Doing less for no good reason

Do you believe you have to earn rest?

Sunlight and Shadow (1872) by Winslow Homer. Original from The Smithsonian. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.

It’s been a while since I last wrote to you. Frankly, I’m struggling. In my first Amrchair Rebel article, I claimed I wanted to ‘rest without apology’. But while I’m willing to do less and I even act on it (at times) I realise I still need A Good Reason or the guilt and self-flagellation go into overdrive, and rest spent in shame is not rest.

Yes, having a chronic illness counts, sometimes. Once I start seeing warning signs that I’m overdoing it, I do less and rest more. I’m learning to pre-load rest, to be ready for high energy activities like important family events or consulting with our financial advisor, or washing my hair. So far, so good.

I defend your right to rest. I’m reading - and nodding along to - Tricia Hersey’s powerful, beautiful book Rest Is Resistance. Hersey sees rest as a step toward reparations, since her book is “rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism”. I’ll add that there’s a lot of good stuff there for the rest of us.

But what if I’m not exhausted, and don’t need to lie down right this minute AND I don’t have an essential task that urgently needs to be accomplished today? My instinct is to Do Something Useful (productive) rather than rest or ‘goof off’. I know I ‘should’ do some rest: sit on my balcony and enjoy the sunshine, or work on a jigsaw puzzle, or write bad poetry I will never show anyone.

At bottom, I’m still suck in the idea that I need to earn rest.

Biology doesn’t work like that. Our brain needs some sleep each night, whether we’re busy or quiet. Our autonomic nervous system needs to keep a balance between “go go go/ fight or flight” ( sympathetic ) and “rest/digest” (para-sympathetic and enteric). That balance requires both. If we spend all our waking hours, everyday, in “go go go” we are on a road to nowhere.

I need a permission slip: “permission to do less than your best today” or “permission to do almost nothing useful or productive today” or “permission to rest in ways that include but are not limited to sleep or horizontal rest”. Even the idea that I am ‘filling my tank’, while true, feeds into this idea of performance and productivity.

I already have medical permission, even a medical instruction, to rest, and still I struggle. Maybe its not a stretch to think this as part of how I ended up here? I’m off to rest now, I wish you sweet rest today and every day.

Thank you for reading, your time and attention are a gift.

Over to You:

• When was the last time you ‘did less for no good reason’, without an excuse? Did you have uncomfortable feelings about that, then or after?

• How do you earn rest? Write a list of acceptable reasons to rest or do less.

• Now write a list of UNacceptable reasons to rest or do less. Where did these rules come from, and do you still believe them 100%?