Sup Muses?
Today I am finally tackling rest. This is something that I struggle with and I don’t know who does it well. Rest is different than self care, however, it is a form of self-care. Recently I’ve begun following The Nap Ministry on Instagram and Tricia , the founder, focuses on rest as a form of resistance and the “liberating power of naps.” Getting rest is increasingly important in today’s society for a few reasons.
Grind culture is very real and very damaging.
Capitalism makes it seem like without an abundance of money you will have a less than mediocre life. Capitalism got us thinking without multiple streams of income, what are you really doing?
You deserve to take a step away from work, responsibilities, triggers and stress.
The COVID pandemic plus the consistent unrest and trauma Black individuals face daily takes a toll.
It’s not that I do not rest, I just don’t do it well. Often I find myself thinking about what needs to be done after I finish chilling. These thoughts were so prominent and normalize that I never realized their frequency. What was my wake up call that I do a poor job resting? In September I took an anniversary trip to Aruba and during this trip, I didn’t take off work. I rearranged my work schedule so I only attended team meetings and allocated an hour or so for emails and work for the board I sit on. It sucked to work during vacation, but I took some time and scrolled through my IG + archives and realized during every single vacation trip my caption read something along the lines of grateful for this time away to reset and recharge and…LIKE WUT? So every vacation over the last 2 years I’ve been depleted?!
Guadeloupe 2017 / La Seyne-Sur Mer- 2018/ Jamaica 2018
Maldives - 2019 / Seychelles - 2020 / Aruba-2020
Yikes.
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Self care isn’t new to me, but sitting on my bed and reading for 30 mins without my phone nearby is new. Yes that’s self-care, but that’s me resting. That’s me not thinking about what’s to come or what I should have done instead of reading. Adding Headspace back into my life again after failing to be consistent for oh I don’t know, maybe the 20th time is me working to add a moment of rest into my day. Turning on an animated movie (shout-out to all my DC comic fans) and watching after work while enjoying that time alone is my rest.
I’ll follow up again about in a few weeks. I want to hear from you about rest.
[My responses italicized.]
What does resting look like for you? Doing something I enjoy without the subtle or overt fear that I should be doing other things with your time. (I cannot do nothing, I’ve tried and I’m not good at doing nothing.)
Do you have boundaries around your rest time? Not really. If there are no plans then okay that’s a rest day, but also a day I can clean or do some museologie work. So, perhaps, I need to be more intentional with my time-off that’s not an international trip. I can schedule a few hours weekly for rest.
Why is it important , to you, to have moments of rest in your life? Resting is important to me because I work hard, I’m a Black woman and I keep striving to do more + to be a better Jordan. Why not spend time without an agenda, to do list or pesky thoughts to enjoy the moment I’m currently in.
What’s going on with you and rest? What’s your relationship with it? Why does it seem like everyone is suddenly speaking about it?
-xo
-JM
