Rest guilt
There was a time in my career where I was teaching pilates in the morning and evening, and working in my practice during the day. I also had several locum jobs that I would travel to.
My own practice wasn't busy. Well, that's an understatement - there were almost no patients.
So I had a lot of free time.
But instead of resting during that time, I studied, took courses and listened to endless podcasts.
And when I did rest, I always felt in the back of my mind like I should be doing something else. After all - I thought - if my practice wasn't successful yet, I clearly should be working MORE not less.
But of course, this cycle kept me feeling exhausted and unproductive. It got me staying busy for the sake of it. And because it didn't lead to actual results, I never got to the point where I actually felt like I had "deserved" to rest. The cycle continued.
Sound familiar?
Chances are, it does.
Think for a second about taking the rest you need. About taking more than you feel you need.
What are you worried about? What are you dreading? What do you think is going to happen?
If you're anything like most people, you've likely learnt that rest is...
a reward for being productive/achieving
lazy
indulgent
a sign of a lack of ambition
a waste of time
selfish
It's no wonder that we feel like we always have to do more, be more & give more.
But we get to rewrite this narrative for ourselves. We get to see that the guilt we feel with rest doesn't reflect some big truth about the universe, but rather a sign of how we've been conditioned to think.
Guilt is an emotion that signals when your actions are responsible for a negative outcome. When you've caused someone pain or broken a moral code, you feel guilt in order to motivate you to change your behaviour or make amends.
So guilt can be a helpful emotion, but when we feel it with something as harmless as RESTING we can look a bit closer. Is it actually causing a negative outcome? Is it harming anyone?
Or have I internalised a moral code that I don't even agree with?
Previous generations and our culture may have ingrained the idea that rest is somehow morally wrong. But we know logically that rest is good for our health and helps us perform better, be more generous and more productive.
And we may logically understand that rest doesn't mean anything bad about us as people and that it's a natural human need & desire.
If you're unsure what to "do" in order to rest, Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith (a physician, researcher & author) created a framework of 7 types of rest we need.
Here they are with some examples:
Let's become the healthcare providers that actually live out our belief of the importance of rest and recovery.
And let's not wait for the world to change its view on rest before we take it seriously, mmkay?
So I'd love to know...
What negative belief do you uncover when you think about rest? How can you loosen the grip of that belief just 10%?
