How Can Rest Be A Form Of Compassion?

This piece fell from my pen (well, keyboard) as Anton slept beside me on a long haul flight...

If you’ve ever shared a bed or a room with another person, or sat beside a sleeping stranger or loved one on a plane, train or in a car, you may have noticed how sometimes when you’re wakeful, they begin to stir.

And it can feel like the shuffling kaleidoscopic patterning of your thoughts has spread out from your darting mind into theirs. 

And so you go still. 

Lying or sitting as quietly as you can.

Willing them to sleep. 

Sometimes of course it’s because we don’t want the disturbance of their wakefulness. Maybe for good reason, and that’s a reflection worthy of its own attention.

Or maybe simply because you’re deep in your own disturbances and don’t wish to add to theirs. 

And sometimes of course, this deep awareness of their breathing, their presence, the surfacing of their awareness, helps us feel into the very essence of our own existence. 

Perhaps noticing a tightness in your jaw that you quietly release, so it doesn’t spread across the pillows or the seat. Waking them with its solid grip. Maybe there’s an unclenching of the muscles of your shoulders, your back, your stomach hips and thighs. Softening back into the support of where you sit or lie, sending waves of rest and relaxation through the fabric of that support, through the ether that connects and separates you. 

And, if it’s safe for you to rest in the way you wish them to rest, this deep relaxation this can bring a profound peacefulness. 

Allowing yourself the softness you wish them to receive. 

And if there is no one sleeping beside you, you can imagine the waves of this wakeful straining; this pressing up and out of the beguiling confines of sleep, pouring out from where you lie into the world. Perhaps sending tendrils of tension into other homes, other lives. 

And likewise of course, we can imagine the deep rest we can achieve, receive, pouring out from where we lie on the edge of sleep. We can imagine gifting peaceful repose into others’ homes, so they rest more fully… and we do too. 

This, for me, is the gift of compassion. 

That by seeing the impact we have - not purely in the immediately obvious, the practical actions that we take - but also in the energy we send into the world.

And in our loving concern for others’ well being, so we bring beauty to our own way of being. 

FURTHER EXPLORATION

If you're curious about how your rest could become a form of self-compassion, take a look at our Solo Retreats. Deep rest is something our guests often say they've received in their time here.