What is 'rest'? In our last episode we saw that rest was more than sleep and not working. Derek and Scott look at the work of Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith on different types of rest.
1. Physical Rest
Giving your body a rest.
2. Mental Rest
It could be that you need to give your mind a rest.
3. Emotional Rest
We can get emotionally tired when we are not paying attention to our emotions.
4. Spiritual Rest
Reconnecting with God
5. Social Rest
Different relationships can ones that build us up or drain us.
6. Sensory Res
Especially with screens.
7. Creative Rest
Creative rest is not about putting a demand on your creative ability; that’s not rest, that’s work. It is the opposite. It’s allowing white space in your life and giving room for your creativity to show up. Creative rest lets you focus on your basic need for wonder. You can enjoy fulfilling that basic need in ways that don’t put any pressure on your being creative. Yes, creativity may bloom from the seeds planted, but creativity is not the objective, only rest.
Summary
-
Don’t have to do all of these every day, or every week. But it is helpful to be aware that there are different ways to rest and different people will rest in different ways
SHOWNOTES:
Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity by Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith
TED Notes from Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith
TED Talk from Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith
Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
Atomic Habits by James Clear.
CREDITS:
The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia.
For ideas or questions please email [email protected]
To support the Reach Australia Online Library head here.
TRANSCRIPT:
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Scott
I’m Scott Sanders.
Derek
I’m Derek Hannah.
Scott
Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel singing ministry. Every week one thing’s brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see new churches launched all across Australia. So if you’re thinking about planting and whether you’ve got the gifts and the skills. Come and see us get assist. If you’re a church is singing, what does it look like for us to start to move towards planting again?
Scott
Reach out, come and see us. If you’re a black to plant and you haven’t been assessed, you haven’t got a plan. Definitely come and say, I hope it’s not too late to put in place assessment and planning.
Derek
Let’s say even if you’ve got a plan and no one else has laid eyes on it, you might think it’s the most amazing thing in the world. Why would you not draw on the experience of entire network of people who’ve been doing for the last 15 years.
Scott
Common sense and find out more about planning, ministry and rest. This is our second episode, and I guess in the first one we have debunked the myth that we aren’t very good at it. Often because we love ministry. There are identity issues. There are things that we need to believe about God, and there are things that we believe about ourself that mean we don’t do it well.
Scott
And they’re also just habits and we know we’re just not good at it because we need to work at a skill of it as well. But God does call us to rest. And maybe the reason we are good at it is because we actually don’t understand that it’s not just one thing, but a bunch of things. And so today we’re just going to I’ve been I’ve been to a book, a work by Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith in her book, Sacred Rest Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity.
Scott
I always want to draw attention to the seven things, and I just hope in that discussion it’s been a helpful book just to help us sort of think and reflect on on this important topic of rest. So she says you can either make time for rest or rest will take the time it needs. The choice is yours. The best time to rest is when you don’t have time for it.
Scott
Determine the rest you’ve been missing and you recover your life, renew your energy and restore your sanity. That’s. That’s the. And the plug to to read the book. But for now, you’ve postponed another episode of the one thing. How do I rest the seven types of rest? Derek Itching to say something.
Derek
Always itching to say something. Always. So we have this seven things to get through, so we’re going to get through them. Define this as well. Part of this conversation is the reason we’re having it. Is it, I think for me is two from two perspective. One is just as being a disciple of Jesus, being a follower of Jesus, there needs to be a sense that I need to be theologically committed to the idea that I am part of creation and I do need to pause and enjoy God.
Derek
And so I need to understand how it is that works, how I’m created. So that’s this conversation. The other aspect for a whole bunch of people listening as well is that they lead ministries and they’re probably quite driven. And so in the same way, they need to understand what are the boundaries in order for them to lead healthy ministries and churches and be healthy leaders.
Derek
And a key part of that, or argues by theologically and physically and mentally in all the countries who are looking today, understanding and thinking deeply into these things so they can do it into the longer term. That is the goal of this conversation to help them lead healthy ministries under God for the long term. Okay, This.
Scott
Might be let’s let’s get into seven things. The first one is physical risks now are going to number building and physical rest. What is that?
Speaker
What does that look like? How do you do that? You think people are thinking that?
Scott
What does she mean by that?
Derek
Oh, well, it’s just giving your body rest. It’s it’s it’s doing something other than what you would normally do. And so if you’re seeing your desk all day is kidnaped, go for a walk, go to the gym. If you’re at a building site and you’re lifting bricks all day, it’s probably doing something else. I never understood, guys that I go to the gym with who are tradies and they’re at lift and stuff all day and they come to the gym anyway.
Derek
Good on them. More power to them. But yeah, it’s, it’s giving your body something else to do in order to stimulate those parts which might be unused. It has other effects as well, which you talk about, but just physically getting those muscles and moving or resting them in a space.
Scott
Yeah, I was actually watching rugby like 3 the other night and, and one of the things they were talking about was the amount of injuries that are happening, you know, soft tissue muscles that are happening. And the old rugby league players sort of, you know, shared the fact that, you know, why are these guys lifting weights and.
Speaker
Doing all these.
Scott
Extra training? You know, back in the day we go to the pub, you know, and training. Training was the training. We didn’t need to do all these other things. But, you know, this has got to the prevalence of hamstrings and pectoral and tear muscles and, you know, all that sort of wrestling, extra wrestling training that you doing. Hang on.
Scott
Like just playing the game is enough and, and training. Okay So physical rest. The second is mental rest.
Derek
Yeah. And so this is that ability to shift gears to do something to exercise your brain differently that would normally be exercised in your job or whatever it is doing in the moment. And so thinking about something else now, this is great. Pete Hughes put some quotes together from this book, which is really helpful. He pulled this this piece of research out.
Derek
Now this let me put this before you, Peng, who we mentioned last episode. He gives this great example, one member mental rescue. He’s research showed that climbing is a favorite pastime of physicists. And so you know, Steve Gooding’s, UC Santa Barbara offices expert on black holes, quantum gravity, avid mountain ice climber. While Harvard string theorists Lisa Randall’s climbing exploits have been commemorated with a Lisa Randall Wall wall in Colorado, a six foot granite granite climb in the man’s s identified net.
Derek
What’s the point In the point? He is, said physicists in mountain climbing or ice climbing are exercising very different parts of their brain. It’s yes, it’s physical. But he was thinking it’s actually exercising different problem solving probably stress levels I imagine in this, but it exercises the brain differently and that is rest.
Scott
So you need to give your mind a rest. That’s an interesting.
Derek
Can ask you something. What do.
Scott
You do? Well, I love I love Mount Alonso. I love cooking. Yeah, I love building, you know, building things and actually, you know, doing physical activity. So, yeah. So for me, you know, when I get stressed or what I’m, you know, getting to that point every day when I come home, like one of the things I love doing is just getting my head into, okay, how am I going to plan out, you know, a meal, you know, and the more complex, the better, you know, two or three dishes, the timings, you know, thinking about what’s going to happen, you know, but that kind of just helps me think outside of, wow, I’ve been thinking too,
Scott
that I.
Derek
I love coding.
Scott
Coding.
Speaker
And then there.
Derek
Was obviously there was my history when I came out of uni. It’s just completely different. It’s discrete, it’s understandable for me and I just love it.
Scott
It’s completely different. Giving you my interest. Okay, said one emotional rest so we can get emotionally tied when we’re not paying attention to our emotions. So we’ve talked regularly on this podcast. The importance of emotional intelligence, you know, being aware of our emotions, regulating our emotions as well and such, You know, that is a mature skill and it’s something that we don’t expect of kids, but we expected of of older.
Scott
So we need to actually take time to address our emotions.
Derek
This this is a hard one because you do need to be you do need a categories within which to be able to express your emotions and avenues in which to do it. So some people journal online journal. I love the fact that people can journal, but it is writing those emotions on a page just to get there’s no right or wrong.
Derek
It’s actually just getting it out there using a feeling wheel. But in order to emotionally race.
Scott
On often actually going to going to places where you by self and actually just you know yelling, you know the physical act of kind of yelling at them, you know, yelling and, you know, getting an emotion that was here is quite helpful.
Derek
Okay. There you go.
Speaker
Oh, did you do that? Look, still, you just know.
Scott
The physical act of yelling. And yeah, often I kind of store it up and I’m regulating my action, but I just need to actually just get it out there.
Derek
I was sorry. My response was more way, way. Do you go that no one can hear you do it? It’s a great idea. He can.
Scott
Find places.
Derek
Details where it is. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good one.
Scott
You got the fourth category is spiritual rest. So, you know, making sure you taking time to reconnect with God, taking time to be thankful rather than moving on to the next thing and jumping on the next thing. So it’s interesting, the book is it’s a secular book. She’s a Christian. You know, in the book she encourages people to reconnect with their God.
Scott
But in some senses, you know, we ought to know this as Christians and in ministry, we’ve got to take the time to be reading the Bible for ourselves, to be working out how to engage with God, you know, be it through song, you know, be through celebrating with others, be through times of, you know, expressing thankfulness, you know, and just enjoying God.
Derek
And so none of these things happen necessarily in isolation. And so for me, this one, the emotional and physical rest happened at the gym. Actually, I those two things are combined for me. But the spiritual one, I have to go for a walk because I’m too my brain is too preoccupied at the gym with just surviving. And so I can’t actually process any meaningful thought.
Derek
But when I walk, that’s the time which I can actually pause and reflect on stuff and think about my relationship with God. And yeah, that’s for me.
Scott
Okay. The fifth one, Social rest. What does this look like?
Derek
Yeah, look, I think there’s an article in the ABC actually recently this at the loneliness factor, the huge loneliness factor.
Scott
What did you see that went on for, for 35 to 48.
Speaker 1
- Yes. They the loneliest.
Scott
Inside is.
Derek
A picture of me right in there.
Speaker 1
Exactly. Oh, it’s just all.
Derek
Alone in a field. Yeah, yeah.
Scott
Yeah. So we both read it. It must have both part. It were both part of our Facebook feeds because of the algorithm.
Derek
Yeah, well, yeah. Insightful. Yeah. Honesty. I’ll take.
Derek
But I think this social rested it is a bit and particularly in church well where you are often dealing in a closed ecosystem with people and it’s hard to kind of it’s hard to know what is this relationship. Sometimes we’re down to catching up at the coffee shop.
Scott
But but there is a reality, just the reality. We can we can say it out loud. There are some relationships that dryness that we find is a little tough. There are others that we get enjoy. So again, I recently took a holiday break. The first week I just kind of reconnected with a whole bunch of a whole bunch of friends from, you know, from my childhood, you know.
Scott
So I went up to Northern Beaches, caught up with a couple of old mates, you know, went for a walk, went for a walk. We just caught up, had a beer, and it was just it was refreshing and seeing a couple of these mates. Well, since funerals and and since some other recent events are just connecting up, but just to pause and reconnect with them, it wasn’t draining, you know, there was no there was no transaction happening in it.
Scott
We were just kind of catching up and reflecting and and it was just good. And I reckon the, you know, finding those relationships, finding those people in our lives, you know, we’ve we need that social responsibility. And I reckon recognizing as well that, that, that people also need us to do that as well. You know we need to serve people.
Scott
So, so I can also say there are some relationships that drain me, but I can, I can see the importance of me being, you know, the friend who is alongside them. You know, I can say, you know, I just need to I need to keep giving of myself into that relationship, even though it’s it’s it’s not draining me out.
Scott
That’s that’s what it means to love people. That’s what it means to not be self-serving. Self-serving. It’s self-serving. Now, what about kind of, you know, introvert, extrovert, you know, people. Yes. On this, you know, that is the introvert hearing this and going, you know, I just need not have people.
Derek
Well, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You’re nodding his head vigorously at the moment. Yeah, absolutely.
Derek
But but even within this as well, introverts and experts, everyone needs someone. For some people it’s lots of people. For some people it’s one person who you just feel like this is not hard work, this is easy to be here. And so whether it’s one person, whether it’s multiple or, you know, each, who is going to need more time alone than others, this social rest is trying to work out where you find that balance and not thinking.
Derek
You just have to keep pouring out for every single person and you should be okay. Stiff upper lip. It just doesn’t work like that. Yeah.
Scott
So so particularly Minister, you find those peace, those ministry peers who you know, you do, you know, doing genuinely enjoy catching up with them. I think they’re particularly important, you know, in ministry where you are relationally pouring yourself out lots. So number six sensory rest. Mm. This is a tough one. This is a conversation in our household moment, especially with screens.
Scott
I’ve been running some stuff on, you know, post COVID kids have kids are now, you know, watching double the amount of, you know, screens in most in most cases, you know, the impact of COVID on on this for all of us and those flippin algorithms, they’re getting even better at kind of drawing a scene and pulling a scene.
Scott
And our our social media has actually moved away from being social media moved away to entertaining media. You know, I think most of our platforms, more and more, they’re actually kind of entertainment ad entertainment at ad at entertainment, rather than actually now I’m actually really using this to connect up with people and, you know, feeling closer and more connected.
Scott
So we need actually, you know, time to to pull away from from frame, from those from those screens and those those extra sensory things.
Derek
So he’s a little nugget to go from paid the producer he’s not going to go to this in lockdown. We would we struggle with sensory rest and so we we thought we were doing things differently that would give us resonance there. We would be working on Zoom all day and then we would get off those Zoom meetings, those Zoom meetings where you are, you do feel like you’re making eye contact with the screen.
Derek
You are conscious of how you look in the other, but you try to focus not same as being a room Anyway, I would. They then would step off that and again watch Netflix and wonder why we’re still tired. And it’s because it’s exactly the same kind of rest. It’s that sensory rest that we weren’t getting, you know?
Scott
Okay, the the final one, creative rest. So creative rest is not about putting a demand on your creative ability. That’s not rest. That’s work. It’s the opposite. It’s allowing white space in your life, giving room for your creativity to show up. So creative risks lets you focus on your basic need for wonder. You can enjoy fulfilling that basic need in ways that that don’t put any pressure on on you being creative.
Scott
So I find this often when I do go, you know, I do actually stop and you know, and take that day off, go for that guy, for that work that actually my mind, I’m better able to reflect, I’m better able to start thinking about things. I actually find myself, you know, solving problems that I haven’t been able to, you know, solve in the workplace.
Scott
I find when I go on holidays that, you know, at various points I’m in a different space. And and I actually see how that, you know, that space actually helps me to, you know, to to conceive and work in it, you know, in a different in a different area. So, you know, bushwalking, cooking, enjoying, you know, enjoying relationships, you know, can often give you that, give you that creative rest.
Derek
Mhm. Yeah. Yes. An interesting one for me because I’m thinking when the times that I find this. Yeah. My wife Jacqueline very, very good at this kind of stuff actually. She’s an amazing seller so that’s her downtime. She’s, she goes and makes amazing things. I don’t really have anything like that. Coding would be the closest, but I’m not allowed to say it again because I get laughed at last time.
Derek
I’m feeling very sensitive about that. Oh, it’s.
Scott
All on the resource and all that I break. I actually I actually did a bit, of course, like I went did a course on conflict. Yeah. And that was a different group of people, you know, it was full on. It was, it was like 45 to, you know, 50 we were on like, you know, most the course. But I actually I found it really, really enjoyable.
Scott
It was good to be a learner. It was good to not be leading something. It was good to be sitting back and and having just the space to reflect with different people and, and I had a great time. Mm.
Derek
Yeah. No. So for this I quite like the creativity for me, although I don’t think it’s quite what this is pushing into. I quite enjoy those moments where I’ve got weeks where I’m technically working, where I have no meetings at all. Yeah. And there’s a blank sheet of paper that I can think through all the things that I should do.
Derek
I love that problem solving that does energize me. Significant. That for me is the creative rest. I hate gardening and I only cook roasts, a height, bushwalking, all those kind of things. I don’t know. That for me is the creative respite roasts TV. No, no, no, no. That’s the only thing I can cook on a useless cook and I can only cook roast.
Derek
But there’s apparently, you know, had to have roast for every meal of the day. And so, yeah. Okay, cool. Once a week it’s a.
Speaker
Pub meal every day. And that’s a countertop meal.
Scott
Just a different roast every day. Okay, So how are we going to summarize these seven things? You don’t have to do all these every day or every week, but itself would be aware that there are different ways to rest and different people will rest in different ways. So that’s really useful. There are different ways to rest and different people will rest in different ways.
Scott
So what does matter is that you actually take time to rest.
Derek
And one of the things I’m finding helpful about these categories is it is often hard to diagnose why it is I feel so tired because I think I feel like I’m sleeping okay. I feel like I’m having enough days off. But often it’s what the kinds of rest I’m having that actually is causing me to be ineffective in the things that I really value.
Derek
My family, my church, my ministry, my leadership. And so actually having some categories is incredibly applying.
Scott
So what’s the one thing, Derek, that we’ve learned about rest?
Derek
Well, I’m going to say rest is not a passive thing. There’s lots of different types of ways to rest. Whatever your way is, you need to work it out, use it as a diagnostic tool.
Scott
Okay, So just on the other toolbox, all the episodes we’ve mentioned are going to be in the shownotes. So we’ve got some TED notes from Dalton Smith that we’ll put a link to, also a TED Talk from Dalton Smith. So if you’re not, you know, you don’t have the time to read. If you’re not a great reader, listen to her TEDx TEDx talk on this topic.
Scott
We’ve mentioned as well in the last podcast, the the book rest by by Pang and James Keys atomic habits. So it’s a dive in and jump in to those books. I reckon if you’re if you’re in your team as well, I reckon this is a really good conversation to be having with your team as well. So often I think you know what happens when you actually open up some of these conversations, you actually hear different things, but you as a leader, if you’re leading a team, you as a team member, if you’re working with others, you can actually find out what’s what’s helpful for your team members, how you can encourage them in that respect.
Scott
So, you know, just a little like I’ve heard coding, I don’t know, I’m going to talk to someone and I might give you know, might give you a couple coding exercises to do so you can rest.
Derek
I’ve I’ve learned not to be vulnerable with people you work with because I might mock you.
Scott
Today that if you’ve got a topic that you’d like us to gather, please email us at resources at Reach Australia dot com dot AEW. If you’ve got a topic you’d like us to cover, please email us that resources at Reach Australia dot com. I’m Scott Sanders.
Derek
I’m Derek.
Scott
Chat soon.
