More times in my life than I could hope to count, despite the fact that I seemed to be "doing" nothing any outside eye could see, I’ve felt utterly and completely exhausted. The kind of exhausted that makes it hard to find the energy to get out of bed in the first place. And, once you’ve managed to do that, it’s the kind of exhausted that then makes you feel like collapsing for a lengthy nap after you’ve barely brushed your teeth, made your chai and set out your vitamins for the day.
When I first used to notice this kind of profound tiredness, I’d put myself through a long inventory of probing questions. The self-interview was meant to uncover "what I might be depressed about." Because, of course, given our cultural mindset, not having the energy/desire to get out bed and wanting to sleep a lot were both automatically readable as signs of depression.
After these intense interchanges with myself, I would of course be EVEN MORE ready for a nap. A really long one!
I’ve been repeatedly (over these more than 30 years of journeying into life in the slow lane) learning just to accept my tiredness and exhaustion when they come. It’s become quite clear to me that it’s ridiculous to argue with my body, to require it to "explain itself" to me or to require it to prove that it’s not "really" feeling something other than what it feels.
I’ve been learning, as well, not to take in messages suggesting that I should feel shamed by or inadequate for my feeling tired "for no reason." As I’ve been aging (at this writing I’m on my way to my 63rd birthday) there have been ever increasing challenges to my acceptance of my occasional tiredness or my need for rest. In our youth-obsessed culture/media, tiredness and low energy are portrayed as shameful signs of "getting old," being less valuable, not being able to keep up/be vibrant/be youthful. Signs to be hidden/masked/medicated or herbal elixor-ed away. Boundless, unflagging energy as the Holy Grail, sigh! Spare me! I hold and value a very different image of full aliveness.
The amazing thing about acknowledging my body’s needs for rest and naps is that, when I give it what it craves, I feel so much better! If I lie (or stay) down when I get the first waves of tired, it sometimes doesn’t take very much "stopping" at all to rejuvenate and re-energize. And, when it does take more than a little bit of stopping, I’ve taken to lavishing my body and being with just as much resting as it needs! I now can voluptuously luxuriate in the delicious sensuality of resting, napping and lolling about doing nothing whatever at all. It’s taken a lot of practice to get to this! But, it’s been such very satisfying practice. And, I get to feel so marvelously, radically revolutionary while I practice.
One of the important revelations along the way of this practice and commitment has been the understanding that tiredness that doesn’t seem to have any external cause is almost always a sign that significant emotional/consciousness shifts are happening below the level of my awareness. (These always reveal themselves to my conscious awareness after a while.)
It’s not a wonder that we rarely consider how energetically taxing conscious and less-than-conscious emotional work can be. We live in an era/culture that gives little value or credibility to emotions, inner work or the emotional side of our experiences. How we deal with grief and loss–being strong, stoic, getting on with life quickly (the Jackie Kennedy model) or taking anti-depressant medications to "get back on one’s feet again"–is a case in point, revealing the crazy, devastating disregard we have for emotional processes/processing.
Other revelations have emerged for me about the tiredness and exhaustion that ARE actually related to doing something "external." Most of my life I’ve been run by very strong needs to come to completion or closure in anything I was doing before I had my own permission to take a break or rest. It never seemed to matter whether it was something "serious" (like a paper or report) or something fairly inconsequential (the dishes after a fancy dinner, cleaning my house). Inevitably, I’d keep pushing through till every last "t" was crossed, the last dish dried and put away or the last mat shaken out before I could let myself sit down, take a break, unplug.
On top of it all, I was a dedicated list maker. Resting and taking breaks were always postponed till I’d finished what was on the current list. Of course, in the ways of the world, by the time one got to the end of the original list, a secondary follow-up list had already been generated. More to keep pushing through. And, rarely a time that the reward of rest was finally "earned" or "appropriate."
I find myself apologizing profusely to my poor body for all the endless times I have, over the years, forced her to "push through" tiredness. "Pushing through" has almost always involved various combinations of coffee, chocolate, food, diet-pills, tuning out on my body, pure will and grit. Of course, this pushing through always "costs." (Even as it is SO positively reinforced in this culture!) It inevitably involves using up some of one’s core energy. That’s the non-replaceable energy that doesn’t simply replenish with the resting that’s been delayed till much later than when it was needed.
I feel so sad that it’s taken so long for me to stop these ways of mistreating my body. But I feel so blessed and so grateful that I don’t and won’t do that to myself any more. I’ve had to work diligently at letting go of that insidious "needing completion in order to rest." Part of the process has been experimenting with defining smaller "bits-of-completion’s" that I could reward with breaks. Some of it (VERY brave and edgy) has involved just going ahead and risking taking breaks smack in the middle of some activities. And much of it has involved a strong commitment to the very revolutionary program of "rest/rewards FIRST, work second."
I’ve also been committed to the practice of restricting my list making to grocery lists, errand lists just for a particular day’s journey out in the world and the occasional list of clothing, etc. to be gathered for a trip. Every once in a while, the old habit overtakes these limits and I feel pressed to write things down because they’re endlessly circling in my head. I’ve learned, in these odd moments, not to take those lists "seriously." For the rest, I practice surrendering into trusting that Spirit/my deep self will lead me to what needs doing or remembering. This actually works amazingly well and in the MOST magical ways!
As I’ve worked with deepening into this practice of taking "unearned" breaks before or without completions, I’ve discovered something important about breaks and the times when there are "urgent deadlines" and "too much to do in too little time." The over-the-edge periods when we’re feeling the crunch of time pressure, constantly watching the clock and whipping ourselves into an hysterical frenzy over how what needs doing can ever be done in time that’s left. These are the times when rest and breaks are both more critical/essential than ever and actually more productive than ever.
In these "no time for rest" times, our bodies and psyches are truly screaming out for some moments of head-down, stop-the-world, take a few deep belly breaths, stand up and do some stretching, stretch out (even on the floor) for 10 minutes, walk outside to get some fresh air, read a few pages of an unrelated book, space out. And, the strange truth is that in these crunch times, even the minimalist rest-breaks actually help us to be more efficient. When we are committed to the practice of bringing them into the picture, the breaks interrupt the momentum of the counterproductive tension and frenzy. They unknot our brains and our energy, allowing us to flow more freely in our work.
I’ve learned to become totally suspicious of any message that tries to tell us that "there’s no time for rest." Telling ourselves that or telling ourselves that there isn’t time enough to do what has to be done are both ways we shoot ourselves in the foot. When we practice reminding ourselves that there is enough time, that we have enough time, that we in fact have all the time we actually need–these messages open up our psychic space and become the truth!
Coming out-of-the-closet about our tiredness, honoring our tiredness, honoring our need for rest and honoring the sacredness of resting itself are–in our "more, bigger, faster, yesterday" culture–radical, revolutionary, insurrectionist acts. It helps the process along when we can consider turning off cell and regular phones and going off-line for even some small bits of time. Being always accessible can add enormously to our exhaustion and make resting/down-time really much harder to come by.
Part of being a revolutionary for rest is speaking out, loudly and proudly for the time-out that one is taking. More of us valuing rest and honoring our tiredness openly helps subvert the dominant paradigm of spinning, whirling overachieving as the epitome of "valuable" humanness. I love it when someone I haven’t seen for ages or someone new to me asks what I’m up to these days. It tickles me so to watch them actually take in my exhilarated response: "As little as possible!"
It’s important to for us to gather as much support as we can as we begin the move to reclaiming the sacredness of rest and the honorability of tiredness. Two of my favorite writers are Rest Radicals who speak out loud about resting. Susan Kennedy, better known as SARK, has written the ultimate nap book: "Change Your Life without Getting Out of Bed." Most of her other truly delightful books are full of insurrectionary rest messages as well (do visit www.campsark.com). Anne Lamott’s every other week columns in Salon (the on-line magazine at www.salon.com) are often liberally laced with rest radicalism. And her "Traveling Mercies" is wonderfully counter-the-dominant-paradigm in so many domains!
Pressing the "Resting and Going More Slowly" button up at the top of this page will bring you to lots more on this very site that you can read to support and encourage you as you give yourself more permission to rest whenever you feel the need to!
Consider the possibility of resting whenever you’re tired (what a concept!) and then consider celebrating your courageous self whenever you do just that!
P.S. So many of your delicious e-mails send appreciations for the affirmation, support and nourishment you receive from the site. When I answer them, I don’t always remember to let you know that having your own deck of the Rememberings and Celebrations cards is a way to bring this same loving voice into your everyday world, to have it at hand as you need to remind yourself of the "real" truth moment to moment in the crazimakingness of the so-called real world!
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The card on this page is part of a set of 64 handcolored bookmark-size cards called the Rememberings and Celebrations deck. They can be used as an oracle, a meditation focus or a "book-in-pieces" to kindle and grow a compassionate, gentle, unconditionally loving, fiercely protective inner-Mother to help you carve safe healing space for your emerging self and for the wounded little ones inside.
If you'd like a deck of your very own to support you in your journey, click here to download Order Form.
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