I’m Not Good At Resting, I Am Good At Doing “Things” Restfully

For most of my life I thought "rest" meant lying down and being still, and by that definition I basically never wanted to rest. Lying down and being still makes me want to crawl out of my own skin but, what actually restores me looks less like stillness. For me it’s painting, puttering, scrolling Facebook marketplace endlessly, coloring in a silly little book - mostly those meant for an elementary school kid sometimes, a cool adult coloring book. I do sit and stare but then I’m rearranging a room in my head or making mental notes of what fun videos I want to create. I’m a doer (of the explicit list of things I want to do) by nature, and it took me wildly long to understand that doing can be a form of rest, not the opposite of it.

But there is a second kind of rest I need too, and it only shows up on its own schedule - shout out the magnesium basically holding my entire life together. Some nights, usually earlier than I’d admit to, I just want to disappear into my room. I put on a show I’ve already seen 4700 times or, lie there in the quiet. That’s the rest that requires intention but really resets me. Not productive, just still.

This post contains a sponsored mention of Helix. That early retreat only works because the bed I’m retreating to is one I actually want to be in. Since switching to my Helix Plus mattress, that nightly disappearing act got a lot more appealing. It’s been the difference between forcing myself to wind down and actually wanting to. Laying there rubbing my feet together in the softest sheets, omg.

To take advantage of Helix’s Labor Day Sale and save up to 30% on select luxury mattresses check out Helix here.

I’ve been thinking about why active rest comes so naturally to me and still rest feels like something I have to schedule, almost negotiate with myself for?! Some of that is just personality. But some of it is probably bigger than me. Black women have historically not been afforded rest, full stop. Not as kids - Our moms often saying things like “go make yourself busy”), not as caregivers, not as workers who were expected to be endlessly capable and endlessly available. That expectation didn’t end when the historical conditions did. It just got quieter, and it got absorbed into things that look like choices now. The pride in never sitting down, the guilt that shows up the second you do, the reflex to need to justify a Tuesday afternoon nap like it’s a business decision, whew!

So when I say rest has to be intentional for me, I mean it in the fullest sense of that word. It’s not like a scheduling issue. It’s something I have to actively choose, on purpose, sometimes against a voice that was handed down to me insisting I hadn’t earned it yet. Retreating to my room at six o’clock (don’t judge me!!!) with a show I don’t need to pay attention to isn’t laziness. It’s a small repeated refusal of an old idea about what I owe everyone else with my time.

I don’t think I’ll ever be someone who rests by doing nothing persay. I’ll always be reaching for the paintbrush or the coloring book or the mental floor plan before I reach for stillness. But I’m learning to let both matter. The doing is rest. The disappearing into bed early is rest too apparently lol. And giving myself permission to want either one, without an explanation attached, might be the thing that things.

This post is sponsored by Helix.

Love you, mean it!
Kellie