I have been in an inquiry around rest, aided profoundly by friends and in community, as well as through the study of rest as written about by Black women, particularly Tricia Hersey, Bishop of the Nap Ministry and her book Rest is Resistance and Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s Sacred Rest.
What I’ve come to realize is how deeply internalized grind culture has organized my life, how I have bought into it, and how it has come to control me, such that I have been trying to “squeeze in” or “make time” for rest, in the midst of all the things I “have to do” in order to make it.
I have “made it,” by all accounts, but in “making it,” I have lost so much of myself, my ability to be present, and the will to rest.
I have been trying to come back to myself. It is simple but in a life that is organized to do anything but rest, it feels almost impossible. There is always more to do; there has always been more to pursue, so much so that I used to dream of the time when I was most sick in my life, because it was the only time I felt permission to make a hard stop.
But as Hersey would have me remind myself (and would have each of us remind ourselves) each day, I am enough now.
I have been slowly unraveling as I reconnect with myself, with the embodied wisdom that I have tried so hard to suppress so I could move forward in spite of myself. Unraveling means feeling and being rather than doing. It means facing my humanity and the fact that I cannot possibly do all the things, even the beautiful good things that I have filled my life with. It means I have to learn to delegate, perhaps to disappoint, to set better (more, any) boundaries, to live life differently and to prioritize my well-being.
Unraveling means I no longer want to try to cram in all the visits with all the people when I am in a space, that I am beginning to trust that the people who love me will understand why I need space that is open, not committed. It means that I don’t feel the need to post right away, or perhaps at all, about all the things I am up to in life. It means that I am claiming time to breathe, to write reflectively for myself when there are so many things I need to write for others, to do nothing. It means that in doing nothing, I am trusting that everything can be found.
I am deeply moved when I sit with these things. It is a daily practice. It is simple but hard. It is slow, but moving at the pace that is necessary. It requires patience. It is the most human and heartening journey I have been on.
I am grateful for the unraveling.
