Hi Subscriber First Name,

I don’t know about you but life has felt rather full recently. The shift from summer into September’s ‘back to school’ energy combined with ever increasing costs and global volatility has brought a real change in what I was seeing, reading and experiencing.

Despite that, there’s been plenty to feel good about too. Last Tuesday we held our first ‘Gather’ evening. Sitting around a fire, eating cake and spending time together was magical.

We also had our first men’s circle with some wonderful humans exploring what we might bring into the world together. It felt like a small beginning towards answering my question last week - “Where are all the men?”

I’ve felt nourished by those experiences. There’s something about being with people who have time to listen that stays with me afterwards.

But alongside that nourishment, I’m aware of how much we’re all carrying. We can be enjoying our lives and still feel the weight of what’s happening around us, so it’s worth noticing both our inner and outer landscapes.

When I was sitting around the fire, I started to think about the rapid change in the human experience. For most of our species’ history, we lived as hunter-gatherers. Agriculture began only within roughly the last 10,000 years and the pace of change since then has been unrelenting. So our lives with smartphones, constant notifications and AI occupy the tiniest fraction of that story.

So when I was sitting around the fire, I wondered whether some of what felt so nourishing was the ancestral familiarity of it all - fire, food, company and conversation?

It’s a simple way of being together that people have shared for a very long time, so maybe we need to allow our nervous systems to catch up?

Rest has come up a lot in my work recently. People know they need a break but when they stop the unfinished list follows them. They feel guilty, restless or no more replenished afterwards.

I wonder whether we’ve become so used to being occupied that we’ve forgotten what it means to rest?

There’s some interesting science alongside this. Science is giving data to what we already know - watching a fireplace increases alpha brain activity which makes us calmer, more focussed and creative. It can also help reduce blood pressure even when people simply watch a fire video with natural sounds.

On the flip side, research has found that evening use of light-emitting screens like mobile phones can suppress melatonin and delay our body clock, making it harder to settle into sleep.

I use and appreciate technology. But when our advances also make it harder to switch off, I think it’s reasonable to ask what we mean by progress. What are we gaining and what might we be overlooking?

We put plenty of effort into helping ourselves cope. But we also need to question the conditions that keep exhausting us - the workloads, expectations, constant availability and pressure to keep up.

Perhaps wanting rest is a sensible response. Choosing it can be a radical act of reclaiming our attention and agency, especially when so much encourages us to keep producing and consuming.

That can involve bigger choices too. What am I working to sustain? How much do I actually need? What would I like more room for?

These questions often naturally come into coaching conversations I have with clients. That’s the magic of having someone alongside us helping us notice assumptions and see possibilities that are difficult to spot when we’re busy holding everything together.

Upcoming Events

All of this feels relevant as this weekend, me and Kate from Four Acre Farm are hosting a dinner and film screening of ‘The New Peasants’. It follows a family creating a radically simpler life outside mainstream consumer culture.

I see the film as widening the scale of possibilities. With hyper-capitalism and constant consumption at one end, their choices show us somewhere very different we could stand. We can consider where on that scale feels right for our own lives.

Seeing another way of living can help us question what we’ve accepted as inevitable. Perhaps we need some bigger changes or perhaps needing less could give us more room for the things that nourish us?

We’d love you to come and watch with us, bring your curiosity and see what it opens up.

Wrapping up

I don’t see ambition and rest as opposing choices. Having spent over 15 years in corporate life, I know the pressures of building a business and wanting to do good work. My experiences since then working with Founders, Leaders, teams and natural systems have given me other perspectives to draw on too.

Across those worlds, I keep coming back to the value of pausing, looking below the surface and questioning what we’ve taken for granted.

Maybe there’s something similar for you. As we move further into autumn, what could you ask less of yourself and what would you like more time for?

I’d love to hear or maybe you’d like a free 30 minute conversation about how I might be able to help more deeply?

As always, with compassion and curiosity,

Nick

Ps. If you’d like to explore your relationship with rest please reply to this email and I’ll send you my reflection worksheet.