Find the Rest You Need
Just because you could do more doesn't mean you have to.
Take a slow, gentle breath in. Exhale twice as slowly. Inhale again, and exhale even more slowly. Pause for a moment and notice where you are and how you’re doing, physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Continue to check in with yourself throughout the day. One of the things you’ll probably discover is that you could use a break from life’s demands. You could ignore that need and keep pushing through, and most likely nothing catastrophic would happen.
But there are costs to ignoring your very real need for rest:
anxiety
sleep problems (paradoxically)
stress-related illness
burnout
tension in your relationships
Denying yourself much-needed rest can also signal to your brain that you’re not worth taking care of, as if your needs are irrelevant.
Notice any assumptions or automatic thoughts that drive you to push beyond your limits. For example, your mind might tell you that you can “rest once everything is finished”—but you probably never reach that imagined oasis of a blank to-do list.
Or you might think you’re not allowed to rest until you’ve done “enough,” which is always a moving target. Inevitably you end up overextending yourself.
Challenge those unhelpful thoughts that treat rest as a luxury you have to earn. The need for rest per se is sufficient justification.
Replace the thoughts of a taskmaster with those of a caretaker. Treat yourself as the best boss would—one who sees you as a whole person and not as a commodity to exploit. Extend your full humanity to yourself.
Try this: See what it’s like to pause from your work even when you still have some “gas in the tank.” Question the assumption that just because you could do one more thing, you should keep going. Direct that energy toward something you find restorative. Rather than further depleting your body, mind, and spirit, you’ll be giving yourself the opportunity to rest and heal.
With love,