Rest is Productive

“REST?! What is rest? You can rest when you die.”

[To] REST. Verb. DEFINITON: To cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength.

The importance of rest was not instilled in me as a child. No one taught me how to listen to my body or what to do when my body began to show warning signs. Living in a state of burnout as an adult felt very normal to me, for a long time.

But in April of 2021, I was forced to reckon with an unhealthy way of living. The universe redirected me.

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I had been experiencing panic attacks and stress hives had appeared all over my body. The hives were so uncomfortable and all-consuming that I could barely find it in me to leave the house. Sleep deprivation, hormonal problems, nightmares about work when I could sleep, intense mood swings, brain fog every day of the week, and fatigue that wouldn’t let up were simply a part of my daily life. Stress had become the lense through which I viewed life. I had it all together from the outside looking in, but on the inside I was miserable…and those closest to me could feel my stress. I had convinced myself that this was just part of the package of being a successful and hardworking woman. It was just part of the package of being a Black woman in America. This belief had been normalized for me through watching my Mom operate in this same state when I was a child, and through what I consumed in television and films. I observed as the successful women I worked with also operated in this way. All of the people I looked up to at the time had little life outside of work, or time for themselves and their families. Especially the women, and even more so, the women of color. So, I pushed through all the warning signs that my body threw at me, hoping that it would afford me the same success and ‘happy’ lives as them.

Surprise! They weren’t actually happy.

Pictured: Not my first, but my second round of stress hives, that lasted over a year.

But let’s rewind for a moment.  

Rest wasn’t a word used in the house I grew up in. I had perfect attendance every year and went to school even when I was sick with the flu or damn near on my death bed each month when my cycle strolled in. It wasn’t that health was not of Importance in my family, the pressure to be successful was just a bit more important. This wasn’t just because my family was made up of overachievers (though, yes, there’s some of that Black excellence as well). It was the pressure to make ends meet and be successful in a society that wasn’t built for people that looked like us that really drove this way of life. It was the pressure to be “three times as good as your white friends” to be admitted into the same schools, be granted the same opportunities, and to make a name for ourselves. It was the pressure that, whether we liked it or not, we inherited when born as a people of color in a country like the United States. 

I didn’t know it then, but in hindsight, I had watched my Mom live in a state of perpetual stress. She worked an extremely taxing job as an elementary school teacher at an underfunded Los Angeles school, a job she had never really aspired to. She had taken this job as a way to both give back to her community, and support the needs of her family. At work she energetically absorbed the traumas and neglect of the children she taught. The stories were horrific. It was often that she was even called ‘Mom’ by her students, because she represented a warm, maternal, and mentor figure for them. And being the empathetic woman that she is, my Mom took on all of this energy as her own. She brought this exhaustion she felt at the end of each day, home with her each night. Then she poured what little she had left into us.

Mom should’ve won Mom of the year every year. She is one of the strongest woman I know. She got up every single morning at 5:00am to make my siblings and I breakfast before we got on our bus ride to school, helped us get ready, and then went off to her job for the day. She was there to pick us up from the bus stop in the evenings, and cook dinner each night. She was there to drive us to every basketball game, acting class, dance performance, and track practice. She was present for every after school program and parent teacher conference. She was always physically present. She DID that. But every night, I watched her come home depleted. She had little emotional energy to give us. She did the best she could, but she often neglected to make space or time for herself. She poured into everyone’s cup BUT her own. It was rare that I saw my Mom rest. It was rare that I even saw her smile.

It was by watching my Mom live in this way that I learned how to be my own version of a strong and independent woman. I learned how to carry the weight of the people around me, and never ask for help. It was by watching her that I learned how to deprive myself of rest. 

This was especially true growing up as a young Black woman. Nothing was going to be handed to me without hard work, and nothing was going to stop me from proving everyone around me that I could be successful. No one was going to put me in a box or tell me how high I could climb. Sound familiar? So I didn’t think twice when the first job I was offered out of college worked me 65+ hours each week. I dove, head first, into burnout.

So when my unhealthy habits came crashing down on me that spring of 2021, the first thing I did was try to ignore the signs. Burnout isn’t new to me, I thought. I can push through this. I had ignored my body for so long, though, that I couldn’t. I couldn’t get through a work day without crying, and my anxiety was through the roof. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. It got so bad that I could no longer work.

After months of fighting the idea that I deserved rest anymore than anyone else I worked with who was stressed (and that was EVERYONE), I finally asked for time off in July of that year. With the support of a doctor, I took a 6-month burnout sabbatical from work, and did nothing but pour into my health: body, mind, and spirit. I hired a holistic doctor, a therapist, a coach, and began to work with a chiropractor. I had an incredibly supportive and loving partner, for the first time in years, who held me accountable for taking care of my health. I changed my entire diet after some eye-opening blood work (hello, gluten intolerance), I journaled, and I let my sadness, lack of fulfillment, and lack of understanding of who I was or where I was going in life consume me. I cried, cried more, and cried again. I had loved ones around me, and yet I felt completely alone. It was one of the most difficult periods of my life, and I won’t lie, I did try to go back to work a few times. I didn’t know how to shut my brain or the feeling of guilt off. I didn’t know what to do with so much time on my hands, because I didn’t know how to be with myself. Work was what I knew how to do best. But after a few long weeks, something magical happened. For the first time in a while, I began to see and feel myself again. I felt shifts in not only my body, but my energy levels, my mood, and even my personality. Emotions that I didn’t know I could feel, began to pour in. I began to feel MONICA again. That time off of work allowed me to come home to myself.

It was after that sabbatical that I made the decision to leave my role at Netflix. I’ll forever be grateful for the support that my colleagues gave me in that period, but it was through that time that I found clarity on where I needed to put boundaries in place in my life for my long term health and happiness. I had to accept that that role would not make space for this new and expanded version of me. It was in that realization that I also made space to seek out a job that did feel more in alignment at the time, and did allow for more balance in my life. And when I realized that it was just not about a job or title but about an entire career path, I then had the clarity, because of the boundaries I had put in place, to say goodbye to the career that I had built over almost a decade. I can say with confidence that it would have taken a lot longer for me to make that decision without the space to rest and introspect. 

But why does this matter?

I understand now that rest brings clarity. Rest allows for play and hobbies. Rest makes room to build deep intimacy with the people I love, and it allows for healing. Rest has even *gasp* made me a more thoughtful and creative contributor in the work that I have done. I understand now that rest is actually a precursor to success. So now, I demand a healthy balance of work and rest. I do not rest with a return to work in mind. I am present in my rest. I allow myself the space to step away from work when I feel I need to take a moment for myself.

Most importantly, rest allows me to foster a deeper relationship with myself because it allows time for me to pour into ME. I cannot, WE cannot, pour into anyone or anything else if we have not first poured into ourselves. An empty cup cannot pour into another.

I understand that in a society where we are not only rewarded for overworking, but ADDICTED to it, the idea of rest can be unsettling. It can seem out of reach for most, and when in reach, almost impossible to actually surrender to. A large part of this is because we’ve been taught that rest means simply dropping everything and being still. That rest is closing our eyes and doing nothing else. And yes, this can be rest. But this is not the only way to rest. Allow yourself time to be still and sit with all of those uncomfortable emotions, but also allow yourself to pour into your cup however feels most nourishing for you. Allow yourself time to do things that bring you peace and the feeling of calm, and do what allows you to come back to yourself. I hike, I make time for dates with friends, I spend time in solitude, I read, I travel, and I dance my ass off. Because those are also forms of rest for me.

The Monica that you see today reserves her right to rest. I listen to my body when it tells me I need to slow down. I am firm in my boundaries. I reserve the right to not work or pour so much into other people that I forget to pour into myself. I reserve the right to NOT burnout. And I reserve the right to vacation, without having to earn it. I rest for myself, but I also rest for my Mom, and all those who came before her, who couldn’t. I rest in order to build deeper relationships. I rest because I deserve a life that I do not have to vacation from. I rest because it is healing, and I rest because I understand that it is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Let me be the example of how more rest can improve the quality of your life. Rest is the reason I am a healthier and happier version of me. It is the reason I have found more alignment in my life.

And yes, the strives hives did disappear. And I haven’t seen them since.

So give yourself the permission to press pause, and rest. May you rest in peace not just when you pass, but every single day.

Rest, because it is productive. 

PRODUCTIVE. Adjective. DEFINITION: achieving or producing a significant amount or result.

Pictured: Mom happily retired and enjoying life, and me pouring into us both on our first mother daughter trip to Paris ❤️.

Where can you make room for more moments of rest in your own life? What does rest look like for YOU?