Learning to lean into spiritual rest

As part of a retreat earlier this year, I was serendipitously tasked with writing a letter to someone who had been told that the cancer she had been fighting for the past 6 years had spread to an inoperable extent.

The gravity of the task was tremendous - the oncologist had told her to plan her life in blocks of 6 months; what could I possibly write on a piece of paper that would inspire or bring her comfort, without having walked a day in her shoes?

The 5-day retreat experience that we spent together in silence gave me the time and opportunity to observe that way she relentlessly showed up in life, remained compassionate towards herself when her body signalled the need to rest, and spent time with loved ones with walks on the beach to catch the sunset. At one point she out-paced me during 108 Sun Salutations, and needless to say, she completed this yogi trial by fire like a champ.

After the silence broke she shared that she had to make peace with the could-haves, should-haves and would-have beens; treasure the present moment for what it is on a day-to-day basis, and practise spiritual rest - not stressing over the things in life that she has no control over.

“Life happens by design”, she so often says, often enough that it is seared in my mind. She has inevitably inspired me to streamline what matters, so that I have the bandwidth to deliberately distinguish the vital few from the trivial many, eliminate the nonessentials, and then remove obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage.

In the end, I chose this quote for the letter I wrote to her as her ‘guardian angel’, and I chose something that would honour her peaceful approach to life, accompanied by the spiritual rest that she exceptionally displays.

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years.” - Abraham Lincoln

This October I turned one year older, and with her guiding light, most definitely one year wiser as well.