May's Vessel — A Place To Play

Happy end of May, my friends,

• I’m waking up several hours before my alarm (in a good way) and let my day slowly unfold with the daylight. I find that I’m easily moving towards what needs to be done by 8:30, which is around the time I had been waking up all winter long.

• I’ve started swapping morning warm, sometimes caffeinated, beverages for iced ones mid-afternoon (but still before the caffeine cut-off of 3PM!). I don’t need the rocket boosters for work until midday.

• Around high-noon, I’m compelled to do computer work with my ass firmly nestled into the grass of my front lawn, rather than within the torturous containment of a four-walled structure. My nervous system is not only soothed by this, but I find myself actually feeling happy about getting work done. Huzzah.

If these aren’t enough signals to know that we’ve arrived in the summer months, I don’t know what is.

I’m curious what signals you’re noticing that tell you that the season shift is fully underway. I’d love to hear what they are.

In addition to all of these little day-to-day shifts, there is one very large shift that signifies to me the luxurious exhale of, “ah, yes, we’ve made it,” that takes place in my spare time. What I tend to do in my free time is a dead-ringer for a season shift, and this season is no different.

But before we get to the vessel of the month, let’s visit another recent change over here at The Art of Rest.

For those of you who keep up with all of our newsletters, this may be obvious and top of mind. However, for those of you who peruse at will, you might not know that last month, we shifted from our typical Tree of the Month Club into a vessel of the month club. Not only am I so glad we did that, but my vessel this month was an absolute no-brainer for me.

Now behold, the vessel of my play.

Y’all have heard me gush about pursuing The Art of Rest on more than one occasion. It is something I am constantly seeking, and always finding slipping out of my grasp in one way or another. Or gathering perfectly, only to have it last for a week as the causes and conditions of my life sweep the pursuit into a new phase, yet again.

While the baseline of my life as “rest” is something I’m constantly striving for (with rest meaning something more along the lines of a meaning-based life, rather than lying on the carpet as a puddle of a blob), I think it might surprise people to hear that when we are the most burnt out, rest is not exactly the thing we should be seeking as the antidote.

In fact, there is nothing more substantial I have found in my life—as the antidote to burnout—as joy.

I could get all nervous-system nerdy with this, but I think in its most simple explanation, burnout and shifting away from burnout goes something like this:

Burnout is using tomorrow’s resources for today.

You are overriding your need for sleep, exercise, social connection, rest—whatever it is—for presence and productivity in the here and now. It’s not a renewable resource; it’s a borrowed one.

When you do this enough times in a row, you end up with an empty cup and a grumpy, cynical, imbittered demeanor. In other words, you’ve got nothing left.

Joy is the experience of letting life permeate you and touch your tender little heart in the here and the now. It’s filling the cup, but it also doesn’t really need a cup at all. It’s drinking straight from the source.

It also can’t be accessed if you’re re-reading the meeting minutes of your fuck-ups from yesterday, or trying to pre-schedule tomorrow into perfection. Joy is only available in the moment that you’re in. It’s an infinite resource for as long as you can be fully present with it.

…Which, by the limitations of our human bodies and causes and conditions of our lives, isn’t something we’re capable of accessing all of the time. But just because we’re not capable of sustaining it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. We just might not have access to it every moment of every day.

And that’s a good thing, I promise.

Okay, but how does this philosophical pondering lead us to a big plastic death trap as our June vessel?

Ah, ha. Let me tell you. We’re nearly there.

I started kayaking a little over a year ago. I’m sure that I could probably still count on my fingers and toes all of the days that I have spent total in my plastic mermaid tail. It’s a new relationship and, to be honest, we’re very firmly still in our honeymoon phase. Perhaps dipping a bit into our power dynamic conditions, but the love is still delusionally silly and sweet.

As someone who has had an entire 16+ year career on whitewater in a big boat, I used to swear up and down that I would never, ever get in one of those boats. Although it’s a story for another time, slipping into my kayak a little over a year ago has become my happy place.

Why is that?

It’s because when I am in a kayak, squarely in my beginner’s mind, I cannot be anywhere else in the world, or else I go for a swim.

And frankly, even when I am fully present, I still go for a swim pretty frequently anyway.

The thing about learning to kayak is that, unless you’re unnecessarily skilled, brave, or stupid, it’s also not something that you can learn alone. Going out on stretches of water requires a buddy system to keep you safe when you’re first starting out. It requires friends lending a hand when you swim big rapids. It necessitates asking for help when you feel so anxious that you feel like you might cry at the put in, or right before a rapid you feel nervous about.

It’s coregulation.
It’s anxiety management.
It’s facing fears and settling into being a beginner.
It’s creative in nature.
It’s relational.

It’s just the right amount of building self-esteem, and being desperately humbled.

It feels like pure joy.

Now, I’m not saying that this vessel has solved all my problems. No vessel does. However, what I am saying is that amidst the crazy news cycle, a to-do list that seems to multiply while I sleep, and some big lifestyle shifts, kayaking has been something that feels like an easy “yes” to me lately. It also motivates me to work hard, so I can play harder.

If you’ve been on this journey with me for a while, it will come as no surprise that our bodies shift with each season. Summertime is easier on the body because we don’t have to worry about resources as much or surviving unpredictable changes that require external tools.

Sleeping often becomes easier to manage (even if we’re not getting as much of it), and our access to more social interactions, and activities increases.

It’s a great time to refill our vessels with something akin to joy, if not joy itself.

As you wrap up May, I’m curious:

• What levels of burnout:

  • Were you experiencing in the winter?

  • Are you experiencing it now?

• What has brought you joy recently?

  • How can you do more of it? Or make the most of the time with it that you have?

• What is the container of that joy?

  • How are you filling up that vessel?

  • How are you releasing things from it that don’t belong anymore?

If you’re interested in sharing, as per usual, I’d love to catch it.

Hope to see you out on the water soon.
Managing the best we can.

With big stoke, cleared-out sinuses, and a big plastic summertime vessel,
Dagny Rose

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