A friend recommended Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity by Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD. I looked on Amazon and liked the book cover. The calm water, wooden dock, and stealth fog piqued my interest.
I appreciated chapter 6, “Emotional Rest,” and Dalton-Smith’s reference to a banking metaphor to reflect the bottom line of our emotional reserves. When we make an emotional withdrawal that exceeds the balance of our emotional bank account, we can experience fatigue. Like a bank account plummeting toward zero, our reserves can deplete until we build up our energy resources and reach our full capacity once again. At times in certain chapters, Dalton-Smith’s switching between first and third person was slightly distracting, but all in all, the important subject matter increased my engagement and kept me turning pages.
My favorite chapter was chapter 8, “Social Rest.” The vivid imagery of shared intimacy inside the hospital room between Dalton-Smith and a female patient touched me. The patient’s gaze studied Dalton-Smith. Looking into each other’s eyes, both women shared a common experience of loneliness. Dalton-Smith provides a list of feelings and indicators that help readers discern if they suffer from a lack of social rest. While the book is highly insightful, chapter 8—and the book as a whole—would have benefited from three short, concrete action steps readers could practice to alleviate their lack of social rest. This would provide a practical addition beyond the general advice to prioritize face-to-face time, listen and learn, and nurture the need to connect, each followed by a large paragraph of suggestions.
If you liked Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity by Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD, you will likely appreciate Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. Other excellent recommendations include Freedom of Surrender: Forty Devotions for a Joyful Life in Christ by Mary DeMuth and The Lies That Bind: Reclaiming Your Worth by Embracing God’s Truth by Tara Johnson.
