Finding Acceptance in Rest

I’ve been under the weather these past few days. Uncharacteristically sleeping in. Dragging myself to the gym.

Typically I’m wired at the end of the day and struggle to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. But over the past few days I’ve been struggling to keep my eyes open past 9 pm.

I’m so exhausted, I don’t even want to engage in my typical distraction activities. I have no interest in zoning out in front of the TV or bingeing YouTube or doom scrolling social media.

I am relishing my time off screens.

I am practicing restorative yoga, listening to recorded sound healings, or settling in with a Yoga Nidra meditation to recharge.

Here is what I’m not doing, however:

I am not freaking out about how something must be “wrong” with me for taking this time to myself to rest.

I am not catastrophizing this as some big “problem” to solve.

I am not running doomsday scenarios projecting this as the End of My Productivity.

Even with my workouts — I show up, I try my best to move my body a little, or I take a walk. It’s fine.

What I’ve learned in my years of experience is that this is normal. The mind, body, and spirit cannot go full-throttle all the time. We need periods to disconnect and decompress, to do the bare minimum.

Intentional rest is essential nourishment that fuels our greater drive.

Read: Optimize For Rest

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been through a roller coaster of emotions: from the sudden stroke and death of my grandma in early October and the intense grief that followed to the family celebration at the bat mitzvah of my twin nieces last weekend. In the midst of all of that, there was a US election.

And amidst all of that, life moved on, as it does. I had clients to tend to, projects to work on, classes to teach.

Sometimes when we have a lot going on, there is a part of us that just knows we have to power through, and we do. We tap into deep wells of strength and resilience to get it done.

And then, when the dust settles, and we think we’ll finally come up for air, the nervous system says:

Not so fast. Now I need to repair.

So I am repairing.