Latest / Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul / How to Feel Deeply Refreshed

Transcript

How to Feel Deeply Refreshed · Spiritual Sense: Practical wisdom to quiet an overthinking mind and recharge your soul

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Ah. So today we're diving into deep peace, deep rest. The importance of really learning how to drop into a very deep feeling of restfulness, calmness, rejuvenation, refreshment. Right. All these wonderful things that renew us. There's all these R words, renewal, refreshment. And we live in a world that is very hectic. Push, push, push. Always more to do. A lot of people don't get enough sleep and then even the rest that we take is often not really restful, like watching TV or watching movies or checking social media or whatever it is. It doesn't lead to a feeling of deep satisfaction afterwards. So we're going to be diving into what is it like to actually have deep, deep rest? Why do we need it and how do we get it? Welcome, welcome.
• 1:04
  Speaker B: Yay. So let's ask you these questions, brother Michael. Why do we need it?
• 1:14
  Speaker A: Why do we need deep rest?
• 1:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, give me the one minute elevator speech on why we need it.
• 1:22
  Speaker A: If we don't have deep rest, we are cranky, we are disturbed, we can't function properly, everything seems very difficult and unpleasant and we are unable to do the things that we need to do. And also our just general sense of well being and our sense of enjoyment of life is tremendously sabotaged. How do we get deep rest? We get deep rest in a number of different ways. And that's really what we're going to be diving into today because this is quite a nuanced.
• 2:01
  Speaker B: Oh, I thought we could just finish the podcast in five minutes.
• 2:04
  Speaker A: Well, we could do.
• 2:04
  Speaker B: Okay, well then just go to 1, 2, 3. Give it to us when we are done.
• 2:08
  Speaker A: 2, 3, just go back to bed. There we go, get a nice nap. So there's, there's a few different ways of deep rest. One is what are we thinking? What is, what are we watching? What are we eating? How much time are we taking off? What are we doing in our off time? It's important to actually discern the difference between deep, real rest and, and just.
• 2:43
  Speaker B: Scrolling through social media.
• 2:45
  Speaker A: Shallow rest? Yeah, social media rest. You know, I mean, I admit, to be quite honest that I sometimes have shallow rest because it's easier. Shallow rest is a lot easier than deep rest. So, like, if I feel slightly tired, right. I'll just be completely honest. Right. It's something that happens to me fairly often. So let's say I'm working on a project on the computer and the Internet's on, working on some tedious thing that I don't particularly like, like a bunch of lists and information and this the side of my, my life that I'm not particularly happy about, it has to be done. So my brain starts to feel tired, my mind starts to feel tired, and part of me thinks, you know, I just need some distraction here to sort of give me something, right? So then I go on to some YouTube or something and more the news or something and what's going on. And in that, in that instant right there, it seems like I'm getting something out of it. I'm probably getting a dopamine kick if I watch some funny video or something, right? And then I try and go back to my work and I'm a little bit fuzzy and then I go back to distraction and this kind of little dance between half working and half distracting, it's not rest, it's. And I end up coming out of that feeling quite fried, actually. I, I feel very unrest.
• 4:13
  Speaker B: It's kind of like empty calories, isn't it?
• 4:15
  Speaker A: It is.
• 4:16
  Speaker B: It's like when you're hungry, you go have like chocolate ice cream or something, right? It's just not even chocolate ice cream. Sometimes it's okay, but you know, some of these other things, like a donut or something, right?
• 4:32
  Speaker A: Lack of refreshment. It's like whenever I go to the store and I'm hungry when I get there, which is bad idea, I, I've often found myself like I'm really hungry, so I'm walking around and my decision making powers about what to buy, I just, just get totally dropped down. So normally I'm like staying in the vegetable section and buying fruits and vegetables and like only like organic nice things. Once I'm hungry, I'm like, where, give me the cookies, where are the cookies? You know, And I might leave the store eating a bunch of cookies because I haven't eaten properly, right? So if we don't rest well and take off, take care of ourselves, our choices drop down and then the things we do to try and recover from it, that shallow rest, end up having other problems related to them, right? So it's like the lack of rest causes a problem and that problem causes other problems, and then that causes other problems. And at the most extreme end, someone is totally taken out of the game and can't do anything at all.
• 5:40
  Speaker B: Right? So what I've noticed with lack of rest is I get easily distracted and you know, if I want to do something, I'll be like, oh, I could do this, I can do that, I can do this. And then I'll be doing something and then I'll think of something. Else and.
• 6:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, that. So we don't, we don't have the power to just do what we need to do with full energy when we're tired. Yeah, tiredness. Even in the 12 step groups they say being tired or hungry on these lower states leads to acting out addictions. So that, that kind of rejuvenation is absolutely critical for everything. And it's under underappreciated, I think in our, in our modern world because it's all about doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. And normally if someone feels tired, what do they do nowadays? Sugar and caffeine, isn't it? They're the two pick me ups, which doesn't lead to rejuvenation, unfortunately. So if I'm tired now and I think, oh, let me have a strong cup of coffee with loads of sugar in it, it might give a certain. And then there's a crash and then I have to pay the price for that later.
• 7:08
  Speaker B: One of the things I was thinking about depressed is it seems counterintuitive, but if I don't rest enough, I get very lazy. So laziness is a byproduct of not resting enough.
• 7:33
  Speaker A: That's very interesting.
• 7:35
  Speaker B: It is very interesting. I've noticed that about myself. It's so important to rest. And the way, many times the way I rest is through meditation, of course, but to go back to my spiritual home and I just be there, even if I'm there for, let's say, you know, I keep going back and forth, right? For 10 minutes I come here, I go back, come here, I go back, you know, a few times like that. In the span of 10 minutes, I feel so refreshed. I feel so refreshed. Going back to my spiritual home is very refreshing.
• 8:18
  Speaker A: Yes, it's a very. I do that a lot. You know, one thing I like to do is go outside in the sun, lie on my deck chair and do that. Practice. Go beyond, go into the light and then come back, go home into the spiritual light and then come back, go back. And then sometimes I fall asleep and have a little nap and it's, it's like double level of rest. Whereas I could just check the phone and that wouldn't give me the rest. And even a nap by itself isn't the same level as going into that, that experience.
• 9:03
  Speaker B: Another aspect of rest I feel that I use a lot to rest is stay connected with the Supreme Soul, that the supreme soul belongs to me and I belong to him. And I just feel that very close connection as a belonging. Right. And my heart feels full like you know, you go about your day, you do things. I mean, even though it's there, it's running in the background, you go about your day and you're doing things. But when you actually just take a few moments and really connect and feel that sense of belonging, then I feel very refreshed. Feel, oh, yes, this is it. You know, I feel like, okay, I can tackle some more things.
• 9:53
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's beautiful because it's soul rest. The soul is being nourished with divine energy. It's not the body. Even sleep. I've studied a lot about sleep and scientists still. This is what the sleep experts say. Like the top, top, top sleep episodes. They say we still don't really know why we need sleep. Like that's what they say. We know we need it, we don't know why we need it. Exactly. It's not that. There's some theories they have, but they're a little bit shaky. But on a spiritual level, we know why we need sleep. And the reason we really need sleep is because when we sleep, we leave our body and that is what we need. The soul needs the rest. The soul needs to go into silence.
• 10:43
  Speaker B: The soul needs to unplug, right? Like it's a machine. The soul is plugged into a machine and the machine keeps playing out. And the salt needs to just unplug from the machine and just be quiet.
• 10:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's why a nap. I'm a huge fan of naps nowadays. If I feel slightly groggy, something's slightly off, I can just go outside or go somewhere and just lie down, do the drill, go beyond, go beyond, go beyond, go beyond. And then I fall asleep and I might only be asleep for maybe a minute or two minutes and this. And during that time I leave the body and then I come back and I'm like, oh my God, I feel so much better. Like it's a day and night difference when I come back in the body after that little nap. So these are, these are game changing things. So let's just get really clear about this practice, okay? This is, this is a very simple practice. Whether you take a nap or not is up to you. I personally find it fairly easy to nap. Some people find it less easy to nap. But either way, if you go somewhere comfortable, could be lying on your bed, it could be in a nice comfortable chair. And then you imagine, okay, I'm a spiritual being here, and I'm bringing my attention out of the body into the spiritual light. Imagine there's like a golden sunset, infinite peace and Then you come back down here, here we are, we've come back again. And then you go beyond into the light. Then you come back and you just keep going beyond coming back for a few minutes, you might fall asleep, you might not fall asleep, but that sense of coming and going, that traveling beyond, whenever you go beyond into that light, you're kind of tapping into this infinite silence, infinite rest, and pulling some of that back down with you. And you do that again and again and again. And then you feel, you feel like you've been refreshed, like you've gone on a wonderful vacation, had lovely time, and you've come back and you're like, hey, right, what's next? What are we going to do now?
• 13:10
  Speaker B: You know, there's another one that I use quite a bit to feel rested is I go into the golden age and I feel really refreshed. So as some of you might know that in the Brahma Kumaris we, our understanding is that there is a golden age for humanity where everything is going to be beautiful and lovely and it's going to happen on earth and it's something that's happened in the past and will again happen in the future. And so I remember my time in the golden age, or I remember I'm going to go there. And I see myself there. I see myself walking on the banks of the river Jamuna and feeling very light and easy and being away from this world and somehow connecting to that place, which is a very high vibration place, really helps. The other aspect of deep rest, I feel, which we shouldn't forget is even when we are doing the consciousness in which we are doing something really makes a difference. So let's say I'm doing service, right? Like serving people. The consciousness in which I'm serving people is if my consciousness is, what can they give to me? You know, what you know, is it for money or is it for this or that, right? Then it's different. But if my consciousness is from a pure heart, right? I really want to benefit someone, then whatever I'm doing feels rested. It's not like it doesn't feel like such a chore because the consciousness of your actions decide how rested you feel. It could be anything. If the consciousness around your actions changes, then you feel rested. I gave that example. But it could be anything. Let's say a mother, right? They, you know, let's say that when the child is little baby, the mother doesn't have any sleep, doesn't have all of that going on. But there's so much tolerance, you know, so much is going on. There's so much love for the baby. So much. Right. But still they are able to go on without a lot of sleep, able to do all of these things because the consciousness in which they're doing that action for the baby decides how they feel personally.
• 16:08
  Speaker A: Yeah. And the thoughts they're thinking as well, you know.
• 16:11
  Speaker B: Right.
• 16:12
  Speaker A: The, the awareness that we talked about in another session. Because if, if I'm thinking in my mind, oh, I don't like this. Oh, this is so terrible. Oh, I, I'm not happy about this. Why is it happening? Those thoughts will cause me to feel weak and tired and so to really.
• 16:33
  Speaker B: Come from this very pure place. Because ultimately it's for my own benefit. If I do actions from the right heart. It's for my own benefit. Right. I can keep doing actions and I won't feel tired, even though I do need finally some rest. But I can keep doing actions and I'm not going to feel tired. So what would you choose? Okay, feeling miserable and doing action or feeling good about something and doing the action? So all I have to do is transform the way I feel about the action and the way I feel about the recipient of the action. If, if I'm doing certain things, let's say I'm cooking and I'm cooking for myself and I don't like cooking. I, I don't like this, I don't like that. Or let's say I'm cooking for someone in the family. I don't like this person. This person never helps. I'm the one who's doing it all the time. This, that, this, that. Okay, if you feel that way, you should stop cooking. But if you're cooking right, make sure you do. We do it in the right frame of mind, then you will feel like, refreshed from it.
• 17:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, anything done in love from the heart is much more satisfying for everyone involved. So deep, deep rest doesn't necessarily just mean resting and sleeping. There's all these other things that are connected to rest. And so it's useful to get a piece of paper or something and just think, what is deep rest and what is shallow rest? Just, just so we know the difference, because shallow rest is easy to come by and gives us temporary satisfaction, but it doesn't give us the deep sense of, ah, yes, you know, like, it doesn't have that, that nourishing effect on us. And there's a lot of shallow rest we can get our hands on, you know, but does it leave us feeling truly satisfied that that's the sign of whether or not we've had deep breast is what does it do afterwards? Like what is the long term or medium term impact? So if we get, for example, like if you go to sleep at night and this is a very good practice for deep rest. Right. So if we go to sleep and we're thinking about what happened in the day and we have unresolved things going on in our head and in our heart, then we can't get good sleep normally. Because if those things start affecting our dreams, we might wake up in the night and then we wake up and we think, oh, what happened? So one thing I find very helpful is before I go to bed to just clear, let go through the day, let it go, surrender it and then do that. Practice going beyond into the light, coming back, going beyond, going beyond, going beyond so that I'm. It's like I've let go of everything and I've gone into the light. When I do that, I have very, very deep sleep and I wake up feeling fresh. But if I go to bed feeling tired, carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, then I normally wake up feeling tired with the weight of the world or still on my shoulders and I'm like, what was the point in like that? I don't, I had all this sleep, but I don't feel like I had anything that was any good.
• 20:14
  Speaker B: What you're saying is absolutely important. We need to double click on this. The way you go to bed, before you go to bed, what you do is so, so important. So thank you for bringing it up.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean sleep of course is the most significant type of rest we get, really. But our sleep isn't satisfying if we are full of all this stuff. What do you do, Shreem to make sure that you clear your mind and heart before you go to bed.
• 20:51
  Speaker B: I talk to the Supreme Soul. You know, like I give my account of the day, what happened. I mean, usually I don't carry that much, thankfully.
• 21:08
  Speaker A: Right, because you're letting go.
• 21:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. After 30 years I figured something out. There's hope for humanity, hope for all of us. But whatever little bit, whatever little bit I give it, I. I talk to the Supreme Soul and then I go to bed. But I don't know, maybe it's age or the time period of my life that it's not that easy to go to sleep sometimes. Sometimes. And then I just get up and meditate and have a chit chat with the Supreme Soul again.
• 21:50
  Speaker A: Yes. It's a good method. Talk to God and let it Go whatever happened or write it down is helpful.
• 21:58
  Speaker B: Yeah. Your method of letting go, or my method of letting go, or any method of letting go, let it go. Don't hold on to things because it's like we are holding on to things and we are poisoning ourselves. The other person is fine.
• 22:14
  Speaker A: That's right. Another.
• 22:15
  Speaker B: Even if they're not fine, why shouldn't I be fine?
• 22:20
  Speaker A: Yeah. Other people's, I mean, we do our best we can to be of service to everyone and not hurt anyone's feelings and everything else, but we can't control everything and other people have their own problems. So one. Another thing we can do before we go to bed is to think of three wins. So I think this is very good for our heart because if we think, oh, what happened to the day? Oh, I didn't do anything, or what a waste. Because sometimes the day goes very fast. This is what I'm noticing. It's like, hang on a minute, like, what's going on here? So that's not, I mean, it is going fast and I think a lot of people feel that. But if we can clarify in what way did I win? What are my wins? What am I, what am I grateful for? What are the good things, things that I'm happy about that happened today? It warms our heart, you know, it makes us appreciate the gains that we, that we got in the day and that allows us to sleep more easily. Because if we go to sleep feeling slightly like something's off, then it doesn't feel good, does it? It's hard to sleep.
• 23:31
  Speaker B: No, it doesn't. I like this. Three wins.
• 23:35
  Speaker A: Three wins. What are your three wins for the day? And then go beyond.
• 23:40
  Speaker B: Go beyond.
• 23:41
  Speaker A: Yeah. Another thing I personally find, and I, I, I can't say I do this every day, but I feel better when I do do it is, is I unplug the Internet as early as I can and don't have anything to do with work after a certain time of day or anything to do with the Internet or entertainment. Nothing. Right. Because what I've noticed is the, the, the longer it is between the last time I get involved in the world and anything to do with people and things, the longer that is, typically the better my rest is and the shorter it is, the worse my rest is. So if I'm, I'm, if I'm aware of all the things I have to do and people messages and all these things, and then I go to bed, I'm just, because of the timing of it, it's more likely to come with me into my dreams, even if I try and let it go. But if I have a cap and say that's finished for the day. Now I've got this winding down routine where there are certain healing related practices and nice music and have a nice shower, etc. Etc. Then I'm going to sleep better, then I'll wake up feeling more fresh and then the day goes better.
• 25:07
  Speaker B: I'm laughing, Michael, because you are not that easy to get hold of. I feel your Internet is turned off all the time.
• 25:14
  Speaker A: Oh well, you know, this could be worse. Could be better.
• 25:19
  Speaker B: Really? It could be worse.
• 25:20
  Speaker A: Okay, it could be better and it could be worse. And it's now sometimes like I get caught up in some random research or I'm working on some something to do with music project or something or whatever and it. And then that happened last night actually. And then I looked at the time and I'm like, oh my God, look how late it is. So but if I turn everything off, like no computers, nothing, then that doesn't happen.
• 25:50
  Speaker B: So yay, yeah, switch off your Internet.
• 25:57
  Speaker A: Get rid of the Internet.
• 25:58
  Speaker B: It doesn't work here, but yeah, sure.
• 26:01
  Speaker A: It depends on the person. It depends on the. Or at least let me, let me at least put your phone out of the room. That's. Or turn it off. You know, I think because a lot, a lot of people, I've heard, they, the last thing they see before they go to bed is their cell phone. Like they're looking at some news or something and then as soon as they wake up, they pick it up and they're back into it immediately. That's not going to help rest. That's going to cause stress. So when we wake up in the morning, we want to have at least an hour where we don't have any awareness of anything else. Otherwise we're in reaction mode before we've got ourselves settled for the day.
• 26:53
  Speaker B: So, so in essence, what would you say? Deep rest?
• 26:58
  Speaker A: In essence, I think it's very useful to get a list. What is deep rest for you? And it can also include things like reflexology and going on walks and being in nature and being in, you know, the hot tub or the bath or something like those things are restful if they're done in the right way. You know, breathing, meditation. So, so there's, there's physical deep rest, then there's these going beyond and coming back, talking to God, letting go. What? Think about how much deep breaths can you get in in a day? The more the merrier. And then where are we going to get the time for this deep rest, we can claim it back from the shallow rest. Because the shallow rest, we're often doing quite a lot of shallow rest and it isn't doing the job. I mean, some amount of shallow rest is probably okay because we need a bit of variety in our life, but if it's at the expense of.
• 27:55
  Speaker B: Thank you, thank you for the small.
• 27:58
  Speaker A: There we go. Small concession because.
• 28:00
  Speaker B: Because thank you for the small concession there.
• 28:03
  Speaker A: I think we need a concession because if I say to myself I'm never going to watch a YouTube video ever again in my life, it's not going to happen in reality. So I might as well just admit some amount of it is okay. It's just like if, if that's all I do and I'm not getting any proper rest, then I'm going to be pretty stressed out most of the time. So, yeah. So what are all the deep breaths? What shall arrest? And can we ease some of that shallow rest? Fake rest over to the deep breast and see what happens and be very light about it, very compassionate. Ah, yes, yes, yes. And then we'll feel more refreshed, more happy, more relaxed, more peaceful, better mood, more capable of doing things, make better shopping choices.
• 28:56
  Speaker B: And get over laziness. I feel laziness really is a result of not having deep rest. Not feeling refreshed, feel lazy because of that. It feels counterintuitive. But that's the truth.
• 29:10
  Speaker A: That is the truth. Yeah.
• 29:11
  Speaker B: That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
• 29:14
  Speaker A: That's true. If, if we, if we don't get deep rest, we can't work properly. And actually this is why some of the highest level entrepreneurs and people who are very effective, they actually take deep days off or whole weeks off from their busy schedule because it allows them to get back at it with so much more energy that they get more done even though they're working less. So if you're feeling like you're not, not getting enough done, chances are if you took a day off and went for a walk and did meditation and got some proper sleep, you probably get twice as much done the next day. So.
• 29:57
  Speaker B: Absolutely.
• 29:59
  Speaker A: So in the comments, there's something we need to be doing more of and I'd love to hear from you in the comments. What do you feel is deep rest? What kind of deep rest really does the job for you? And then what shallow rest do you have that you feel isn't really doing the job? Be curious to hear what everyone's got to say about it. Yay.
• 30:25
  Speaker B: Yay.
• 30:26
  Speaker A: All right. Blessings from your book. Hooray.
• 30:31
  Speaker B: Pick a. Pick a letter.
• 30:37
  Speaker A: C.
• 30:43
  Speaker B: All right. Care.
• 30:49
  Speaker A: Appropriate.
• 30:52
  Speaker B: With grace, you navigate through life, enriching the lives of those around you with even the smallest acts of love. Your spirit is a beacon in a dark world, shining light into the hearts of all you encounter. Counter.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: That's really refreshing.
• 31:22
  Speaker B: Your spirit is a beacon in a dark world, shining light into the hearts of all you encounter. All of you. That is a blessing for you.
• 31:35
  Speaker A: Yay. Thank you for your shining light, everyone. Yay. So wishing everyone deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, refreshing rest every day, more and more and more so you feel absolutely wonderful and can do all the great things that you're here to do in the world. Yay. Lots of love. Talk to you soon.