Lord Told You to Rest
- Sean Greenspan
- Jun 2
- 3 min read
This was a message I got from Anthony Escobar in response to my Instagram story, sharing with my community on Instagram that I've injured my back and I was out of the hierarchy. He wrote, "The Lord told you to rest."
He actually said, "The Lord told you to rest, period." Anthony's not a religious person, nor am I, but we're both spiritual, and the word "Lord" just means higher power, the energy connecting us, karma, signals from the universe, whatever you want to call it. Please don't get caught up with the word "Lord," but please hear the message that he shared with me.
The way my injury happened was my own fault. I was at the same time increasing workout load and intensity and slightly decreasing my recovery and my mobility practices. And I mentioned a few times over the last six months that I was just a little tight in the hips or whatever, but nothing that ever caused pain, nothing that limited motion. I wasn't sitting uncomfortably, sitting, standing, walking, running, lifting, anything. Just a little sense, but I didn't listen to the Lord or my body or the signals, whatever we're calling it.
And then I tweaked my back about two weeks—or I guess twelve days—before my serious injury, my recent injury. That was me doing an exercise that I know I was weak at, with a little less of a warmup than usual and in a little more rushed manner. I do feel like I was focused and present during the exercise, doing it with proper form, still, my body was compromised and didn't fire how it should.
Twelve days later, I felt good, but I let my ego get the best of me during an event that I was leading. I was leading the workshop, it was hype, the cameras were out, cool people were there. I decided to send it when I deep down knew I was not ready for it. And on the very first exercise, I tweaked my back. I felt it and continued the workout.
"The Lord told you to rest." We get signs every day in our life. They're right in front of us.
Do this, don't do that. We just need to read them. We need to be able to take a deep breath, put our egos down, look at the greater picture—often the long-term picture—and apply it.
I don't regret what I did that day because I don't think there are any mistakes in this world. I think this happened for a reason, and this is keeping me from what could have become something even worse if I continued these habits. I'm going to be changing these bad habits—
overtraining, under-recovering, doing things out of ego, things like that.
But what's more interesting is that rest is a positive thing. "The Lord told you to rest" is what he said. That is the same as saying the Lord told you to go study.
The Lord told you to go walk in the woods for a while. The Lord told you to go write. Rest is not a bad thing.
But we're talking about taking a breath and doing things with the long-term in mind and doing things that are best for us. The only reason it's viewed as a negative thing, at least to me at this moment as I'm barely able to walk, is because my mind is letting me be elsewhere. I have to rest.
It's sunny outside. I could be hiking in the mountains. I could be doing this, that, and the other.
That's not helpful. I mean, that is just not helpful to think about it that way. When we're sitting here in pain, it's mental.
I can alleviate my pain just by being satisfied that I'm right here. I don't think I've had less stress in my life. I'm just laying here relaxing all day.
I can talk to anyone, search anything, watch anything, read anything, listen to books, massage my leg with a massage gun or a massage ball. I mean, just be. I was thinking today, because it was nice outside and everyone I know was outside and I was chilling here, I was just thinking, if you put a five-year-old kid in a basement, he's going to play.
He's not going to say, I want to be outside. He's not thinking about outside because he's right here in the basement. That's one of the things.
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