The Challenge to Rest
Welcome to day 5 of the theme of body. As we wrap up our first week of the Body Theme, I want to talk about rest and our challenging relationship with it.
“So are you going to take some time off around the Fourth of July holiday?” my husband asked last July. I stopped and paused.
My husband said, “I mean, you haven’t stopped to take a vacation since December.” I was struck. He was right. When our Spring Break vacation plans were canceled, I didn’t stop or rest or take a couple of days off; I just kept pushing.
Rest is something we have a funny relationship with—and by we, I mean those of us with high-functioning anxiety, women, Americans, and those of us with really loud mongers.
There are a lot of messages from our culture, our families, and ourselves, not just against rest but pro work. Pro pushing. Pro productivity.
We all know rest is needed. I will not lecture you on the importance of rest because the number one thing my new clients say is, “I need a break. I need rest.”
It isn’t that we don’t value rest; it’s that when we take a rest, our Monger goes crazy. My Monger can be so loud you would think I was committing a felony by lying in bed mid-afternoon reading a book.
This inability to give ourselves rest is a problem. No, it is a crisis because we have lost touch with ourselves.
We are so good at pushing that we don’t even notice our body’s physical sensations telling us to stop. We can push past a headache or a backache, or indigestion. In fact, I have had several clients who ignored and hustled through physical pain to the point where it resulted in extended hospital stays.
Here is a cycle:
Push-push-push all day, and while I feel okay at the end of the day, I am still beating myself up for a to-do list that isn’t complete.
I notice my thoughts are foggy, and my anxiety is higher, but I keep going and push through.
I wake up with a headache and decide to work from bed because I feel so bad. But rather than resting and sleeping between Zoom calls, I push-push-push.
End the day feeling slightly better but beat myself up for a to-do list that isn’t complete.
My headache is gone the next day, but I have some acid indigestion and feel crabby. But the list is long, so better to get at it and
Push-push-push.
A person who heard me speak recently emailed to say how amazing I am and how much she appreciates all of my work. “Yes!” I think as I pop some more antacids. That praise is enough to keep me going for another week back to push-push-push.
A couple of things I want to point out about this cycle:
I never win. I never say to myself, “YAY! I did enough.”
My body is not a machine. Rather than listening to the message of pain, fatigue, and fogginess as signs of being over my limits, I view it as yet another problem to work around.
The problem is we forsake ourselves. We are not machines. We are beings with thoughts, feelings, reactions, vulnerabilities, shame, mistakes, wins, celebrations, and love. We are messy.
If I asked you if you would rather be perceived as a machine or as a kind, soft, loving, vulnerable human being, I think it is safe to say you would prefer being the latter.
And yet, because of our wiring, cultural messages, genetics, traumas, etc., we forsake ourselves and end up acting more like machines.
I know I get bogged down in my to-do list. I have big dreams of wanting to create systemic changes when it comes to mental health, and I know I can only contribute to the fight and make those systemic changes when I am rested.
We can’t push-push-push through everything. Rest provides a chance to see the bigger picture, listen to our internal wisdom, make a plan, and set deeper priorities.
We can stop acting from a place of reaction and make deeper, more powerful changes with rest.
When my husband asked me about our July 4th plans, I said, “I guess I can take a staycation the week before the 4th of July.” Notice the hesitancy.
For the record, staycations haven’t worked in the past. I needed the forced distance from my life to quiet my Monger enough to rest. I set some parameters about not checking my phone and not numbing with T.V.
But here is the rub: parameters and goals are great, but they won’t protect me from my Monger. She still whispered in my ear, “Be a good girl and just check your email,” or my B.F.F., reacting to my Monger shaming me for not doing enough, said, “Go ahead, just turn on the T.V. to see what is on.”
So I committed to being extra kind to myself and practicing self-loyalty. Because for those of us with High Functioning Anxiety, rest is messy and uncomfortable, AND it most likely always will be. That is okay. We aren’t going to solve all our defaults or negative traits—but we need to be present to them. Instead of numbing in front of the TV or secretly making time for work for my July 4th vacation week, I committed to...
The extra space rest, allowing all those messy thoughts and feelings to surface (yikes!).
My Monger repeatedly reminding me that rest isn’t productive.
My B.F.F. tells me to deal with my extra anxiety with more sugar or more T.V. watching.
I practiced A.S.K. and listened for the voice of my Biggest Fan, saying, “Sweet pea, you are not a machine. You have to rest to fight the fights you want and create the changes you want to create.” It was imperfect. It was messy, but so is rest when you have H.F.A.
I will be back next week with more on getting into our bodies. We’ll talk about how some of our unhealthy coping mechanisms keep us from getting into our bodies and where anxiety shows up in our bodies.
Remember, if you have ANY questions about the content—send me an email at questions@selfloyaltyschool.com or head over to the website, sign in to the student portal and fill out the Q&A form. Ask Nancy Jane, and I will answer them in the next Q&A session. Q&A sessions will be recorded and appear on your podcast feed and in the member area on the last Tuesday of every month.
See you in 2 days.