When your spirit is drained

When your soul is depleted

When your inner-well runs dry

When there’s NO flow to life

When there is no juice in your body.

When your spiritual electricity is zapped.

When you have no joy left nor the ability to smile

When you won’t even pick your head up or the phone

When you are caught in a cycle of doing too much for others,

While doing nothing for yourself.

When 12 straight hours of sleep isn’t enough to restore you…

You need deep reflection and rest

You need a personal time out from life

A retreat from the world

A soft place to land

A safe place to be held in protective blankets of compassion

You need downtime that becomes soul-time

You need a plan of escape, for freedom, fresh air, and renewal

You need rest, and recovery, of your body, mind, and spirit

You vital need revitalization

It’s a time we must carve out for ourselves when our check engine light goes on

It’s necessary, required annual maintenance unless we need monthly tune-ups 

We must seek locate garage to carefully park ourselves in while much-need repair gets done

It’s designated time to recharge our batteries and replace our windshield wipers so we can see clearly.

We need new spark plugs

We need much more than a 5-minute meditation.

We need a temporary and complete escape from the stressors of life until our shoulders drop down away from our ears

We must find or build a sheltering cocoon to block out the chaos of the world

We must find or create an alter inside the temple of our body, bow and take a seat or kneel

We must lay on our backs until our tense muscles let go of their grip on the world

We must release of all that does not serve us

And detoxify the tiredness, the toxic, and the terrible

We must take a deep, long, slow breath out 

Releasing all the mental steam and personal agonies

We must cry if we have held off crying

We need a time of being a human-being rather than a human-doing

We need a space of emptiness and nothingness 

We must surrender to “the sweetness of doing nothing”

(where our healing can happen)

We need to replenish and refill our gas tanks

We must stop, pause and let go and shut down and off

We can’t open the hood while our engines are running

We can’t repair while going 100 miles per hour

When sleep isn’t enough we must make time for rest.

by Sonya Zappone RYT (Author of The Hero’s Journey Inwards)

Poem Draft 4/2025 SZ

Self-Reflection Questions:

What are you tired of?

Where can you get some deep rest?

When can you carve out a time for a personal retreat?