Appendix

Practical Tips for Establishing a Practice of Directed Rest

Start small. Five or ten minutes of quiet stillness is plenty. You are much more likely to stick with a daily practice if you begin with a manageable amount of time. You can always increase the time you spend in directed rest as you grow more comfortable with the practice.

Pick a comfortable, accessible spot away from distractions. This location may be a short distance from your home, like my park bench, or it could be a corner of your own backyard or living room. The key is to identify a place that is away, physically and/or mentally, from distraction, but also accessible enough that you’ll be less likely to make excuses for skipping the practice.

Integrate your directed rest into an already-existing daily routine. Identify a slice of time in your schedule that you could dedicate to directed rest, rather than trying to manufacture a whole new ritual. For example, I slipped my five minutes of directed rest into my daily routine of walking the dog. I was already walking the dog anyway, so it didn’t take much effort to weave five minutes of directed rest into that time. You may find five minutes while you wait to pick up your kids from school, during your daily lunch break at the office, or during an after-dinner walk.

Keep it simple. The more complicated you make this practice, the more difficult it will be to keep it up. Lighting a special candle or diffusing a particular scent can be lovely touches, but in the end, if you have to jump through too many hoops just to prepare to sit for five minutes, you may not end up sitting at all.

Aim for twenty-one consecutive days. Research indicates that it takes a minimum of three weeks to form a new habit. Aim for twenty-one consecutive days of directed rest right out of the gate before you allow yourself to skip a day, and you’ll be more likely to keep up the practice in the long term.

Set a timer or an alarm, especially if, like me, you are inclined to pick up your phone to look at the time every two minutes. Knowing your alarm will go off when the five minutes are up will help you resist the urge to look.

Be silent. This probably goes without saying, but silence means no music or podcasts in your earbuds, no texting, scrolling social media, or talking on the phone. If you can, keep your phone out of sight, and turn off notifications so you won’t be tempted to check Facebook or respond to the ding of an incoming text “just this one time.”

Focus your attention on your immediate surroundings. Be present in the moment. What do you smell? What sounds do you hear? What do you see? Grounding yourself in the now will help to keep your mind from pinballing from one distracted thought to the next. You’ll also be amazed by how much you’ve missed as you’ve scurried to accomplish every item on your never-ending to-do list.

Be kind to yourself. Your mind will flit from thought to thought, especially in the early days and weeks of beginning this practice. But remember, there is really no right or wrong way to do this, so try not to berate yourself if it feels hard or if it looks like you are failing. If your brain leaps ahead to the future or backtracks to the past, simply bring it back to the present by noticing and acknowledging what’s right in front of you.

Lower your expectations. You may not experience a life-changing revelation right away. In fact, you may not ever experience a life-changing revelation. Remember, the point of this is not to do or produce, but to be—to allow the time and space for whatever might be churning below the surface to rise up. It may take some time, but you will hear your soul speak if you offer it the opportunity to do so. What your soul says, on the other hand, may not be what you expect.

Finally, enjoy it! These five or ten minutes of solitude and silence are for you—a time to begin to know your true self, a time in which you will begin to uncover the person God created you to be. Allow yourself the opportunity to enjoy these few minutes as God’s gift to you, his Beloved.