S07E14 The 7 Types of Rest Every Missionary Needs with Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

Why do you still feel exhausted, even after you rest? What if the kind of rest you think you need isn’t the one that will actually restore you? In this episode, Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith unpacks the seven types of rest, and they are going to completely change the way you think about fatigue and burnout. 

As a physician, Dr. Dalton-Smith has seen firsthand how exhaustion isn’t just about needing more sleep, and as someone who loves missionaries, she speaks right to the heart of what we need to stay in this work for the long haul. 

If you’ve been feeling depleted, stretched too thin, or just plain exhausted, this episode is for you. This conversation has the potential to change the way you see rest and the way you experience it. 

Rest is about to feel a whole lot more possible.

Thanks for listening! Email us your questions at care@modernday.org

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Chapters

• 0:57 Meet Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith
• 1:43 The Concept of Sacred Rest
• 2:13 Breaking Down the Seven Types of Rest
• 9:05 Physical and Mental Rest Explained
• 10:50 Exploring Spiritual and Emotional Rest
• 12:35 Social, Sensory, and Creative Rest
• 14:27 Practical Tips for Finding Rest
• 17:52 Mental Rest Strategies
• 20:04 Spiritual Rest
• 24:38 Adapting to Changing Needs
• 26:42 Understanding Social Rest
• 27:15 Addressing Sensory Overload
• 29:08 Taking the Rest Quiz
• 30:47 Practical Rest Strategies
• 35:46 New Book Insights
• 37:16 A Prayer for Rest

Transcript

[00:00:58] Stephanie Gutierrez: Welcome to Modern Day Missionaries, a podcast by Modern Day Missions created for missionaries by missionaries. I'm your host, Stephanie Gutierrez.

Okay, real talk. I needed this episode just as much as you do. Have you ever tried to rest and still feel exhausted? Like you took a nap, you went on the walk, even tried to unplug, and somehow you're still running on empty? Turns out we might not be getting the right kind of rest.

Today, Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith breaks down the seven different types of rest and how to refill your tank in a way that actually works.

[00:01:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: Dr. Dalton-Smith, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.

[00:01:37] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: It is my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:39] Stephanie Gutierrez: And we're talking about such an important topic today. You know, your book has been mentioned to me, Sacred Rest, several times in the past couple of years. I don't know if it was just a good friend recommending it or somebody felt that I needed to read it, but all I know is when I read it really spoke to my heart and that's what we'll be talking about today is that concept of rest.

We hear a lot about burnout and stress and I'd love for you to take the conversation deeper. You go beyond physical exhaustion and really get to the soul. And so I'd love for you to just kick us off by sharing how sacred rest is different from the way we normally think of rest.

[00:02:21] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, I think for a lot of us, when we think of rest, we primarily are just thinking about stopping. We think about cessation activities like sleeping or going on a vacation or just getting away and we oftentimes don't actually think about really what is being restored. At the very core of rest is this need for restoration. It's pouring back in and that's not always a cessation activity. Sometimes it's a restorative process, something that actually fills you back up.

[00:02:49] Stephanie Gutierrez: And I appreciate that you, I feel like you really understand this. First of all, you've spoken to a lot of people in the mission space before, so you are not new to the mission space. But secondly, you're a doctor and you've worked in the medical field for a long time. And so you get this intense pace that missionaries can run at.

I'd love to hear a bit of your story. When did you realize how that sacred rest was so essential, not just for you as a person, but for those around you?

[00:03:21] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Well, I think for anyone who has this heart to really give, who has a heart for service, I think it's easy sometimes to get so caught up in the work. There's a joy in working and you get so kind of focused on thinking , “Well, this work is needed. This work is produced.” It's good back into the world that we sometimes, I feel like forget that. It needs to be sustainable. You can pour, but for it to be sustainable, there has to be a replenishing of the resource called you. I think sometimes we lose track of that. And so for myself, you know, it was one of those situations where I was having people tell me things like, “Oh, well, you're blessing so many people and look at all the good work you're doing.”

And I've been in clinical practice for over 20 years. I had lots and lots of patients and treated lots and lots of people. And, you know, what happens when you get home at the end of the day and everyone else is singing your praises, but you don't even have the energy to enjoy the blessings in your life. You know, you don't have the energy to take care of yourself or enjoy your family or keep healthy relationships within your marriage. I don't believe that's the life we were supposed to be living. I see it so often in people who are sacrificing themselves. Everything around them decays, and sometimes even they start decaying, their own health and their own mental and emotional well being. And so we have to start thinking about not only that we want to do good work for the Lord, but how do we keep it sustainable and healthy?

[00:04:51] Stephanie Gutierrez: And you brought up something really interesting there. You talked about how we get home and people celebrate us essentially. And, “Oh, look what you're doing, oh, that's so good.” And I think what people celebrate is what you tend to keep on doing. And nobody's really celebrating you when you take a break.

I mean, that's not what you're writing about in your newsletter back home. Like, “I took a really great rest this weekend with my family.” And maybe those are the types of things that we should hope are being celebrated. And I would say for people who are listening to this, who are not missionaries, but who support missionaries and take care of missionaries, celebrate the rest they're taking. And I know people like this where they will applaud missionaries when they take a rest or take a vacation. What a gift, what a gift to applaud them, not just for the good work they're doing. That feels obviously good. but the good work that they're doing to be sustainable and stay on the field long term for you to be able to keep doing what you're doing long term.

What I really love about your work that I think sets it apart from other work on rest, because there's a lot of books out there about Sabbath and resting, but you talk about seven different kinds of rest and I had never heard that approach and I absolutely loved it. Would you be able to kind of break those down for us so people can see maybe the types of work they're outputting a lot and the types of rest they might need?

[00:06:16] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, I think really that whole framework comes just from my medical background. When I sit down with someone and we're looking at how to solve a problem, my brain automatically goes to diagnosis and treatment.

[00:06:28] Stephanie Gutierrez: I love that. 

[00:06:29] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: So many people think, “Oh, I'm so tired.” And to me, that is such a pointless statement because it is identifying some symptoms without giving any idea of how to differentiate, how to solve it. It's like someone coming to me in the emergency room and saying, “Hey, doc, I am hurt.” What do I do with that? I don't even know where to begin to order tests or what I'm looking at. And it's the same with saying I'm tired. And so those seven types of rest are really looking at identifying what kind of tired you are. So in the research, all kinds of tires are boiled down to seven. It was way more than that when we first started, but boiled down to seven specific ones that we repetitively saw in people, regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic backgrounds, you know, social status, all of those things. And that was physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative. 

And so these seven areas are the places where most of us are spending energy, usually as part of our job or part of our calling or work, and we're using energy in those areas repetitively to the point that that area can become depleted. And then the depletion of that area is what gives us a sensation of emptiness fatigue. Or feeling drained for some, it may feel even overwhelming and it's because you have a place where you're regularly extending yourself regularly, giving up yourself that you have not also honored in the, in the filling back up. 

You know, a lot of missionaries and people who are high performers or who enjoy having checklist things done have a tendency to have an excellent work ethic. There's no issue with working, but they have zero rest ethic. They have no appreciation for really the purpose of rest in actually helping us do the work from a healthy place and to be able to do it for longer periods of time.

[00:08:26] Stephanie Gutierrez: Rest ethic. I have not heard that before. I love that. Okay. You have a work ethic, but do you have a rest ethic? That's good. And you know what? It is a rest ethic because again, we go back to Sabbath. This is found in scripture. This is not just something we're doing because it's trendy, it is straight from the pages of the Bible, the first book of the Bible.

Okay, so can you break down a little bit more those seven types of rests? Because I'm thinking listeners are listening right now and they're like, “Okay, maybe it's this and maybe it's physical and maybe it's creative. I'm not sure.” What do each one of those look like? So they can maybe conceptualize a bit of how that might look in their lives.

[00:09:05] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, so the physical aspect is divided up into two different components. You have the passive components of physical rest, which includes sleeping and napping. And then you have the active component, which includes anything that helps with your body circulation, lymphatics, drainage, all of those things. So that could be taking a leisure walk, or stretching. So anything that helps your body feel better. 

Mental rest, what it looks like for a lot of people, if you've ever laid in your bed at night, thinking all the thoughts, and you can't get your brain to shut up and turn off, you have a mental rest deficit. So that is the symptom of someone with a mental rest deficit. And so how do you get mental rest? It could be anything from activities that actually help you clear your mind. You know, for some people that could be like going for a jog or that could be maybe doing some type of like cycling or some type of physical activity where you are doing something rhythmic that allows your brain to kind of go to a quiet space, which I know for some people, it's like, “Wait, she said when I'm cycling or running, I'm resting.” You're not resting your physical body then, but your brain might be resting. You're having the mental rest you need at that moment. 

And I think that's part of the reason we struggle because we don't realize that you can rest in one area where you're working in another, but that's why you have to be intentional. If you're someone who, let's say, has a desk job or something where you're constantly processing and thinking and you know, doing those kinds of mental activities, usually, it's not your physical body that's being expended. Your brain that's being expended. And so you need something that allows it to be in and focus and clear out the noise. 

For spiritual rest, for a lot of people, it's taking a long time. It's taking time to recognize that sometimes you can spend a lot of time in the world without really building a relationship with God. Almost like, like for myself, I do a lot of speaking and training and different things within organizations and churches. And so I might be mining through the Bible, so to speak, for my next message or my next book. That's not the same as spending time in the world with the person of the word and building that intimacy and relationship. And that's really what spiritual rest is about. It's a deeper level of intimacy. 

Rest is looking at how well we're able to express our feelings and how much tension we might be holding on to because we have to suppress our feelings. If you're a missionary and you're working in an area where there's a lot of desolate situations and a lot of pain and suffering, if you're someone who's sensitive to that, chances are you're not crying every time you walk out to go help those people. You hold that burden close to heart. You keep the tears at bay to serve them in that moment, but if something touched your heart, where is the place you get to release it and let it out? Because otherwise, you're basically putting more weight in your own emotional backpack. And although you've learned how to suppress those emotions, same with frontline workers, missionary work is frontline work spiritually. So, it's very similar to that. Someone who's a firefighter and seeing horrific things, they're not going to burst into tears on the scene. Usually, they are able to keep it in check. That leads to an emotional rest deficit because they have not found safe places to release the pain that is building up.  

Social rest is looking at the people in your life. Everybody in your life is needing you, you probably have a social rest deficit. You feel as if you are always on demand. You want to make sure that there are people in your life that are life giving. That are pouring back into you, that you just enjoy being around and they don't need anything from you particularly. 

Then the final two are sensory and creative. Sensory rest is just looking at your sensory inputs. There's a lot of people dealing with sensory deprivation because of their gadgets sometimes or their use of electronics. It might be just from their surroundings. If you're in an area with a lot of noise pollution, or a lot of lights and sounds and all the things, aware of the need for silence and the need for kind of drawing away a little bit to allow your sensory overwhelm to have a reprieve so that you're not having all of that attacking your senses. 

And then with creative rest, being aware that when you do a lot of problem solving, which I'm sure a lot of missionaries do, you know, there's not enough food and a lot of people are standing waiting for supplies or waiting for something and you're having to figure out how to multiply in the moment. It is a creative expression. You're having to create from what is available, even if you're having to come up with new ways of doing that, and we don't always realize how much creative energy we use in problem solving and diagnosing, that there has to be times to pour back even into that part of ourselves. And so for creative rest, it's allowing the creativity around you to unlock creativity inside of you. So that's everything from the stars and the mountains and the trees and the flowers and the ocean, wherever you're seeing beauty, letting the creative beauty around you, whether it's art or music, whatever, letting it unlock creativity inside of you.

[00:14:27] Stephanie Gutierrez: So a couple of things are coming to mind as I'm listening to you right now. First, you're reminding me of the saying that a great friend of mine told me a couple of weeks ago. And he said that somebody had told him back in the day, “Work with your hands, rest with your mind, work with your mind, rest with your hands.”

And it caught my attention because it links a lot to what you're saying right now in as much as I think sometimes people's default. I'll own it, my default is I work a lot with my mind, and I work a lot sensory, I'm with a lot of technology, and I found myself tending to go to the same buckets looking for rest, so I'm an avid reader, and I read a lot for work, and so I would go to rest, and I would pick up a nonfiction book so I could learn some more and it's like I couldn't even absorb anymore. Or sensory like for a lot of people who are working in a technological space or with computers or doing meetings on zoom, you want to watch something on TV or go something and you're going from sensory to sensory from mental to mental.

And I found that I was not finding rest and the thing that I did not want to do, but that actually gave me rest was quieting that sensory piece or physically moving my body. I'd love for you to say a little bit more about that. Are there times where we can find rest in the same bucket that we are expending energy, or is it usually advisable to go to a different bucket? And if so, are there certain buckets that correlate with other ones? Maybe I'm being too technical here, but I'd love to know your thoughts on that.

[00:15:57] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah. I believe you can find rest in the same bucket, but it may not look the same. So for example, if you're saying you're surrounded by noise and you have a lot of sensory input, you would find rest, sensory, rest in the shutting down. So it's the same bucket.

It's still talking about sensory, but now, instead of, let's say, listening to an audio book or something like that, you're going to spend some more time in silence. 

[00:16:25] Stephanie Gutierrez: You read my mail. That's exactly what I was doing. I was doing audio books. It's like intellectual plus sensory. I mean, I'm sorry, you just outed me. So I had to admit it. This is a true confession space.

[00:16:38] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: I love that. So yeah, so you're finding rest, but the rest is actually the counterpart to what's causing the deficit. So all the noise, all the inputs causing the deficit, the rest comes in what allows that area to get a reprieve. And so if, let's say you're in construction, I don't know, maybe you're building wells. That's something that I know some missionary teams have a call to. And so you're out physically using your body and you're doing all this stuff to build these wells. The physical rest associated with that could simply be going for a leisure walk or doing some stretches. It's still a physical thing, but it's undoing the damage that's been done. It's bringing healing back. Rest is about restoration. How do I restore back what damage has been done in the working?

[00:17:27] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's so good. Okay. So it's either jumping into a different bucket or staying in that same bucket, but looking for a quieter, more restful way of experiencing that. Okay. So let's lean into that with mental activity. What might be a way that you, as a doctor, engage in mental rest?

[00:17:51] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah. So for myself, let's say as far as a mental rest deficit, because sometimes what a mental rest deficit can look like, it can be that you have a hard time concentrating and focus. So you're thinking all the thoughts. So you're kind of, we call it monkey brain,  jumping, jumping, jumping from all the different things. So part of mental rest for that person might be actually doing what we call flow break cycles. And so you are intentionally being single focused; you're not multitasking. You're not kind of going to engage with all the things. You're going to actually narrow your attention down to focus on one thing for a specific period of time.

So, for example, that might be, “I'm going to sit down here for twenty minutes and do my email, and I'm not going to look at social media. I'm not going to look at whatever else that would normally allow myself to kind of get deterred on, or I'm going to spend two hours writing this article” or whatever it is, and you're just basically kind of narrowing your attention.

So that is almost like a mindfulness practice within the working of what you're doing. An example is for someone who, let's say, is a worrier. And so they're kind of, they’re ruminating over things that are concerning them, or worrying them, or that they're, you know, struggling with rest. A mental rest strategy for that could be just what the Bible says: Think upon these things that are good, and noble, and all of that. 

And so, one way I like to do that is, you know, I have teen boys, so there's plenty to worry about with them in college. What I like to do is I like to pick one characteristic of God that I am going to focus my thoughts around. I call it a word chair. So I have a word that I am going to sit my thoughts in. And so every time that I start trying to kind of run down the rabbit hole of the worries, I repeat the word in my head to bring my thoughts back to that truth. Oftentimes that word for me is faithful; God is faithful. It's a mindfulness practice that is rooted in scriptural truth. Meditate on the word of God. I'm just going to pick the characteristics of God that I want to meditate on.

[00:20:03] Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay. You brought up spirituality, which I love because I think that one is the one that can be trickiest for us to puzzle out. So you puzzle it out for us. You know what's going on here? Because we think like, how do I take a spiritual rest? Do I stop reading the Bible? Do I stop praying? But as you pointed it out, it's not about cessation. It's about refreshing. So how do we do that in a spiritual sense? You just mentioned something right there. 

[00:20:30] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yes, because you're focusing your brain around something and then it does pull in the spiritual with God. And so with spirituality, for a lot of people, I think we have to make sure that, especially when you are a doer with your spirituality, you're very engaged with the volunteerism and those types of things, that we allow ourselves time to just reflect on who he is. That's actually a huge part of my newest book that's coming out this year called Being Fully Known: The Joyful Satisfaction of Beholding, Becoming and Belonging, that we have moments of beholding where we are not actually actively trying to work and do.

It still can include time in the word of God, but we're sitting with the word of God unhurried, unrushed, no agenda. We're allowing ourselves to be open, to be led in the moment without having to feel like I need to finish five chapters or so many scriptures or verses. We're just going to see where we go with it. I think a big part of spiritual rest also includes recognizing that it can, it may look different on different days. I hear a lot of people say, “Well, I have a devotion time.” But is your devotion time just now a routine? Does it still feel personal? You know, look at it just to kind of make it easier to have a mental picture, think about it like a marriage. You know, if you've been with God for a long time, and similar to if you've been married for a long time, you get to a place where you get into routines. And those routines can lose their freshness, the passion, so to speak. I think it's important that when we think about spiritual rest, is there still passion there? Do I still hunger for the word? Does my heart still, like, melt when I get these little God moments? And you're like, “Oh, wow, He loves me like that.” Because when we get away from that, that's when you know you have a spiritual rest deficit.

[00:22:26] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's so true. I love that you brought up just that beholding. I'm a spiritual director and I was meeting with a client the other day and we were just talking about that concept of gazing at God, beholding. And I actually was talking to my daughter about it, I think this morning or yesterday morning. We were sitting down, today's Valentine's day as we're recording, and we were talking about, “What do you think if you picture Jesus or God looking at you, what do you think he looks like?” So I say, “What do his eyes look like?” 

And I was talking about that with my client the other day, and there's this story that's attributed to this anecdote involving St. John Vianney. I think that is how his name is pronounced, but it's this story about this gentleman, St. Vianney, and he observed this peasant spending long periods of time in silent prayer before the Lord. And He kind of just asked the man, “Well, what do you say to the Lord during your visits?” And the peasant said, “I don't say anything to him. I look at him and he looks at me.” And I love that thought. A. W. Tozer talks about that a little bit in his book, The Pursuit of God, too. It's about the eyes of our soul looking at God and seeing God looking at us just that gazing, looking at him, looking at us.

And that can be scary for people if their image of God is not one that's loving and kind, but what a beautiful way to spend time with the Lord, asking him to reveal to you what he actually is seeing when he looks at you, what his face actually looks like. So there, there's something everybody can do right now this week, put into practice, a little bit of beholding, a little bit of gazing.

[00:24:08] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: I often like to think about, when we're looking into the eyes of God, you're looking into some deep waters. And as you're looking into these deep waters, and it's reflecting back at you, it's not reflecting the you that you know, it's reflecting the new you, the you he knows. And so I truly believe that the more we actually spend time beholding him the more we're able to see who we are.

[00:24:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's so good. That was for somebody right here right now. I'm glad we paused on that a little bit. So another thought came to mind as you were talking, because I was thinking about how when I was younger, certain activities were refreshing. And certain activities for me have changed over the years. For example, when we were in the mission space where we had teams coming down all the time, it was a highly social space. I mean, we had people at our house twenty four seven and we were at church all the time. And so I just didn't really want to have people over very much. We had some friends that we'd have over, but I found that I really needed that introvert recharge time even more. 

Now, I work from home quite a bit. My team is on the other side of the U.S. and so I'm in a space where I get a lot of quiet and I have found I now love having people over. And so it's this whole new side of me. Like I love being with people and in a way that I never have before. And so I'd love for you to share a little bit about how much of this is connected to our personalities and how much of this might be connected to the current type of work that we're doing in that season?

[00:25:45] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: A huge part of it is related to how you are internally put together. Some people do just gain energy from being around other people, but I think all of us have levels of need for release from whatever it is that we're doing. So even extroverts get tired of being around people at times and introverts need people. So I think at the very core of it, we have to recognize that there are some personality type things that drive some of this. You may find that with particularly couples, one member of a couple might be an extrovert and they're like, “Oh, no, we can have this person come over. We're good.” And the other person's an introvert and they're like, “No, we already had three people over this week. I'm tired. You know, I can't take any more people.” And so the extrovert will get to a point where they're like, “Okay, I've had enough of, you know, of people being here,” but it's just different levels of what they're able to. And I think, you know, particularly with social rest, that is the one that's hardest for introverts and extroverts, because extroverts don't tend to need as much alone time. They're good with people for longer periods or introverts tend to need quite a bit of alone time. They thrive from the refilling of being alone with themselves, and so I think it's important to recognize that, and to make space for it.

[00:27:07] Stephanie Gutierrez: Absolutely. Do you think that there's a certain type of rest that people think the least about? Is there one that you see getting ignored?

[00:27:15] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: I would probably say the one I see ignored the most would probably be sensory. Because we live in such a sensory rich world. We just assume up. It's just part of it. I hear a lot of people talk about types of rest and before the research came out, people would talk about mental rest, they may talk about emotional rest, but they don't really go into the fact that the brain also has sensory input. And so, when we just talk about that emotional exhaustion or mental or reasoning exhaustion, we're hitting the two lobes of the brain, so to speak, but all of it's affected by your sensory input. You know, if you think about it, even a child who goes to a party or goes to an amusement park and it's like, they're good for a couple of hours and then all of a sudden they're screaming their head off and you're like, “Oh, they need a nap.” I just became sensory overwhelmed. And when we become sensory overwhelmed, our response is irritation, agitation, rage or anger. It's the reason why road rage is an issue in the evening time. People are suddenly overloaded on the same drive that they took to work. It is now too much and they're honking horns and screaming at each other on the drive home. So we have to realize that there is a psychological response when we are too overwhelmed sensory wise.

[00:28:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay, that's good.

[00:28:33] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Who’s to say, you know, I get agitated at the end of the day, have a sensory rest deficit that you probably need to go to our webpage and figure out what level of deficit you have so you can begin to solve that.

[00:28:45] Stephanie Gutierrez: There we go. I was just going to ask you about that. For people who are like me, I don't know what I need. All I know is I resonate with that feeling of irritation. We just sometimes have these irrational responses to things. And we're like, “Why?” And people look at us like, “Why?” And we're like, “I don't know.” Could there be a REST connection? And so that Rest Quiz, where can they go to find that?

[00:29:08] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Really simple, Rest Quiz.

[00:29:11] Stephanie Gutierrez: Oh, I love things that are simple. I love that you've got restquiz.com. That's fantastic. And we will post a link to that so everybody can pop and don't hop off and do it yet. Or if you do, you can pause the episode and come back and finish it. But make sure to yes, take that quiz and see what it might be for you.

So let's say that somebody is listening to this and they're already deep in burnout. They are so tired that they don't even know where to begin and all this. So they can take the Rest Quiz because I mean, that's not too bad. They can push some buttons, but let's just say they score high in multiple things. And they're like, “Well, it says I'm depleted in four of the seven areas. Where do I even start?”

[00:29:55] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Pick one and start there. You know, it's one of those situations where you're not going to eat the whole elephant. And honestly, you might be like me; you're deficient in all seven by the time you really confront yourself. And so pick one. Pick the one area that you want to begin with. Pick the one that you maybe feel the most.pressure at that time and that season in your life and choose one or two activities, one or two restorative practices that you're going to begin to implement. Some restorative practices are kind of a one time thing. You set it and forget it, and then you just kind of keep doing it. Others require a little bit more planning, but pick the ones that are easy for you.

Sometimes you can add them to a habit you're already doing, so that it's not even like you have to find time. You just have to be a little bit more intentional and then everything's not going to work for you. You know, within the book, I usually give for each type of rest, three or four different types of ways that you can restore. There's many more than that, but just to give people kind of a starting point, one to try. If that doesn't work, pick another one. You know, the thing is, it's no different than, you know, in medicine, if someone has high blood pressure. I have 100 pills I can choose from, one may work, one may not, but we have to be willing to kind of determine what's best for us.

[00:31:08] Stephanie Gutierrez: What would you say to the missionary who identifies maybe the rest they need most? And then they start to feel panicky because they realize, or they feel, I can't get that. Like, they can't get what they need. I've realized I need physical and social rest, but next month there are three mission teams on the docket, or our church is having a huge conference, because that's a real thing. I have had that before where you discover what you need, then you realize you can't get it. And then you feel straight up panicky and almost angry. What do they do in those kinds of moments?

[00:31:40] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Try to find the smallest expression of it to begin to engage with. You know, you may take, let's say you take the quiz and as you mentioned, someone's like, “Oh, I need physical rest,” but, or maybe they even say, you know, “I need alone time and I'm going to be surrounded by a team.” Well, in the moments that you do get alone, don't take them for granted. Know, the moments when you're in the bathroom, maybe, or you're laying in the bed and you're like, “Okay, nobody's bothering me. Right?”

 The second, actually lean in on the moments that you are getting with the type of rest that you desire, because this feeling of lack, this feeling of, “I can't, I can't ever have it,” is almost like being on a diet. You say, you can't have the chocolate bar, it calls you even. So if you say, I can't ever have rest, you will feel even more tired because you'll feel boxed in. So start finding the small moments where you are able to engage with it and then as you're seeing those moments, start then planning in additional moments like that as you go, because for some of us, a part of the problem is we haven't modeled or prioritized our rest. 

So, now we don't have any healthy boundaries and so, yes, you're getting team after team, after team, after team, because you actually haven't put in an importance that rest is needed. So your team's like, “Hey, they can grind and grind and grind.” And so until you reintroduce new conversation, “Hey, guys, you know what? A lot of us are getting burned out and just being truthful and honest, you know, we lost five members from our group because everybody's out and tired. Do we prevent this? How do we plan better for that? We can have longevity in our nonprofit in our church and our missionary group. Do we make this in such a way where? So people can stay for years and not just months.”

[00:33:32] Stephanie Gutierrez: Okay, three things I'm hearing there. One is to be faithful in the little, you know, kind of like with finances. If you can't learn to tithe and give when you've got little, you're not going to do it when you have big. So if the little quiet moments that you have, if being alone is what you need, and they're all eaten up by catching up on Facebook and Instagram, then what's going to happen when you have three hours to yourself?

Probably the same thing. So being faithful the little you talk about the community piece about having the conversations. That's good, too, because sometimes we know what we need, but we keep it to ourselves. And we just passively aggressively stare at people for not giving us what we need. It just gets us angry at them because they don't know that we need to be alone.And maybe they don't. So have the conversations involving the people around you. 

And then the third is setting boundaries and making it different for the future. Maybe I can't change the present. Maybe I can't even change the next month a whole lot, but what can I do farther out to set myself up for success so that this doesn't happen again? And that requires having those conversations with people and not trying to do this all on your own. That's good. And you give so many practical examples in the book. That's what I appreciated too in each chapter. I mean, you talked about the heart and the why, but then you're like, we could try this and we could try this and we could try this and we could try this.

And so for people who feel like, well, I don't know, it's going to work. You just pick up that book because Dr. Dalton-Smith is going to give you a jillion different ideas. And if you can't find one that you like, brainstorm with a friend who's creative and you get a bunch of ideas there as well. But yeah, start in the little, do something little and see what God will do with your faithfulness in the small.

It's so good. That's so good. And you have a rest course available as well online that goes with the book, correct?

[00:35:17] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yes. We have lots of different resources. I wrote the book with a very specific intent on how I thought it would be used and then God does what he decides he wants to do with it. It's his anyway, right? So, but it was really interesting just seeing how many people wanted a deeper dive in the certain sections and even more application and more ideas. And so we have quite a few different types of resources that are available.

[00:35:45] Stephanie Gutierrez: That's so good. And I want you, I want you to mention too, a little bit about your new book that's coming out as well.

[00:35:51] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: Yeah, the new book is really kind of a continuation of the story as it relates to emotional, social, and spiritual rest. When I finished the sacred rest was written many years ago now, and. I found really just over these past few years that there is still a rest that remains for a lot of people, a type of rest that people were struggling even getting to, even after they felt well rested in other areas of their life. And it was really the rest around identity and moving with God and living in the unknown and the unstructured type of life when you live a life in the spirit. I think that was what I felt like we needed a little bit of a deeper dive with God. So that's where being fully known, the joyful satisfaction of beholding, becoming, and belonging was birthed out of that.

[00:36:41] Stephanie Gutierrez: Oh, that sounds beautiful. Wow. I cannot wait to add that to my list that I will read when I have taken a good mental rest and I have the space for it. I'll be good. I promise to be good at putting into practice what we've talked about today. 

And I just want to end with one of my favorite quotes from your book. And it says, “Rest is not an escape from life. It is preparation for the life we are called to live.” That's so good. Not the truth. I don't want to see too. If you would just be able to take a moment, and pray over our missionary listeners right now. I know if we were saying earlier, if somebody clicked on this episode, it's because they need rest.

When you listen to a rest episode, it's because you're tired. And so would you be able to just pray over everybody who finds himself in that state right now and is looking for just an answer from the Lord?

[00:37:32] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: It'd be my pleasure. Lord, I just thank you for each person that's tuned in. And those who are right now may be feeling tired and drained. Father, I just pray that you will allow them to recognize that this is your gift. This is your gift to those who have been faithful, that they don't have to earn anything, that it is just an opportunity to enter in, to enter into a time of peace, to enter in, to a time of relaxation and restoration. Father, I pray that if there's any feelings of guilt, because there's always work to do father, I pray that you will help us to be able to see that we are designed to work from our place of rest, not rest into our work. And so that we no longer feel as if we have to accomplish anything before the rest, but that the rest is where we start.

The rest is where we enter first. And from that place, God, we pour out. We pour out abundantly your love, your joy, your peace, and your power, and your presence, not from our own power and our own strength that is so limiting, but that we can pour out from the abundance of who you are, God. Help us to be able to surrender, to surrender our ambitions, to surrender our expectations, to surrender our agendas, to surrender our list, to just return to the place where we can trust that you are. That you are able to accomplish all that is needed in the time that is given, including a time for Sabbath. In your name, I pray. Amen.

[00:38:58] Stephanie Gutierrez: Dr. Dalton-Smith, you are such a gift. Thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it. 

[00:39:05] Dr. Sandra Dalton-Smith: It's been a joy. Thank you.