Episode 61 transcript.
Tis’ the season everyone. Tis the season for rest. Tis the season for rest. This is. I'm going to talk about a bit in this episode of the podcast because what I'm seeing and hearing is a lot of busyness in the mind, busyness in the mind, and a lot of things we have to get done before the year comes to a close or before the 25th of December, or [00:02:00] before you start celebrating holidays.
Or experiencing the holidays because I know for some people holidays can be a really hard time. But I wanna talk about rest because I think it's underrated and I think we're not spending enough time engaged in rest, in creating space for it. Look, I have been a hustle and go hard beast mode professional.
almost my, not my entire life, because obviously I was not a professional when I was 10, but for my professional life, I have always been in that go, go, go mentality. Work hard, work hard, be over prepared. Do your best to be at your best. That meant more hours. That meant more energy. That meant catching up in many ways.
That meant learning and learning and learning. and feeling like I could never learn enough. Right? And in many ways, the way I was [00:03:00] conducting my life and moving through life, I ended up really losing myself, right? This push to push through. It's a push to push through different situations and to always be on, to always be going, to always be achieving, to always be proving to always.
on. , it really cost me to lose myself at one point. You know my story, right? It cost me to lose myself in terms of anxiety and depression, and part of it was that I needed more rest than I thought I did, right? I needed more rest than I thought I did. I needed more space for myself than I thought I did. I forgot how important it was to take care of myself.
I had forgotten. and forgotten it. When I say that, I mean that I was aware, but I didn't take steps to implement, and that's the crux of it, is that I wasn't able to do that. And so for you, maybe you're feeling [00:04:00] exhausted or maybe you feel like you're on this treadmill drinking from a fire hose and you can't get off and take a break for you, or maybe you're someone.
You do take breaks like you do have some rest, but it doesn't fully rejuvenate you. It doesn't fully refresh you or make you really feel differently for a long period of time. The feeling is more temporary and not longer lasting. So the definition of rest and the dictionary is to cease from action or motion, refrain from labor or exertion, or to be free from anxiety or disturb.
I mean, I thought I was gonna get one definition and I was like, what are all these definitions? We probably need definitions for these definitions, , but the theme is the same. If we talk about ceasing from action or motion, refraining from labor or exertion, being free from anxiety or disturbance, the theme is the same.
There is this theme of release and peace that comes with [00:05:00] rest, and the truth is you can decide what rest means to you in the context of your life. You can decide what rest means to you and how to incorporate. as not just a one-off when you need it, but as a habit in your life. It has to become a habit.
Cause I, I really do think we overcomplicate these things. Sometimes our brains like to do that. It likes to tell us that we aren't doing enough, that we didn't do something well enough. Or that taking a break is lazy. So-and-so's not taking a break. We start comparing ourselves to previous versions of ourselves, previous versions of ourselves from years back when, for example, we weren't as senior as we are now in our profession, when we didn't have children, when we didn't have partners, when life was different.
we start comparing ourselves to that person, not realizing how much we've overcome and grown and evolved to the [00:06:00] person we are today and not fully accepting the reality of where we are. So we have to be paying attention, right to these stories, these old stories that our brains are telling us. These are just old stories that the brain tells you.
It's just repeating it over and over. , you know that it's lazy to take a break. It's not productive to rest. Those are old stories that you have to kind of catch and say, Hey, is this really true? Do I really believe that? Because that's not reality. Your brain even likes to judge what rest is good enough for you.
Like what kind of rest counts, right? We have to choose not to believe what it's telling us. Cause to me, rest can be whatever you want it to be. Right? What's gonna make you feel that release? that relaxation. You know that feeling in your body of relaxation and peace and that joy, like you know what that feels like in your body.
It's an easing of tension. So rest can be whatever you need it to be. It can be watching The Crown or the Meghan and Harry [00:07:00] Documentary or Insecure, which has become one of my favorites. I know the show's over, but I was a little late to the game. It could be some other show or some other movie. It could be listening to music.
Whatever music you're into. It could be. Different kinds of massages and a pedicure reading a book I love. Two of my favorite, favorite books this year have been, you Should Talk to Someone and Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Stra. They were two of my favorites. So it could be reading a book, it could be sitting in, in silence, meditating, giving that a chance, giving meditation or guided meditation, a chance it could be journal.
or maybe you want to spend some time with friends and family. Maybe it's catching up with a friend that you haven't talked to in a while who doesn't live close by. You could set up a Zoom call or maybe rest for you is, you know what? I need to just sleep more. I need more than six hours of sleep. I need eight or nine.
How can I work towards that? Maybe that's what rest [00:08:00] means for you, and that's all okay, because listen, you've worked. . You've worked hard this year. You've put in the hours, you've put in the energy, you've put in the effort. You've earned your place. You've been through a lot. You've been through challenges.
There have been ups and downs. I mean, we are still coming out of the pandemic. I mean, COVID is still here, but oh my gosh, we've been through a ton, not even this past year, but the past. Let's go three years. And I, I feel like we don't give ourselves enough credit for all that. Have you ever thought about the pandemic and said to yourself, oh my gosh, how did we do that?
How did I do that? Well, you did that, but you don't give ourselves enough credit for that, that we made it through that. I bet you've crushed so many things in 2022 and still you may be telling yourself, eh, it's not good. There's always more that [00:09:00] you think you can do, and there often are things that you wanna do better.
So what you've done is not good enough, right? That's the messaging. That's what your brain is telling you. But that's not true. It's not true. Beating up yourself is not helpful here. Right. Believing those old stories, believing these things that are not true is not helpful for you. It doesn't help you make progress, and it's not coming from a place of kindness at all.
It's coming from a place of scarcity and a lack of perspective. We have to ground ourselves in a new perspective, right? Like grow into this new perspective that we've done enough that what we've done is good. That who we are is good enough and that we really do benefit from making rest a priority for ourselves, right?
We can't expect to be 24 7 energizer bunnies who keep going and going and going, like, we're, we're not Energizer bunnies. We're not robots, [00:10:00] but we're really powerful humans. We're really powerful women and humans thrive on. We thrive on courage. We thrive when we have clarity, when we're productive, when we have connection and relationships with others, when we have meaning in our life, and when what we want to do and what we're doing matches who we are inside.
And resting is part of that. Resting is part of that piece of thriving that is dependent on energy. The energy we have. what we have to give, what we have to give others, and what we have to give ourselves. How we show up for ourselves and how we show up for others. I mean, cars literally break down if there's not.
Gas in the tank and rest. Having rest, taking the time to rest, creating space for yourself to rest because it's a priority cuz it matters a lot to you, ensures that you're not running on [00:11:00] an empty tank. So I have a question for you. I don't wanna say it's a challenge to you. I wanna say it's a more like a question or let's say an invitation.
How are you going to give yourself the gift of rest? A gift that you deserve, right? The gift of rest for the next, I wanna say for the next couple of weeks, I would love to say in 2023 as well. So I'm gonna invite you to think about how you can give yourself the rest that you deserve for the rest of 2022 and 2023.
What does that mean? Think about the last time you felt fully relaxed. You felt an ease in your body, an ease of tension. You felt peaceful, and you felt some joy. , what were you doing? What were you doing? I know people who literally are like, look, all I wanna do is watch Netflix for two, three hours. I wanna watch my Desperate Housewives.
I wanna watch My Housewives. I wanna watch my On [00:12:00] Bravo. Hey, do you, yes, sure. Some people call that numbing. You know what? Maybe it's not for you. Maybe it is rest. Like it's not for me to judge. It's not for anyone to judge. . This is about how can you give yourself more rest? Just think back to things you've done or experiences you've had where you've had that release, you've had that peace, you've had that inner joy, that, that sense of calmness inside where you didn't feel anxious, you didn't feel stressed.
What were you doing? actively, like, what were you doing? Think about that. How can you bring that back? How can you bring that back into your life? It doesn't have to be three hours a day, an hour a day. It doesn't have to be that way. Think about how you can make the space for rest in your life. In this season of life.
We're all in different phases and stages of life, right? I call those seasons. What can you do in this season of life to give yourself the rest that you deserve? I'll [00:13:00] encourage you to calendar everything. Calendar, the 15 minutes you're taking for yourself to take a walk. If that's your idea of rest or calendar the hour that you're going to, I don't know, get a pedicure once a month, whatever it is, put in your calendar so it's in there as a date with yourself.
It's a meeting with yourself. Commit to yourself. Invest in yourself. This is for you, for no one else, but just for you. Give yourself that gift this holiday season, and in 2023, carve it out and put in your calendar to make it real. Now you know what I'm gonna say that you are powerful. I really do believe you're powerful beyond what you can imagine.
And you have more agency and power than you think you do to create the adjustments and the shifts in your life that will improve your life so much. And I wanna remind you of that power. I wanna remind you of your self [00:14:00] agency. I wanna remind you of the fact that yes, there are challenges and there are struggles and you still have some power there and you can use it and it can be a game changer for you.
One of the ways to use your power is to create the space for the rest that you. Okay, my friends give it a try. Just give it a try. It's my invitation to you. Until next time. Remember, you have the power to create that life and the career that you want and you deserve. You always have. You always will.
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