The Menstruality Podcast - 210. How to Claim Your Sacred Rest (Octavia Raheem)

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

In a world which is moving too fast, we have to claim our rest, which is why I’m delighted to share this conversation with an incredible woman who sees herself as a Chief Operating Daydreaming Officer and Dream Keeper. Octavia Raheem is an award-winning author, rest coach, a yoga and meditation teacher, and speaker. Yoga Journal magazine has recognized Octavia as one of fifteen experienced yoga professionals who have elevated and changed the field on a global scale. Today we chat about her most recent book - Rest is Sacred, and Octavia shares her personal, extreme journey to claiming her sacred rest, which included overworking and exhaustion to the point of hospitalisation. She describes what her mother taught her about how to carve out space for rest as a single mum in the rural south of the USA, and the profound reclamation of energy she’s experiencing now in her journey towards menopause, reclaiming the rest that her ancestors were not safe to take. We explore:Rest as a refuge when we’re grieving the loss of people we love, and Octavia’s Yoga Nidra rest story after the loss of her mother. The power of “closing our eyes to see” as a direct line to knowing our innate worth.The wisdom of the earth that is revealed in winter, and how the most transformational movements of now and the future will be sustained by the pause, and by people who are resourced by rest.  ---Receive our free video training: Love Your Cycle, Discover the Power of Menstrual Cycle Awareness to Revolutionise Your Life - www.redschool.net/love---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @redschool - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyOctavia Raheem: @octaviaraheem - https://www.instagram.com/octaviaraheem

Welcome to the menstruality podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexander and Sharnie, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, change makers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world.

Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Boy, does this world move too fast sometimes. And in a world that's moving too fast, we have to claim our rest, which is why I'm so delighted to share this conversation with an incredible woman who sees herself as a chief operating daydreaming officer and dreamkeeper. Her name is Octavia Rahim. She's an award-winning author, rest coach, a yoga meditation teacher and a speaker, and Yoga Journal magazine has recognized her as one of 15 experienced yoga professionals who have elevated and changed the field on a global scale. And in this conversation,

I chat with Octavia about her most recent book, Rest is Sacred. And she shares her personal and extreme journey to claiming her own sacred rest, which included overworking and exhaustion to the point of hospitalisation. She describes what her mother taught her about how to carve out space for rest as a single mum in the rural south of the USA and the profound reclamation of energy she's experiencing now in her journey towards menopause reclaiming the rest that her ancestors were not safe to take and as you'll hear in our check-in Octavia and I chatted way back in June on the summer solstice and it's a real joy to share this conversation with you now at this different seasonal turning here in the UK and please stay if you can until the

end because I share a song that was created by Octavia, which is such a beautiful ode to the sacred power of rest. Well, I'm so delighted to be sitting here with you, Octavia, me here in Sheffield and you over there in Georgia. And thank you so much for making the time to come and be with us today. Thank you for inviting me and thank you for having me. And thank you for the work that you do in the world. I was just saying to you, I've got your book here, Rest is Sacred, and I could just hug it because of all that it wakes up in me.

And I do that sigh because it's just so calming even to be around it. Like I think the cover is so beautiful and relaxing to look at and the words inside it are there's a transmission of something so powerful. But before we dive into the Rest is Sacred book and your stories in it. The way we often start this podcast is by doing a cycle check-in by sharing how we're both doing

through the lens of the cycles that we're tracking and living inside of, whether it's like, for me, the menstrual cycle or the moon or the seasons of the year. And I'm just curious to hear, Octavia, what cycles you're feeling connected to at the moment and how they're influencing you today.

I love that question. That is really the best question. And what I'm tracking is here in North America is summer. And that energy of heat and vibrancy and I want to be outside in the sense of more playfulness, but then also needing to temper that with awareness of how much energy. do I actually have. So that's what I'm tracking. Like I'm tracking the seasons.

I feel really connected to them. I live in a home where the south side of my house, I believe, is facing a forest. And I don't have covers on my windows. And so since I've been living in this house, which is just four years, watching the trees dress and shed, you know, through the seasons is, like, I'm always aware of it, but just that it's right outside my window. It is the artwork outside of my window. And it's usually really slow and meticulous and then all at once that they either shed or dress. And there's a lusciousness about the green and a wildness about it, that that is where I'm feeling right now, that

abundant wild um slow to expand and then all at once kind of i am here greenness of the summer in georgia's what i'm feeling how about you oh that's so so beautiful you really took me to your place there well i was just listening to you i was thinking i just took a walk through the woods near the river near me and there was this song thrush that was just going for it this cascade of music that was coming out of his mouth and it blew me away and it reminded me yeah this is this is the fullness of summer because coming up to the summer solstice yes um yeah i'm i'm on day 21 of my menstrual cycle so it's still an inner summer but i experienced this part of my cycle as a bit like a lazy summer evening like my energy starts to fade a little bit i i start to be

more internal, less, like, excited about everything out in the world and more interested in what's going on here inside of me. So I'm enjoying that turn inside me. I love that. Thank you. Octavia, would you be willing to share where you're at in your life arc around the menstrual cycle and menopause? You know, I think I'm solidly in paramedy. in a pause. My cycle is sometimes really steady. And this is like after a lifetime of the most reliable, dependent, consistent, steady friends in a cycle. So that is my indicator. I'd be like, oh, instead of 26 to 28 days, now we're, you know, 47 to 62 or some number that I'm like, where is just coming from? To the point that I'm like, I don't track it in numbers. I just pay

attention to my body. You know, like, how am I feeling? What's happening now? And so I'm not in a place where it's always consistent anymore. Are you noticing some of the shifts, like emotionally and psychologically and physically that people speak about around perimenopause? You know what I notice. Have you been following this lady on Instagram who started?

at the We Do Not Care Club. I love her. Melanie. So it's kind of funny and silly and I think it resonates so much because when you said that, and this was before I could notice the shift, but when I entered my 40s, I remember just there were things that I was like, I just do not care. There are things that I deeply care about. And they are vast and big intake and require a lot of space, energy, and attention.

I feel like that's what really is happening. It's like there's this judge's position of we do not care. It's like I do not care what you think about the back of my hair because I can't see it anyway. But I deeply care about my family, my child, you know, my creativity, my, when I was talking about wildness and abundance, I care about that stuff. And I feel like that emotional shifts, one emotional shift, because I think it's a wavy shift. Like some of it is like the most mourning of like, oh, or the grieving of like something is shifting, something that has been steady, consistent, and just a part of who I am is now changing, it's transforming into something else. So there's that. And there is also this genuine excitement of like, there are things

that I just do not care about. I wouldn't like that happens when you, I don't know, for me, it happened when I entered my 40s when I was like, I am not, I don't care about that. And I care about this. So I would say that's like an emotional shift is my feeling range capacity is very expansive, right? Like I can like be over here with grief and grief and be over here with joy in a much more present and felt way and not feel all slammed around by any of it. So that's that is happening um physically and this just happened yesterday i was sitting with my my partner my husband and he goes yo you're really hot and i go thank you very much he's like no no no no like you are physically hot and then like two minutes later he was like you're not hot anymore

it's a real thing and it's interesting that he's like close enough to me to be able to feel that that that that heat um and And I would say those are my two, just like the emotional range and also some of the what we might be calling, I do not care. But I think the flip side of it is like there are things that I like deeply care about. There's more depth, right? Emotional depth here. And then I definitely have the physical symptom of sometimes I'm super hot, you know, and sometimes I'm not. So that is happening.

Thank you. That's so beautiful. I care so much more about what's happening in here that I don't care what's happening out there. I think I love that Melanie and she says things like, look, if I'm in my pajamas, then I'm not going to change. I'm going to show up in my pajamas because I don't care. I also just think it speaks to arriving at a place. This is not what she said. She wouldn't use the words of like the essence of life, but it's just like, what really matters here? And does how, like, it's like I have, I love keeping my nails really pretty. So I do that. Like, but my reason for doing it is like in my 40s is so different than my reasons for doing it in my early 20s, right? Like, I get the color I want. I get the shape I want. Like, you know, like I, it's just like a different.

Just. it might be presented as I do not care, but it's like I do not care about these small things. I'm deeply aware of and concerned about the bigger things, the more internal things. Yeah, just it's like a reclamation of energy. Some of the really small, trivial things, their distractions and being distracted cost us a lot of energy

that you reach a problem. point in life and you're just like, that's not how I want to use my energy anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what's happening for me. Yes. Yes. So beautifully said. I'd love to hear a bit about your story, if that's okay, Octavia, that you share some of it in your Rest is Sacred Book.

And actually, one of the things I love to think, I was listening to a conversation with you and Karen Brody from Dare to Rest, who has been on the podcast and you, you were saying that you, what your wish and prayer for the book was that people would sit with it and open it up and just read from wherever it opened and let it reveal itself. And I'd actually love, I'd actually love to do that. Hey, why don't we do that now? Yes. I'm so happy you ask. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see where the book takes us. Did you open it to? I did open it. I did open it. Where'd you open it to? I wonder if we opened it on the same page. So I opened. it on page 51, rest on earth's the real. Wow. So this is going to feel made up. That's what I

opened it to. And then I was like, well, that one's too long. So I did it. So I did it again. And then I opened to page 30. But when you said that, I was like, well, I guess that's the page. You know, because why would it? You know, I'm like, you know, then I go, like, I can be very mystical and I can also be very like wait a minute and then I was like well did the printing press reset extra right there and I'm like no we both opened to 51 and actually it's one of the stories that I wanted to ask you about yes you explain you go into the story earlier but on this page you say there I was in the middle of the city asleep at one of the rare places I paused back then a red light a blaring horn startled and woke me up.

Could you tell us that story? I mean, that is the story. My life at that point was, it wasn't even sunup to sundown. I just was waking up early, working all day, working a second job, then working once I got home because I was a public school teacher. I had a really... disordered relationship with movement and working out, meaning like I would move more than I would nourish myself. And for, you know, for the schedule I was keeping, I was working my body

in a way that it was just completely unsustainable. And the moment that I wish I could sit here and say was the moment of transformation and awakening to something is not right, is when I was sitting, I was rushing from one job to the next job that I was going to work an additional four hours after my other, you know, eight hour, nine hour job. And I paused. And I don't know, maybe you are the listeners, had this experience where you're driving. And you're kind of loopy. You're just tired. And you're tired. And you're just like, please. just let me get to where I'm going, and I don't know, I'm not a coffee drinker, but I was like, maybe I'll get some energy somehow, some way. But I remember sitting at the red light and feeling

that loopy feeling and then just nodding off and only waking up when the light was green and people were like pressing the horn. And the mind state I was in at that point, you would think that that would be an alarm going, you were really, tired. I just was like, I had limited self-compassion. I was more like, why are you tired versus you need to get some rest and that's okay. I was in a place where I deeply internalized like needing to rest. There's a weakness or it's just not available or it's not safe like all the things. But in the book, I talk about that moment because two weeks later or a few weeks later I would end up hospitalized with a condition called Ravdol myelysis, which is where your muscles are breaking down rapidly and your body can't filter out the toxicity from the muscular breakdown and your kidneys can become overloaded and you can go into kidney lot down. Probably more than you were asking or anyone wants to know, but it is not lost upon me that my physical body, I was working my physical body to the point of a breakdown

and the genesis of that was clearly mental, emotional, clearly institutional and systemic. And also clearly, I often talk about or feel into the level of exhaustion that we're all feeling as like a spiritual crisis. You know, so on all the levels that one could be tired, I was tired. And it was in that moment, so it wasn't falling asleep at a red light that woke me up. It was being hospitalized for like a physical breakdown that also was clearly on all the levels or closest of one's being. I was experiencing that breakdown.

and being in a hospital bed and finally resting. You know, like I'm a rest facilitator, a rest coach in addition to being an author, and I serve really driven, ambitious, and high impact, mostly women. They have titles like CEO or founder or executive, feel in the blank and the number of people that I directly coach or who will DM me and say, you know, I resonate with the story that you experience in real life truth because I feel like in this moment of my life, the only way I can justify my rest is that I get sick. I can't be tired, but I can be sick. And everyone understands that

you're sick, you get to get some rest. And, you know, so I was that person. I'm a very, in that way, unlikely person to be who I am now, right? But I, you know, what also happened is the hospitalization, but I also had a nurse who was my spiritual teacher as well. I'll say in that moment, she looked at me. She was like, wow, you look, the external, like I look healthy, right? all of this breakdown that I'm describing nothing on the outside to an untrained eye. I suspect someone who really looked closely at me and made a real human connection with me would have been like, this woman is not okay, right? But so rarely do we actually look at each other and go, hey, maybe something's going on

with this person. But this nurse, it was her job to see me and help me get better. But she helped me get better, you know, not just with the medicine, not with her attendants at my bedside. She said these words to me that comes from, of all places, King James Version of the Bible, which is Psalms 4610. She said, you don't know how to be still and know. And the rest of that Psalm, which is one of my favorite Psalms now, is be still and know that I am God. Now one of my core teachings is let, you know, and this I learn from a student, because I often say, and I got this from

Lama Rod, is let the chair do the work of the chair, you know, meaning let the thing or the person, let others do what their work is so you can gain clarity and then really exercise your capacity to do what is actually yours to do. And that extends to the divine. And I know that, I don't know what this sounds like to you or anyone listening. There are many factors when we start to consider why someone might be exhausted or why we are exhausted down to like chemical and hormonal, you know, those are all very, very, very real. And some of what maintains the heavy cloak of exhaustion is we are unclear on what the divine's work is, you know, or we are unclear on what our work is. We do not let other people do what it's theirs to do, and we

try to do it all. So you asked me one thing. We then started with us turning to page 51 in rest is sacred. Well, I'm so glad I asked all praise to the nurses of this world. I've had is with nurses who were my spiritual teachers too and treated we with like a level of love and care and respect that I yeah was so beyond the call of duty and so I'm so grateful to them but yeah everything that all that you just shared and I found myself curious about your upbringing and your only life and if there were seeds there of rest in your early life that you were reclaiming yeah Yes. So I'll start by saying multiple things can be true at one time. I am a student and teacher of the both end. And I say that to say because some of what called me into the work of rest and the way I hold space for rest and who I hold space for rest was this really emboldened, I would say, since that. my ancestors never ever were safe to rest, afforded rest, all of that, right? Like, I was like, this, I'm reclaiming the rest that they could not have. That's part of it. And, you know, so I hold these circles for mostly black indigenous women of color

and non-binary, them identifying people to be in, communities of rest. And so I'd been asking this question. You know, we all were like, you know, we're reclaiming rest by our ancestors. We were deep in that vein of here's why we're here and here's why we're resting. And then one day the question occurred to me, well, who talked you about rest? Or actually, I think I was with Tracy Stanley. She asked this question, who taught you about rest? And probably for years and many cycles of that circle, we would all just go, no one, no one. And I would go, no one, no one.

And then one day it occurred to me that if this is the work that I'm doing and this is what I feel deeply called to do, the seed of this had to be planted before my lifetime. Where did it come from, right? I hope you're tracking with me, right? And then, of course, I did what I do, which is I just went and rested. with the question, right? You know, I rested with the question now being more willing and able to release the totality of this one narrative that I had been operating with. And I said, well, what else might be underneath that? And so I rested and I had this vision come up where

this memory really, when my mom would on Saturday mornings, she taught us to, you know, She put a lot of work in to teach me and my sister how to do our Saturday mornings. It would be, you know, we get our cleaning done, we watch cartoons, and then we play and reflecting back on it. I'm like, where was she doing that time? Oh, her door was closed and she was sleeping. She was being unbothered, this solo mom of two girls in the rural South who she had all these things stacked against her. She put some effort in up front to be like, let me create this

system and this structure and teach my girls how to do these three to four hours on their own. And that was her. And so I realized I was like, actually, she was modeling how you find a way and make a way to find, to access some space for yourself and rest. And I had not counted that because she wasn't doing yoga nidra. She wasn't making a restness. She wasn't going on a spa day. You know, she wasn't doing some of the things that at this point I was like, oh, this is what rest. I was like, she was y'all going to go clean up and I'm going to do this. And then the other thing, so I'm saying this to say that when I was keeping rest in this really narrow and how I define it and what I understood it to be in this really narrow box, I would say. I was having a very hard time. connecting to where I actually learned, where were the seas of find a way, make a way to rest, planted within me. And then when I opened that box and had capacity or nervous system capacity even to expand my awareness around who taught me about rest, I started seeing examples like what I described with my mama on Saturday mornings, despite being a single parent and having really limited resources and support. And the other thing my mom had was a prayer closet.

Like she compacted, you know, the clothes in her closet to make a space for herself to go in there and just sit and pray and dream and hope and lay her burdens down. And she did that. Another place that I saw people literally do, but in the yoga practice we call child's pose, you know, by Lassana, when you kneel. down and essentially put your forehead down. I grew up in Greater Timber Ridge Baptist Church where we would have prayer service and people would go up to the front and lay prostate or supine on the floor. And now I've realized I'm like part of that was just a relief or a restorative practice. I have to have a place to go and lay down. And so those are ways I also have on my paternal side, my grandmother, who I, my middle name,

is after her Octavia Faith. She was aura faith. Her life is so curious to me. She was very serious about going to the beauty salon. And I know this is like, you know, meaning like she was very, and I remember she always fell asleep under the dryer. So you asked me one question, and it feels really important to me to just honor, acknowledge, and name the mundane and seemingly ordinary ways that the people I come from

and the people who raised me were seating, rest as possibility, and that is part of why I am who I am right now. And I didn't always count their rest, because if I was looking at it through the lens of some of my studies, and some of the other things I know, it's like, oh, they weren't resting in that way. They were resting in the ways that were available to them and could, and they also needed and deserved more rest than they had access to. So that's what I, that's what I'll share in one of my most beloved memories is my mom coming to her first restorative yoga practiced with me. and you know it's an interesting thing to teach your parent anything and I didn't know I was a little nervous

I was like how what's going to happen is she going to follow instructions like what is she going to be comfortable all of the things going through my head and she didn't spend a considerable amount of the time looking at me like she couldn't really hear what I was saying like she was trying to make sense of what is this girl doing and then she finally fusses around around a little bit. I have her out a little bit and she gets herself into a restorative pose with a lot of props, a lot of support, a lot of holding. And it looks like she drifts off, but I realized that she didn't drift off. She just got really relaxed as we do in a restorative practice. And when I'm wrapping up the classes all over, I'm calling people back, we're sitting up, we're going to, you know, exhale our way out. my mom's still laying down. And I'm like, here she goes. She's not following directions.

And then she gets up after we finish. And she's just smiling. And I'm like, what is going on with you? And she goes, I remembered something. And I said, what did you remember? What are you talking about? She goes, I had this memory come up of playing in a field of flowers and laughing. I was a little girl. I was really joyful. And then she started crying. and she said, I remembered my joy when I rested. I had forgotten that. I'd forgotten that. And I loved that that was such an early rest. You know, like some of us, we practice the rest practices over and over,

and we don't have such a reclamation in the practice so immediately. And so that was also a confirming moment. I was like, and this is what the power of rest is. You know, it's not just where our bodies. like she reclaimed an essential part of who she was, which is, you know, a woman who could have access to joy. I'm going to pause this chat with Octavia to share a couple of invitations with you.

The first one is that the doors for the next menstruality leadership program at Red School are now open and there's a super early bird offer available until October 1st. If you don't know about it, the menstruality leadership program is the fruit of Alexander and Sharnie's decades of study and research into the power of menstruation and menopause. It's a leadership training, which is actually an apprenticeship into feminine leadership, grounded in the wisdom of the cycle. And you can visit menstrualityleadership.com to find out more. And if you're in midlife, maybe you feel yourself journeying towards menopause or you find yourself

right in the middle of the initiation of menopause or your postmenopause and would like to make sense of your experience, Alexander and Sean are going to be guiding a live round of their menopause course Menopause the Great Awakener at the end of October. It's a guided journey through the five phases of the psychospiritual initiation of menopause. And you can visit red schoolmenopause.com to find out more. There's actually a free introductory event happening on October the 21st to the 23rd. And you can register for that also at red schoolmenopause.com. Okay, let's get back to the chat with Octavia.

So I think you asked me one question about reclamation and I kind of go all over the world, all over by my personal map with what is rest allowing me to reclaim. I believe that's what you said or tell you a little. You asked me tell me a little bit about. Yeah, about your life. Like the seeds that were planted. I'm so glad I asked because Millie Rose, your mom. Yeah, yes, my mama.

What a genius with the three to four hours on a Saturday morning that is inspired. I feel. inspired by that. Thank you. You know, and I was like, it might have been 90 minutes. Whatever the time it was, it was, I have thought, cousin, I have a nine-year-old now. And I'm like, how? But she put some effort into setting that up, though. But it was an instant. We had to, you know, it had to be repeated. We had to get acclimated. Because I have this clear memory of one day, been like, her door is close. What's she doing there? We're in here, you know, figuring out the cereals watching.

watching the smurfs, you know, whatever we were watching. And now I've cleaned the bathroom and we are, we were fine, right? You know, but it's like she, because I think a lot about this is how do we access rest? You know, like how do individuals access it, especially when we might not have a co-parent or we might be working 18 out? Like, what do we actually do? And I don't I don't know the answer to that completely. I just know it's very real why some people can and cannot access rest. And I also do know that when I'm talking about rest as a portal,

I'm talking about whatever you have, have even a little bit of access for, even if it's three minutes and letting that count too. Yeah. So that was really brilliant that my mom figured out a way that she was like, I just have got to find a way, you know, because by Saturday, when you like live a whole life and run a whole household, maybe have business, then you have family, like, but there's some point where you're like, I really have got to find some space to and for myself. Mm-hmm, 100%.

One of the beautiful little practices that you share in the book, because you share, you know, even a minute of rest is meaningful. It all adds up. and you suggest how about if you're hosting meetings that you all start the meeting with a minute of resting in silence together. And it's a practice that I've personally had for probably over a decade because a mentor that I had taught it to me

and I've just always done it since then. And I do lean on those moments, you know, because I might have four or five meetings in a day and I get those four or five minutes of just community rest. And the community element is really vital, I think, that we're all resting together in that moment. The little pieces add up, don't they? They do add up.

And resting together is, if we can find a way to do that, it's powerful. It's healing. It's transformational. We spend a lot of time working together. Like, can we please, can we please rest together?

Yes. Yeah. I wonder if we might stay with your mom, if that's okay, because there was a piece in the book that moved me so deeply when you said that a Grand Canyon opened up in you when she passed away, and how rest became your refuge? Yes, you know, I would say just like parimenopause and menopause are these like, happens to 50, at least 50 percent of the population. And it's just now being spoken of and like pulled out of the closet, if you will. Grief is a universal experience. You know, grief is a

universal experience. There's no one who's going to get off this planet without being touched and embraced. And I'll even say held in grief, which might sound odd. but I'm like grief not to glorify it in any way, same form of compassion. It's just that when it's there, I found I was like, well, how do I make a companion of it? Because it's here, it's not going anywhere. And I'm saying that to say that what was startling to me when my mama died is how physical, how physically painful and physically draining, like navigating long. was and I just could not, much like paramedopause and menopause, I could not believe that no one

had said anything because I'm like, this, I know I'm not the only one. And I'm also saying that to say that I found a way to do most of my life things and the only one of the only places of true just refuge and nourishment and relief that I could find is when I'm looking at it right now because now I just keep a rest nest on the floor meaning I put all my blankets down I put some pillows that can be out of circulation

and the rest of the house but it's like just every day like I didn't have a lot of it was very hard to remember things plan things, all of that, right? But what I knew I could get myself to do is lay down on the floor, be held by the support, and breathe. You know, and sometimes I'd just fall asleep because I was incredibly tired.

Sometimes my capacity for stillness was really limited, but I needed to feel like an embrace. And so that, that was that. And then the other thing I realized, because what I was attempting to practice through my acute grief, because I also, like, I'm four years out, and it doesn't go away. My capacity to be with it, it spans. It doesn't. Like, and in an instant, I can be brought right back to it, you know? And that is the humbling thing about loss and grief in these kind of transitional transformation. moments. And I was saying that to say, I lost my train of thought, but that I knew that I could

find refuge in rest. And the thing I also realized is that I was practicing, what I was practicing was yoga, Nidra. And Nidra is the goddess, if we can go there. And I also realized in that acute grief was that this practice called yoga nitra is it is the mother right so i would have these bewildering moments where i was like where is my mother where is she and no i couldn't find her physically and those that space the liminal space that you can drop into where i could go into in yoga Nitra is where I felt and continue to often feel most aware and close to her and everyone beyond the beyond. So that's me and Millie Rose.

And I also had taught her Yoga Nidra. And my mom, I was raised a really devout Christian. is still a brilliant and beautiful practice of faith that I, I work to practice. Probably different than how it was raised in it too, though. You know, it was an interesting moment when I taught my mom Yoga Nidra, and she goes, oh, this just brings you closer to the spirit. Like, you know, like her, watching her, experiencing her, drawing the parallels between these yoga-based practices that,

I really love and her faith or our faith was really beautiful and necessary for me. But she also loved Yogan Nidra. So I think that that connection to it also supported me through that grief journey. And not that paramedopause and menopause are only grief. I'm like, there is something to grief here. And it is very physical and it can be very taxing, you know. And we need more refuge and more rest through it, not less. Yeah.

You know, and sometimes we're trying to push through it and just be like, I get on the other side of it. And it's like, no, we are fundamentally changing here. And that level of fundamental change and shift and growth and shedding and closing of doors and opening of new, you know, seasons of life. they do come with the they deserve the right of passage that is grieving and and grief is always going to require rest of us whether we give it to it or not yes grief is always going to require rest of us yes when I was thinking about our conversation I was actually driving back from the gym and I was listening to the song from the greatest showman that's um a million dreams and i don't know that song it's it's it's one of my go-to songs when i need to

feel a bit more possibility in the world and it was like there's a lot happening in the world right now is that's right morning of the like this latest freedom flotilla that greta tomburg was on with these 11 other activists that they were trying to get into gaza to take aid and they had been stopped and the peaceful protests in l.a were being you know about the ice raids were being suppressed by the National Guard like it all just started and feel some hope and I just started singing at the top of my lungs which is actually one of the ways I rest it's like an active form of rest just singing at the top of my lungs along with this song you know dreaming of like the freedom that could be possible for everyone who's being oppressed and and her in our world today

and then there was this line that came in the song which is we close our eyes to see Yes. And I thought, that's a line in Rest is Sacred. Yes. And that's amazing because I've never heard the song. And it was years ago that I was meditating. And when I finished meditating, I opened my eyes and I had such clarity of vision. And I was like, oh, I closed my eyes to see. And it also came from this experience. I had years ago, teaching at what was then called the Black Girls Run Conference. I believe that's what it was called. And in the room, there might have been 200, 300 people come into a room. I was teaching yin yoga and meditation and maybe like a deep relaxation at the end. And there was an elderly woman who was sitting up versus, you know,

she wasn't really following along the practice. And she kept like touching her eyes. It just felt like she seemed dressless to me, but I was like, okay, she's having her experience. And then she's settled in a little bit, keep going through the practice, guide people into a shavasana, the final resting pose. And we come out, and then she sits up and she takes the glasses off and she's staring straight at me. And I'm like, what is going on here? So the room clears out and she comes up to me and she goes, I can see you clearly now. And, you know, I'm a poet.

So I'm like, that's amazing. That's what happens when we slow down and we have a nice practice and you finally settled in. So it looks like, you know, and she goes, no, no, no, no, no. My eyes have been blurry for weeks. They're not blurry now. And I go, oh. And until this day, I don't know what happened.

I do remember in that moment, those words were crystallized in my mind and heart as well, is that we close our eyes to see. You know, because I was like, there's something in that she closed her eyes finally. She settled in. She found her breath. She said she opened her eyes and she could, when she reopened her eyes after closing them, she could really see clearly. And I took that to be, you know, she told me it was quite literal. And I'm like, well, I've had that experience, that internal experience where it was when my eyes were closed, that I got great clarity.

When I opened them, I had even more clarity and more capacity to see. So that's where that comes from in the book. And now I've got to go listen to the song. Oh, yeah, it's such a great one, especially the version that Pink sings. Oh, it's great. And when you do close your eyes to see, could you tell us some of the things that you see, some of the things that you've seen, some of the things that have become possible for you to see because of your rest practice? So I am closing my eyes and immediately, and this wasn't a vision.

It's just as I am, I'm worthy. Do you know what I'm not taking in all the external stimulus that tells me this or tells me that and, you know, this is coming at me, this is coming at me. closing my eyes doesn't make any of that go away it shifts my orientation to it it allows me to reclaim my attention which is precious my power which is mine right to see who am i and who is am i so closing my eyes and scanning inside and this has taken you know many many closing of eyes to not just close my eyes and then be like, I am who they say I am. No, I am who God and my ancestors say I am and they say and I say as I am, I am worthy. That feels very clear to me when I stop overly indulging in the external stimulus and the external story

that it really is just, it's very constructed. The constructs have it. They impact us. They don't have to define us. All of my books, and I've written three books since 2019, 2020, have been born from the practices I teach. I haven't muscled my way through any singular book because that's not how the birthing or creative process organically wants to work anyway, right? You know, like there is a time pushing, but the original, the initial phases of my writing process just look like a lot of doing meditation or yoga nidra or restorative yoga practices

and then writing journaling free writing literally when I come out and then I start to you know teach things together and go oh here's a thread that I can follow here's another thread that I can follow so in my rest I have seen and gathered the seeds of creativity that have come every book that has my name on it. I have seen when I close my eyes what Arandahti Roy says, which is another world is not only possible.

She is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing. And I know that it's very, very hard to believe right now, and I don't say it with any ounce of delusion in my body. Like, there's nothing about me delusional. I just feel like I have to say that because I don't know about you, but sometimes teaching what I teach and living how I live. I feel like sometimes people like, you are just ungrounded. And I'm like, I promise you, I have two feet on the ground. I'm just not looking

at what you're looking at. I just don't, I don't, like I see what you see. My eyes go a little bit farther, right? Part of what closing my eyes allows me to do is to understand like, yes, I'm fully present here. And we have got to practice. for the future that we want and that we deserve and that three generations, five generations, seven generations deserve, and that starts with personal practice that also will transform us to engage collectively in ways that do less harm. So I see that when I close my eyes. I can see that. I can sense the other world that is possible through restorative practice and restorative relating to one another and um what else do i see sometimes i just see nothing because i fall asleep

you know um i have similar to my mom when she said oh i had this vision i could see myself i was playful i was i have seen you know little mes or parts of me that were forgotten or and I've seen them beyond their victimhood or beyond their pain and suffering and seeing them myself before all of that. And I've seen a lot. I think I'll pause there. If I were going to capture it, there's possibility. there's power and I see my worthiness and our inherent worthiness as a collective.

Hmm. So beautiful. When you were talking about seeing a bit further beyond, it made me reflect on when I rest, I feel much more connected to the life on earth that is more than human. That's right. 99.9% of life on earth. That's right. And it made me think of an Adrienne Marie Brown's book, Emergent Strategy. She talks about how everything in nature knows how to rest. And she says, birds coast when they can.

You know, these birds that make these huge migrations halfway across the planet. And when they can, they just open their wings and they just let the air take them. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Winter is not my favorite season. it is such a wise season, you know, that winter occurs is the wisdom of other earth,

showing us how to find some rhythm. You don't have rhythm without the pause. You know, there's no, there's no rhythm without, you know, the pause. And we are, we, the collective, we have become, and I laugh, not because it's funny, is because I laugh sometimes when I get uncomfortable with the truth. Like, we are out of sync and out of rhythm. And I don't think resting and pausing are inherently revolutionary. Like, I live for the day when, like, you know, one of my in three generations' dreams is that how people, we say rest is revolutionary, that three generations from now, it will just be normal and ordinary.

You know, collectively, it will be normal and ordinary to engage the pause, to engage rest. And I say that, and I also do know that there is a turning toward the pause. And I have no choice but to believe that the movements, the most, the moment, sustainable, most inspiring, the most transformational movements of now and the future will be birthed and sustains by by the pause, by rest, and by people who are sourcing their strategy, their next move, their relational way of being all of that from rest. But that's also just saying can we get our nervous systems more regulated right you know and I'm like that's like I believe I believe that yeah you said that earlier about yourself that you expanded your nervous

system capacity for rest and it's just it takes practice doesn't it take by day by day it it takes practice I'm like we first start with the pause yeah then we string together some pauses really we first start by slowing down by 1% I like I was a formerly a public school teacher. So I'm like, I love scaffolding things, right? You know, like on my website, I have, if we could link it in a show notes, I have a portal of practice that where the practices range from 12 to 32 minutes, right? And sometimes people can't start with that. You know, sometimes that's too much. Sometimes there's too much activation to go lay down and be that still so immediately. And so my first teaching is, can you observe the pace,

moving at? Okay, we did that. Can we slow down by 1%? Practice that. And then once we practice slowing down by 1%, maybe it's by 2%, maybe it's by 3%. Maybe then we toggle between 1 and 2 or 3. Maybe we then start to remember that we do have choice in our pacing. There may be consequences to the choices, yet we do have them. And then once we can sew down, we move toward, let me pause. There is a pause between every word spoken. There is a pause between every breath we breathe. There is a pause between every door. You know, we open a door, pause. You know, like there are so many pauses. Tracy Stanley talks about the, like the moments of transition. They are everywhere. So that's the, those are my two prerequisites to when people are like,

I just can't rest. I'm like, well, actually three, notice the pace you're moving at, spend some time with your pacing and see if you could do it without judgment. Then slow down. Then befriend the pause. And then we can get to some other rest practices. And then there are people who are just like, no, I'm just tired. Give me the long rest practice right now. you know um yeah you know i in that conversation with karen that you had for her podcast i think it was you played a song i played a song oh yes i i made a song to introduce my book to the world i love it would you mind sending it to us so that we could add it i i will send it to you um it was so fun create. And again, so here's the thing. It wasn't, I didn't hyper plan to do it. I just,

sometimes I rest and I follow the creative nudges that come out of that place. And here's the thing to, from the moment that I was like, oh, I could turn one of these vignettes in the book into a song. From doing it, from the moment of realization that it could be done, then I asked friend who had done something similar like hey could you hook me up with the person who helped you then I talked to that like meaning like it was there was such a fluid ease to it and that it wasn't a lot of pushing a lot of straining a lot of you know it just it came through and rest and then the provisions to see it through to to fully being in the world arrived you know I was able to see them and able to connect dots because I was approaching it from a more rested place that's what that's what I was

You can feel it in the song. And in terms of a rest practice, just taking two or three minutes to listen to that at the end of the podcast where I'll put it. I feel like a good beginning rest practice. Well, to honor your time, Octavia, we should wrap up soon. But I'd love for you to share how those listening can connect with you if they want to. I am at octavia rahim.com. I'm Octavia Rahim on Instagram. and LinkedIn and Facebook, and you can definitely listen to the song that's going to be in the show notes

and just rest. Thank you. Thank you so much. There's this quote that is just luminous in my mind from your book. The world doesn't need more burned out visionaries. It needs well-rested revolutionaries who move at the speed of wisdom. Ooh, nice.

Yes, come on. Come on. Let's move at the speed of wisdom. And I feel that in you. I feel you moving the speed of wisdom. And I feel myself like coasting with you now. And I'm enjoying it so much. I feel so good to my body.

And thank you for all you do. Thank you for all you bring. Thank you for all your rest. And thank you for being with us today. Thank you. Thank you for having me. I loved that special and sacred time with Octavia. so much and I hope you did too. I'm going to share her beautiful song next and I invite you to sit

with it if you can and claim some moments of sacred rest for yourself and I'll be with you again in a couple of weeks time and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm. You learned that integrity is keeping your word, even if it kills you. And it almost did. You put your dreams on hold to do what they asked you to do because you said you would. when you returned to your own dreams they were still there raisins in the sun shards of possibility thorns of hope festering sagging a load to carry underneath the weights every yes to them turned into a no to your dreams amazing grace how sweet the sound you are still breathing it's not too late you gather courage and rest rest create space this this

is a yes this is a yes to your dreams this is a yes to your dreams yes to your dreams yes to your dreams yes to your dreams yes to your dreams Yes. Dreams. Yes. Dreams. Yes. Dreams. Rest is sacred. You are sacred. You are sacred. You are sacred. Rest is sacred. You are sacred. Rest is sacred. You are sacred. Rest is sacred. You are sacred.

Rest is sacred. You are sacred. Rest is sacred. You are sacred. Rest is sacred. You are sacred. You are sacred. You are sacred.

crazy. You are sacred. Rest is sacred.