Savasana is not so much about chillaxin’, as it is about integration. Some teachers will say that if you skip out on Savasana, you lose the benefits of your yoga session.

We rest to integrate the benefits of the work that we have done.

Creative and work cycles need Savasana time – consider it divine debriefing. This is the most under-valued practice in business and busy living. We resist. We fidget. We race forward. For similar reasons, Savasana – undoing, unwinding, letting go – is considered to be one of the most difficult of all yoga postures to master.

Right now, my career / creativity is in Savasana. Which is to say: agitation, satiation, ebullience, and fresh rushes of ambition – all at once. For Creatives (and we’re all Creatives,) this is the unavoidable, slightly uncomfortable, and sacred space between exertion and renewal. If we bypass this place, we miss the most empowering insights of all the work we have done – insights that will fuel us on the next journey.

This is the first time in two years that I haven’t been operating under an intense deadline. A few weeks ago, I delivered my final manuscript for The Fire Starter Sessions. There will be copy edits. My Canadian spelling and poor punctuation will be stripped, but mostly, I am done. I hardly know what to do with myself.

I’ve done the Downward Facing Dog of deals, I’ve done the Tree Pose of multiple product and event launches amidst gusting winds of life upheaval. I’ve sweated and twisted and floated, and I have felt the breath of angels in my lungs as I lifted my ass and aspirations to new levels. So now what? Fidget. Rest. Ready myself.

rest is productive : the savasana of creativity + work

At the end of a big project, you will be pulled with equal force in three directions:

CLEANING UP. You’ve been in the creative bubble. Your auto-responder was set to “don’t bug me,” your door mat said “Unwelcome.” Now your inbox is encrusted with emails like barnacles on an ocean-liner. There are many things that legitimately need tending to, people you care about are waiting, and you genuinely want to move into responsive mode. But you also really need…

STILLNESS. Your mind has been burning for so longing that needs the cooling effect of suspension and ambling. A nap. Reading a book unrelated to your line of work. Unscheduled time. Listening, receiving.

NEWNESS. Part of you is raring to get going on the next Big Thing. You’re wired to make stuff. It’s what you do. If I was more chemically imbalanced, I would have started my new book the day after I submitted my last book, (it crossed my mind. The next tome is burning a hole in my heart.) But I knew it was Savasana time.

Prone on the floor with your eyes closed, it’s easy to fall asleep in Savasana. Some yoga instructors discourage this because it’s not about escaping per se, it’s about integration. I used to consider it nap time. But now I listen, and I hear so much more. And I re-enter the world more energized.

The same approach applies to work. I used to wrap a project, crash hard, and then zip into the next thing. Now…I sit with both the discomfort and the enthusiasm. I stay awake and look at where I’ve been and how it relates – or doesn’t – to where I want to go.

We rest to integrate the benefits of the work that we have done.

CLEAN UP without rushing, without panic or guilt, and with respect for the patience you’ve been shown.

BE STILL in the ways that your body and mind crave.

LET THE NEWNESS ROOT. Allow yourself to be sensationally excited…without acting on it…yet.

When you rest, you have space for all of it.
And when you rise to meet the future, you will be very, very ready.

Also, we’ll be having a casual meet up a few nights before the workshop, so come on out! Wednesday Nov 25: Chill Winston in Gastown, 3 Alexander Street. 7pm.

CLICK HERE FOR WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION + REGISTRATION
http://vanmindbodytech.eventbrite.com/

. . . . . .

My Burning Questions with Gwen

Gwen Bell is a yoga-teaching, social media Swami Girl (she was named one of the 50 Most Powerful and Influential Women in Social Media,) with a heart a big as the World Wide Web. Infectious. Savvy. And sought after for her perspective on trends in Web 2.0, Twitter (where she met her husband!), wellness, and women who virtually rock. Gwen is a partner in Kirtsy, and a mean personal manifesto mistress. And! she co-created one the most useful e-experiences ever: The Unconventional Guide to the Social Web, Gwen Bell & Chris Guillebeau Click here to view more details.

It’s an honour to have her grace this space.

1. What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

We will suffer and we will die. Our work is to do our work – to be completely present – while we have the power in us to breathe, to feel our hearts beating.

2. What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe in?

Love is finite.

3. What’s your super hero name? (You have one. To discover it, stand with your legs apart and hands on your hips, tits up and eyes to the sky. It’ll come to you. FYI, Mine is Agent Now, which in French translates to L’Agent Maintenent. Adorable n’est pas?)

An image comes to mind. Uma Thurman kicking ass in Kill Bill. I’m a Post-modern Samurai She-ro.

4. What is your favorite question?

It’s the last day of the year. Reflecting on it, what do you say about your year?

5. Who would you nominate for a Nobel Prize?

Thich Nhat Hanh. He has already been nominated. By Dr. Martin Luther King. I would nominate him again. The meditation retreat I did with him radically changed the course of my life.

6. What book(s) are you always telling people to read?

Refuse to Choose, by Barbara Sher
Happiness, by Thich Nhat Hanh
Clearing Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Barbara Kingston
Fortunes, by Jen Lee http://www.jenlee.net/
Anything by Sark
The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E Gerber
The Anti 9-5 Guide, by Michelle Goodman http://www.anti9to5guide.com/
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Chimera, by John Barth
Anything by Alan Watts

(Too many to name, I used to work in a book store and spent every paycheck the day paychecks came in. Seriously. Too many to name.)

7. I’m going to give you a word. Tell me what the first thing that comes to mind when you read it… Ready? The word is: DEVOTION.

Forehead on my yoga mat, hands in prayer position, offering it all up.

Om shanti sister Gwen. Ommmmmm shanti.

. . . . . . .

Find Gwen right this minute:
GwenBell.com
Twitter: @gwenbell
Facebook

The Unconventional Guide to the Social Web, Gwen Bell & Chris Guillebeau Click here to view more details. This is more than an “e-book.” This is a robust, ridiculously useful gotta-have guide that blows others of it’s ilk out of the water. And, oh yeah, there’s a really fun interview with Gwen and me about authenticity and branding. If you’re doing anything on-line, go buy this guide…and pretty much anything else Chris Guillebeau creates.