I am

Kat Teall

Child of the Earth

Big and Wild Heart

Rebel Soul, Playful Spirit

Truthspeaker and Alchemist

Seer and healer

Lover of books, bare feet, expression, food, beauty, pleasure, freedom and aliveness.

Here is my rest journey:

‘Mummy please come up stairs and kiss me good night,’ my daughter asked stroking her little, soft hand across my cheek. I was so mind numbingly exhausted, I could barely stop myself from falling asleep, my legs seemed to have been cast in lead and getting up the stairs felt like running a marathon. Why should my daughter suffer for it though I thought? And so I crawled up the stairs to tuck her into bed and kiss her goodnight. And then crawled into bed where I was so exhausted, I couldn’t sleep. And when I finally did, I was woken up soon after by my daughter crying. Several times in the night. Each time, I had to haul myself out of bed when I was so earth shatteringly tired, it felt like some sort of torture. When the alarm cruelly cut through my slumber demanding I got out of bed, I did not wake up feeling refreshed and restored. I felt like I had been through the works. Whipping myself mentally, I gave everything I had to pull myself up and out of bed. Somehow I had to get my kids to school as I did every day.

My body felt battered and bruised, my mind continued to bully it along at a relentless pace even when resting was a choice. I had had many years of unsustainable demands beyond my control on my energy as a single parent with a newborn and toddler. Traumatic birth with my first, severe life threatening chronic illness with my second, plus she woke every 2 hours in the night for the first few years of her life (sadly not taking after her mother), abusive alcoholic ex-husband bla bla bla, pretty much any stressful life event you can have, I experienced. I was also struggling massively with my health after catching dengue fever on my travels. I felt traumatised and triggered constantly. I didn’t feel safe, my inner world was one of panic, anxiety, fear and I experienced the whole world through those eyes. I had lost myself and become disconnected on so many levels. It felt like my soul was always trying to catch up with my physical body, trying to find its way home, desperately running behind it shouting ‘wait for me.’

In thinking I was taking good care of myself, I was too busy trying to fulfil all my other needs of socialising and my hobbies, that I forgot about the most important need- rest. A basic and fundamental need to us like eating.

I didn’t listen though so my body shouted louder and louder, until eventually it said ” I ain’t doing this shit no more” and rebelled and literally refused to move forwards anymore- I could hardly walk anymore. After years of mind over matter-as someone who had a very active mind and was used to being very active- I found myself in a place of matter over mind. Only then did I truly surrender to rest because I didn’t have any other choice. I was literally forced to be horizontal and lie down due to illness and a body that couldn’t adjust to gravity; you’ve got to laugh at the ways of the universe sometimes.

I had tried everything to heal myself over the years- acupuncture, massage, yoga, supplements. I look back on all that frantically searching for an answer outside of me when I had everything I needed inside me to heal. All I needed was rest, some tools and myself. So simple and yet so powerful. Sitting in the darkness, the despair, the biggest most powerful transformation of my life occurred.

Like a caterpillar, I rested in my cocoon and emerged a butterfly.

After years of striving to heal trauma, it was by resting and giving up striving, that all the healing happened. When my body stopped moving when I became so ill, my soul was finally able to settle into its home, my body. This is why it was such a beautiful time for me when I lost the ability to walk. It was a portal to my soul, I had already learnt the skills to keep my mind out the way.

The world is out of balance and as someone who suffered the consequences, I could see we were headed for the same place, that it wasn’t sustainable and it would break like I did. So I set up this page to try and restore some balance. Taking a stand by lying down against this world of capitalism, consumerism, growth at all costs, constantly busy and achieving, striving to be somewhere different from where we are, someone different from who we are; where people are treated like machines, where we have been conditioned to treat ourselves as machines.

I realised I didn’t have to be part of this world, I didn’t have to play ball.

I could opt out, go slower, treat myself as the human I am who needs and deserves rest and is worthy just by existing. That I could do something about it by resting and by encouraging others to do the same. I could say no to all of this by treating myself exquisitely and refusing to go along with it anymore. Using rest as a form of activism.

I love using my psychology background and knowledge of the research to challenge the unhealthy narrative around rest that we have all internalised. In my years of being apprenticed to rest, I have become increasingly intrigued by it and discovered there are many layers to it and I believe it solves many of our biggest issues. There is a bit of an art to rest and like any skill, which resting is, it’s one that needs to be developed. It requires a lot of discipline.  As someone who has a bit of a thing for picking up skills such as fire spinning, juggling or playing the harp, rest has been one of the most challenging to master.