If I were your therapist I would tell you…
If I was your therapist, I would tell you we are way past the point of deserving or earning rest.
When I first moved to Northwest Arkansas, I went without a job for at least three months. It felt like forced rest, and I was not ready. I remember feeling like I didn’t earn this. I remember feeling like I wasn’t helping my family and that I was not enough. These were obvious lies to everyone else but so hard for me to see the truth about how necessary rest was to my own development.
You don’t need anyone’s permission to rest. Rest is a necessity if you want to flourish.
We often tend to think we need to earn rest. We think if we work hard, we play hard, and rest hard. But this is not how our bodies and our nervous systems work.
When we stay at the edges of our nervous system, pushing ourselves to or even beyond our limits, we lose ourselves. Literally. The research says the longer we stay in this survival or fight/flight/freeze mode and don’t come down to the middle of our nervous system, we run the risk of seeing early cognitive decline.
The top of your nervous system is designed to show up or turn on when trauma, stress, or a threatening situation happens. The problem is we have all been experiencing what Dr. Nadine Burke calls chronic stress in her book The Deepest Well.
Chronic stress is the worst. It usually feels as if it has no beginning and no end. It usually feels as if there is no way out. It causes us to live on high alert all the time. The problem with this is that medical science proves that our bodies cannot live in this constant state of terror. We need to drop to the middle of our nervous system where we rest and digest.
But the only prerequisite to rest is safety.
Racism, capitalism, and white supremacy remind us that it’s not always safe to rest. Truth be told—rest is how we heal, grow, and gain clarity. Rest is how we recover so that we can thrive.
But we can’t get here if we don’t feel safe. So I ask you: who are the people, places, and things or activities that help you cultivate safety?
Now, safety is not about finding 100% safety nonstop—that’s unrealistic. The goal is to ask: What do I need to feel safe enough in this upside-down world?
Who are the people who make me feel safe, seen, celebrated, and loved?
Where are the places where I can show up as my full self—not an edited or watered-down version of me?
Where are the places where I feel safe to express and talk with my full voice?
What are the activities that cultivate assurance of safety, connection, and belonging in me?
These are the questions we can use to help us get closer to feeling safe enough to engage in the world around us, even when chronic stress is a part of our lives.
In The Deepest Well, Dr. Nadine Burke tells the reader how important it is to practice self-regulating activities. This could be anything that activates your parasympathetic nervous system—the part of your nervous system which requires safety to turn on. You must believe you are safe enough.
You can practice walking, deep breathing, meditation, listening to music, looking at the clouds, or watching or listening to water. I’ve heard that the wisdom of Native Americans says that if you listen for the birds, that’s how you know creation and nature are safe.
So listen for the songs of the birds. Notice the whistling of the wind. Watch for the stillness of creation to see if it’s safe enough to rest. Even when it feels like our world is on fire, you must find a way to feel safe enough—because rest is necessary for growth, healing, and wholeness.
Joi McGowan, LPC
