tldr; I created a *free* 10-day journey for you to reset your relationship with rest. enjoy!
After a tragic start to summer, on my birthday, I made a promise to myself for August:
To take the entire month off from: solving my life problems; making any significant decisions; doing anything simply because I think I should; or setting any future goals at all, other than giving myself the gift of not doing any of that.
Emotionally exhausted after all the chaos, I knew I needed to slow down and listen deeply. To choose rest not as a last resort, but as a truly integrated practice. But it was haaaarrrrddddd!! And, I realised, I didn’t know how?!
I didn’t feel tired, exactly, but I did feel like I could never fully exhale. Like some part of me was always switched on. Tracking. Tensing. Ready for the next thing. I knew how to “rest” in all the ways we’re taught: I took breaks, I stretched, I meditated, I journaled, I lit candles, took long walks and soaked in the bath. And they were all helpful, to a degree. But still, there was something in me that didn’t know how to feel rested. Not fully. Not deep in my bones.
Rest, it turned out, wasn’t something I could figure out or do my way into. I had to meet it in a different way. What I discovered is this: for many of us, especially those of us who have built our lives around being reliable, strong, sensitive, capable… rest is not familiar. Not in the way we crave it. And not in the way we need it.
For the past month, I have been taking you on a journey called the 8 rules of her way club, a series (aka: how to change your life in 6-12 months). If you’re just joining, begin here:
1/8 — deciding to play by your own rules
2/8 — subtracting what doesn’t belong
3/8 — the natural consequence: uncertainty
This series is a rite of passage, a journey of transformation, with each rule a threshold: decide → subtract → disorient → differentiate → root → express → design → create.
Parts 1–3 (above) shape the self-concept (inner stance).
Parts 4–6 coming next map the ecosystem (inner/outer harmonics).
Parts 7–8 move into agency. We braid outwards from inner truth to outer action.
By the end of these 8 rules, you won’t be the same person you were when you started. They offer you a simple and gentle framework to begin choosing your way.
After the most recent rule or step: uncertainty, many of you replied with some version of: “But how do I stay there? How do I not rush to fill the space?”
And my best answer is this: you learn to rest. To rest in uncertainty, in the unknown. To lean, gently and softly, into the void and the magic dark. Not just take breaks, not just “self-care,” but rest in a way that lets the body exhale all the way down.
This summer taught me that deep rest is a kind of surrender, a skill we have to practice if it has been forgotten. For me, that has looked like letting myself slow to the point where I could actually feel what was happening inside me. Letting myself soften enough that the tears, or the joy, or the hunger, or the pleasure could come through. Then, when the body feels resourced, gently introduce a bit of aliveness again.
I had to learn to rest deeply and fully: to rest when I am resting. Matched by strategically putting myself in active stress states where the challenge slightly exceeds my skill level, that turns into flow, creating a sense of inspired action: to do when I am doing.
Learning how to do this was not as obvious as I thought it would be. I want to share the process I took myself on with you, now.
Our nervous systems have learned to associate safety with being “on.” And so when we try to slow down and try to rest, we don’t feel better. We often feel agitated. Anxious. Bored. Or quietly ashamed that it doesn’t feel good the way it’s supposed to.
Rewiring our nervous systems so that we can experience deep rest is one of the hardest things we can do in the current world we live in. And one of the most important. It doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t wake up one day as a brand new person. These changes happen by showing up with dedication, even when our minds persuade us to turn back.
Recently, I shared that:
I refuse to sacrifice my health, social life, or time to build a business like most entrepreneurs do. Most people think those things are a natural part of starting a business, but they are not if you don’t choose them to be.
A big piece of that is that I am incredibly intentional with how I design my days. I have written before, and often, that my choices stem from knowing what I don’t want, the above, for example, which informs what I do want, which is:
To be of service without overgiving or burning out. And to show others how this is possible.
That means I practice what I preach, putting my needs for both: activation and challenge, as well as rest and peace, at the forefront of how I design my days. While this is a moving target, it generally means that I start my day with meditation and leave my phone turned off for the first 2-4 hours of the day, while I write/feel/think/dream/dflow. I am meeting my need for time and space, which is necessary for me to be of service.
While I aim to start my days with slow mornings, sometimes my nervous system kicks in and says, “you have to get straight to work” (I don’t, not really). Or “you have to check your phone to see if there’s anything urgent you may need to see “ (there never is).
There’s this survival instinct inside of me that feels that if I don’t get started on my work immediately, my entire business/life/world will fall apart. Because this is precisely what I’m trying to rewire, I breathe into it, force myself to put away my phone, and sit down to write. Often, I sit there and it’s really uncomfortable. But this discomfort is exactly what rewires my old operating system.
When I slow down, I create more time. With more time comes more space. Practising deep rest is the best way I know how to slow down and rewire my nervous system to create the two things I value the most: space and time.
Deep rest is not really glamorous or sexy. It’s essential training for learning to hold discomfort without collapsing or distracting. To be with oneself and notice what is really going on underneath the superficial currents, feel the feelings, think the thoughts, to hold them for a moment, and then to let them pass. The more we can hold, the more we teach our bodies to rest deeply.
This audio-visual ‘her way’ deep rest reset was born from that space.
The tender space between knowing you need rest and not knowing how to reach it. I created her way deep rest first for myself. Then, for my private clients. And now for you.
For you, who has done the work, who is self-aware, who understands the theory, but whose body is still waiting to feel what her mind already knows. For you who doesn’t necessarily feel tired, but is wired. Who lives with a hum of subtle vigilance just below the surface. Who doesn’t want another thing to do…
This is a quiet invitation to meet your body where it is. To stop performing “rest” and begin to experience it as something safe, nourishing, and real. Let’s go there together.
Vienda Maria 