How We Rest: Ways to Reclaim Your Peace
Last week I polled my IG community for their reframes on rest, and someone wrote,
“[Rest] has put be back in conversation with my body.”
Rest as an act of coming into conversation with the body.
This hit me HARD, and it made me think of rest differently than I ever had.
Listening. Understanding. Honoring.
For a while, physical activity was how I started this conversation (v'all know I love to dance.) But what if inactivity was just as "productive" at starting the dialogue? What if the pressure to produce, perform, and "do" is disconnecting us from our bodies, our own intuition, our own knowing? What if rest was a way to rekindle the most severed relationship of all?
This got me into a DEEP thinking spiral (uh oh). It led me down a massive rabbit hole about our cultural obsession with productivity and success, and how maybe that has done just as much damage to our mind-body connection as other trauma.
I am not in any way trying to compare trauma—no trauma is comparable. Trauma is not measured by what happens—it is measured by our threshold to hold the moment in reality without losing time and space. This is why some people are traumatized by an experience that simply becomes a bad memory for others. Our brains process differently based on thousands of factors that I can’t explain here—just know that your unique way of interpreting (or not interpreting) your world doesn’t make you broken or better. It makes you…you.
Back to the notion that productivity-culture fucks up our brains.
The pressure to constantly “do” something instills a belief system, just like any other culturally absorbed message. (Diet culture, love culture, whatever-makes-you-feel-less-than culture).
This belief system, the “Productivity Program,” becomes our primary source of information—we confirm our “goodness” with questions that solve the productivity riddle: “have I done enough?” “have I exhausted my resources?” “do I have something to show for it?” The daily goal for “goodness” becomes a mental equation based on capitalist ideals, not our own.
We listen harder and more closely to this internalized voice than our own bodies. We look outside of ourselves for confirmation of the Productivity Program working—likes, dollars, accolades. We go everywhere but inward, and day after day we practice solving the riddle of success and ignoring our bodies. And as time goes on, this practice becomes habituated. We start to actually believe that we are supposed to produce. That we are lazy if we don’t work hard. That we are not “good” if we have nothing to show for our time here on earth. We suffer burnout, chronic stress, and a disconnection from our own body. We lose track of hunger cues. Put off peeing until we “just finish this one sentence!” Push back plans with loved ones due to deadlines. Miss out on sleep, forget to laugh, and lose track of what matters most deeply to us, not them.
So what’s the remedy?
My last client (I say this like I have clients all the time—I don’t. I RARELY offer consultations, it’s not my favorite thing to do so when I do it, it’s a big deal) was struggling with self-sabotage. Her main reason for speaking to me was to “stop eating sugary food” when she was overwhelmed. Her story was familiar to me. No matter how much she didn’t want to eat to self-soothe, no matter how much she knew in the moment it wouldn’t help her in the long run, a voice in her head would say, “fuck it, just eat the thing,” and she’d find herself frustrated and angry at herself all over again for not sticking to the promise she’d made herself.
Alice (I’ve changed her name for anonymity), like many of my clients, is in the helping/healing profession. She works with trapped energy, helping people release old trauma and new emotions that lodge themselves in the body. I find it fascinating that those of us who are so deeply invested in the work of helping others find peace are often the ones who struggle most with quieting our own internal turmoil.
Where is the disconnect?
Why are those of us with all the tools the clumsiest when picking them up ourselves?
What are we missing?
What’s the remedy?
Towards the end of our call, I asked her one question:
“Alice, when was the last time you took a full day for yourself?”
“Oh, I don’t know. But I take breaks every day. And long baths. And walks. I take time for myself.”
“That’s so wonderful,” I replied. “But you didn’t answer my question. When was the last time you took a full day?”
She paused.
“Oh, I guess, I don’t know. I don’t think I have.”
“This might sound simplistic. Forgive me, if it does. I don’t mean to diminish your pain or what you’re struggling with. In fact, let me try a metaphor:
“Imagine that every day, a few times a day, you tell your daughter, ‘I love you’ and you hug her. Surely, she knows you love her. You tell her several times a day. Of course. Now, imagine that once a week, you spend an entire day with her, uninterrupted. You take her to the park. You watch the boats float along the water. You giggle at the squirrels in the trees. You get ice cream, because it’s your special day together. She asks you questions about the world and you listen. You answer thoughtfully. At home you hold her close, and together you think about what dinner might be. Maybe pasta. Maybe marshmallows. Nobody knows! When nighttime comes, you draw her a hot bath and read her stories from her favorite book. You let her stay in a little longer, because it’s a special day.
“Now, after a week of hearing ‘I love you’ and getting hugs several times a day, versus this day together, which do you think gives your daughter more life force? Which do you think reminds her that living is worth all this while?”
“Oh, my. I just never thought of it like that.”
Alice wasn’t suffering with self-sabotoge. She was suffering with productivity.
I’ve learned that often, in my life, self-sabatoge comes because I’m too tired. I’m too tired to use my coping skills. Too tired from giving everyone else everything that I cant’t give myself anything. Too tired and overwhelmed, so I’m going to pick the easiest, most familiar tool.
Self-sabatoge is simply a return to the familiar.
So what’s the remedy?
Rest.
Rest is the Remedy
This year has been one of forceful rest. A deep unwind. A massive pause. A slowing down in ways that have made me (and my bank account) utterly uncomfortable.
Recently I made a post about 5 things that have massively improved my mental health after 18 years of therapy, and rest is one of them.
I remember reading instagram posts like “rest is rebellion” and thinking how can something so passive be compared to something so active?
Still I trusted the authors of these proverbs, and I tried.
I tried to lean into resting. Into not-doing. Into something other than the constant productivity I felt born and bred to do, to be.
What I struggled with most was not so much the not-doing as it was the who-am-I-without-the-doing. My identity had become so wrapped up in my success and accomplishments, that without the constant making I felt as if I had no essence.
“I don’t know what to DO with myself when I’m not working,” I told my friend. “Like, what do I actually do? What does resting actually look like? It can just be sitting and staring at a wall. Is it baths? Can I walk or is that too active? Do I just lay on the couch? I’m genuinely confused. How do I rest?”
Like anything, I found that rest is whatever I decide it is. The hard part is finding out what I decide it is.
So instead of asking “how do I rest?” I started asking, “what feels restful?” and “what restores me?”
These questions helped me stay away from external seeking and turned me back inwards. Back to my own knowing. Back to what is restful for Rachel.
So today I’m not going to offer you so much of a “how to,” but more of a “how you.”
How You Rest:
Ask these questions:
What have I done in the past that has left me feeling restored?
When I imagine an activity that makes me sigh, release my shoulders, or feel a lovely sinking sensation, what do I imagine?
What do I know feels restful for me?
If someone could give me an itinerary designed to help me relax, what would be on the itinerary?
Who rests me?
Think about people in your life that nourish you. What is it about them that feels nourishing? Are they calming and quieting? Encouraging and supportive? Do they sing to you? Draw you bubble baths? Bring you gifts? How can you re-create what these people do so that you may to nourish yourself? Sometimes nourishment is how we rest. It’s like nesting in a garden of fruits we dream about but never taste.
Close your eyes and picture the softest place you could go.
Where is it? What are the textures? Smells? Tastes? Colors? Who is there? How can you closely recreate this for an hour, or two, or more on a day of rest? If it’s pink clouds, can you puff up your bedding lay in it with airy, floaty music and imagine you’re there? If it’s warm, tropical waters can you draw a hot bath and play salsa music while drinking a tropical cock or mocktail? How can you re-create your fantasies just for a little while and rest there?
If you feel totally clueless still, that’s A-OK. I still am too.
I made myself some re-frames, maybe they’ll help you. If not, I shared how I’m resting below, and you can try any of what I’m trying to see if it helps. #messymiddle #youaresofrigginnotalone
Reframes for Rest:
I don't know how to rest.
I’m practicing ways to rest.
I don't know what to do with myself when I'm not working.
I'm trying new ways to stimulate my mind that aren't related to productivity.
I don't know how to fill my time.
Like any habit I can cultivate a hobby or interest with repetition, attention and exposure.
Ways I'm practicing rest:
one: focusing on my body first mind the second
Walking and listening observing my mind what my senses feel
Moving gently with yoga dance or self massage
Singing, humming laughing
two: playing interacting, engaging with others
Card games, playing catch
Conversation, sharing food, cooking, shopping
Holding hands. togs sitting side by side.
three: asking for help
telling a friend I'm committed to not working today and letting them call me out when I'm on Canva on my phone lol
calling a friend/FaceTime/texting the family
yelling, crying asking for a hug
four: self compassion and gentle reminders that…
it's not shameful to struggle with rest when we live in a society that pressures us to perform or seek worth and productivity
it's okay that rest feels hard after prolonged attention on a passion project
right now rest is simply not as familiar as work & my brain will adjust with time and feel less anxious with resting
I won't fall behind miss out or lose business by resting at any scarcity
I have to go flip the sausages I’ve left on the pan too long. I can smell them burning. I hope you find some rest today. Or maybe all day. I don’t know. All I know is life is quite long—or quite short. Either way, I hope you find some rest so you can make it all the way.
All my love,
Rachel
>Learn more about Rachel’s journey with Eating Disorder recovery, depression, divorce, & finding comfort in the discomfort of living in her memoir, Where the River Flows.
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