Maybe Just Rest in What You Know?

Expansion and growth are beautiful things. Life-altering, even. The desire to keep searching for the truth…to evolve your capabilities and your knowledge…the pursuit of understanding…it all makes for a stellar human experience.

But sometimes our addiction to the hustle hides in all that seeking. Sometimes our excuses do too. We obsess over knowing more, and doing the most, and searching, searching, searching (and searching some more) – when actually that’s not what the time calls for.

Over the weekend I was catching up with one of my good-witch girlfriends, who repeated an insight that came to her while journaling: Rest in what you know.

As she said it, I stopped dead in my tracks because her insight hit. It lit me up from my strawberry curls to my Birkenstock-curled toes.

REST. IN. WHAT. YOU. KNOW.

I shouted it back to her like ninety times. Because I could feel how true it was for her at this very chapter in her life. And what a gift it was to hear it out loud because it was true for me, too.
The seeker doesn't always need to seek. The searcher doesn’t always need to search. The pursuer doesn’t always need to pursue. Miss Curious doesn’t always need to be so curious all the time.

Sometimes the thing to seek and search and be curious about is how to integrate, embody and actualize what you already have hanging out in your head, in your body. Remember those dreaded words growing up, “There’s plenty to eat at home.” Well, when it comes to moving your life forward, you (and I) have plenty within us to make a beautiful three-course meal. Dessert too. But we won’t know what we’re capable of if we don’t relax into that knowledge by using it before seeking something else.

You know more than you realize. Here’s a good filter to figure it out: What advice are you giving to others that you’re not taking for yourself?

Maybe you’ve read all the books on boundaries but haven’t created any. Or you’ve taken every business class under the sun but eventually, you just need to actually launch a business. Or you stare at your finances every morning but don’t make any changes to the cash-in and the cash-out. Or you’re real deep on those relationship Instagram accounts but you’re not going on any dates.

If you feel called out, girl no shame. I’m calling myself out with you. There are so many places that I’m trying to settle into with what I already know to see the transformation that happens from within me, instead of from stimuli outside of me. Resting makes it sound easy, but we’re probably similar if relaxing is harder than hustling ever was.

The question then becomes: how, exactly, do you know what you even know?

Well, ask yourself some ‘ole Oprah wisdom: What do I know for sure?

And then follow that up with: Am I doing anything about it?

And then follow that up with: What would it look like to start with what I already know?

Let’s play this out with a book example, because you know I’m here for your book dreams (and mine):

What do I know for sure? You want to write a book because it’ll accelerate your business…you don’t want to self-publish…traditional publishing requires a book proposal…which has seven sections of information you need to sit down and craft.

Am I doing anything about it? Lotttaaa thinking about it. That counts right? ;)

What would it look like to start with what I already know? Open a Word document. Figure out what your idea even is. Get everything in your head out onto paper. Start organizing into sections.

Does that mean, bam, you have a book proposal and a book deal and your dream materializes? No. But by resting in what you already know, you’ll inherently find the parts of your knowledge that haven’t been actualized. Once they are, you’ll know what more you need to go out and acquire, but that acquisition will have an entirely more valuable return. Because you’re at a different level of understanding. Because you’ll have dimensionalized the knowledge, instead of just trying to acquire more of it.

So, what do you already know and how can you rest there? I have a pretty feeling that it’s the thing you’ve been looking for all along.

Woman on xx