Resting. Being. Non-doing. These are somewhat foreign concepts that I am learning more about these days. I remember years ago, on the weekends, I would be attending to all of the things I thought had to be done around my home while my husband sat on the couch. I would be so mad! I would have all of these judgmental thoughts about him and go off into my martyr thinking – I can’t BELIEVE he is just SITTING THERE with all of this stuff that has to be done! I would passively aggressively be doing the dishes and just getting angrier and angrier. What I’ve come to realize, is that he is good at resting. Without guilt. I can’t even imagine that!
Over the past few years, during the unraveling (see previous blog post from 10/29), I had the opportunity to get really curious about my beliefs about rest and being, and to look at how my self-worth was tied to productivity. Literally, my brain will run through all the things I “have” to do, and then once they are done, my brain likes to then go over the things I accomplished. There is a lot going on in there!
During this time of emotional upheaval, my body and nervous system were telling me I needed to rest. For me, continuing to move through life as I had before felt like continuing to move in a direction toward dis-ease. When I didn’t initially heed the call to rest, dis-ease manifested in trouble sleeping, anxiety, uncontrollable crying episodes, fatigue, and mystery pain in my body. As these messages intensified, I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to slow down. Slow down even though the dishes aren’t done. Slow down even though I haven’t pulled weeds in my flower beds. Slow down even though the dinning room table is covered in clutter.
It used to be that I could only really rest and unwind if I would leave my house. I had to go someplace else on vacation to not feel responsible for doing all the things and then I would be able to rest. Or I would only be able to rest if I got everything done I thought I had to (which NEVER HAPPENED!). A gift that was given to me over these last few years is learning how to rest in my home despite things not being done.
We are conditioned in our culture to be doing all the time. The expectations seem to be that we are machines that can work at the same capacity all of the time, every single day, all year long. This is absurd to me now! Nature is our best teacher. With nature we have cycles and seasons. I think I’m getting back to honoring the seasons, and also honoring the flow of my day-to-day life, not forcing myself to be productive when I have nothing to give.
But this doesn’t come easy. Being curious about our underlying beliefs and where these beliefs came from is imperative to shift our relationship with rest. We were not born into the world believing that we have to do all of the things. We weren’t born into the world believing that we are unworthy if we rest. What if we don’t have to do anything to earn rest? What if resting is a form of resistance to the system that keeps us all on a perpetual hamster wheel of productivity? What if we offered ourselves rest as a radical act of self-love? It is a process of unlearning, and also a process of learning to deeply care for ourselves and honor what we are needing.
These days, I have moments of rest built in my day. And also, I have entire non-doing days. This is a big deal for me. And, I intentionally schedule my non doing days. I don’t always want my non doing days to be days where I feel unwell in some way. If we only rest when we are tired or sick, I think that teaches our nervous system that it has to generate symptoms in order for us to rest. We want to also rest on the days we feel good.
I also recognize that I am in a privileged position to be able to do this. I have some flexibility in how I spend my days, and I know that isn't the reality for everyone. There are people carrying responsibilities that don't leave much room for rest, even when they desperately need it. And even when we do have the opportunity to rest, we don't always allow ourselves to. I know I didn't. I think it's important to recognize both things: that having the opportunity to rest is a privilege, and that learning to let ourselves rest without guilt is its own process.
We are deserving of rest. We NEED rest. And I can attest that nothing catastrophic will happen if you don’t accomplish all of the things on your list. Is my house super clean, no. Has anybody gotten sick or died because of it, also no. I think I’ve had to re-evaluate my values and what is truly most important to me at this phase of my life. And for now, that is prioritizing caring for my mind, body and spirit, and one way that I’m doing that is through rest.