The Sacred Right to Rest: Even When the World Feels On Fire

Say it with me:
I deserve rest, joy, and happiness.
I deserve rest, joy, and happiness because I am alive.
I deserve rest, joy, and happiness when things are going according to plan.
I deserve rest, joy, and happiness when things are going quite poorly in my life.
I deserve rest, joy, and happiness because rest sustains my humanity.

Confession: I schedule everything, including playtime. In a long ago relationship, I gave him Friday evenings so that I didn’t feel guilty about how hard I go with planning (because a lot of my plans did NOT include him). In short, not only do I plan everything, but I am the queen of NOT being spontaneous. 

During spring I decided that I’d go to the beach every other week, that I’d focus on hikes and day trips  to NYC and B’more during fall, I’d volunteer 10 hours a month, and I’d start stewing on a long road trip during Christmas (If I feel safe, given all of the political crazy going on, I want to take a southwesterly diagonal line from New Jersey to Texas). Then, some unpleasant realities set in, and I found that I didn’t know the difference playtime and rest. 

Suddenly, I felt guilty about not throwing all of my time at my problem. So, I tried to make my playtime worktime. I even bought this laptop tent so that I could work on the beach (it does a great job of preventing glare and helping to keep it cool)! I really did work on the beach…and therein lies the problem.

I wasn’t resting or refueling at the beach. I wasn’t resting or refueling at home. I wasn’t even refueling at church – my body and mind were there, but church isn’t respite. No matter how you look at it, it’s active engagement and relentless requests to serve and give, even if you enjoy it. 

I started noticing that I was tapping out, but my life doesn’t have room for me to fall apart. Here’s what I, apparently, did have room for: isolating myself and eating. My weight yo-yo’d, and I just kind of stopped having meaningful conversations with people. If you were someone who I knew would demand real engagement, I just didn’t answer your call.  

In the midst my withdrawal, I noticed something: anything that required real engagement or commitment was too much. I was getting aggravated while fighting off such demands. You know the human stuff of life, like when your friends want to have a real conversation instead of shooting the breeze? That made me feel tremendous pressure. Then, I’d get off the phone and do a bunch of deep breathing because I didn’t understand why I was so upset. 

When people expected me to be truly present, it was the emotional equivalent of driving with the gas light on, getting stuck in bad traffic, and wondering how many miles to the next exit. I was running on fumes and had just enough gas to finish the stuff on my list. Anything that asked me to drive faster or further made me feel like I was going to stall out on the side of the emotional road. 

Then, I started setting aside one day a week to sleep in as long as I wanted. You know, until like 8:30am. After a few weeks, I realized that I was frequently coming to close to getting up at noon and that my apartment looked like a tornado had come through. That was unsustainable and my queue that I needed to choose to find a path forward, lest I slip into real depression. Sidebar: do you recognize when your emotions are going in a direction that does not serve you? 

I chose the path of rest. No more 15 hour days. No more seven day weeks. If Rome was gonna burn, so be it. Besides, don’t forests benefit from controlled burns? 

Funny enough, resting brought a different challenge: I had to coach myself through guilt and shame. Oh, the irony! Flaming out from over doing it and also flaming out from doing less of it. Repeatedly, I had to remind myself that I could be more effective because of rest, not despite it. I had to remind myself that I could enjoy my labor on a fuller tank.

Rest isn’t solely about pausing labor of the body. It’s also about the labor of the mind and spirit. 

Reflection for you:

I know many of us talk a good game about knowing what we deserve and demanding time and resource for ourselves; however, I have also found that such is often hollow. We spout off in a way that’s akin to releasing a little pressure, but we stay the course with the things that are ailing us. Do you rest, not just sleep, as a life practice or is it primarily a reward for accomplishing something? Do you deserve rest or do you have to earn it?