“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
A wise Chinese proverb.
We all need enough rest and relaxation. It’s essential for humans.
Labor Day is an intentional day of rest and relaxation from “labor.”
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Labor can be work, stress, worry, and struggle.
If there wasn’t enough labor in life already,
we create more labor with heavy thoughts and emotional and physical clutter.
The “shoulds” add immensely to our life labor.
Labor Day is a prescribed day of diastole.
Effective diastole- resting and filling— is essential for healthy heart function.
It is actually ⅔ of the normal cardiac cycle. More than half.
Without enough time in diastole, our hearts malfunction.
This is true of life as well.
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What can you do to rest, refill, and relax more?
What do you need to let go of?
How can you begin to allow yourself to notice and enjoy more?
To BE YOU more?
Effective diastole- rest and refilling- leads to much more effective and nourishing systole.
Systole that replenishes and heals
and is more efficient and more optimally functional.
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This is true of the heart, relationships, doctoring, and honestly all aspects of living.
We need both an inhale and an exhale.
Sleep and wake.
Action and inaction.
How can you create more diastole in your life?
More BEING. Less doing.
More connecting, experiencing, loving, and living- IN THE MOMENT.
Filling your heart and mind with beauty and love.
Letting go of the struggle.
Allow rest and diastole without guilt, blame or shame.
Enjoy it and see what magic occurs from it.
A whole and healthy heart, mind, and body perhaps.
If you find yourself resisting the idea of diastole- too many to-do lists and important things, activities, self-care and …remember your heart.
The marathon of a healthy life comes from 2/3 diastole, 1/3 systole.
If you need help allowing, enjoying, and creating diastole in your life-practice mindful yoga with me- weekly diastole, retreat with Anne Kennnard and me in Spring 2022- a week of diastole, or gift yourself mindful coaching. When you shift your perspective and let go of the struggle- diastole emerges magically in all areas of your life.