If there’s something important to do, rest, if it’s really important, rest even more

If there’s something important to do, rest, if it’s really important, rest even more.

Because in resting, you’ll find your direction. You’ll be able to see more clearly, hear more clearly. But if you’re very heightened, it’s not the time to move in any direction.

In rest, you can find your way.

It’s a radical act to rest because your nervous system is a sympathetic and a parasympathetic nervous system. Sympathetic is the doer, parasympathetic is the rest and digest. But we’ve designed an entire world on the sympathetic arousal, which is why all our nervous systems are shot.

Because we don’t rest and digest.

What do people do to rest and digest? They go to the cinema or a concert or the theater. They read a book. Why? Because art is meant to be central to our society, to the human society, and actually, nature is meant to be central to humans. It’s supposed to be a nature-centered creative world.

Because everybody’s born creative until it’s educated or knocked out of them.

And that’s why so many people, during the pandemic, just watched loads and loads of Netflix, because it was really good for their nervous system. It really calmed the nervous system. To watch a story from beginning, middle, and end is really good for your nervous system.

Because you get the whole story, whereas in your life, you don’t, we’re in a pandemic, everybody’s dying, will I die - that’s an existential crisis.

We’re in a bit of an existential crisis at the moment, so what you need is consistency and you need to be here, planting your flowers, eating good food, and you need to be really tender and gentle with each other, and you need to, if you wish, get involved with groups of people that are doing things that matter to you and are meaningful.

Now is the time to just have all those dimensions.

-Helena Walsh