Most of the time, when I exercise, I enjoy heart-pounding, music blaring, sweat-producing, butt-kicking, adrenaline pumping kinds of work outs. Kick boxing, if I have to be indoors, or cycling, if the weathers warm enough to be outdoors. I enjoy having to work so hard that I don't have the mental capacity to think.

I'm not really a yoga, ballet, or long walks type girl if I have my druthers. However, occasionally the situation will war rent where I have to turn to one of these venues in order to get my workout. I mean I could kick box with loud music when I'm snowed into a house with four other people, but its time like those when yoga seems to be the quieter, community friendly choice.

I'm often surprised at how calm I feel after yoga or a walk. How good I actually do feel after a quieter, less demanding workout. That even though there isn't music blaring or I'm not struggling to breathe, there is a certain relaxing quality about just being in the quiet moment. I forget how often releasing stillness is.

I felt (and still do to some extent) incredibly unsettled tonight. I just couldn't get comfortable or satisfied. Was going a little stir crazy. So I threw on the yoga video and did a relaxation series. The final set of the series was simply laying down on my back with limbs extended out and counting breaths. And for some reason tonight, that has left me relaxed. And a bit more settled and content.

I forget to take time to be still. I forget to take time to breath. I forget how relaxing and restful and settling simply "being" can be.

And since today, for all intents and purposes, is my Sabbath, I guess that was a good reminder for me. That we all need the quiet spaces. The quiets. The rest. The moments that simply let us be and recharge to live again.

How often do we forget simply to breathe? How often do we get caught up so much in life that we forget to take even a few moments just to rest? To be? To do nothing beyond convert oxygen? Maybe we'd all be a little better off if we worked more moments like these into our cramped, hectic, loud lives.