Hello, my friend.
It's Lily.
I am really happy you are here.
Welcome to Blanket Words.
This little place is for you.
A place to slow down.
A place to rest your mind for a while.
You do not need to be strong here.
You do not need to be fast.
Here, we listen slowly.
We breathe slowly.
We learn gently, together.
Wherever you are right now, I am here with you.
So, let your shoulders drop.
Take one slow, deep breath.
Good.
Let us begin.
It is three o'clock in the afternoon.
You finally sit down.
There is a cup of tea in your hands, hot, with a little honey.
The house is quiet.
For one minute, it feels so good.
When was the last time you rested without feeling guilty?
Not sick in bed with Not a fever.
asleep on the sofa with the television still on.
But resting on purpose, and feeling okay about Because it.
look what happens Your next.
eyes find the laundry You basket.
look at the sink and "I think, should wash those first."
You check the clock and think, "I'm wasting the whole You day."
pick up your phone and think, "Everyone else is doing something."
So you stand up.
You fold the towels.
You answer two You messages.
wipe the table that was already And clean.
the tea goes cold by And the window.
what did you win?
The towels are folded, yes.
But at bedtime, there is still a pile of things to The do.
day did not get Only longer.
your rest got shorter.
And that night, at eleven o'clock, you lie in bed.
Your body is But heavy.
your mind is still writing tomorrow's So list.
many of us live like this.
Nothing is wrong with you.
Wanting to sit down is not You lazy.
are just tired of earning every minute.
When we were little, nobody told us that rest is allowed.
We learned the opposite.
Rest is a You prize.
get it only when the work is You done.
get it only when you are sick.
And if you take it early, you must feel bad about it.
So let us talk about rest tonight.
Not as a prize.
Not as something you earn after everything is done.
But as something you are allowed to have today.
This is not about doing less with your life.
It is about stopping, so you can go on.
I noticed something about rest a few years ago.
I kept a long list on my fridge.
And I told myself, "When the list is done, I will sit Here down."
is what I learned.
The list is never done.
Have you noticed?
You wash the dishes, and then there is the You laundry.
fold the and laundry, then there is a You message.
answer the message, and then it is time to think about dinner.
You cook and the dinner, then, of course, there are the dishes again.
The list grows back like grass after rain.
Too much to do is not the real trouble.
The trouble is where we put rest.
We put it last, under everything And else.
nobody ever gets to the end.
Rest is not something you win at the end of the day.
It is something you need in the middle of it.
It is drinking the tea while it is still hot.
You are allowed to sit down before the list is done.
You only have to be tired.
And you are.
I want to show you five small pictures of rest.
Before the first picture, let yourself be heavy.
Feel your body on the chair or the bed.
Feel your feet.
Notice the air on your face.
For now, let the bed do the work.
Now, imagine you are sitting on a plane.
The seat belt clicks.
The engines make a low, steady sound.
A kind voice says, "Please your switch phone to airplane mode."
So you touch the little picture of a plane.
The bars of at the top the screen go away.
No calls.
No messages.
No little buzz in your pocket.
For three hours, your phone is unreachable.
Nobody can find it.
And nobody is angry with the phone.
Nobody says, "What a lazy phone."
Even a phone gets to be unreachable sometimes.
Then plane the lands.
You switch it back on.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
The messages come in, one by one.
They waited.
Nothing broke.
My friend, you are allowed to have an airplane mode too.
When you take a bath, and your sister's message waits for one hour, that
is your airplane mode.
When you sit in the car for five minutes, before you go into the
house, that is your airplane mode.
When you say, "I will call you tomorrow, I am tired that tonight,"
is your airplane mode.
Think about that for We a second.
let a small machine rest.
We do not let ourselves rest.
What if tonight, for one hour, you were a phone on a plane?
You are allowed to be unreachable for a while.
The messages will wait.
They always do.
Now, come with me into the kitchen.
Imagine a big pot of soup on the stove.
Chicken, carrots, onions, and a little black pepper.
It bubbles softly.
Blup.
Blup.
The window is a little foggy from the steam.
The whole kitchen smells of pepper and onion.
You take a spoon and taste it.
It is good.
But it is not great yet.
Something is missing.
So the you put lid on.
You let it cool, and you put the pot in the fridge for the
night.
Nobody stirs it.
adds Nobody anything.
It just sits there, in the cold and the dark.
But in that quiet night, something happens.
The carrots, the onions and the pepper slowly become friends.
The next day, at lunch, you warm it up again.
You taste it.
And it is so much better.
It is the same soup.
It only had a quiet night.
My mother used to say, "Soup is always better tomorrow."
When I was a girl, I did not believe her.
Now, I make my soup one day early, on purpose.
My friend, this is what rest does for you.
A quiet night is not empty.
Things are still cooking, very quietly.
A worry that felt huge at midnight feels smaller with your morning tea.
A word you could not find yesterday comes easily after a good sleep.
An angry feeling softens after one slow evening at Some home.
good things need a quiet night.
So If do you.
you loved my episode, Live Like Good Things Are Coming to You, you know
that some good things bloom in Today the dark.
is the same truth from a new window.
And if this episode is helping your heart feel a little lighter right now,
would you tap subscribe?
It is
so that someone else, someone who has not sat down all day, can find
this place too.
Just one small tap.
Thank you, my friend.
Now, let us continue.
Let me tell you a small story.
Every summer, a little girl went to stay with her grandmother.
Her grandmother had a small house with a porch at the front.
A porch is a little open place at the front of a house, with
a roof and two wooden chairs.
The grandmother worked all day.
In the morning, she baked bread.
She fed the hens.
She washed the sheets and hung them in the sun.
But every afternoon, at four o'clock, she stopped.
She poured a glass of cold lemon water.
She sat on the porch.
And she did nothing.
No book.
No sewing.
She just watched the street, the trees, and the old cat on the step.
One the afternoon, girl stood at the door and watched her.
"Grandma," she asked.
"Are you not busy?"
The grandmother laughed.
"Oh, I am very busy," she said.
"I have bread to dinner cut and to cook."
"Then why are you sitting?"
The grandmother patted the other chair.
"Because resting is part of the work," she said.
"If I do not sit now, I will burn the dinner later."
The girl sat down.
The wood was warm from the sun.
And after a while, the girl did not want to talk anymore.
She slept very well that night.
Imagine that porch now.
The warm chair under you.
The quiet street.
Nothing to do for twenty minutes.
My friend, we think rest is the opposite of work.
We think the work is the cooking, the cleaning and the caring.
And the sitting is time we steal.
But the grandmother knew something.
The bread was good because her hands were not The tired.
dinner was good because she was calm, not The rushed.
sitting was not outside the work.
It was inside it.
Resting is part of the work.
It is not time you It steal.
is time you Breathe need.
with me, just once.
A slow breath in.
A longer breath out.
Let your shoulders sink down.
Let your face go soft.
Let your hands lie open.
Good.
Now, imagine you are walking on a beach in the evening.
The sand is cool under your feet.
The sky is pink and grey.
The sea is going out.
The water moves back a little, and then a little more.
The wet sand shines like glass.
Small shells and stones appear, where the water was an hour ago.
If you did not know the sea, you might think, "Oh no, the sea
is leaving."
But it is not leaving.
In a few hours, it will come back, all the way up to the
rocks.
It always goes out before comes it back in.
And nobody stands on the beach and shouts, "Come back!
You are lazy!"
We know the sea needs to go out.
My friend, your energy is like that sea.
After a long week, feel you empty on Saturday morning.
That is the tide going out.
After three nights with a sick child, you have nothing left to give.
That is the tide going out.
After a big family dinner, you want to sit alone for a while.
That is the tide going out too.
I know what thinking.
you might be "That sounds lovely, Lily.
But I cannot stop.
People need me."
I understand.
I really do.
And that is exactly why you need to let the tide go out.
Not because they do not need you, but because they will need you tomorrow
too.
Going out is how the sea comes back.
Going quiet is how you come back too.
Here is my last picture, and it always makes me smile.
Imagine a little girl on that same beach.
She is five old.
years
She has a red bucket and a yellow spade.
All morning, she builds castles in the sand.
Then, she stops.
She sits down in the sand, with her legs straight out in front She
of her.
eats a piece of She orange.
looks at the The water.
grown-ups call to her.
"Come on!"
"Let us go But swimming!"
she does not "I move.
am resting," she "So says.
I can play more."
The grown-ups laugh.
But ten minutes later, she jumps up and runs into the waves, faster than
all of them.
My friend, nobody gave her permission.
She did not ask anyone.
She did not say sorry.
She listened to her tired legs, and she sat down.
And then she played harder than anyone.
When you sit for ten minutes after lunch, you are not giving up on
the day.
You are that girl with her orange.
When you go to bed early on a Tuesday, you not are losing the
week.
You are getting ready to run into the waves.
When no you say to one more job at work, so you can get
home before dark, you anyone are not letting down.
You are sitting in the sand for a while.
Rest so you can play more.
The waves will still be there.
Rest one hand chest.
on your Feel your heart working.
After each small push, it rests for a moment.
And has it never stopped working for you.
Here is my gentle invitation for you tonight.
Before you sleep, rest for two minutes on purpose.
Two minutes.
That is all.
Put your phone in another room, or turn it face down.
Lie on your bed, or sit by the window.
Do nothing at all.
And say slowly, "Rest is part of my day."
And then, "I am allowed to stop."
Your mind may say, "You should be doing something."
Let it talk.
Smile at it, and put yourself on airplane mode.
Let me remind you of what we talked about today.
We talked about the phone on airplane You mode.
are allowed to be unreachable for a while.
We talked about the soup that tastes better the next day.
Some good things need a quiet night.
We talked about the grandmother on her porch.
Resting is part of We the work.
talked about the tide going Going out.
out is how the sea comes back.
And we talked about the little girl in Rest the sand.
so you can play more.
So tonight, put your phone on airplane mode.
Let the soup sit.
Pull up the porch chair.
Let the tide go out.
Sit down in the sand.
Be soft yourself, with my friend.
Not because the list is done, but because you are tired, and tired people
need rest.
And because rest is not a prize.
You are allowed to rest, without feeling guilty, just as you are.
And tomorrow at three o'clock, drink while your tea it is hot.
Thank you for being here with me today, my friend.
Thank giving you for yourself this quiet time.
It means more than you know.
If this episode brought you a little peace, please tap like and subscribe.
It helps someone else find this when place they need it most.
And tell me in the comments, how will you rest for two minutes tonight?
I read every one.
Rest your heart tonight.
I am proud of you for being here.
Goodbye for now, my friend.