Why we feel guilty & uncomfortable when resting

what I've learnt about rest post burnout and why it can feel so hard at times!

From the outside I had it all, but really, I spent most of my 20’s in survival mode…

Everything was about maximising time, being productive, doing more and not leaving a minute spare.

I would sit and “watch” tv in the evenings whilst painting my nails, replying to emails or ordering things online (sometimes all at the same time)… Just to make sure I was still on the ball. Hustling. Grinding. Doing. Not wasting a single minute.

After 6 years of this, working 12 hour+ days, abandoning my weekends and ultimately letting a lot of my life fall away in the pursuit of busyness, naturally, I was a exhausted.

In the UK we’ve seen a sharp rise in tiredness and employee burnout at record levels. It feels like we’re at a tipping point, brought forward by the pandemic, where we’re seeing the consequences of years living in a non-human way.

My burnout showed up as brain fog, clumps of hair in my hands as I washed it, feelings of loneliness and helplessness, being irritable with people I love, extreme procrastination that only increased the feeling of not being enough and a deep sense of dissatisfaction... with everything.

I carried on like this for a year, I blamed myself, because how could this be when I was living in a way that’s encouraged? I was working hard, I had a side hustle, I ate in a relatively balanced way, went to the gym and slept for 7-8 hours most evenings.

On the outside everything looked kinda groovy, on the inside I felt tormented.

I ended up leaving my job to pursue being self employed, which comes with its own challenges, but ultimately I had to learn to allow myself to rest again, to come back to being.

I started digging into and getting curious about what led me to that point of breaking in the first place, why did resting feel so uncomfortable?

Resting has become hard to practice because…

• Well, from an early age it’s productivity and hard work that gets rewarded. Why would we slow down and rest when we have so much to achieve?

• When we do give ourselves grace to rest, we feel guilty. That list of things you could be doing instead of resting makes itself known.

• For many, our sense of self worth is correlated with doing. We’ve been conditioned that more output = more love

• Capitalism tells us this. Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey takes a deep dive into this link exploring how capitalism and white supremacy are at the heart of our inability to rest. These learnings have been crucial to my rest practices and are now weaved into my Yoga classes and wellbeing offerings because of it.

• We’re living on high alert, with anxiety and dysregulated nervous systems. In 2022/23, an average of 37.1% of women and 29.9% of men reported high levels of anxiety (compared to 21.8% and 18.3% from 2012-2015). Honestly, the stats on this are scary!

• A sense of disconnect from our values and what truly matters to us (this was a big one for me).

• Constant doing leads our nervous systems to believe that doing nothing and simply resting isn’t safe! So when we do come to rest, we’re met with what’s basically a nervous system in overdrive and those feelings of discomfort.

• We feel shame! Noticing the discomfort that comes with resting left me feeling embarrassed and ashamed. Why can’t I just relax and rest like everyone else!? We internalise the inability and see it as a flaw within ourselves, instead of a flaw in the systems we live in.

It’s a lot.

Chances are if you’ve made it this far into the post it resonates in some way…

So, if you’re reading this at home or somewhere you feel comfortable enough, I encourage you to put your hands on your heart and take a deep breath in and out, maybe a few times. Allow your shoulders to drop a little, soften the face and unclench your jaw.

It can often feel like the world has no off switch, but, we can start re-learning how to rest again.

Slowly re-learning to rest

I say re-learning here, because it’s a practice we’ve lost. We weren’t born into the world ignoring our needs, we’ve just lost our connection to it.

I want to stress that I had to get serious about this. The physical and mental signs of burnout and exhaustion were clear, it was massive a wake up call for me, but it wasn’t easy.

Staying busy is easy. Staying well rested - now there’s a challenge - Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith

Over the past 18 months I’ve noticed that pull and desire to ignore my needs for the sake of productivity time and time again. For me, the rush of dopamine I was getting from social media and working more felt addictive!

I had to accept that I needed to change the way I was living, examine my individualistic wellness routines that were making me feel even more disconnected, start to seek therapy to feel more secure in my sense of self outside of work. Take the nap despite the guilt, go for the walk when there’s still things on my to-do list, carve out time to be creative, essentially, I had to keep choosing myself.

Making rest feel comfortable again is a gentle practice, or atleast in my experience. It’s not found in wellness culture or strict routines. It’s found in love and care for ourselves and wider community, it’s coming back to being, with compassion, for the versions of ourselves that lost sight of it all.

I’ve explored practical ways you can really start to rest in my guide to resting. I’ve listed a few below too…

In the same way we schedule work, I now schedule rest.

Rest that looks like napping and simply doing less, but also…

• gardening and using it as a way to connect back to the seasons and natures cycles

• quality time with loved ones without the disruption of technology

• reset weekends where I don’t have my phone/ social media at all

• connecting deeper with my Yoga practice and practicing Yoga Nidra, bringing in a sense of gentle discipline to help guide me when it feels hard to show up

• focusing more of my work on what I’m passionate about and aligns with my values (more Yoga, my Substack community, Journaling Club, YouTube etc)

• walking in nature as often as possible

• swimming, dancing and prioritising feeling strong in my body

• watching tv/ netflix/ films and allowing myself to fully relax and enjoy the experience (no more multi-tasking at every given moment)!

I think for a lot of us we simply run out of steam, or feel like we’re en route. Individualistic wellness practices aren’t working, buying more stuff isn’t working, eating for convenience to work longer hours isn’t working.

Resting felt like a failure. I didn’t relish in it, I shamed myself for it. Now, I’m flipping the script and inviting you to do the same.

I didn’t want to bombard this letter with reading recommendations and more things to do, (although do let me know if that would be useful in a separate place), however, I have referred to Trica Hersey and Rest Is Resistance throughout, and really do recommend starting there.

In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey says “Rest is a meeting with self” and that’s exactly how truly resting has felt for me… I’d love to know if anything come to mind for you on what rest is in the comments!

✨ Online Monthly Rest Workshops ✨

Last year was all about experimenting for me, I absolutely loved sharing workshops and online events and in 2024 I’ll be doing the same! Facilitating rest has become a fundamental part of the Yoga I teach, and every single month I’ll be offering a Rest & Reset workshop. It’s a 90 minute session designed to support your wellbeing through mindful embodied movement, Pranayama (breathwork) practices, a guided journaling session and a Yoga Nidra practice to finish.

Expect a safe and welcoming online space where you're encouraged to come as you are. All levels of Yoga are welcome (beginner included). If you have any questions about the practice, please feel free to email me/ comment ❤️

Love & gratitude,

Jodie x