The GGRRGG (Getting Great Rest Regardless of Guilt) Guide

For many typical persons, the time surrounding the American New Year can be riddled with the feeling of haste; to tie loose ends, to mend any wounds. The atmosphere of change brings on a spike of motivation to alter the way one looks, acts and feels in relation to the habits formed throughout the passing year. Given the atmosphere, a typical person takes their time to reflect on what might have gone wrong. Their minds tend to pinpoint the errors of their ways and make promises to become a different kind of person, beginning with the months following December 31st. These promises have routinely been coined “resolutions.”

For persons non-typical, divergent even, the atmosphere can feel all too performative. This feeling is pungent, lingering and it begins its emotional tour in November headlining your favorite relative’s house. Back-to-back holidays during the winter season are orchestrated to have most Americans engaged in heavy social interaction at a time that nature subjects us to rest and recuperate. The atmosphere conjured through overspending, over-extending and over-indulging during this season can put a toll on everyone’s mental, emotional and physical health. Having a global blowout celebration amidst all this commotion (and in the middle of the winter season) seems to be a perfect end to the siphon of holiday energy.

Fortunately, there is common ground for persons both typical and non-typical, for those who move with the status quo and for those who understand the natural flow of the Earth (Ki, Gaia, Terra). During the first two months of the American New Year, we are all still in the winter season. The season to recharge has roughly sixty days of more time to recover after having spent the last three months nonstop festive partying. The Earth’s New Year is observed as the spring equinox. When the plants experience their final frost and bud once again is when a rebirth of life can be observed, and thus a “new year” can begin. The constellations of the Earth make their full rotation around the planet at the beginning of the month of March. With this precious “extra” time in mind, I want to share a few tips on how to get more rest as you begin this New Year.

Due to the abrupt switch in demeanor that is influenced by the closing of one year, many of us can feel guilty for the amount of rest that our body requires of us. We want to feel like we are getting a large step on to the path of achieving new goals and such. I’m here to let you know that resting is perfectly fine! Here are a few ways for the mind to understand that it deserves rest and subsequently the body to follow.

First Things First, You Deserve Rest!

To begin this guide to getting more rest, one must accept that the rest is well needed. The autumn, fall, harvest season lasts from September to November according to the Gregorian Calendar that the holidays operate and coincide with. The focus of this guide is on the start of the party tour, the ladder part of harvest season. Typically, the first feast and wave of party-esc gatherings begins at the end of November on the holiday we all know to be Thanksgiving.

This American holiday in itself is a very problematic and disgraceful one based around its origins. As time goes on and the planet’s energy rises higher, the average persons in the country can now see the un-quantifiable reasons to NOT participate in the celebration. However, many of those born and indoctrinated into American society still do allow themselves to get wrapped up in the weeks prior to the holiday as well as the stress and hysteria that come along with it. Who can blame them, really? The very environment around us changes drastically in order to advertise the “spirit” of the season. Some triggers we all can identify are things such as “pumpkin spice latte,” “whole turkey,” “cranberry sauce,” just to name a few. People are pressured by tradition to make room in their wallet and in their homes to accommodate a gathering with peers and/or family members that typically don’t interact let alone gather. The mental environment is also subject to change during the start of this cycle. Per tradition, there always happens to be food shortages during this time where harvest and gatherings are the main focus. This twisted play on supply-and-demand has a terribly high probability rate of causing hysteria amongst the masses. A trickle down effect occurs as a result of this where a vast majority of families now become highlighted for their lack of fortune. Those who typically weren’t before, now become a part of America’s “needy” population. A cause and effect order of things now dispatches local assistance to provide those willing to accept help with the necessary items to properly celebrate the holiday. When explained in a sensical fashion, it all is rather hysterical!

The second phase to the holiday, feast, party tour is a stop at the end of the first month of winter. These few months make up the season that nature recognizes as temporary death. Animals that are capable of hibernation survive the winter by doing exactly that. As can be observed, most trees and so-called seasonal animals die off during this time. Americans however, are at this time still in a sugar trance and look forward to what is the most expensive holiday conglomerate that the modern world has experienced.

Unless one has been living under a rock for the past three hundred plus years, the celebration extravaganza that is December is commonly known as the biggest holiday season in the world. Many different cultures and diasporas have at least one type of holiday that commences during the first month of winter. For all intents and purposes of this guide, we will focus on the Hallmark holiday that has the typical American by a chokehold. After learning just how much money is profited from the holiday season, you too will come to accept that a rest is very well deserved. An analysis from the year 2021 shows that a record-breaking eight hundred BILLION (plus) dollars was extracted from the consuming masses in the name of holiday retail spending. This number jumps to the trillion dollar range when added to what the global economy extracted from the numerous other cultural and religious holidays that intersect the month of December.

As if this tour wasn’t jam-packed enough with over-indulgence and over-spending, a third and final stop awaits at the end of the first month of the season. Typically, this party of parties, finale to the feasts, climax of all seasonal gatherings can be called New Years. Eve, day, whatever the celebration happens to be coined, this is the holiday of over-extending. Following two more familial exchanges of energies from the previous holidays, New Years allows for a more personal gathering and energy setting to take place.

Persons typical and non-typical alike do not commonly associate the centennial celebration as a religious or traditionally sacred one. This is a holiday that people get to choose who they want to be around and party with. No more planning to roast birds whole with your older family member or making room for another slice of pie after having eaten two plates full of food for the sake of there being a surplus. The atmosphere during this time is to release ones recent inhibitions that were triggered between the end of November to now. Typically, getting drunk, kissing someone on the lips and cultivating the “right vibes” are on the agenda for this event. Although these pressures do not impact everyone the same way, the atmosphere is felt nonetheless as the entire world is coerced to recognize the ending of the first winter month to be the start of anything actually new.

The tour de feast finally ends. No major holidays on the immediate horizon. You feel a fantastic sense of reset and release. You also feel a guilt-driven motivation to start the resolutions and goals you have set for the year. Slow that sense down right there! Take a look at the amount of distance traveled, money spent, time allotted that all went towards making two months fit in celebrations for ten. Say it with me : “I deserve rest!"

R&D: Rest and Design

In order to avoid the guilt of not starting your new year off on the right foot, we reflected on all the activity that you were involved in for the previous months. A time that is transitional in seasons was/is used for you to empty your money wallet and your energy wallet on transactions that typically are not beneficial investments. In the spirit of investing in oneself, resting is of the utmost importance for the process of true new to take place. You wouldn’t try and drive a motor vehicle directly after having a few drinks, right? Well a similar application of morals can be transferred to the idea of jumping in to new plans after all that spending done in a short period of time.

Lucky for you, I provide this guide just like the good friend who gets you to drink some water, eat a bit of bread and lets you crash on the couch for the night. Resting is a step in the project process that allows the mind to calm the external interference of interpreting all the time. With the winter season still in full affect, the preceding months of January and February are the actual ending of a full year’s time. These are the additional sixty days or so that should be utilized to recoup, regather the energy expended after having partied so hard. Rather than interpreting what the world has going on, this rest time is perfect for evaluating what it is the individual has going on.

Interpreting oneself requires doing so free from the guilt of the status quo of productivity. Outside of the parameters that guilt traps the mind, the design process can easily initiate. Within the sixty extra days that are left in the winter season before the Earth’s new year, the blueprints for the life you wish to cultivate should be drawn out. It is at this point that the typical goals and resolutions intersect with the guide lesson here. Through probability, there are a multitude of persons who do not fully commit to their promises made to the false new year. Some do not make any attempt to walk in the path they set out at all. The common denominator here is that everyone still has the opportunity to re-work ideas and solidify plans to reach set goals.

As the days of winter thaw their way to the end of February, all well rested individuals have with them the restored energy post-holiday season, the clarity of reflection and relaxation, the plans crafted as a result of that level head and the courage to facilitate these plans at the start of March and throughout the rest of the year following. And just as the planet awakens with new life ready to sprout into existence, so will you with your new life and new perspective upon it.