Learning to Deep Rest:
What Eight Days Off the Grid Taught Me About Doing Less
Festivities
The festivities are over, and it’s time to relax.
And I don’t mean the kind of relaxing where you’re technically sitting down but still checking your phone, thinking about work, mentally building a to-do list, or wondering whether you should be doing something more productive.
I mean deeply relax.
The kind of rest where your body finally gets the message that there is nowhere else you need to be.
After the Celebration Comes the Quiet
A holiday weekend like this one—the 250th anniversary of America—comes with a lot of buildup.
For many people, being American is deeply intertwined with identity, history, pride, and belonging. My relationship with that identity feels a little more passive. I often choose my words carefully because I don’t necessarily want everything to become political. At the same time, the current government doesn’t inspire a strong sense of pride in me. Perhaps because of that, I was able to enjoy the festivities for what they were: a moment of celebration surrounded by good company, without feeling particularly attached to what the celebration was supposed to mean.
With the guidance of a microdose, I found myself completely immersed in the contrast between fireworks exploding in the distance and a lightning storm illuminating the sky. From a safe distance, it was spectacular. More than anything, I felt gratitude. Gratitude for the people who had spent months planning the celebration. Appreciation for their ability to take something they had imagined and bring it to life. Those of us watching simply got to receive it—even when Mother Nature had clearly decided she deserved a spot on the production team.
Once the fireworks ended, though, my gratitude shifted toward what was coming next.
Nothing.
Glorious, beautiful nothing.
A Digital Detox and a Different Kind of Vacation
For the week ahead, I made a commitment to myself: check my phone once a day. That’s it. No other screen time. No work. Social media could wait. There would be no pressure to create content, post something meaningful, respond immediately, remain visible, or feed an algorithm. Instead, the days ahead would be filled with simple van life, nature, good food, good people, and space. So, I closed the metaphorical door on the outside world with one final thought:
To be continued in eight days…
Eight Days Later
Now, the week is winding down.
There’s a beautiful quiet here before the weekenders arrive, and as I reflect on the days behind me, I’m reminded that slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean abandoning routine. In fact, I discovered something quite different.
Rest seems to thrive somewhere between ritual and adaptability.
Van life requires both. Our van contains enough space for sleeping, other bed-related activities, and approximately two adults to stand and become annoyed with one another. So, realistically, there’s enough room for one adult to stand.
You learn flexibility quickly. When cold, drenching rain arrives in the middle of July, plans change. Staying in bed until 2 PM isn’t typically one of my life goals. In this particular case, though, it became an opportunity for rest, connection, and—perhaps most importantly—not getting soaked.
Sometimes mindful living looks like meditation at sunrise. Other times, it looks like accepting that today you’re staying in bed until two. Both can be sacred.
Learning to Flow With What Is
Living this way can make it surprisingly easy to detach from reality, particularly when the weather is perfect.
So I’ve decided to believe the rain arrived exactly when it was supposed to.
It gave us rest, recovery, and somehow even a little productivity.
By Day Two of what increasingly felt like a July monsoon, the weather presented an opportunity to shop for provisions and prepare for the beautiful days ahead.
Then the skies cleared.
Suddenly, the appreciation I felt for a simple campfire was beyond measure.
Perhaps that’s one of the gifts of slowing down:
Ordinary things become interesting again.
Creating Ritual Without Creating Pressure
When the nice weather returned, we were ready for it. A morning routine began to emerge—yoga and meditation each day. On the first morning, it felt difficult. Motivation was nowhere to be found.
Still, I did it.
By Day Three, what initially required effort had become something I genuinely looked forward to. It was no longer another thing I should do. Instead, it had become ritual.
There is a difference.
Routines can sometimes feel like obligations we impose upon ourselves. Rituals feel more like invitations—small ways of telling the body and mind, This is how we want to begin our day.
Before this trip, I assumed that after eight days of a slower pace, I would eventually feel ready to return to reality. Surely I’d miss something. My routine, my screens, and my work.
The constant movement of regular life. But here’s the problem: I’m not ready.
Why Are We So Uncomfortable With Rest?
Many of us have been conditioned to believe that a good vacation requires doing things. There must be activities, reservations, excursions, restaurants, pictures, places to see, and experiences to collect. Apparently, even vacation needs evidence that we’ve been productive.
I couldn’t disagree more. The constant doing we subject ourselves to in everyday life already leaves so many of us exhausted and depleted. Yet when we finally get time away, we often recreate the exact same pattern somewhere prettier. We’ve all heard someone return home and say:
I need a vacation from my vacation.
Maybe the problem isn’t vacation. Perhaps it’s our resistance to rest.
Rest Without Guilt
Allowing ourselves to truly rest can trigger a surprising amount of discomfort. Almost immediately, the judgment begins.
I’m wasting the day.
I should be doing something.
Everyone else is out exploring.
I only have a few days here.
I should make the most of it.
But what if resting is making the most of it? What if the self-judgment preventing us from slowing down is far more powerful than any judgment actually coming from other people? Somewhere along the way, many of us learned to associate productivity with worth. Doing feels responsible. Accomplishing something feels valuable. Resting, on the other hand, can feel indulgent. And doing absolutely nothing? That can feel almost rebellious. Deprogramming ourselves from this way of thinking probably won’t happen during one eight-day trip. Still, eight days is apparently enough time to begin noticing it.
What Deep Rest Actually Looked Like
I didn’t need an elaborate itinerary to experience joy this week. Instead, joy looked remarkably ordinary. It looked like:
- Sleeping under the stars.
- Flowing with the weather instead of fighting whatever it offered.
- Cooking good, local food.
- Mindfully cleaning and tidying our tiny space.
- Connecting with friendly, like-minded people.
- Burning shit. Because, frankly, campfires are far more entertaining than Netflix.
- Walking the same path every day and noticing something different each time.
- Feeling warm sun against my skin before slipping into crisp, cool water.
- Developing new rituals and routines that didn’t involve screens.
- Realizing somewhere along the way that I hadn’t needed my reading glasses nearly as much because I wasn’t constantly staring at a device.
None of these experiences sound particularly extraordinary. Maybe that’s the point.
Perhaps We Don’t Need More
Modern life constantly encourages us to seek stimulation.
Another notification.
See another show.
Another destination.
One more accomplishment.
Something else to buy, watch, post, achieve, or experience. Remove enough of that noise, though, and something interesting begins to happen. You notice what was already there.
The weather.
Your body.
The person sitting beside you.
Food cooking nearby.
Changing light.
Animals moving through the landscape.
The warmth of a fire.
Subtle differences along a path you’ve already walked seven times.
Your own thoughts, breath, and life.
Maybe deep rest isn’t something we need to find. Perhaps it’s something that becomes available when we stop filling every empty space.
My Wish for Us
My wish for all of us is that we learn how to experience true rest without immediately questioning whether we’ve earned it. May we release the self-judgment that tells us slowing down is lazy.
Perhaps we can occasionally disconnect from our screens long enough to reconnect with our senses. Our routines might become rituals instead of obligations. Our hours might stop needing to prove their worth through productivity. And sometimes, when life offers us a rainy July afternoon, maybe we can simply stay in bed until 2 PM.
No guilt.
No explanation.
Absolutely no need to make the day productive enough to justify our existence. Life is peaceful here—for the people and for the animals. After eight days of living inside that peace, one thing feels increasingly clear:
That peace is not an accident.
It is what becomes possible when we create enough space to notice it.
Watch this short video to dive deeper into Learning to Deep Rest.
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