The Argument for Rest
Not enough, not enough, not enough.
Make others happy, do what’s best, here to please, take care of.
Do more, work harder, prove, never fail, don’t let it show.
I am worthy, I am worthy, I am worthy.
Hey there. Do these thoughts sound familiar? Are you totally spooked I’m reading your mind?
Welcome to TGIF Halloween Edition, where I take you down the scariest road… the one to (GASP!) rest.
TOOLS
As a parent, I have realized how little (if any) time I get to rest. No longer do I have the weekends to binge watch Netflix and lay on the couch until I finally decide to order delivery for dinner. Instead of seeing those behaviors as lazy, it’s important to see those behaviors as necessary. It’s rest.
Unfortunately, so many of us know all too well the situations when we finally take that vacation and get sick. We finally give ourselves a break and instead of being able to enjoy it we’ve caught a cold, have the stomach flu or migraines. We’ve finally retired and we get cancer. We are empty nesters and have auto-immune disease.
Our bodies cannot sustain our unrelenting work output and stress levels.
Yet we keep trucking along anyhow. Despite suffering headaches, IBS, back pain, depression and fatigue.
And so I ask myself, why?
GRATITUDE
I am incredibly grateful to my peers - my other mom friends who validate this spiral. The feeling like we can never catch and break or a breath.
And this past week I hit a wall. After putting our dog down last week I thought I had recovered a little. Then another blow on Monday and I just crashed. I couldn’t take it anymore. I cried during my entire Tuesday morning yoga class, spewed to my therapist that I couldn’t take it anymore and underwent a mild panic attack.
The thing is, I keep trying to rest. I put in “white space” in my calendar, have restructured my entire clinical work, HIRED MY HUSBAND to run business operations, and have refused to “work” Fridays since 2015.
Yet something always fill the void.
Pressure. Expectations. People Pleasing. Fires. Control. Guilt. Shame. Fear. Trying to be all things to all people all the time.
And again I ask myself, why?
INNOVATION
Emily, our dear intern and new Practice Coordinator, wrote a lovely article on Imposter Syndrome. Do you know of it? Emily eloquently and simply explains it as,
Basically, you feel like you are just pretending to know what you are doing, and that you have somehow falsely convinced everyone around you that you are good at what you do. You might feel like you have only been successful due to luck and you might feel afraid that people are going to find out. This might lead to feeling like you need to be a perfectionist or that you need to sacrifice your own well-being to get more or better work done. This can definitely put us on the road to burnout.
Which has me singing, “hello darkness my old friend”. Anyways…
Imposter Syndrome is not limited to just high-achieving professionals. It can show up at home, in relationships and really any environment where you feel insecure and not enough. It fuels on our shame stories and fears of being “found out”, of being imperfect, of looking bad and being a failure. Moms, dads, students, kids, business owners, professionals can all relate to these feelings.
FEELS
As a therapist, I know this feeling all too well. Aren’t I supposed to have my sh*t together all the time?
I mean, people are coming to ME for advice and guidance so I must have my life looking perfect, right? I cannot mess up, slip up, look weak, unintelligent, unstable, unprofessional… and so I must do more, meditate more, research and study more.
Therapists are humans too (if you are a helper, please read this!). So are your teachers, your parents, your friends, your colleagues, your bosses, your server, your nanny, your spouse and your kids.
We’re all struggling with “not enough” and overcompensating as a method. So what happens when we give ourselves permission to rest?
In order to sustain this life, I have to honor my need to rest. I know I do not want to burn out. I do not want to abandon my dreams, my visions… I do not want to abandon myself.
In resting, I’m honoring myself in the truest way because I’m protecting myself from giving up on myself.
So, I watch Netflix on a weekday afternoon while my kids are with childcare and my emails go unanswered. I sit in the uncomfortable guilt and choose rest anyhow. I look at the pile of laundry and choose reading my sci-fi novel anyhow. I stare at the face of unproductiveness and choose myself anyhow.
I trust in my future self for getting what needs to be done while I honor my present self by giving her a break.
Try it on. Let me know how it goes.
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