Rest in Reflection
A nod towards the year anniversary of Hurricane Helene & reflection as a form of rest-management
A year ago I was working as a retreat manager at Southern Dharma Retreat Center when Hurricane Helene hit. What started as a mild “storm warning” that lit up on the phones of our retreatants after a 10-day advanced meditation retreat with Donald Rothburg, soon unfurled into a full-blown, months long disaster response.
A year later, response measures are still being taken.
Lives are still rearranged.
People’s sense of stability is still finding a new “normal” baseline.
As someone who was intimately part of the hurricane’s aftermath, but ultimately was able to return to the safety of my Montana mountain community, I feel I’ve been able to watch the trajectory of the post-storm repair with different eyes than most. As this anniversary has been approaching, I’ve noticed myself processing a lot. I’ve noticed my nervous system feeling a little more hyper-vigilant without many good external reasons for this being the case. I’ve noticed big waves of emotionality when themes of hurricane and disaster relief come up in conversation.
Being the nerd that I am, I’ve gotten curious.
Today’s article is a nod to honoring the ways our body stores stress.
It’s a reminder to rest when these timelines circle back around.
It’s a moment to appreciate the grief, the gratitude, and the stories we travel with during life’s ungovernable events.
Take Some Inventory
Whether or not you were part of Hurricane Helene—perhaps today is a good day to take an extra moment to pause and reflect.
What does this fall bring up for you?
Are there any specific events—good or difficult—that the season’s change signals to your brain, your body, or your heart?
Even if you can logically walk through, or remember an event’s timeline, what resources do you need to safely feel about those events?
Do you need extra time? A quiet space? An external processor, like a therapist, to hold your experience? Do pictures help? Does calling someone who experienced the process with you create more access?
What are a couple of ways you can honor the event? How can you give yourself permission to spend time with it well?
Once You Take Inventory, Prepare Your Space
It’s often very tempting to go through the motions of processing without actually giving ourselves the appropriate time and space to move through it. Preparing the space on the front end, as well as having a clear ending to wrap up and define the ending of your processing, can help the body feel safe enough to touch into any emotions that might come up during the active parts of reflection.
In general, our bodies need both implicit and explicit safety before we can dive into something difficult.
Prepare yourself well with the basics (it doesn’t need to be fancy):
Get a good night’s sleep
Make sure you eat a nourishing meal
Go through some light movement before and/or after
Clearly mark when, and how you’re going to start your processing
Then, let the middle part be whatever it needs to be. Maybe it’s your normal morning run, but with a special intention to process. Maybe it’s a therapy session. Maybe it’s eating a 10 mg THC gummy and getting out your most tactile art supplies on a weekend afternoon. Maybe it’s sitting quietly among your favorite grove of trees.
It doesn’t matter so much what the actual processing activity is, so much as you’re taking the intentional time to do it.
The aftermath of processing is equally important to pay attention to. In fact, the “rest” portion afterwards is often what our body is paying the most attention to while processing big emotions. If the aftercare from processing feels jarring and turbulent, our body will associate processing difficult emotions with jarring and turbulent feelings. If our processing is end-capped with something gentle, cozy, safe, and connective—we are more likely to return to these feelings, as necessary, until we feel complete in our processing. In some cases, this can even become a point of inspiration and a compass for moving forward with extra wisdom and discernment.
Some considerations after your processing might be something along the lines of this:
Clearly mark the end of the processing (and be kind and gentle with yourself if feelings continue to show up after the “processing” period is over)
Think about how you might want to be taken care of if you were:
Hungover
Sick at home
Recovering from an injury
Resting after a deep tissue massage
Who might be a kind and supportive person to share this experience with?
What is the most compassionate thing you can do for yourself after you’re done processing?
If this is hard to answer, sometimes it is helpful to think of the person we love the most in the world and think about how we might want to provide care for them, then translate that back towards ourselves.
When our body is looking for signs of safety, we’re often looking for signals from our environment that communicate to us that: our bodies are well tended to, that we will still be loved and included in our social groups, and that our ability to experience large emotions will not overtake our entire lives.
Rest In Reflection
When I work with people around themes of sleep heath, chronic stress, and rest—often times we talk about this in a more in-the-moment framework. We’re often looking at current behaviors and lifestyle choices that are helping bolster or sabotage our sense of rest in a forward-facing trajectory.
However, the deeper I go with people, it’s hard not ignore that many of us have some kind of event in our past personal histories that happened to us, and deeply disrupted or shifted the way we relate to rest. Reflection is a process of combing, very slowly, very thoughtfully, and very gently through these pieces and asking ourselves:
“how does this past experience impact my ability to rest today?”
“does this relationship to rest still serve me and make sense, or is it time to process and update towards something new?”
“If there is nothing to ‘do’ about this past event, how can I be kind to myself in honoring that it is part of my history anyway?”
Above All, Be Gentle
As we all know—I’m not a therapist. None of this is prescriptive, nor is it necessarily the right tools at the right time for all of us. Whether you have something to process this autumn or not, kindness to yourself is key.
If you have extra resources of joy, mental and emotional capacity, or time to share—maybe take a look around and see who might need a bit more to lean on.
If you’re someone who is processing a lot this autumn—don’t forget to reach out for resources in new and old places. You deserve to rest, too.
Some Love For Our Friends Still Processing Hurricane Helene
If you recall last fall, our friends from Loblolly Press swiftly showed up to support the artist community post-hurricane by publishing a Hurricane Disaster Relief Zine full of art, poetry, and storytelling from those impacted by the hurricane. In a fashion that The Art of Rest can appreciate, they celebrated the art so those impacted could rest into a sense of purpose and belonging. They also donated proceeds from said zine to directly support those most impacted.
For the year anniversary, Loblolly is publishing a Full-Color Anthology from that original disaster relief project.
If you’re interested in supporting Loblolly and all of the artists who contributed to this Disaster Recovery Anthology you can get your copy with the link below. Mine is being shipped to me as we speak.
I can’t wait to spend some intentional time with these expressions off the screen.
As You Reflect, Don’t Forget to Create
The Art of Rest still believes that when we live our lives creatively, the art will take care of the rest. Don’t forget, sometimes when we process and let things go—it feels good to be creative with our process.
As you process and reflect this fall, if something creative comes up that you’d like an extra set of eyes on, feel free to send it our way. We’d love to catch it.
Thank you for being here.
With rosemary salt lattes, and chilly evening walks,
Dagny Rose
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, is all about—you guessed it—The Rest.
As a trained sleep scientist and mindfulness teacher & researcher, here we explore the everything related to rest. Whether we are unpacking the newest evidence-based sleep health tips, exploring day-to-day tools for bolstering and protecting rest, or diving into a world of dreams, “The Rest” is going to regularly touch into what a restful life is, and how to move towards one14.
**Missoula Event Announcement**
Autumn Community Dream-Sharing Containers
Are you interested in sharing your dreams in a community container this October?
Well that’s great because I’ll be hosting a series of community dream-sharing events!
On October 10 I will be hosting a Friday Night Ritual at Ritual Yoga and then for 3 consecutive Sundays I will be hosting a continuing dream-sharing series for anyone interested in spending some intentional time with the stories that swirl around with us in the night.
To register for the event at Ritual Yoga—keep your eyes out for their updated Friday night schedule coming soon.
To register for the continuing dream-sharing series click the link below. Hope to be dreaming with you soon!