Hi Reader,

In the email I sent you earlier this week, I mentioned that when I first heard the phrase "teach from a state of rest," I was equally intrigued and skeptical.

The idea that it might be possible to homeschool with unshakable peace and real, true, joy sounded...thrilling.

Also: impossible. 😅

I'll remind you of what life looked like for me back then:

Nothing about my life reminded me of "rest" or "peace."

So let's define some terms, shall we? REST, for example.

Ever heard of it? 😆

(Yeah, I hadn't either, haha!)

Turns out that rest, in this context, refers to a virtuous state of being that lies between two vices:

• Anxiety: The frantic, overwhelming worry that you are never doing enough
• Negligence: A complacent approach to your daily tasks since you can't seem to get on top of them anyway

Aha. Now those terms sound more familiar, don't they?

Probably what was most familiar to me at the time was a kind of anxious negligence, where I worried that I wasn't able to give my kids everything they needed. I alternated between freaking out, researching new curriculum, overhauling homeschooling methods and daily schedules—turning into a drill sergeant in my own home...

...and scrolling Instagram endlessly because I was paralyzed by fear and overwhelm.

😬

Here's what I knew for sure:

I loved my children more than anything in the world. I wanted to do a good job homeschooling them. And I desperately wanted warm, lasting relationships with them.

I wanted them to look back on their childhoods fondly. To come home for Christmas when they grew up.

I was also pretty sure that the way I was running my homeschool wasn't getting us there.

Fast forward a decade+, and my oldest kids are now grown. They've gone to college, gotten graduate degrees, have interesting lives and jobs and relationships.

They are EASILY my favorite humans on the planet.

And yes, they come home. More often than just at Christmas, actually. 😆

Sometimes I wish I could have given "ten-years-ago-Sarah" a little peek at all the good to come.

I would have worried less, I think. Frenzied less. Maybe I would have rested.

Anyway, I've noticed that you and I—we tend to want the same things: to do a good job raising our kids, to enjoy motherhood, and to create meaningful lifelong relationships with our children.

In my work over the last decade, I've talked to thousands of homeschooling moms, and even conducted a survey of those who've homeschooled over ten years.

I asked them:

• What do you wish you did more of?
• What do you wish you worried less about?
• What would you tell a younger version of yourself, if you could?

The remarkable thing is that... just like how we all tend to want the same things... these experienced homeschool moms also gave me the same three answers to those questions.

I'll come back in a few days and tell you what those three answers are, because they're the key, I think, to having a peace-filled, joyful homeschool. To building lasting relationships with our kids.

To teaching from rest.

Look for that next email from me on Monday.

xoxo, Sarah Mackenzie

P.S. If you missed the email I sent a few days ago, you can read it here.