Rest is NOT laziness

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

Good morning, my baby, and welcome to Gentle Hours. Before we begin this morning, I want you to find a comfortable position wherever you are and give yourself these next few minutes without immediately thinking about everything that has already made its way into your list for today. And on Monday, you know, as a way of making us feel like we need to get up and immediately get to moving, as though the week is already ahead of us and we have to catch it. But for right now, there is nowhere you need to rush within these few minutes that we have together. So relax your shoulders, loosen your jaw, allow your hands to rest and take a slow breath in through your nose. Hold it for a few seconds and then allow to slowly release it through your mouth. Let's do that again. Breathing in slowly, holding it for just a moment and releasing everything you do not need to carry into this moment with you. One more time. Take a deep breath in. Allow your stomach to expand as you receive it and then release it slowly. You know, this morning I want I want to give you something to carry with you throughout this week. My rest does not equal laziness, it allows me to replenish what life responsibility and constantly showing up has required me to pour out. Oof, that's heavy, huh? And I think some of us have spent so much of our lives associating movement with productivity that we have truly forgotten that rest is a part of the process. We seem to have learned how to measure a good day by how many things we were able to accomplish, how many boxes we were able to check, how many people we helped, how much work we completed, and whether or not we were able to squeeze in, you know, one email, another load of clothes, a phone call, an airing, a meeting, a favor, or responsibility before finally allowing ourselves to just sit down. And even when we do sit down, sometimes our bodies are resting while our mind is still walking around the house looking for something to do. We start thinking about what we forgot, what tomorrow requires, what we could be doing with the time we are spending doing absolutely nothing. And you know, before we know it, we have taken something as necessary as rest and turned it into something we need to do to justify. You know, some of us have become so accustomed to being productive that we actually feel guilty when we are not producing, and I need all of us to work on that. Because being tired, my baby, is not always proof that you have done something meaningful, just as being rested is not proof that you have been lazy. Sometimes being tired simply means, you know, you have been ignoring yourself away too long, and sometimes being rested means you finally listened before your body had to find a way to get your attention. And there is nothing honorable about constantly running yourself empty. There is nothing wrong with you know having ambition and goals, responsibilities, people who depend on you, or things you genuinely, you know, want to accomplish, but there has to be some understanding that you are a human being attempting to carry all of these things. You have limitations, you have moments, you know, when your energy is going to change, you have days when your mind is capable of holding more, and days when it simply is not. And learning to respect those differences does not mean that you lack discipline, you know, it means that you're paying attention to yourself. And I also think that many of us have learned to rest only after you know everything is finished. And the problem with adulthood is that everything is rarely finished at the same time. You can finish the work and still have something at home that needs your attention. You can clean the house and still have a lot of emails waiting. You can finish the emails and remember the appointment you need to reschedule. The person you need to call, you know, the grocery store that you need to stop by, the clothes that need to be washed, or something else that somehow find its way into the list. Baby, if you continue waiting for the moment when absolutely nothing requires you before you give yourself permission to rest, you will continue moving the finish line every time you get close to it. Sometimes you have to rest with something unfinished. Maybe sometimes the clothes can wait until tomorrow. The message can be answered later, the kitchen can remain exactly how it is for another hour, and the thing that you convince yourself absolutely had to happen today, you know, it can be reconsidered when you realize the world will continue turning if you move into another day. That is something that you know I had to learn for myself because there is a big difference between something being important and something being urgent, and when we treat everything like it requires our immediate attention. We spend our lives responding to responsibilities instead of deciding how we actually want to move them. So this week I want you to pay attention to how often you make yourself feel guilty for just needing a moment. I also want you to pay attention to the language that you use when you wake up later than you planned, when you decide you do not want to go somewhere, when you sit on that couch, you know, longer than expected, when you take a nap in the middle of the day, or when you recognize that something you originally said yes to no longer fits within the energy you actually have available. How quickly do you begin criticizing yourself? How quickly do you say I'm being lazy when perhaps my baby what you really mean is I'm very tired. And those are not the same thing. Because there are times when we just need to hold ourselves accountable because we know we are procrastinating. We may be avoiding something or simply do not feel like doing what needs to be done, but everything does not belong underneath that description. Sometimes you have handled everything you could reasonably handle, and your body is just simply asking you to please stop. And you should be able to honor that without putting yourself on trial. And I especially want to speak to the person who has become known for being dependable because being dependable, you know, can turn into an expectation that you will always have something available to give. You know, people become accustomed to you showing up, figuring it out, answering that phone, you know, finding the solution, making the adjustment, taking care of what needs to be taken care of, and eventually you will become so accustomed to that version of yourself that even you forget to ask whether you have the capacity before saying yes. And you find yourself just doing it because you always have. But being capable does not mean you are never tired, and being strong does not mean you should constantly test how much strength you have left. These are things that we carry mentally and emotionally that never make it into the calendar or our list of responsibilities, but they still require energy from us. I mean, baby, you know, thinking requires energy. Making decisions requires energy, adjusting to unexpected changes require energy. Having difficult conversation requires energy, worrying about someone you love requires energy, navigating disappointment requires energy, and sometimes simply trying to keep yourself emotionally balanced while everything around you continues moving, requires more from you than anybody else can see. So when you say you were tired, you don't have to, you know, produce or provide evidence. You know what your weak required from you, and you also know what you had to talk yourself through. You know what you handled without telling everybody. You also know how many times you had to rearrange something, change something, accept something, release something, or keep moving while your mind was still trying to process what had already happened. Baby, I need you to give yourself some consideration as well. We are very good at considering everybody else. We think about what they need, what they are going through, whether they still understand, whether they will be disappointed, whether saying no will inconvenience them, and whether taking time for ourselves will create additional responsibility for somebody else. We consider another person all the way into our own exhaustion and then wonder why we become irritated when they ask for that one more thing. Sometimes the irritation is not even about what they ask for. It is our own realization that you have continued giving long after you knew you needed to stop. This is why rest has to become intentional. You cannot always wait until your body forces you into it. You cannot always wait until you are so exhausted that you no longer have the choice because there is a difference between resting to care for yourself and recovering because you have completely worn yourself down. And I want us to learn to recognize ourselves before we reach that point. Maybe this week that means going to bed a little earlier instead of scrolling for another hour because you feel like nighttime is the only part of the day that belongs to you. Maybe it means leaving something on tomorrow's list instead of forcing yourself to complete it tonight, saying no to something you genuinely do not have the energy for, or giving yourself an afternoon when nothing has to be accomplished for you to consider the time is valuable. Rest. Rest, my baby, can be productive even when it produces absolutely nothing you can show anybody. So as we move into this week, I want you to stop making rest something you have to earn through exhaustion. You do not have to teach or reach the moment where you cannot function because you are allowed to take care of yourself. You don't have to finish every responsibility before you sit down, and you certainly do not have to explain every moment when you choose yourself over something that can reasonably wait. There will always be more to do, my baby, and that is exactly why you have to learn how to rest while life is still happening. So before we close, I want you to take another slow breath in through your nose. Hold it for just a moment, and then release it through your mouth. And as you breathe normally again, I want you to hold these words with you on today. My rest does not equal laziness. My rest allows me to replenish what life responsibility and constantly showing up has required me to pour out. I do not have to exhaust myself before I am worthy of rest. And I do not have to feel guilty for recognizing when I have reached my capacity. I will give myself the same consideration. I so freely give to everyone else, and when my mind and body tell me that I need to slow down, I will learn to listen without criticizing myself and needing what every human being needs. This week I pray you recognize the difference between giving up and simply giving yourself a moment to gather what you need to continue. I pray you understand that slowing your pace does not erase your progress. And I pray you stop believing that your value can somehow be measured by how exhausted you are at the end of the day. There is still purpose and a rested version of you. There is still discipline in a rested version of you. There is still ambition and responsibility, care, love, and intentionality and a rested version of you. And perhaps that version of you will have more patience and more clarity and more of themselves available for the things that truly deserve them. Maybe give yourself permission to rest this week without attaching an apology to it. You are allowed to stop for a moment without convincing yourself that you are falling behind. Baby, take care of yourself this week. Take care of yourself for forever. This has been gentle hours, and I'll meet you back next Monday.