I recently spent a day laying in the backyard reading a book. Whenever I started to feel guilty about it - thinking about the emails that need to be sent, the editing that needs to be done, or the cleaning I should be doing, I would start to put my book down so I could busy myself with these other things.

But each time, I stopped myself.

Each time I was about to get up, I had to remind myself: this work of rest is important, too.

This happened like three times! Clearly this is a hard concept for me.

If play is the work of young children, then rest is the work of hard-working parents. It’s our form of play, and instead of feeling guilty about my day of books, sunshine and coffee, I’m going to embrace it and know that, even if I didn’t get all of those other things done, I took good care of myself today and played in my own way.

How are you playing/taking care of yourself today?