Rest Is Sacred
Nautilus Book Awards Gold Winner
Concise, potent, poetic messages of inspiration, direction, and encouragement for you to embrace rest and reflection as a deep spiritual practice.
In this compelling follow-up to her popular book, Pause, Rest, Be, Octavia Raheem offers succinct, gem-like teachings that invite us to find ways to embrace rest in our daily lives. Rest, she posits, is not only restorative—it connects you to your inner wisdom and is a portal to revelation. Raheem urges us to consider rest as a spiritual practice and to find ways to weave it into the busyness of our everyday life. In this way, she says, we can more fully “rise to the occasion of our life.”
Raheem uses personal reflection, and creative, evocative “sutras” (or, just as aptly, aphorisms, threads, psalms, or proverbs) and inquiry to guide us toward a more well-rested present and future. The forty sutras fall into three categories:
- Rest as a place of refuge from the storms of life
- Rest as a place to remember who you are
- Rest as a place of revelation
Each page of Rest is Sacred invites the reader into seeing rest as a contemplative practice and a way of life—and to reflect on our relationship to grind culture. The sutras are concise, potent, and inspiring and can be read in a moment, contemplated, or lingered over. Raheem offers the view that the most sustainable future available to us is a well-rested one, and that rest isn’t a luxury—it is a necessary spiritual practice that is available to us all.
"If you're looking for an invitation into emotional, physical, and spiritual restoration, look no further. This book is a nudge to come back home to yourself." —Alex Elle, New York Times bestselling author of How We Heal
"Rest invites you to a place of emotional and spiritual restoration. Through heartfelt reflections and practical insights, Rest Is Sacred is a call to return to your true self, offering a path to reclaim your inner peace and well-being." —Light Watkins, bestselling author of Travel Light and Knowing Where to Look
"In Rest Is Sacred, Octavia Raheem will help you dissolve your 'urgent life for a softer one,'—and you'll never be the same. I'm grateful for her powerful writing." —Danielle LaPorte, author of How to Be Loving
"Allow these healing words from Rest Is Sacred to wash over you like a tidal wave of love that awakens you to your wholeness. You are worthy of rest, and Octavia F. Raheem gently guides you towards this knowing with each word, prayer, and sutra in this Divine collection of remembrances." —Tracee Stanley, bestselling author of Radiant Rest and The Luminous Self
"Reclamation of our clarity through rest and contemplative writing is a deep gift; Rest Is Sacred is at once prayer, poetry, invocation, and truth telling. Far beyond self-care, rest is a vehicle for honoring yourself, your process, and your healing. Octavia F. Raheem's words will bring you swiftly to your heart with each sutra in this beautiful, vital book." —Elena Brower, bestselling author of Practice You and Softening Time
"Through lyrical words, the weaving of poetic musings, and deep wisdom about rest as a practice and portal, Octavia F. Raheem meets us exactly where we are, while inviting us to change through the act of resting. Rest Is Sacred is medicine that guides us into a deeper connection with the pulse of everything and the Divine. This potent magic is essential for the times." —Michelle Cassandra Johnson, bestselling author of Finding Refuge and We Heal Together
"In her own inimitable way, Octavia F. Raheem invites readers to challenge notions of rest as being a luxury that only the privileged few can afford. In Rest Is Sacred, she invites you to first consider, and then to practice rest as something worthy of respect, and that is necessary for mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being. She asserts that rest is so much more than a good night’s sleep or a vacation getaway. It is a daily practice that is actually a gateway to the core of one’s being, to the Divine. Sacred rest, she tells us, is a practice that opens the door to one’s hidden gifts and talents. It is a tool of self-discovery. She doesn’t lecture or preach, rather her poetic sensibility makes this book easy to read and restful in and of itself. She reminds us that just because you’re doing nothing doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. I highly recommend it." —Gail Parker, PhD, CIAYT, psychologist, and author of Restorative Yoga for Eithnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma and Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress with Yoga