Restpiration

The Simple Answer to all of life’s questions

Do you feel like your life is slipping from your grip?
Do you feel the weight of your mistakes and sins?
Is your conscience perpetually roaring with guilt and condemnation?
Do you feel that life is pressing down on you from every side?

Well, I know this man, Jesus- not the conventional religious entity portrayed by many. This Jesus is the gentle saviour, wonderful friend and powerful liberator. Believing rightly about Him and what He has already done for you is the best thing that could ever happen to you. The good news is that this belief goes beyond all possible boundaries. It’s not a “Christian thing”, it’s a “people’s thing”.

Jesus can set you free because He Himself has endured all that you’ve ever gone through, are going through and will ever go through. And He did it all for you. Yes, you. So that He could look you in the eye and understand exactly what you experience. What’s more, He gently takes you by hand and leads you in paths of righteousness, peace and joy because all these are exactly who He is.

So do you seek comfort in the midst of chaos?
Let Jesus be your peace. Believe in Him.
The simple answer to all of our needs no matter what form they take is… believe in Jesus.

Adrenaline January 2022 issue 🎉🎉

A new year presents us with the opportunity to have a fresh start at life. Although we may decide to do things in a new way at any point in the year, the euphoria that comes with making a transition from one year to another provides that nudge for us to take the opportunity for a fresh start.

There’s no better way for a fresh start than to feed on fresh information. This issue of Adrenaline is designed to fill your life with freshness. The articles are not entirely new, I must admit, but we telll the story in a different way- our own way.

This issue takes a more holistic approach for the general well-being of the youth. You’ll find in each article ready inspiration, and information on trending issues.

To get the most out of your reading experience, here’s a clue for you. Read the articles in a relaxed way and frequently take imaginary journeys with the information presented. There are so many pearls in the following pages. I do hope you find them.

Continue reading “Adrenaline January 2022 issue 🎉🎉”

THE RESTPIRATION STORY

The Restpiration story can be summed up in three words: expressivity, inspiration and rest.

In fact, the very name Restpiration is coined from two words- rest and inspiration. I have had the unprecedented privilege of observing Restpiration in its formless essence (idea) and I will therefore like to share with you the Restpiration story. I hope you find this story inspiring and refreshing.

🚫 This article is an excerpt from Adrenaline January, 2022 Issue

A couple of years ago, the consciousness of human existence started to creep into my hitherto unconscious mind. Instead of immersing myself actively in the incident-reaction process of life, I found myself craving for the deeper meaning and principles behind the incidents and the reactions as well. Of course, I didn’t fully understand all these principles back then and neither do I now but I have gone further along the pathless path of information and thought to make some discoveries for myself. Restpiration is pretty much a narration of my journey thus far.

Restpiration = Rest + Inspiration

Let’s talk about the expressivity element of Restpiration. So, what is this expressivity element all about? I’ll answer this question by narrating a real-life story.

There once lived a successful journalist in France whose life came to a standstill when he was suddenly attacked by stroke. He became paralysed throughout his body but was able to move just an eyelid.

Even in this deplorable state, Jean Dominique Bauby managed to write and publish his final book- the diving bell and the butterfly- before his demise. You may wonder how a paralysed man could accomplish such a feat.

It is said that all the French alphabets were presented to him on a board. Once the letter that he desired was pointed, Bauby just moved his eyelid. Although this method of book writing took like forever, Bauby still managed to author a book.

With the blink of an eye, Bauby authored The diving bell and the butterfly

In neurology, the name given to Bauby’s paralysis is locked-in syndrome. The “locked-in” expression really resonates with me.

How many of us even without suffering a major stroke feel locked-in… that we are not giving vent to who we really are?

I think it was Dr. Maya Angelou that said that there’s no great agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Although Bauby was in much pain physically, he eased his inner agony by telling his story.

Are you lessening your own agony? Of course, this isn’t limited to writing a book, but is there anything you can do to manifest your inner treasure and potential…anything??

The next element of Restpiration is inspiration. Inspiration connotes some level of freshness (like when you inhale fresh air). We all need this freshness in our lives. Even with our physical bodies; we bathe, brush our teeth, put on clean clothes and even give ourselves a new cut just because we love this feeling of freshness, or newness.

Similarly, we also need some freshness in our inner life; we need to sniff some good fresh information that shifts our consciousness to experience life from another realm. When we have such a multi-faceted experience of life, why settle for staleness?

The final element of Restpiration is rest. It is not uncommon to mistaken rest for inactivity and idleness. But when I talk about rest, I’m talking in terms of flow. Let’s use this analogy to better appreciate this:

Imagine a twig floating on a stream. The twig is completely at rest on the stream but does that imply that it makes no movement? Of course not! The twig gracefully moves with the flow of the stream. Its movement isn’t forceful or self-induced, it is an unforced rhythm of flow.

Therefore learning to rest isn’t a matter of staying long hours in bed but it is basically about understanding the nature and rhythm of life and cooperating with it.

This gives you a sense of being carried by life as opposed to trying to make life happen.

So that’s the Restpiration story. It is my desire that you also become a Restpirant by being expressive, inspiring and restful.

The connection story

I’ll tell you a story. Once upon a time, We existed as a giant drop of divine fluid. We couldn’t tell ourselves apart because We were pretty much all wrapped into one another.

No one felt their emotion, no one carried their burden and no one felt their pain. We could hardly tell what all those experiences were so We never really took them seriously to even personalize them. We simply felt great sometimes and uncomfortable at other times but that was ok, it was no one’s fault and life just went on…

As the giant drop of divine fluid hit the hard surface of land, it split into several parts. Suddenly, We realized that it was no longer the same. It looked around and there was no longer We but Me, and Them.

With time, We grew dimmer and dimmer till no trace of it was left. On the other hand, Me and Them got busy. They built their own lives and began to personalize what they felt.

Me grew stronger and blamed Them for what it felt. Me felt hurt, bored and sometimes, alone. But Me decided to fill this void with everything it could find. So Me got a job and by that attained high status in society. Me now felt superior however, Me couldn’t help feeling hurt, bored and alone sometimes.

It was then that Me remembered how great it felt to be We. So Me went to Them one early morning with a humble plea- can We be together again?

This short story is just something I made up as I took time to reflect on our shared essence as humans. Judging by apperance, we are so different from one another and we can have many reasons for such judgement- our race, colour, political affiliations etc. But we so often forget that our difference is just a matter of diversity because in essence, we are one and interconnected.

– Restpirant Jerome

The Pursuit of Success

Success is a hot topic everywhere- in the corporate world, our families, our relationships among many others. Although the definition of success is relative and we can find thousands of definitions out there, what matters is what we believe in our hearts about success.

For some, success is pretty straightforward- if they are in good shape and appear to be doing well as compared to those around them then they are successful.

Although they don’t quite realize it but individuals who have this base meaning for success in actual sense put their success into the hands of those around them. Thus those around them have to have less than they have, be pretty poor at what they do and look terrible for them to feel good about themselves and perhaps, experience some sense of success.

If you are anything like me, you’ll immediately realize that there is something fundamentally wrong with this notion of success.For some time now, I’ve been exploring heart-centered living.

Heart-centered living has to do with living life from inside out and finding everything else first on the inside before even looking at what there might be around you. It has been an awesome journey for me so far as I have gradually learned to look within for peace, creativity, eloquence, love and health. I try to touch on these in my posts but there never seems to be enough words to fully unveil the beauty of this inside-out design.

Maybe, you’ll get it much better when you put it into practice. I’ve also attempted to define success in the light of heart-centered living and what occurred to me, I found amazing.

The first thing about success is that it is not in things. When I say things, I mean clothes, cars and any other luxury of life you can think about. I’m not saying this as an anti-materialist. I like all these things too; they make life comfortable and in a way easy.

But when you’re considering success from a deep level of spirituality, these things do not even come close to constituting success. I think the onus is on us- do we want to have something that looks like success (something superficial) or do we want to have real success (something deeper and lasting)?

Now that we have considered what success is not, we are well equipped to see success more clearly. I choose to see success as a concept that revolves around one word – potential.

Potential may sound like a big word in the ear of a philosopher but for a layman like me, it just means something that feels natural to us and it may take any form like special abilities or talents. The onset of success lies in identifying potential.

In the pursuit of success, the path to travel is the path of potential. Although this may sound simple (maybe because it really is) but it is in no way easy especially for those that have been conditioned away from heart-centered living.

Potential is the natural rhythm of the heart thus if you’re in sync with your heart, these things just occur to you without giving it much thought.

So where do things (the cars, mansions, and fame) fit in the inside-out definition of success? Well, they are what I call bonus of success. You can think of it this way: if a tree loses its leaves, no big deal- it can grow them back during favourable conditions but when the root falls, that’s all hope lost.

The root of the success tree is the identification and utilization of potential, and the things (which we so eagerly pursue) are the leaves. That said, in our pursuit of success we should know where our priority lies.