to drink and eat something healthy.

  4.Repeat steps 1 and 2 using the yoga nidra meditations and optional practices from the Release and Rise phases, with meal breaks in between.

  Ultimately, you are the one who knows how much yoga nidra meditation you need and what Daring to Rest practices you want to use to supplement the meditations. Please, don’t overthink this. In fact, many times in a live class, I will lay out laminated cards with all the Daring to Rest tools (see appendix 2) and encourage women to place them face down, breathe, and then with their left hands, pick a card. Then this is the Daring to Rest tool they practice after yoga nidra meditation. And guess what? They always receive the tool they need. You can do this too by writing the name of each tool/practice on an index card, turning the cards face down, and then picking a card. Simple, easy, and restful.

  Share Yoga Nidra with Others

  For many years, my husband worked for Heifer International, a charity committed to ending hunger and poverty. Most people know Heifer because of its catalog, which lists a variety of animals—like cows, goats, and chickens—you can choose to give to someone in a poor country. Then the people who receive the animal commit to “passing on the gift.” For example, when their cow has a calf, they pass that calf along to someone else in their village. I love this concept and think about it a lot with yoga nidra meditation because now that you have this gift, you have a responsibility to pass on the gift to others. Doing so fully completes your Daring to Rest journey.