Synopses & Reviews
Restoring your body, mind, and spirit amid change is an act of courage, empowerment, and hope. This warm, powerful guide will help you honor the changes and spaces in your life with purposeful rest and reflection.
If you're trying to push your way through endings, beginnings, and places of uncertainty, only to find yourself more confused, disconnected, tired, and uncertain, this book will hold and fortify you. Yoga teacher and activist Octavia Raheem offers us the motivation and guidance we need to restore ourselves in the midst of all sorts of change. Change in our lives — whether it be welcome, joyful, challenging, or more subtle — presents us with the opportunity to pause and gather our energy to work with whatever lies ahead.
Drawing wisdom from yoga philosophy and her many years of teaching experience, Raheem offers us the motivation and guidance we need to restore ourselves in the midst of all types of change. She gives us three simple restorative yoga poses (savasana, side lying pose, and child's pose), and offers short teachings, reflections, and practices to see us through times of ending, beginning, and liminal/transitional space. She shows us how slowing down, stillness, and deeper connection to our own transitions empower us to move through collective shifts with more grace — and what it means to navigate shifts and change with presence and courage.
Review
"Part practice, part poetry, this book will feed your soul. Octavia is a magnificent voice of truth. In a sea of overachievement, Octavia reminds us that rest is just as powerful as action, and that through rest, we can align to an even greater sense truth." Justin Michael Williams, author of Stay Woke
Review
"In need of an inner reset? Look no further than Pause, Rest, Be. Octavia's wise and honest teachings put the reader at ease and give us permission to embrace more of our true self than we ever thought possible." Light Watkins, author of Knowing Where to Look
Review
"Octavia Raheem has the authentic, searing voice of a teacher who is intimate with the mercurial nature of transformation. Pause, Rest, Be contains powerful stories, expertly guided restorative postures, and anchors for self-study and reflection. Radical, meaningful, and practical medicine for a volatile, rapidly changing world." Bo Forbes, Psy.D., E-RYT, C-IAYT author of Yoga for Emotional Balance
Review
"This book is a prayer that invites us all to be still enough to notice that each transition is a portal to healing, remembering, and knowing. Octavia Raheem weaves practices and sacred wisdom in practical ways that honor where we are at any given moment on our journey." Tracee Stanley, author of Radiant Rest
About the Author
Octavia Raheem is a mother, author, yoga teacher and practitioner, and activist. She has received national attention for her work training yoga teachers and diversifying the yoga and wellness industry. Her work as a yoga professional focuses on practical tools to teach individuals how to manage stress, anxiety, and fatigue through yoga and meditation in a way that is accessible to all levels/abilities, and restorative to the nervous system. Her work has been featured in Yoga Journal, Mantra magazine, Well + Good, CNN , WXIA , and Atlanta Magazine.