We need each other to rest
We need each other to rest.
This is what I have been thinking about since class yesterday. The theme of the day was everyday resistance in the context of nonviolent social movements. I had the students read an excerpt from Tricia Hersey’s (@thenapministry) book Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, and the students facilitating the session led us through a beautiful guided rest and daydreaming exercise, and then had us write a wish from our daydream on a paper ribbon and tie it to a tree outside (online folks put their dreams on a Jamboard since we are still in a hybrid learning environment).
At the end of class I shared a story about Thich Nhat Hanh’s peace movement organizing for ending the war in Vietnam, and how the practice of days of mindfulness originated from that time. They were working to stop the war and rebuild communities. There was always, always more work to do, but they committed to taking one day a week as a day of rest, taking refuge in their mindfulness practice and each other, so that they wouldn’t burn out, so they could continue.
I shared this mostly as a reminder of how even during very challenging times, we need to try to remember to rest. But what I have been thinking about since is that we need each other to rest.
We need others to create enabling conditions for our rest.
We need others to support our rest.
We need others to facilitate space for our rest.
We need each other to rest.
I am thinking about this especially for anyone who others depend on fully - parents, especially single or solo ones, all people caring for small children or other humans, people running organizations they founded who are holding immensely the care for others’ well-being. I personally experience it as an oft-solo parent with a full-time job. I need other adult humans to enable, to facilitate, my ability to rest.
When the students guided this exercise, I had tears in my eyes, happy tears, because it was such a gift to be guided in a few moments of rest. These moments are rare and few. While I am dedicated to a daily meditation practice, to as much yoga as I can fit into my days, and to a good night’s sleep, the conditions are not always there for these things to happen, and I definitely do not get as much rest as I would like to, not because I don’t want to, but because it is hard to find the space at this stage and conditions of life.
We needed each other to rest.
This was especially true during the peak of the pandemic, when support was so frayed (or nonexistent). We were often home alone for weeks on end. And it was so difficult to rest in any meaningful way.
I would feel so annoyed when people would say to me, “I hope you are getting some rest.” It was well-intentioned, but probably one of the least helpful things anyone can say to a parent of a small child, even outside the pandemic, as if there was something I could personally do about it. I would always think in my mind, “Yeah, I hope so too,” sarcastically. Do you want to come over and babysit so I can rest? Want to help make that happen for me? (which usually wasn’t even possible amidst pandemic conditions). As if I wouldn’t choose rest if I could have it, as if I didn’t know it was the thing I most deeply needed, but I couldn’t have it without support, without someone taking over.
For many of us in situations like this, we need support to rest. We need someone to take over the things that absolutely have to be done, like being with a child, so that we, too, can rest.
We need each other to rest.
But the more I turned this thought over in my mind, the more it got me thinking about another meaning of this sentence, We need each other to rest.
I need you to rest.
You need me to rest.
We need each other to be rested.
We need each other to rest.
We need a more rested society, a better rested world. We need outbreaths that mirror our inbreaths. We need to honor natural cycles, and nature’s wisdom telling us to rest. We need a social arrangement that doesn’t require people to work 2-3 jobs and still struggle to meet basic needs.
This is why Tricia Hersey’s work on rest as resistance is so radical and necessary, and why the political and social justice foundation of her work needs to be emphasized (see her recent post on Instagram). At the heart of her work is a critique of white supremacy and capitalism and rest as a pathway towards Black liberation, and given a Black feminist intersectional analysis, if Black women are free, everyone will be free - and trans women are women which bears explicitly stating, especially given the current attacks on trans lives in the US - so we should all be centering and working towards the dismantling of white supremacist capitalist imperialist patriarchy1 and creating a world where it’s easier to love2 and rest. Capitalism and white supremacy create grind culture that will always keep us working more, and therefore saying no to that, refusing it, becomes a radical act. And it’s not individual, it’s cultural and it’s political. Yes, we need to personally rest in our own bodies, AND we need to collectively rest. A culture of rest. A culture that values rest.
We need each other to rest.
In my dream last night, I was in a Target-like store with my almost-5 year old daughter. We were in a very long aisle that was all markers, pens, crayons that were not in boxes. They were in bins standing up, almost like the whole aisle was a giant marker or crayon box. It was like walking through a rainbow. Daphne was mesmerized and I was taking pictures, both of her tiny self engulfed in this magical corridor of color, and also close-up shots of the markers that I wanted to post on this Substack.
One of the things that interests me most in dreams is the feeling-scape, the emotional texture. You can tell the story of a dream, what happened, but the feeling tone of it can be very different from what words convey. The feeling-scape of this dream was wonder, awe, mesmerizing. It was enchantment.
I recently had a dream with the theme of “Rest is Peace,” which turned into a workshop for students, which I will share about in a future Substack.
I am wishing you some rest.
May you find some space to rest this weekend.
May you find some rest in this moment, in this breath.
May you find and create conditions for yourself and those around you to dwell in rest.
May your body, mind, and heart experience rest today.
Some reflection questions:
How can you find restfulness in this moment?
Can you carve out a little time to daydream today?
If you are well-rested, can you offer some time to someone who needs support to rest?
After you finish reading this, can you find some time and space to just close your eyes and allow them to rest, to daydream?
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bell hooks
Paulo Freire
What synchronicity that I had just read this post earlier in the day before tuning to your writings: https://www.dailygood.org/story/3061/the-seven-types-of-rest-everyone-needs/
It was beautiful to to acknoudledge that I can rest and be at peace because I have people loving me.
Gracias 😊