Season 4 Episode 8: Rest For All Seasons

In this conversation, I talk with Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith, who named the seven different types of rest and how we can treat ourselves kindly when we feel exhausted.

Here it is, our final episode in our season, all about rest! Remember in the first episode when Nancy talked to her friend Stephanie Pollock about the seven different types of rest? Well, for our last episode, we're coming full circle and talking to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith-- the physician, author, and researcher, who literally came up with that concept! We'll learn all about the seven different types of rest and how we can treat ourselves kindly when we feel exhausted.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Nancy's personal relationship with the seven types of rest.

• Nancy's journey to accepting that rest isn't just about sleep.

• Insight and information from Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of the book Sacred Rest.

• Tips for folks with HFA who want to better understand their rest deficits.

Learn more about Dr. Saundra Dalton Smith

• Go to drdaltonsmith.com to learn more about Saundra's work, how you can work with her, and buy her book.

• Take the rest quiz to find out what your personal rest deficits are at restquiz.com.

+ Read the Transcript

Happier Approach Season 4 Episode 8: Rest For All Seasons Transcript Nancy Jane Smith: Hey guys. It's me, Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to The Happier Approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. Today's episode is our final installment in our season. All about rest and I feel like we've really come full circle.

If you remember, it was a conversation with a friend that started me on this journey to get to the bottom of why it can be so hard for me and other people with high functioning anxiety to rest. During that original conversation, my friend said to me, I am exhausted. I mean soul level. And that resonated from that starting point, trying to get to the bottom of where that soul level exhaustion comes from and how to combat it.

We have talked about rest in the form of physical rest, spiritual rest, vacation, rest, and even our rules around rest. If I'm being totally honest, sitting here at the end of the podcast season and the beginning of a new year, I still feel soul level. But the difference is now I have hope and the tools to change the soul level exhaustion for the better.

Remember the first interview I did at the start of this season with my friend Stephanie Pollock. In that interview, Stephanie mentioned a book she'd read but couldn't remember the name of that shared. There was more than just physical rest. That concept that rest is more than just sleep. Kind of blew my mind.

This book said that there is creative, rest, sensory rest, emotional, rest, mental rest, spiritual, rest, and social. This idea that we need more than just physical rest spoke to me so much. So I asked each guest, we talked to what they thought about this concept. I knew I needed to talk to the woman who founded this idea.

After some Googling, I found her, her name, Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith and her. Sacred rest, recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity. I confess as I sat down to read Sacred Rest, I was hoping it would heal me once and for all. I hoped she had the secret formula for healing my soul level exhaustion.

In the book there is a chapter called Give It Arrest that addresses all the excuses not to rest. And when I read the. Rest means giving up. It stopped me in my tracks. That is how I felt exactly these days. My hunger. My voice for the inner critic is quick to remind me. Rest means you're going to fall behind, you'll lose your edge.

You have to keep pushing. But this isn't my first rodeo. I've been working on myself and teaching others for too many years how to build self loyalty. But even though I recognize my monger talking, I couldn't shake her. As I was preparing my questions to ask Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith. I was so. That she could finally give me some insight on how to quiet my monger once and for all when it came to engaging in rest, she could help me and therefore all of us change the idea that rest means giving up to the idea that rest means supporting ourselves.

One thing I know for sure, change is not linear. In fact, change happens in spiral. I devoted a whole episode to spirals in season two, episode seven. Spiraling up is when someone believes they have something mastered and then suddenly they're back relearning the same lesson. This is how I felt about rest.

I've taught about rest. I have led seminars on how to add more rest to your life. I know rest, and yet here I sit soul level exhaust.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: It started with basically coming home one day after picking up my kids from daycare.

Nancy Jane Smith: This is Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith. She's been an internal medicine physician for the past 20 years, and about 10 years ago, after a decade of following a grueling physician's work schedule, bouncing between the hospital and her office all day until late in the night, plus the fact that she'd recently had two kids who were toddler age at the.

Sandra realized that even though she loved her job, she was really burnt out

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:. I remember one day coming home, it was late. I remember getting through the door and I'm in the house that I had always, you know, wanted big, beautiful house with the, with the beautiful man and the beautiful babies and the beautiful life, and I was so exhausted and I'm like, I don't even have the energy to enjoy any.

And I got them in the door. I put them in front of the tv. I call her my electronic babysitter because she does a really good job entertaining when you're tired. And I just laid out on the floor, I laid on the floor and I thought, this cannot be what I've been working so hard for.

Nancy Jane Smith: That moment led Sandra down the path to researching burnout to understand why she seemed to have everything going for her, and yet she was still.

And that research eventually became a book Sacred Rest. Recover your Life, renew your Energy, restore your Sanity.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: It was really just, I, I loved my job and I wanted to figure out how can I keep doing this? You know, at the time I was only 10 years in. It's like, how can I keep doing this and not get to a place where I hate my life worse than I do right now?

Can I recover this? I felt like my life was on life. And it's like, I, you know, I'm in the, the I C U literally bringing people back to life and I feel like I'm dying, and so how do I recover my own life?

Nancy Jane Smith: The first place Sandra started looking to answer that question seemed to make a lot of sense. She thought, well, if I'm exhausted, there must be something wrong with the way I.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I spent a lot of time thinking, okay, I just need to learn how to sleep better. That has to be the problem, and I spent probably a full year trying to figure out how to get the highest quality sleep possible.

Nancy Jane Smith: Sandra was able to go a step further than most people in monitoring her sleep patterns. As a doctor, she actually set up a mini sleep study for herself, but what she found was not what she expected.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I got to a place where I had documented high quality sleep and I was still waking up exhausted. That's when the bells and whistles really went off.

It's like nothing is medically wrong with me because I have checked all the tests, nothing I can find. No reason why I am so tired. So apparently I haven't figured out some aspect of this fatigue issue and it's not sleep.

Nancy Jane Smith: Sandra realized she was tired for a reason other than not getting the proper amount of.

So she started trying to figure out what, so she started trying to figure out what that other reason was, and it began by asking herself a pointed question.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: What kind of tired am I? Because I felt like, you know, if somebody came into my emergency room and said, Hey Doc, I have a pain, I, I would look at them like, oh, and you know, what else

How am I supposed to know how to help you with that? I don't even know where to look. But I felt like that's what I was doing. I was saying, I'm so tired, I'm so exhausted, but I didn't know where to look. I didn't even know what next steps to take. So I started asking the question, what kind of tired?

Nancy Jane Smith: She started taking a closer look at what her energy levels were during the day and questioning what might have led to that depleted feeling.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Some days I was tired and it was because I physically was, you know, was on call. So I was physically up for, you know, 48 hours. Okay. Those days sleep did make me feel better. Other days I was tired and I was in my office all day. You know, I was on a circular stool, you know, . So it wasn't like I was doing anything stren. But I was expending a lot of social and emotional energy dealing with people. It's not easy to tell someone they have cancer. That's stage four. It's not easy to let somebody know you. Now you have diabetes, so you've gotta change your whole life and how you eat and everything else. I was expending energy in ways I had not appreciated. Nancy Jane Smith: After she'd gotten a better idea of how she was expending energy, then she started looking at how to pour back into those same energy. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: So I started really diving deep in how I was using energy and then going back to the research and saying, what is in the research about how you improve this area of your life? Some places there was lots of literature, lots of literature on mental energy, lots of literature on spiritual energy and physical. But Nancy Jane Smith: there were some areas where there was pretty much no research at all, like sensory. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: No one was talking about how, how does just being in a sensory rich environment like an I C U where ventilators are beeping and EKG machines are going off, what is that doing to us, you know, who are in that environment long term Or for other people, teachers who are in a classroom where you're hearing sounds of kids, even when they're whispering, they're always noisy. There's always sound. Nancy Jane Smith: So from all that research into the well trod and not so well trod, ways that people expend their energy came Sandra's theory that there are seven types of rest that everyone needs to monitor and replenish.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative. Those were the seven that were. They crossed economic barriers, they crossed racial barriers. They weren't specific to just people in the south or just people, you know, who were of certain ethnicities. Those were the ones that, regardless of if somebody was, you know, um, a janitor in one place or somebody was, you know, , a millionaire in another location, those were the ones that seemed to be universal across the board.

And so those were the ones I started focusing most of my attention on. Looking at the research, looking at how people restored in those. Looking at the simple things people can do to P to pour back into those areas, and then starting to evaluate what, how do we identify? Because that tends to be the number one issue.

How do I identify when I have arrest deficit?

Nancy Jane Smith: Once you're able to identify where your arrest deficits are, do you need creative rest, emotional rest, spiritual rest? You can start to address the areas of your life where you need Restore. Because if you try to treat a creative rest deficit with a full night's sleep, well you're still going to feel exhausted.

But it can still be frustrating to do the work of sitting with yourself to figure out where you need to rest. A lot of us want to cure to our exhaustion immediately. Oh, I can relate. But Rio Restoration is about the journey, not the destination.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: You know, it's one of those things where you go to a physician and you're like, I have this problem.

Tell me what I have. Give me the pill. Send me on my way so I can get on with my life as is with no changes, with with no adjustments needed. Just make me feel better, doc, and do it fast.

Nancy Jane Smith: One patient came to Sandra insistent that she cure her of her exhaustion and fast.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith:. She comes in with this, all these complaints, and I'm listening to her rallying off, and I'm asking questions about her, you know, her background and her lifestyle and what she does, and the whole time she's talking, I'm like, Oh, I see what the issue is here.

You know, like, but I, you know, I do my due diligence, I order tests, I do things. Nothing is the problem. And so when I go back and I tell her what I think the issue is, you know, I, I believe you have a rest deficit. And I specified which ones I believed she had, and then we were going to work through it. The look she gave me was like, I don't have time.

You know, just gimme the pill. Do gimme a shot, gimme something, you know, that I can quickly fix this and go on about my life. You know? But what I found with, with working with her and helping her to even understand that this was, this was a problem that wasn't going to be a quick fix. It was going to, it was going to require slowing down in more ways than one. Nancy Jane Smith:. But Slowing down. That doesn't mean stopping life altogether.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I wasn't saying you had to go take a long sabbatical or quit your job or you know, go on a vacation. You know, all these things that we think about when we think about burnout. I'm not asking you to stop, because actually cessation activities would not have improved her situation.

She needed to be poured back into the places that were depleted. Stopping would've just, would've just stopped the drain. It would not have filled her back up. So she would've still been.

Nancy Jane Smith: It's crazy, but that's what most of us do. We think that resting is pulling the plug on all activity when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: If someone comes into the emergency room bleeding, if I suture them up, I have stopped the bleeding, but they're still anemic. They need blood. They need to be restored, poured back into, and it's no different with our energy levels. We pour out all week. We pour out, pour out. On the weekends, we stop, and then we say, why am I so tired?

Nancy Jane Smith: Oh, mind blown. That is a wonderful way of describing the difference between rest and restoring.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: And that's the mindset. That's why sleep and rest has gotten everything complicated. Yes. When we treat sleep and rest as if they are the same thing, like they're interchangeable terms, we omit like the other six types of rest because we're only focusing on physical, you know?

So yes. So you've omitted like such a huge part of what rest is and then you wonder why you're not feeling better, just because you slept eight. That's right.

Nancy Jane Smith: Rest isn't just sleep. It can look like a lot of different things that feed different parts of our bodies, minds and souls.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Find a playground and watch children at play.

You know, it seems like such a bizarre request, but if you're driving by any school, you're going to see some kids out playing at some point in time. , right? Most schools have playgrounds still. We as adults think that we don't need play in our lives. We forget what it looks like to be. And so that's one of the gifts of rest is the gift of freedom.

And so when you watch a child at play, they are not self-conscious. They are not caring about what everybody else is thinking and looking at them about. They are simply enjoying life. And so sometime it's helpful to almost reframe the way we see things.

Nancy Jane Smith: It's the idea that when we hear rest, we hear stop.

You say rest feels like giving. And I thought, yeah, that's totally it. Um, and it's this restore piece that I'm missing.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Yeah. I'm a doer. I'm a type A high achiever. To me, rest was for losers. That's, I mean, if I'm just going to be honest, you know, , when I started, you're preaching to the right people here. Yes.

When I started this process, you know, that's, that's how I had lived my life. From the moment I hit go and decided I wanted to be a doctor, it's like, I don't need rest. I literally, my husband will tell you I was functioning. Three, maybe four hours of sleep, and I mean, highly functioning off three and four hours of sleep, you know, um, in magazines, book deals on stages.

I mean, highly functioning with hardly any sleep. Um, living the life until it, until it wasn't possible to keep living at that level.

What I realized is that, you know, you can have a level of gifting and talent and just personality that can push you. And you can function from a stressed out, burned out state, and I feel like a lot of people are in that space. They are burned out, but functional. They're still producing. They're just producing from a place of emptiness.

And so that's where I lived a large part of my life. I produced from a place of emptiness until there was literally not enough energy to even continue to produce at that level. It was starting to drain me to the core. You know, I oftentimes look at it as this analogy between the kind of the, um, a bee, a bee is constantly producing goodness, honey, something sweet and delicious and beautiful that others are consuming, but you rarely hear about the bee consuming that same goodness for the.

And I got to a place where it's like, do I want to be a person who's producing goodness in the world? I am blessing and helping people live their best life and I'm not even taking the time to sample the same goodness I'm producing for others. Yes, I

Nancy Jane Smith: a hundred percent. You know, because it's interesting, my specialty is working with clients who have high functioning anxiety, which is right in the Bailey Wick of what you're talking about with the Type A and the push.

Push and you know, I've done so much of my own work. Building self loyalty and, and practicing what I preach with clients. But this rest piece is always something I butt up against. That's just my personal Achilles heel. And I really think when I read that line yesterday of rest feels like giving up. And I thought, gosh, that's really the thing that's been I've keep butting up against is my own gremlin.

My own monger telling. This is for losers and if you do this, you will get run over because everyone will beat you. But I'm going to crawl to the finish line. You know, like if there even is a finish line, like it's so fascinating how easy it is to get yourself hooked and once you get yourself hooked, it's so hard to stop the merry-go-round unless you're restoring

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: So true. It is, it takes time. One of the very first thing I always have clients do is we identify where are your greatest? There's usually one or two that are greater than the others. You know, we're all, none of us has perfect scores in, in rest , because you're, you're alive. If you're alive, you're pouring out energy.

That's just the reality, right? . So when you do the rest assessment, it's kind of just taking a snapshot of where your energy is on that particular day and that particular situation. But it can give you a lot of insight, particularly if it's a day you're like, I'm so tired. You know? It can give you some insight on the places where you're more prone to have a.

And so once you identify, oh, looks like I tend to have deficits, more so in the emotional and social areas, let's say, then you can become more intentional about making sure you do restorative activities to pour back into those areas. Sometimes there's one or two places that maybe you didn't even know existed was you didn't even think of it as a type of rest.

Nancy Jane Smith: For example, when she first took the time to identify her rest deficits, Sandra realized that she had a creative deficit from creatively thinking to diagnose patients all day. She hadn't even thought about diagnosing as being creative until then, but once she noticed and began to pour back into her creative self, she began to feel more energized.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Once you start realizing kind of the snowball effect, the positive snowball effect of when you actually rest well and how it affects your life, your personal and professional life, it becomes a lot easier to do it because then rest doesn't seem like the side thing that you do. When you find time, it seems like part of what you actually do to grow and part of what you do is part of your resilience within your, your, your personal and professional.

Nancy Jane Smith: So what is your personal relationship with rest today?

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: It's an evolving journey. Um, my life has completely changed, you know, since, since the book was written and since I went through the entire process. Been most of my days now, um, working with companies. Um, you know, not so much in the hospital. I'm more of an advisory role.

My hospital and medical staff now, but what I find is I'm actually busier now than I was when I was in medical practice, surprisingly enough. So I actually have to be very intentional about getting rest because it's very easy to say, yes. I'll go speak at your conference and I'll go to your board meeting, and yes, I'll go officiate your executive retreat.

And yes, I'll take five. Private cl you know, it's, it's very easy to get very out of, out of sync with rest just because of the desire to help people, the desire to, um, to serve. And so I'm constantly having to evaluate my own energy level

Nancy Jane Smith: because her life is so busy. Sandra is very intentional about checking in with herself around the areas of her life where she needs to rest.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: Every morning I wake up and I say to myself, do I feel ready for today? If I wake up and I'm dragging, then I know that I did not do something, did not get properly restored the day. If I'm drained this morning, what didn't get depleted yesterday that is now so deficient that it's affecting me this morning, and so then I can at least focus on that one area today so it doesn't continue to kind of pull me down.

That makes a lot of sense.

Nancy Jane Smith: A lot of times I'll tell myself I shouldn't be tired. Like I have a hard time getting to the honesty of that answer because I shame myself for not being more restored. Just, you know, because I should be, because. I slept eight hours.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith: I look at it the opposite way. So when I wake up in the morning and I say, okay, do I feel ready for today?

If I, if I say no, I feel like that's an empowering statement. I know me well enough to know when I'm not my best self, and so I wake up in the morning, I ask. Do I feel ready for my day? If I feel like, you know, I'm kind of sluggish today, or, you know, my attitude's not good today, or, or, you know, whatever it is, you know, my mind's foggy.

What, whatever it is that I'm feeling, I stated from a standpoint of empowerment, it's like I know me and I need to be straight. If I'm not straight with me, nobody else is going to be straight with me. . So, so I'm going to be straight with me and then I'm going to look at whatever that thing is and decide how do I love on me today.

Nancy Jane Smith: As I read sacred Rest, I had one aha after another, and during the interview my mind was spinning with ahas and ideas to implement what she was saying. Later I shared with Doug my number one aha. Rest isn't about stopping anything. It is about restoring ourselves. He looked at me strangely. Those aren't ahas.

He said, you already know that stuff. Don't you have a handout on that concept? He was right. I do have a handout on the concept of rest as restoration. I've taught the idea of adding restorative exercises to life, practicing self loyalty and not shaming my need for rest. But the beauty of spirals is yes, it might seem like I'm learning these concepts over.

But I was learning about rest as restoration at a new level. I was spiraling up in my understanding of rest. Yes, I know about rest in the past, but now I'm dealing with different challenges on my time and new emotional drains. In short, I've spiraled up. We will all spiral up even though some days I will feel like I'm repeating a lesson for the 10th time, but I don't unlearn all I've implemented Before I repeat the lesson, one spiral up with new perspectives.

Challenges and information I didn't have the last time the lesson came into my life. So it turns out this season I did learn about rest. I learned to think outside the box. When it comes to rest, it is so much more than getting eight hours of sleep. A night rest is being loyal to our emotions, our experiences, and our needs.

Rest means having our own back. Rest means restoration.

That's it for the season of the Happier Approach. Well almost we've got a bonus episode coming your way to tide you over until our next season drops. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss my full conversation with Katherine May, author of Wintering. That bonus episode will be coming to your feed in a couple weeks.

The Happier Approach is produced by Nikki Stein and me, Nancy Jane Smith. Music provided by Pod five and Epidemic Sound for more episodes. To get in touch or to learn more about quieting high functioning anxiety, you can visit nancy jane smith.com and if you like the show, leave us a review. It actually helps us out a.

Thank you to Dr. Saunder Dalton Smith for speaking with us today. You can learn more about Dr. Dalton Smith and her work@drdaltonsmith.com. You can also identify your rest deficits by taking the rest quiz@restquiz.com. It's a great way to get started with addressing the specific ways that you need to rest.

Thank you so much for listening to this season of the Happier Approach. We'll be back soon. In the meantime, listen out for our bonus episode and try to take the lessons of this season to heart and rest. Take care until we meet again.

Season 4 Episode 7: Rule for Rest

In this conversation, I talk with one of my clients, Michelle, whose rules for rest are similar to my own. We talk about how we're learning to loosen up our rules, one step at a time.

One thing you should know about people with High Functioning Anxiety-- we love our rules! Even when they don't help us live happy and healthy lives. In particular, I have A LOT of rules around rest. When I can rest, how I can rest, if I've earned the rest I'm taking. You get the idea. In this episode, I talk with one of my clients, Michelle, whose rules for rest are similar to my own. We talk about how we're learning to loosen up our rules, one step at a time.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Nancy's personal relationship with her rules for rest.

• Nancy's journey to accepting that she is worthy of rest and to loosen up her rest rules.

• Insight from one of Nancy's clients, Michelle, who is also learning to loosen up her rules around rest.

• Tips for folks with HFA who want to try to loosen up their own rest rules.

+ Read the Transcript

Nancy Jane Smith: Hey guys. It's me, Nancy Jane Smith. Welcome back to The Happier Approach, the show that pulls back the curtain on the need to succeed, hustle, and achieve at the price of our inner peace and relationships. Today's episode is all about rules and how they're made to be broken. We're going to talk about our rules for rest.

Originally, I'd planned to have a different topic for the show. Then as I was chatting with my client, Michelle, who we will hear from later, we naturally started talking about all the rules we have for rest. If it's nice outside, you can't stay inside and watch tv. If you have a spare minute, you should be cleaning, not resting, no pudding on pajamas before 8:00 PM you get the idea.

People with high functioning anxiety. Well, we love our rules even when they're not so helpful, and I realize that talking with Michelle about our rules out loud might just show how silly they actually are and how to ease into bending them. Part of my mission this season is to get to the things underlying my challenge with rest.

Many things get in the way of rest. Prioritizing it and finding the time are two of my biggest reasons, but I've also found my rules for rest. Are a big reason I don't prioritize it. People with high functioning anxiety, we tend to have a lot of rules. Armon, my name for the inner critic believes following the rules will protect us from being attacked or criticized externally.

I have a lot of rules around resting. Growing up my parents believed getting good rest was the key to everything, but in their minds, rest only came through. Resting meaning doing anything other than working was not something I saw my parents do unless they earned it. Meaning they worked a full day either in the yard doing household chores or in their jobs. So early on I taught myself how to rest and my monger reminded. You know nothing about resting. You should establish some rules. Rules will protect you from being attacked or criticized. Always wanting to ensure I'm a good person. My rules all start with the phrase good people. Number one, good people can't get ready for bed until after 7:00 PM Comfy pants are allowed, but not full on pajamas.

The rule used to be 8:00 PM but then covid happened and all the rules kind of got thrown out the window, so I brought it back with an earlier time. Another thing I rarely saw my parents do was wear their. So wearing my pajamas on the couch can feel like pure decadence sometimes, but can also feel like I'm busting all the rules.

Number two, good people can't rest when there's work to be done, meaning if someone else is working, I can't be resting. Luckily, Doug, my husband, is a big fan of resting, so I can always count on him to support my need for rest. But if I have a long to-do list or haven't earned my. Then I struggle even with his support.

Number three, good people don't let others suffer. After all, I suffer better than most, even if I am exhausted. This one took me a long time to see, but when my caretaking gets out of control and I constantly say, I got this, I can take care of that. That means I'm telling myself I suffer better as if there's some prize for suffering better somewhere.

But it is a tough lesson to realize there is no prize. Everyone doesn't get a trophy. Number four, good people can't rest in the middle of the day unless it's a Saturday, and then only after earning it. This one stems from childhood, watching my parents only rest at the end of the day after working a full.

I have come a long way in breaking this one, but I still struggle to rest when I haven't worked a full day or exhausted myself doing household chores. And number five, good people don't rest on sunny days. Rest is only for cloudy days. This might be why I love winter so much because lots of cloudy days mean a lot of rest.

Sunny days are meant for being outside and doing yard work like number four. I've come a long way in breaking this one, but I still struggle when it's sunny outside and I want to watch a movie in the middle of the day. At this point, after following all my rules, I should be a very good person, . But the funny thing is, if I did follow them all, I would never actually get any rest, and so all I would feel is exhausted.

When I talked with my client, Michelle, it turns out we had a lot of similarities on our rules for Rest checklist that left both of us feeling anything but rested.

So first off, Thank you for joining me.

Michelle: Yes, thank you for having me.

Nancy Jane Smith: This is Michelle. She, like me, has high functioning anxiety and we've been working on how to deal with it for a while now.

Michelle: I have been working with you, Nancy, since 2017, I think at this

Nancy Jane Smith: point. , wow. I should know that. But , I wanted to talk to Michelle because she sticks out to me as someone who's been working on having a better relationship with.

For a long time. Tell me about your relationship with rest. Is that something you struggle with? Is it something you're good at?

Michelle: Oh, it's terrible. It's awful. . I, I love to over function and just wear myself down . I've always struggle with rest because it was something that I never saw in my family. I never saw my parents rest and the only time.

Seemed to be acceptable to rest was on Sunday. We would usually hang out as a family on Sunday and that was okay, but any other time, I always saw my family working. They worked really crazy hours, so I have always really struggled with rest because it was, I never thought I should rest. I never thought that it would benefit me.

Nancy Jane Smith: Because rest was, you know, the badge of honor, the praise came from how much you pushed.

Michelle: Yes. How much I pushed, how much I achieved, and the message was you are achieving because you are working 24/7.

Nancy Jane Smith: The message for Michelle was that rest was something you earned.

Michelle: That's the message that I always got, and it always served me.

It. Served me through my early life. I don't really know when the breakdown started to happen, but I just started to get really, really, really tired. , imagine that . , and just really, like, I would take things out on my husband and, , just got really kind of grumpy and nasty. And then I started to question, well, what's, why am I so unhappy?

Nancy Jane Smith: Once Michelle started to realize that part of her unhappiness came from being so mentally and physically exhausted, she decided to add rest back into her life, and she did. Little by little it felt good, but it was hard.

Michelle: I've been kind of deprogramming that and saying, yeah, I think my body's trying to tell me something.

I think my body, you know, like it's okay to just say, hey, wow. Okay. I'm really exhausted. I'm tired. I'm going to ask for some help so that I can rest,

Nancy Jane Smith: for example, now Michelle actually tries to rest on the weekends instead of over-planning and over-scheduling.

Michelle: Especially when my husband and I first got married, , it was like, we have to be doing something on Saturday. Like in my mind, my mm-hmm mind, we could only do rest on Sunday, so we have to plan something on Saturday. And even though, you know, You had a crazy week. Husband and I had a full week like go, go, go. And just recently, there were like several Fridays in a row where I would just cry. Like I was just so wiped from like keeping it all together Monday through Friday, just stuffing down the emotion, stuffing down. Just everything I was worried about or, and I would just cry and I was so confused. I was like, why am I so exhausted?

I'm fri and why am I crying? ? And I remember us talking about like, you're, you're holding it together the whole week and then on Friday, like you hit the weekend and it's, I can release it.

Nancy Jane Smith: Yeah. Even like today. When we're recording this, it's a Saturday and it's cloudy and cold and I'm like, Ooh. When I woke up I was like, yay, it's cloudy and cool.

So I can do nothing today. Like, you know, so it'll be okay if I'm sitting on the couch watching TV because it's cloudy and cool as and if it, because last weekend it was like sunny and 70 degrees and I was like, crap, I have to be doing something. I can't just be on the couch resting.

Michelle: Yes, I, and I know we've talked about.

My huge family messages was like getting outside and being active outside and you're lazy if you're not getting outside and playing with the kids or all this. , so I 100% when it is nice outside, And I'm exhausted. I'm like, okay, we have to push because we have to get outside. Right? . And so that has slowly changed over time to be like, whew, I'm going to check in with myself.

Is this something we can compromise on? You know, maybe can we have a really restful morning of just, you know, hanging out on the couch watching tv, you know, taking it slow and maybe do afternoon at side time. Nobody's going to judge me for staying in my pajamas all day.

Nancy Jane Smith: Well sometimes feel up to tell myself like there aren't cameras in the house.

No one's monitoring you if you're resting. Like no one knows you're sleeping right now. No one knows. But it is crazy how the number of rules.

Michelle: Yes. And they're so powerful and sneaky and it amazes me how long it takes to to realize the rules and then to slowly. Debunk them and to be like, okay. Mm-hmm. , it's, it's really okay.

It's not a sign of weakness or that you didn't get enough done.

Nancy Jane Smith: As Michelle does the work to dismantle her rules for rest, one thing she's doing is trying to check in with herself and her body to stay present to her own needs,

Michelle: like, yep, this is how it is today. And tomorrow's going to be totally different.

Mm-hmm. , , kind of like that, the finish line that you're, you always talk about like, there is no finish line. There's not going to be, you know, enough. , gosh, what am I trying to say? There's, , like, I don't have to have at least 10 reasons why I can go to bed.

Nancy Jane Smith: I know for me, when I start justifying there's, it's almost like there's no justification. That's good enough.

Michelle: .Yes. That's. Because my Monger is like, well, that's dumb and that's stupid, and No, no, no, no. Gimme another one. No. You know, and it's, it is like, so then I have 50 reasons.

Nancy Jane Smith: That's the goal, is to get to the point where we can just say to ourselves, I'm tired and I'm going to rest. One of my barriers to resting is that my anxiety can increase when I start to rest because the functioning keeps my anxiety from being a parent. Talk to me about that. is that, do you relate to that?

Michelle: or when you first said that, I thought of the, , like my list of chores is always something I go to. I thought of like when, , my kids are at the house. And like I have some peace. Mm-hmm. and quiet and an opportunity to, you know, watch one of my favorite shows or do something for myself.

I will always go to my chore list of like, okay, well you've been wanting to. You know, scrub the stove for a long time and you've been wanting to clean the washing machine in the basement for a while. Just like stuff that does not need to be done that moment. And it's so sneaky because five years ago I would just clean the stove anyway, just to like make myself feel better.

So it's been a really big leap for me to sit in that and. Slow down and I usually take a few breaths. Really try to be where I am. Look out the window. Breathe . Yeah, and just tell myself it's okay, Michelle. You can watch an hour of your show , and you can feel good like you can take care of yourself.

Nancy Jane Smith: It also helps Michelle to remember that in reality, no one is judging her for rest.

Except herself,

Michelle: I do have to continue to bring back, like Michelle, it is okay that you're doing this for yourself. You know your husband's not going to be mad that you have been sitting and watching tv. I, I think my husband will celebrate with me if I say, Hey, I, I binged my show today. I did nothing productive for the household.

But I'm so happy, I feel rested. I know my husband would celebrate me in that. But my monger spews the story of like, oh, he's going to think you're a : piece of crap. He's going to think you're lazy.

So I do have to repeatedly be like, okay, we can do this. We can take care of ourselves. And there are some days that I acknowledge like, I can do this for an hour and then I have to go clean that stove, right? I just can't do it.

Nancy Jane Smith: One of the other rules that I'm trying to loosen up is the rule that I suffer better. It means doing whatever it takes to help others, but at the cost of our own wellbeing, Michelle was only too familiar with the concept,

Michelle: So I had our newborn at home. And our daughter was in daycare, and I had a glorious day where it was a really slow day. Everything kind of was checked off the list. The stove didn't need to be cleaned, but there was no clothes to be folded. It was just a glorious day. And I decided to watch a reality TV show that I had just gotten into.

That was just totally ridiculous. But I was hooked, but I was like, oh no, I had these rules. Lazy people just, you know, sit and. Watch TV for several hours.

Nancy Jane Smith:. But Michelle channeled her biggest fan.

Michelle: I was like, Michelle, it's okay for you to rest. It's okay to engage in something you like for a little bit.

That's wonderful. And my newborn was sleeping in my arms. It was just a wonderful moment. So I watched my show, my new words, word sleeping, and my husband is supposed to pick up our daughter from daycare. He calls me and he's like, Hey, I'm running late. I'm going to make it to, to pick our daughter up from daycare, but I just want to let you know I'm running late to kind of give you a timeline. And I was like, oh, okay. Okay.

Nancy Jane Smith: Michelle immediately goes into problem solving mode. She starts thinking in her head, how can she save this situation by dropping everything she's doing on this glorious day to swoop in and fix the problem. But instead, Michelle took a beat.

Michelle: I took a breath and I said, okay, you are going to make it there. He's like, yep, just, it'll just be kind of like right at the end of the day there. And I was like, okay, but you're sure you'll make it there. He's like, I said, okay. And then we hung up. And so it took everything in me to let him do that and not save the day

Nancy Jane Smith:. So Michelle continued what she was doing. She kept watching her show. She kept making dinner, but she felt anxious. Then she got a call from her husband

Michelle:, He hopped in the car with our daughter and, and called me and was like, oh, we're on our name. And he was like, oh my gosh, Michelle. Was like the last parent there. I felt so bad. I'm just so sorry I was so late. Like, I'm really going to try not to be late again.

Nancy Jane Smith: A couple of years ago, if this had happened, Michelle would've been angry with her husband for messing up, frustrated that she had to swoop in and rescue the situation like always. But because she listened to her biggest fan and relaxed her eye, suffer better rule, she and her husband were actually able to have a productive conversation about it.

Michelle: When I regrouped with him that night and said like, Hey, like I watched this tv. I had a great day. I feel so rested. And he was like, no, I'm so glad you got a great day. Like that's really cool. What show? Are we going to watch it tonight? Like , like it was not on the table at all that I was lazy or that like, yeah, you should have picked her up like, it's your fault that I was late or something like that. Or it's your fault that she was the last kid that got picked up.

So it was a really cool realization that like, oh wow, I don't have to see the day all the time. Like my, my husband, the people I love can endure. These hard things at times. Mm-hmm. . And they're okay. And I would even argue that we came out better. Like we communicated even better after that.

Nancy Jane Smith: Right. And it's, you know, yeah. Because the growth was for both of you. You had to sit with your own anxiety over not being able to fix the problem. And he had to sit with his own anxiety of creating a problem that then he had to solve. And so someone could look at that story and be like, ah, well, you could have helped him not have to go through his own anxiety, but it wasn't convenient for you to help him. And it, he didn't need help. It was solvable.

Michelle: I was like, yep, I, yeah, you can do this. Mm-hmm , we can do this together. It was really important for me to help him hit that too. As a team, as a family

Nancy Jane Smith:. like Michelle, I've also been working on loosening up my rules for rest. It's better for me and for my relationships. The key I've discovered is recognizing the rule, giving myself some kindness around it, and then loosening it up. Loosening the rules up means taking them on a case by case basis. There are days I put my pajamas on at 5:00 PM and days.

I don't put them on until I get ready. There are sunny Saturdays when I'm watching a movie on the couch in the middle of the day and there are cloudy Saturdays. When I work in the yard, I know I'm successfully loosening up my rules because my monger, who originally inspired many of the rules, starts making fun of my rest rules.

You are so rigid, or these rules are ridiculous. That is when I bring in that voice of self loyalty, my biggest fan, to remind me, sweet P, these rules served a purpose, and now you can loosen them up a little without belittling yourself.

That's it for this week. Our next episode is the last of this season about rest. Remember at the beginning when I spoke to my friend Stephanie about the different types of rest? Well, guess what? Next time we're talking with the person who wrote the book, We'll talk with Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith to close out the season.

That's next time on The Happier Approach. The Happier Approach is produced by Nikki Stein and me, Nancy Jane Smith. Music provided by Pod five and Epidemic Sound for more episodes to get in touch for. To learn more about quieting high functioning anxiety, you can visit nancy jane smith.com and if you like the show, leave us a review.

It actually helps us out. Thank you to my client, Michelle, for taking the time to share her stories and experiences with us today, the happier approach. We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. Take care Until then.