Be Abnormal: Rest.

If we look to the pace of mainstream culture to understand what rest is and how much we need -- we'll be lost. Dizzy, in fact. Don't believe the hype; rest like your life depends on it. Cause it does.

“Do you think you might just be exhausted?”

It’s a question I often pose to friends and clients who are grappling with melancholy, irritability, anxiety, depression, lack of inspiration or creativity, or the numbness of meaninglessness.

The response is often some version of “yes, but I shouldn’t be because…”

“… I get eight hours of sleep each night…”

“… I work from home, other people work so much harder…”

“… I just had a vacation…”

One reason we “should-all-over-ourselves” is that we don’t feel “normal” and we unconsciously think what’s normal (what most people do) is a healthy benchmark for determining how to relate to the world. We say to ourselves, “Well, ‘other people’ are functioning ‘just fine’ with the speed of life, so I should be able to too…” The problem with that logic is that it doesn’t account for the fact that you might be looking to a sick culture to determine what a healthy relationship with rest is. What’s “normal” might actually be totally wackadoo. In the case of social norms related to rest in the United States: spoiler alert — my contention is that the norm is, in fact, totally unsustainable for a healthy, spiritually awakened life. The culture is largely in a state of frenzied depletion, and most people have a very limited understanding of not only how much rest we need, but also what rest is in the first place. Moreover, the “usual” methods of unwinding don’t necessarily bring us meaningful rest and wellbeing. So here is where individuation and courage come in: finding the right amount of the right kind of rest involves a process of de-conditioning, of stepping out-of-sync with the herd. It may even trigger you feeling alone and “behind.” But you’re not. There are others who are starting to wake up to the pace that actually enables sanity, well-being, and even wisdom.

What is Rest?

Rest is not just sleep. There are many ways we can think about rest, but I like the definition theologian, artist, writer, and activist Tricia Hersey proffers. She says that rest occurs anytime the mind and body truly connect. Hersey reminds us that we don’t have to “earn” rest: rest is our birthright as divine beings. We are more than mere pawns of productivity in a capitalist-centered society. If we think about rest as the “cookie” we get if we’re “good” and “finish our homework,” we set up a conditional relationship to rest and position it as some kind of reward available only after we give others what they (explicitly or implicitly) demand of us. But feeling the connection of our mind and body is our right as sentient beings; it isn’t something we eventually “deserve.” The connection of the mind and body is a natural state of being, a natural state of wholeness that is our ontological baseline when the frenetic delusion of “not being enough” is allowed to dissipate. To rest is to tap into that wholeness — into the reality that right here, right now — we are enough because we are ourselves. We approach rest, therefore, not as another task to fulfill something we lack, but as a practice of relaxing into the fullness of connection with life in this very moment. We can feel the already-there-wholeness when the mind and body kiss in the here and now, and this can happen while napping or sleeping, but also while walking, crocheting, drinking tea, meditating, watching the rain, leaning against a tree, playing with salamanders, fishing, painting, being quiet, dancing alone, cuddling with a pet, taking a bath, drumming, or staring off into space for absolutely no reason. Where the mind and body embrace: there, we are free to just be. Rest is the art of being connected to simply being.

In her masterpiece Women Who Run With the Wolves, Jungian Analyst and Storyteller, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, refers to rest as “coming home to our soul-selves,” and insists we must “return home” to feel psychically alive. Rest becomes whatever makes us feel one with our depths. What this looks like will vary from person to person, but Estés suggests that solitude is a sure-fire ticket back to the soul. How often must we “return home”? Estés simply says: far more often than we think. If we don’t repeatedly swim in our depths, she warns that our “soulskins” will begin to dry out and crack. When that happens, we will feel like a partial version of ourselves, or even like the walking dead. Other people’s desires will become our own; monotony will render us comatose rather than rested; and life will cease to have any juice or moisture. Rest is diving into your watering hole, and bathing in the aliveness of your being. It is the context and the experience of feeling authentically and unapologetically you. So grab your swim trunks or your birthday suit — head out alone and without apology — but somehow, get yourself back home. Then repeat far more often than you think you need to.

It can be tempting to categorize rest as “self-care,” but to do so trivializes our existential need for mind-body connectivity, for the depths of soul, and for the peace of simplicity. Would you call breathing “self-care”? Eating? Rest is also such an existential need: the need to just be, and fulfilling that need is what makes us feel alive and part-of-it-all. Sure, rest can take place poolside or at a spa, or while getting a facial or a massage; but enjoying these stereotypical notions of self-care doesn’t necessarily guarantee rest. We can be in the middle of paradise and still have our minds stray from our bodies, still never connect to our soul-home, and still feel like we’re not enough. Both Hersey and Estés remind us: we don’t need to spend money to rest. Rest is possible right here and right now. Connecting with the earthy aliveness of your being can happen anywhere, and very simply. On the outside, it might look like doing nothing in particular; but on the inside, you’re in sync with the totality of this moment.

Look to Your Body, Not the Culture

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and it’s not uncommon that when my friends and I check our calendars to get together, we settle on a date several weeks or even months away. It’s so “normal” to be busy, busy, busy. There’s an implicit assumption that we should be doing all the things, all the time; so much so, that we forget about being one with all things at least some of the time. We suffer tremendously as a result. I’ve witnessed (and have experienced myself) many rounds of the ol’ work-crash-n-burn cycle, a pattern that comes from not returning home; from having tried too long and too hard to keep up with an insane collective pace; from becoming out-of-sync with life’s natural rhythms. The habituated cycle results in a state of collapse, which is not the same as rest. It took me a while to realize that if the normal tempo of modernity is sick, being abnormal might actually be a signs of health.

If American culture is constantly broadcasting the lie that more-and-faster-is-better, thank goodness, the body tells the truth. It moans and aches. The bowels get disgruntled. The energy stays too high and too long in the upper regions, making our neck and shoulders sore, causing headaches and sinus pain, and flooding us with exhaustion. If we ignore the body’s messages, it often engages in a “plan B” in one of two ways: either dialing down our unconscious overwhelm through a period of depression, or doubling-down on its warning and alert system through heightened anxiety. However unpleasant, the body insists on honesty, telling us — at times pleading with us — to slow down. Rest is the courageous act of listening to the body’s unrelenting truth-telling. It means effectuating the body’s insistence on balance, even if that means feeling out-of-step with the world we know. At least it’s a step in the right direction. At least it’s a step towards rest.

The Whiplash of Habit

When we start honoring the need for rest, the first thing that many people encounter is guilt. Hersey and Estés both write about this, and anecdotally, I’ve found the roar of guilt incredibly common when initiating a healthier relationship with rest. It makes sense too. Making room for rest can mean a dramatic change in our choices, lifestyle, and pace; and involves breaking away from the normal-but-unwell, socially-conditioned speed. It will necessarily mean disappointing others and letting things fall apart (or at least not holding onto life so tightly). The societally-imprinted urgency in you will speak. Voices will tell you things: that you really should finish this last such-and-such before calling it a day at work; that you really should hang out with so-and-so because they need you; that you really should pay the bills right now, or just get the chores over with, even though you’re spent and need to come home to yourself. So, re-committing to rest means being able to tolerate the surge of guilt that will try to drag you into old ways of being, and it can be quite challenging to do so. Guilt is often braided with physical restlessness because it takes the bodily system time to realize you are no longer opting into an insane pace of life. In other words, the voice of guilt often comes with feeling squirrely.

But perhaps these challenging initial experiences can be seen as a good sign. And, it’s worth mentioning that tolerating guilt doesn’t mean turning it into an enemy. This guilt has a benevolent motivation, but a misguided method. It is trying to make sure you belong, that you stay connected to (or important within) a group. But unfortunately, our guilt is going about belonging in an unsustainable way, and we can have empathy for it when it arises without living out its directives. If you’re making room for rest, it helps to expect the guilt to come. So, tip your hat to guilt and let it cuddle up (or scurry!) next to you while you meditate or stretch, while you skip stones at the lake, or while you day-dream against a redwood tree.

Signs That You’re Getting the Rest You Need

When you start getting used to a sustainable pace of being, you wonder how you ever went as fast as you did to begin with. The discipline to maintain that balance becomes more natural, because you’ve made contact with the wisdom of the body and soul-home, and you realize how life-giving rest really is. The sense of connection you have to the physical body starts to expand to a greater connection with the body of life itself. One becomes connected to “what is” in a grander, spiritual sense: and this is a beautiful, touching way to live.

I’ve noticed that creativity comes knocking at the door of the rested heart. We feel the impulse to write poetry, to paint, or to knit in the moonlight. Rest and creativity are great lovers, and they need each other for cyclical modes of incubation and expression. How many times do we lament, “I told myself I would journal/draw/wood-work/blog/sculpt this weekend and ugh, I didn’t…” Rest first, then see what wants to sing. In fact, rest until you want to sing.

Of course rest can also happen in the act of creating art. But usually to be a form of rest, it is artistry without objective. Restful, aimless art-making can sometimes give gusto to great projects with elaborate vision and direction. So play with what makes you rest into your mind-body connection, into your soul-home, but make sure its slow and present and for no particular reason. Then the creative force with a reason has a chance to come.

Another sign that you’ve entered a right-relationship with rest is that: you have some unstructured time in your week. I know. I’m hearing your rebuttal as I’ve heard it in myself, “Easy for you to say…you don’t have x, y, z on your plate…” Yes, yes, these voices can cuddle up right next to our weary hearts as we rest. We have to remind ourselves: rest is an existential need. Unstructured time enables rest. Rest makes us realize our innate sanity, our birthright to a connected, creative life. Renewed sanity makes us want unstructured time to rest. So yes, a good sign that you are resting well is that there are regular, blank spots on your calendar. A free evening is not a rarity — it has become an imperative. A morning with nothing going on is your usual. Rest — genuine connection with yourself — becomes the center of your mandala, rather than a peripheral additive.

I’ll close by sharing some of the signs I personally experience when I’m rested. I’m rested when I walk around the block after dinner, as the sun sets. I’m rested when I sit and stare, contemplating my nighttime dreams. I’m rested when I delight in visiting my favorite tree, the one I call “The Sad Enchanted,” and offer it a prayer of thanks. I’m rested when get to say to myself, “I wonder what I’ll do tonight,” and I’m so excited that I have no answer. I’m rested when I grieve all that I’ve seen and witnessed in this world. I’m rested when I resonate with you and genuinely celebrate you, as I celebrate myself. I’m rested when I pause to watch the early morning stars, and don’t mind if it makes me late to my morning routine. Anything that cuts me off from these things typically means I am wrapped up in a conditioned, unsustainable pace. But I’ll slow down again… even if it means I’m abnormal. Yes, rest means leaving the world, but it also means falling in love with the world and realizing I am inextricably part of it. “Rest, rest, rest” — I’m starting to love the sound of the word. Resting, resting, resting — I love simply being. Right now, at the end of this sentence — won’t you take a moment to see how your toes feel, to breathe and look about, to shut your eyes and watch the light dance through them, to make the noise you want to make, to feel your heart center, to rest with me?