How to Rest and Get Out of “Crisis-Mode” After Life Happens…

There’s nothing like a good ol’ mid-day nap when you didn’t sleep well the night before.  Nothing like finally laying it down and getting some much needed sleep after a long hard day or a big workout.

We need rest.

It’s not an option or a privilege.

But get this…when life happens we use a lot of emotional energy and eventually we need to rest.  The reeling phase is draining. Period.  We cry, we become numb, then we have outbursts, we may feel angry and lots of other emotions, and then we may cry some more.

Some of us try to hold everything in during the reeling phase, but holding all of our emotions in takes just as much energy as letting it all hang out.

My focus as a personal growth strategist and coach is hurt and healing in the area of relationships so I often use examples of life happening in that area, but life happens in different areas of our lives at different times.

When life does happen its possible to  run out of emotional energy.

We only have a limited supply.

When we use up all of our available emotional energy and don’t move on to Resting  we end up with the same symptoms as severe sleep deprivation.  In other words…A HOT MESS.  And we need more than sleep to rest.

There’s certain things we need to do to rest emotionally, and its beyond the physical act of sleeping.

The feeling of going too long without sleep is horrible though.  Thinking about sleep deprivation helped me make sense of how I got out of crisis mode and moved forward every time life has happened to me.

I remember when I tested the limits of sleep deprivation pulling all-nighters back in my college days.  Some of those mornings I woke up feeling almost delirious.  Light-headed, woozy and even dizzy, I’d fumble through getting dressed and struggled to make it to class. (good times…lol)

In all seriousness though…when you go too long without rest you start having issues with your memory, hand-eye-coordination, even your senses of smell/vision.

Bottom Line:  Deprive yourself of rest long enough and you’ll start losing touch with reality.

When “life happens” (which it does for EVERYONE), in order to heal there comes a time that you have to get out of crisis mode and move into the Resting Phase.

The Resting Phase means giving yourself the chance to ‘woo-sah’ (breathe) after life has happened.

Here are the 4 Ways to Rest Emotionally:

Rest Your Mind

Let your mind know it can chill out for a minute.  Many times when we’re stressed our mind is going a hundred miles a minute and we have trouble quieting our thoughts.  High stress gives our ‘lizard brain’ a megaphone.  It can get so loud that the logical part of our brain gets drowned out.  In order to rest our mind we have to quiet it down.

Rest Your Heart

Let your heart know that yes, it may have been hurt, but that it will heal.  Our heart is the rhythm keeper for our entire lives.  When our hearts, both literally and figuratively, are out of sync, our lives are out of sync.

Rest Your Spirit

Let your spirit know that it may be broken right now but that it will be built back up again.  It won’t rest just because we want it to though.  We have to intentionally do things that build our spirit up and avoid people and places that don’t add to us.

Rest Your Body

This one is obvious.   Self-care is critical in order to make it through life’s hardest moments.  We have to be nurturing and gentle with our bodies or else our body will begin to let us know about ourselves.  And many times, in not so nice ways.

Your body vibes from, feeds off of, and is in a weird co-dependent relationship with your emotions.

This is why you see people with emotional disorders develop ulcers, have chronic headaches, or unexplained pain in their bodies.

So the take away…

Resting your mind, heart, spirit and body creates an atmosphere where the hard work of  healing emotionally can take place.

Happy Resting!

Chaena

P.S.  There are activities we can do to make ourselves rest emotionally.  I assign activities all the time to my coaching clients to help them move into this phase of their bounceback process.

What tasks/activities do you use for self-care to rest your mind, heart, and body?  Share in the comments!