Working Rest & Intuitive Flow in Your Life & Business
In a world where work, hustle, and busyness are often glorified and celebrated, “rest” can feel like a luxury. Its often seen as a guilty pleasure or a luxury, when it’s something we literally cannot live without.
Rest is also often viewed as an extreme — literally doing nothing — when in reality, there are different types of rest. And when rest is balanced with action, it can create a rejuvenating and reflective opportunity to regroup for what’s next. Avoiding the extremes of rest and action helps to heal burnout, and also creates an opportunity for the in-between states of moving from rest to action, and vice versa.
With all of this combined, there’s opportunity to create a a true cycle of rest and action that feeds into one another, and repeats indefinitely. It is a sustainable cycle that’s inspired by nature and its seasons, creating time and space for everything that is needed. Once practiced, this can become an intuitive flow utilized in your life and business.
The benefits of rest and intuitive flow
Rest improves our work performance, but is rarely prioritized in business — and often in life. Resting allows us to reflect, clear out our brain space to become more creative and visionary, and plan for what’s next. We live in a hustle culture where busyness, being immediately available, and instant gratification is prioritized, which doesn’t make it easy to make rest a priority.
But when rest isn’t prioritized, it leads to burnout. Working so hard that eventually, you reach your limit, and exhaustion (and/or depression, fatigue, and a litany of other symptoms) set in, and it’s difficult to do anything. Eventually, folk recover, and most go right back into the extreme action-taking mode.
But what if this looked different? Instead of bouncing between the extremes of action-taking and forced rest, what if we were proactive about rest, so that it became intuitive and enjoyable? What if we created a renewable cycle that felt balanced instead of extreme?
The cycles of energetic ebbs and flows
Energetic ebbs and flows are the idea that our energy shifts depending on the time of day, week, month, or season. This is why we aren't productive at all times - our bodies were made to have time to rest. Just like how we need to sleep in order to a) literally survive, and b) to have the energy to do what we need to do, there are also similar cycles that are seen in longer lengths of time (such as the week, month, and year).
From my research on these cycles, I’ve broken them down into four sections:
Rest & reflection
Strategy & planning
Energetic action
Recoup & learning
Now, let’s dive into what this looks like in practice, and how you can notice these cycles in your life and nature.
Rest & Reflection
This is where every cycle starts — it’s a time of low energy and what I like to call hibernation mode. It’s often a time for deep thinking, turning inward, and taking time off; where you’re feeling reflective, and plotting for the time ahead.
Unlike burnout-induced rest, energy is still present in this stage, but action isn’t the focus. It’s about visioning and dreaming the next steps, and beginning to plot and plan for what’s next, but not taking action quite yet.
When looking to nature, this can look like:
The new moon within the monthly lunar cycle
The weekend; a time to recoup and rest after a week of work
Winter; the darkest and coldest season, where we hibernate and prepare for the year ahead (New Year’s resolutions, anyone?)
Strategy & Planning
The second phase of the cycle, Strategy & Planning is exactly what it sounds like — an upswing of energy and the act of starting to put ideas into action. There’s a lot of connecting the dots in this stage — figuring out what needs to be done to bring the ideas that came from your Rest & Reflection to life.
This stage is fairly tactical — strategizing and setting the stage. If these cycles were applied to an event, this stage would be all of the event planning and prep to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch.
When looking to nature, this can look like:
The waxing moon
The beginning of the week
Spring; when things begin to be warmer, lighter, more colorful, and overall bring more energy
Energetic Action
This phase is exactly what it sounds like — it’s the big event. The action is often what people see externally, and is the culmination of what you’ve been working on thus far. The idea has been sparked, the planning has been done — and now it’s time to take the energetic action.
Because of the first two phases of this cycle, there is a ramp-up to this action, providing a transition into high-energy tasks that helps avoid burnout. And because the energetic cycle provides structure for planning, this stage can feel more streamlined and less overwhelming — there’s no planning that needs to happen here, just action.
This time also usually feels social and energetic naturally; it sidesteps burnout, and should help you be fully in this moment as opposed to feeling like you already need to combat exhaustion.
When looking to nature, this can look like:
The full moon; all the energy!
Midweek
Summer; high energy, longest days and best weather, the most social time to be out and about
Recoup & Learning
The fourth and final phase of the energetic cycle is one that is often forgotten; many folks go right from action into rest and preparing for what’s next. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it skips over an opportunity for reflection and noting what you learned (and what you may want to change in the future).
Recoup & Learning is the comedown from Energetic Action, but it’s not the same as burnout. It’s the wrapping up of a season before you head to the next, and feels largely transitionatory. It’s still a time for action, but more of the “mindless” or repeated actions (for me, these are things like folding laundry). It’s a time for wrapping up what’s happening now and prepping for what’s next — getting your goods ready for the hibernation that comes next.
When looking to nature, this can look like:
The waning moon
The end of the week; wrapping up tasks and preparing for the weekend
Autumn; the cooling of weather and shorter days, beginning to wind down and take more restful, less social actions
So, how do I integrate this into my life and business?
My biggest tip is to set up times and locations to remind yourself of these phases’ places into your yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily practices. Simply raising awareness and reminders for yourself to remember how these times affect you are important.
It may also feel important to create rituals around different seasons — for me, this shows up particularly in the first and third phases. Personally, I love the strategic and planning phases; resting and taking energetic action don’t come as naturally. Weekly, I set some time aside for myself to remind myself of the season, and do some journaling about what I want to come out of the time ahead, with some extra reflection around the first and third weeks of the month, in alignment with the moon phases. Monthly, I reflect on what I want the next month to bring for myself. Creating a ritual (such as lighting a candle, setting an intention, or something else that’s a regular practice) around this can be powerful and will help integrate it into your life and engrain it into your intuotve.
If you have any questions about this exercise, comment below! More to come on ways you can work this into your life and business, including more exercises and rituals to be used around lunar cycles — and another way these energetic ebbs and flows work into those.