Genuine conversations about rest occur too infrequently. Instead, we wear weariness like an ugly, ill-fitting, doesn’t- match-the-outfit-at-all badge of honour. It is the shoulder pad of fashion, folks. Weariness sits so well with self-deprecation (the bags under my eyes are Prada), and a glass of Merlot. It bonds with gallows humour (I finally had 8 hours of sleep, it took me four days but whatever) and a plate of tapas. It is the opposite of fight club – we talk about it all the time.
Brené Brown reminds us that ...”it takes courage to say yes to rest and play, in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol”. And let me remind you, sliding into entropy, numbed by Netflix, is not rest or play in the restorative sense of the word. Rest and play will take some remembering, relearning and a surprise here and there.
Some types of rest include time away, connecting with art and nature, stillness, music and solitude. It also includes introspection to reconnect with our ignored, but ever-present spirit and inner wisdom. It is to be reminded of the sounds and noises we love, of our favourite word. It is philosophising about a profession other than our own we would have liked. What we would do if we knew that we could not fail. It is recalling random events such as the last time we discovered something new for the first time. (I don’t think it involves talks of Trump or COVID19, but I may stand corrected.)
Alicia Keys writes that we betray ourselves, not in sweeping pivots but in movements so tiny that they’re hardly perceptible, even to us. Limiting and withholding rest surely would qualify as one of those small betrayals, with its minuscule increments of irregular bedtimes, infrequent leave, “just quickly checking” computer sessions, where we don’t even notice or recognise what is happening.
Heartbreakingly, I don’t think anyone in our lives demand a state of exhaustion from us to earn love and respect. I suspect this it is a jail of our own making. Somehow, somewhere in the past, we pushed past our fatigue to deliver an outcome beyond our capacity at the time, and that resulted in life being easier in the short term; and feeling the achievement ourselves, and the gratitude and appreciation from others, started us down a path where we set an exception as a default in order to recreate that flush of self-worth. Let’s remind ourselves, and our loved ones that we are worthy, because we were born, not for all our fancy doing-ness. Rest and play are birthrights.
May I offer the suggestion to take a moment, or ten, to simply be. Perhaps play some Edith Piaf, recalling how rain sounds on a tin roof, and the way the word fourmi (ant) sits in the mouth, consider how, for the longest time, you wanted to be a lion tamer, or how, if you were fearless, you would write from the heart at all times. Keep in mind how a baby’s face looks when they taste a peach for the first time (agreeable). And then, bolstered by good thoughts and the aforementioned Merlot, take yourself, and your slightly melancholic cat, to bed at a sane hour.
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