“Rest is our birthright as a human being not a privilege or a luxury. To rest is essential to our co-liberation and is a necessity, a prerequisite for healing.” ~ Valerie Brown
Many of us believe that we have to earn rest and renewal and that overwork is the norm. Frazzled and stressed by the pull of too many demands of work, family, children, aging relatives, and our own needs, we succumb to individual pressures that foster a collective culture of burnout and toxic productivity. Offering approaches from Quaker activist and educator, Parker Palmer, and the Center for Courage & Renewal, the Plum Village tradition and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, Valerie will invite participants to explore the connection between radiant rest, peacemaking, social justice, and societal transformation to live in greater groundedness and alignment with your deepest values.
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss the connection between rest, renewal, and productivity
- Discuss the science of stress and burnout
- Assess when productivity turns to toxic burnout
- Explore rest and peacemaking
- Examine connection between rest and social justice, social action
- Engage mindful rest, constructive rest, and yoga nidra
Tentative Format
- Centering Moment
- Content Delivery
- Individual, small, and large group reflection and discussion
- Mindful rest, constructive rest and/or yoga nidra
“Over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power.”
~ Thomas R. Kelly, 1941 Quaker educator and mystic
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
