STORIES of REST and UNREST, PART 1
This month marks a complicated anniversary for me: five years since my rough initiation into a long and life-altering health odyssey, which I didn’t know I’d survive, and at times, whether I even wanted to anymore.
Five years of bodily polycrisis (a microcosm of the larger ecological and systemic polycrisis playing out in the world around me), have me reflecting on my stories of rest and unrest, the ways I live my life today, and the small victories that remind me how much has changed and how much I have transformed.
Some of these victories are more dramatic, like the hike I took at Ecola Park earlier this week, a steep and sometimes treacherous climb through Pacific old growth forest overlooking the coastline just north of Cannon Beach. Set alongside the memory of a playground visit with my two preschoolers at the end of August 2021 when I tried to hide the fact I did not have the stamina to stand more than a few minutes at a time, this 1.5-hour hike is a miracle.
My view from Crescent Beach Trail, Ecola State Park
Other victories are so subtle they could easily pass unnoticed.
Like a couple weeks ago when I paused in the afternoon to rest on our stoop for 30 minutes rather than pushing through. This was me practicing nervous system care in real time.
After getting home from the office and meeting my kids after school, my mind immediately seized on the next tasks: cleaning, laundry, dinner. Then a voice–the voice of my body, my nervous system, my deeper self–cut through the drill-sergeant bark of my mind, and suggested a radical thing: Let’s sit on the stoop for a few minutes before we do anything else.
I felt into my body. She was tired. She’d been active all day long, all week long, all summer long, working in a new role on a new team, accompanying my mom through melanoma diagnosis and major surgeries, navigating elder care for my aging parents, and helping my kids navigate the emotional and logistical terrain of a new school year.
My body was carrying a weariness, a heaviness, that I had been willfully ignoring for a long time.
So I settled myself onto our stoop, feeling the support of the wrought iron railing behind my back. I took in the verdant tones of our magnolia tree, our olive tree, our camellia. I noticed a few yellow leaves nestled among all the green. I noticed the cooler shift in the breeze that had been warm just a few days earlier.
I pet my cat Midnight, who always senses and shows up when I slow down, modeling his ethos by lying on his back, stretching his limbs, and presenting his belly for a rub.
Midnight, my cat and rest mentor
About three minutes into this break, the drill sergeant was back, urging me on with suggestions, then demands. You need to put the laundry in. You need to make the kids a snack. What about those emails you need to send? Come on–COME ON–you’re wasting time.
But my surrender to the stoop anchored me. Just 10 minutes, the deeper, gentler voice asserted.
It felt so good to pause.
To be with the life around me, to remember that I was a body as much as a mind, to accept the fatigue and respond to it with care rather than judgment, to respond to what was rather demanding it be different.
Ten minutes became 20, then 30. Long enough for this simple act of care to register and integrate. For my nervous system to notice and trust me just a little bit more. (Nervous systems move at the speed of trust.) This pause refreshed me and gave me enough energy for the rest of the evening, so I could move forward without resentment, desperation, and snapping at everyone around me.
I remember a quote that a friend shared with me shortly before my health odyssey began: “If you don’t make time for your wellness, you will be forced to make time for your illness.” Followed by an additional line of instruction: “Read that again.”
I still forget how to do this.
During my mom’s surgeries and all the management of her care with my sisters, I began responding to every text with urgency, confusing urgency with love. Time I would have liked to spend doing movement classes at the neighborhood community center, meeting with my online somatic community, going for walks, or just lying down was instead spent grocery shopping, booking hotels, communicating with medical staff, and driving my parents to pre- and post-op appointments.
Sometimes this is just life.
As a mom of young kids and a daughter-caregiver of deteriorating parents, I’ll never squeeze in as much mindfulness or rest as I would like.
But I can do it for a few minutes at a time. A brief somatic check-in, a sacred pause to acknowledge the conditions I am in before I take the next action. Which helps me remember that a regulated nervous system is not one that never gets overwhelmed; it is one that responds to the inevitable strains of life with care.
And because I regularly offer check-ins and grounding practices with others in my sessions as a somatic facilitator, I experiment with them more often in my daily life, and in the tough times I have been trained to push through.
I’ll be sharing more stories of rest and unrest in the coming months, and I look forward to hearing yours.
And I hope you might join me at my free virtual Sacred Rest gathering (every Thursday!)
(Can’t make the virtual class? Contact me to receive a recording you can access on your own schedule.)
Your rest friend,
Stacy
WEEKLY SACRED REST
Date: Every Thursday
Time: 5:30-6:30 pm PST
Where: On Zoom
JOIN ZOOM MEETING:
https://zoom.us/j/97764119321?pwd=5vtWbSnjNGjKBL6aqqQdJ5GZM9f3Cm.1
Meeting ID: 977 6411 9321
