Two Four Letter Words: Must Rest

[Intro] Hello and welcome to my podcast, Empowered to Thrive. I'm your host, Corinne Powell. I'm an intuitive guide and I absolutely love helping people to heal from within so that they can create a life that they love, a life that they enjoy.

We weren't meant to just tolerate and get through life. We were meant to thrive and enjoy the life we're living. Of course, we will have seasons and moments that are difficult and challenging.

And the beauty of it is that we can be supported in those moments. I am here to be an aid and a guide to support you. And I hope that you will enjoy not only today's episode, but some of the past episodes if you haven't heard them yet.

On this podcast, I talk about all things inner wellness. We also sprinkle in some spirituality and parenting because as a mom to three kids, parenting is a big part of my life. I hope that you enjoy the episode and that there's at least one thing you'll pull from it and start to implement into your own life.

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Hi friends. I am super happy to be with you and I want to talk about the last week and what I've had to do to let my body rest. And I want to talk about this because I feel like it's relevant to all of us.

And it really is something that I have not heard spoken on enough. And for sure, I did not hear it enough when I was growing up. It was more or less looked down upon and taboo to slow down the pace of life and rest.

And so I was very conditioned to go, go, go at the expense of my body, at the expense of my energy. And I learned to live that way. So for any of you listening that feel like you either saw a model of that lifestyle or you were surrounded by voices and mindsets that would have said to be productive is good and to be lazy is not.

And to be lazy would have been defined as, say, watching a movie in the middle of the day or not getting up and doing when other people were busy doing things. So if I was in a room full of people that were all cleaning up, then I translated that to mean I needed to jump in and help them, even if it wasn't the best thing for me to do. 

And I know that this is not exclusive to me. So for any of you that identify, I first want to say you have full permission to take breaks, to be easy on yourself, to rest when you need, and to disappoint other people. By saying that, I'm not trying to minimize the fact that we need to also be responsible, stick with our commitments, have good follow through, and be productive. I believe there is space for both, to hold both, and it can look like rest as productivity.

So this last week, I basically came to my office last Tuesday and knew the tasks I needed to do, but did not have the mental capacity to get those tasks done. So I stood here at my desk, and I tried, and I said, nothing's coming, like I just can't make this happen. My work, of course, is very heart involved, and I can't just make that happen.

If I'm going to write a caption to go along with a post that's going to show up on your social media feed, I need to be able to engage my heart with those words so that you and I are engaging as you read that caption. I just wasn't in that place last week. It was a slow, gradual buildup that had gotten me to that place, and I basically said I need to clear my schedule for the following day and just rest, and that looked like taking a long nap.

For me, I love being outdoors and walking. Moving your body is going to be a way to help yourself out. For me, it looks like taking a walk.

I watched a movie in the middle of the day. That's something I don't typically do. The few times I'll sit with my kids and watch a movie during the day, it's very intentional.

It's deliberate on my part, and I have at least gotten comfortable with that, but to watch a movie by myself really meant I was taking some R&R, and it was what I needed to do. I also made sure I didn't put pressure on myself, even though I was home. I didn't put pressure on myself to do housework, to take care of my kids.

It was a day I was supposed to be in the office, so I treated it like a day off, and it was super nourishing to my body, to my mind, and to my soul, but it wasn't quite enough, so my next day in the office was going to be Saturday, which meant Thursday and Friday were my days with my kids, so on the days I'm with my children, my husband's working all day, I'm not just doing the cleaning and the cooking and the laundry, but I'm managing my kids and usually getting together with friends, especially since it's summertime and everyone's schedules are a little bit more open. We use those days to connect with friends for a few hours of each day. They're very busy and full days for me.

They're actually more challenging than my days in the office because it's so different to be with your children and to be intentional in parenting than to do work you love, and I love my children, and I love being their mom, but it is very demanding. It is hard work, and so all of that to say, by the time Saturday came and I was supposed to be going into my office again, I knew I wasn't there yet. I was not at a place that I was going to be able to sit down and write those captions to the posts.

I wasn't in a place that I could have pushed myself on Saturday more so, whereas Tuesday, I just couldn't even, I tried. I was in my office. I took a walk outdoors and came back into the office hoping I'd be able to integrate myself into my work.

I did have my client sessions, and that I was able to engage in in a different sort of way, but I just couldn't get the other tasks done. So Saturday, I could have pushed through, but I knew it would have been to my detriment. It wouldn't have been the best thing for me to do.

It would have meant I was still set back, and I wanted to recover. I wanted to actually get to the place where I felt ready to continue my work and not needing to keep taking days off, not that there's anything the matter with taking days off. I just wanted to be in that place where I could if I chose to take a day off, but I didn't want to feel like I had to.

And so Saturday meant I again didn't come to the office. I took another very long nap, three hours, and I want to touch on resting and how you can get your body to be able to rest. And I took another walk because again, remember, I love taking walks.

I did a few other things that felt restful, and I actually had moments where I felt like I was being so unproductive, like getting in my car because I'm enjoying an audio book I'm listening to and taking a drive and just driving, grabbing a coffee on the way and just driving, listening to my audio book and just driving and saying, I don't really know where I'm going. I just feel like I need to let myself have this space that it doesn't make sense. It feels super like just as if I was almost lost, but not.

And I let myself, I let myself just drive. And then I landed in an area where I said, hey, let me see what park is nearby. And I found a park and I walked the trail and I went home and I took a bubble bath and I still didn't, I still felt sort of out of sorts, but I knew that I helped myself out by doing what I did.

I woke up on Sunday morning feeling so well. I didn't go to sleep on Saturday night feeling that well, but I woke up Sunday morning being ready for the day. And my day consisted of cleaning an Airbnb.

And before I left to do that, I cooked a couple meals so that I wouldn't have to worry about cooking for the next couple of days. And I didn't go overboard. I actually had energy to do some of the tasks that I would routinely do in a day.

When I got back from cleaning the Airbnb, it was a slower paced evening. And that led me into yesterday, which was another day with my children. And again, I navigated the day in a gentle sort of way.

So I had to be up, I had to be doing things, but I also took those moments that I could pause and I paused. And I engaged with my children in a way that felt light. And a part of me isn't even sure I know how to articulate, but I hope that you're catching from what I'm saying, that the point is we're going to either choose rest or rest is going to be demanded.

And I have created a lifestyle that is slower-paced. I used to go, go, go and make multiple plans in a day and go from one thing to another thing to another thing from morning until night. I don't do that anymore. If we make plans, we usually make one plan. Like we're going to get together with friends, we're going to have one get together that day. 

It's going to be maybe three to four hours. And I'm not going to plan other things in the morning and in the evening. It's not always the case, but it's more my norm than what was my norm in the past. That was deliberate and intentional.

It meant that I had to say no to a lot more. I had to basically change the expectations because for me, I was expecting of myself to get together with friends frequently and frequently looked like maybe every couple of weeks to keep my connection with them. But I knew that if I was going to fill up my calendar less, it meant I was going to need to space out my visits with friends instead of a couple weeks, maybe a couple months or a few months in between visits. And we have a lot of friends. So I've had to be intentional. 

It's not because I want to disappoint people. It's not because I don't want to be with my friends more often. But I knew that for my body and for my family's lifestyle, it was going to be better for me to create a slower pace. And that has been my goal.

But here I am saying that I still got to the place where I had to abruptly stop. And I had to abruptly stop because my mind and my body were saying, we can't keep up. And if I was to look at the last month or two, we might be able to see patterns.

And we would probably be able to see ways that this was slowly coming. But that's where I landed last week. I didn't know I was going to get to that place.

Once I got there, I looked at, I confronted it. And I said, I will treat my body with kindness and love. And I will slow down everything.

And if that means you need to take things off of your scheduler, if it means you need to change plans, which disappoint people, I'm here to say that's necessary and okay. And it's going to land you in a better spot down the road. I am back today with more energy, with more motivation, with more insight than I had a week ago.

Because the rest is productive. And if you are not used to hearing that, then I understand it's going to be shocking to your system to hear rest is productive. But I am convinced that if I had not rested, I would not be standing here today able to share these things with you.

So this is the start. This is the start. And I'm going to continue the next episode with more on this topic.

And I want to specifically talk about how we can help our bodies to rest and to be able to sleep. Because you can be doing the best you can. But if you can't get yourself to be able to rest and sleep, then that's where we need to start.

As always, send me any questions or comments and we can keep this conversation going. 

[Ending] We've come to the end. What did you think about what you heard? I hope that there's something you pull from today's episode and start implementing it into your life.

Create the change that you want to see, the change that you hear about. You have the opportunity to transform your life. And I'm ready to link arms with you and to help and guide you to the life that you want to live.

If you resonated with what you heard today and it touched you, would you share it with your friends? Would you also go ahead and rate my podcast and write a written review? It would mean so much to me. I hope that we'll connect, whether it's for a session or just to connect because I enjoy meeting new people. You can find me on Instagram, @corinne_changeradically⁠, or on Facebook, ⁠Change Radically.

You can also always email me, corinne@changeradically.com. If you have thoughts, questions, or anything that you just want to talk about, send me an email. 

I hope that you have a wonderful week, but no matter what your week is like, in the moments that are quiet, maybe it's when you pillow your head at night or when you're driving in the car or taking a walk, or maybe it's going to be in the midst of the chaos with your children or the craziness of work, I hope that you'll remember how significant you are, that there is meaning and value to your life. And that I, for one, am so glad that you're alive.

Catch you again next week.