5 Ways To Rest So You Can Be & Look Your Best

Photograph by: Eric Nopanen

How many of us go, go, go; until we hit the wall? Yes, it's often difficult to take the time to REST. However, beautiful, with all due respect, what are we thinking? I believe a healthy, beautiful and joyful woman, is a well-rested woman! I know and have experienced what happens when I don't set good boundaries withing my life to rest, hardcore, just as a work, hardcore!

Here are five ways I've learned to relax and recharge to operate at my God-given maximum! I hope these help you as they have me! 

1 

Find FIVE to THIRTY minutes in your every day to meditate or do breathing exercises. YES, I said it. Breathe, sister, breathe! When you're going so fast you forget to connect to the most revitalizing attribute you have right under your nose! Ha! Even taking five minutes in your day to do a mini-meditation or just sit and connect with your breath will increase your peace, help you stabilize all those, a mile-a-minute, thoughts. I love this meditation app it's wonderful! 

2

Remember and DO what you love. Not involving anything in your HAVE-TO-DO, list.  I personally love to dance and sing. When I do either of those things, I connect with my inner child and I am ME again. Something happens when I play, I feel light-hearted and that feels good. So remember who you are and what you love to do for fun and incorporate it somehow into your week.  Girl, if you have to dance salsa while your mopping, you do that! Do it for you. You are worth it! 

3

Start the day with YOU, for YOU. Say affirmations to yourself. Even if you don't feel them yet, saying things like, "I am organized, I am loved and accepted, I matter. I show up for myself and get my own back. I am lovely and I have beauty to reveal. I am significant."  Many of us feel like if we take any time to ourselves and care for our bodies, mind, and spirit, that we are being selfish. Listen, when you take care of you first, you are able to give more to others. It seems backward but it's not. Our whole day is filled with our minds trying to figure out if we are loved and accepted.... did you know that? EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO THROUGHOUT THE DAY IS AN ATTEMPT TO VALIDATE YOURSELF. Love, you can do that for yourself at the beginning of the day. If you love you, and you respect you and you find yourself valuable and significant. You don't need the world to do it for you. 

4

Journal your feelings. I know as women we hardly have these right?! hahaha. Well, let's do something with them. Journal so that you can see where you're energy is at. Do it non-judgementally and then ask God to help you figure out a solution. I've seen astronomical growth in my spirituality and in my mental health just by writing down, "Dear Diary, today Jimmy called me squirt and he hurt my feelings." Journaling allows you to not repress and suppress your pain which causes suffering. Allow the pain of what you're going through and feel it out and then you can move on. Instead of stuffing it in. It will affect you in more poisonous ways! Get it out, girl, Get it out on paper. You can burn that ish, later, if you want. But listen to yourself. Have your own back. 

5 

Take a whole day off of everything. I am a lover of the word of God and in the bible and the 10 commandments, God tells us to rest one day. "Take a Sabbath. Why God? I'm so busy." Is what I used to say. If one day isn't possible for you to think of ways you can honor God with your time. Don't be mad at the messenger, okay. I too resisted this for a long time, until my health started to really give me grief and then I thought, maybe, just maybe I should listen to the "big guy"! Maybe he knows what he's talking about when he COMMANDS me to take a day of rest. I 100% believe in this because I have seen miracles in the two years I've taken one day a week to celebrate what God is doing in my life. MIRACLES. They aren't just for me, I believe God wants to do them in your life too. To be the strength in your weakness. 

Personally, people tell me all the time, "Oh, Libier, you seem so busy, like you're everywhere." It's interesting to me that I'm less "busy" than I've ever been in my life. I have taken my cues from the bible when it talks about being faithful in taking a day off and I believe that God helps me supernaturally the rest of the week. He gives me energy and ability to focus on what I need to do. I am able to not give into (as many) distractions as good as they might seem because I've honored him first.  He gives me the clarity to what I need to say yes to and what I need to say no to. I am grateful for a God who can multiply my time when I honor him first. When you decide to honor God through your rest one day of the week you are acknowledging to him that he is your first priority, that you believe he is the one all the amazing things throughout your week. And trust me, I've also failed at this too because I'm a human being I mess up daily. But God doesn't. 

People often ask me what my secret is, my secret is Jesus and giving him my life. He is the vine and I am the branches. I could NOT DO ANY OF WHAT YOU SEE without God. It's all for his glory! I am in awe of how much he has given me. What I'm most honored to have is this gorgeous treasure I carry with me daily.  He is my treasure and my reward. He is worth every rejection, every trial, and tribulation. Knowing him and who I am in him is what gives me hope to keep pushing through! He gives me rest and I believe he is a God of abundance and has enough to go around to anyone who believes. So rest in him, my beloved. You are his precious little one whom he wants to bless. If you rest, you'll be all that you were meant to be! If you rest and take care of you, you'll be able to serve with a full tank, If you rest you'll be able to CRUSH your week and do what it is that sets your soul on fire! 

xo, Libier