Depressing stuff

Resisting a Rest

The pressure of daily life builds up over time, making it seem like living in a pressure cooker is normal. The race against time, meeting deadlines, earning enough to pay the bills, trying to do all that needs doing each day, creates tension between all the competing demands. Juggling jobs and families, schools and friends, sleep and social media, sanity and success, has us hustling, here and there, day and night, to keep all those fragile eggs in the air. That high wire balancing act, juggling, racing, cooking, has a momentum of its own and it can feel like if we ever slow down, even for a moment, all the moving pieces will crash down around us and crush us under all the weight. We are so used to running and so committed to the grind, that when the opportunity presents itself for us to take a rest, we habitually resist.

Carrying the weight of the world would crush anyone. Fortunately, the way things actually work is the world carries our weight, effortlessly. Carrying around our brains, the three pounds of meat in our heads, is no effort for us, but dealing with all the things our brains produce can take a lot of work. For our brains to work well, they need us to be out cold for around eight hours each day. When it comes time for us to go to sleep, we have to turn off our drive to do things, and allow our brains and bodies to rest. That moment, when we are able to turn everything off, stop doing anything, and just be, right where we are, as we are, at rest, feels so good that, naturally, we resist it.

The more we resist rest, the more we need it, and the better we feel when it happens. It's like taking a long drink of water to quench a deep thirst. We don't resist water when we're thirsty, but we resist rest when we are under stress. That unconscious resistance habit can be addressed by creating a conscious resting habit, not just when we sleep, but periodically through our waking hours.

The feeling of stress or distress at any point in the day can remind us to relax. Our instinctive habit is to tense up in response to stress, so to break that habit, we train ourselves to relax instead. When you catch yourself tensing up in a stressful moment, recognizing that feeling presents an opportunity to respond consciously rather than habitually. In that moment, stop fighting, feel what the stress feels like, be with the feeling a moment, then let out a long exhale. That first, conscious exhale will release some tension. To let go of more, take a second, third and fourth breath. As you practice responding to stressors with relaxation, you will start to find gaps in time, where for moments, now and again, you are at peace, releasing rather than accumulating tension.

It turns out that a lot of the stress we experience is extra. It's not always necessary. The idea that everything is so stressful and must be addressed with tension feeds the resistance to relaxing, so acknowledging the tension, feeling the stress, and relaxing anyway is how we develop the new habit. As we practice feeling and releasing tension, breathing calmly, and feeling at ease several times a day, we stop habitual resistance and begin habitual relaxation.

Instead of juggling eggs, we can conduct orchestras. Instead of racing against time, we go with time's flow, doing whatever we need to do and feeling whatever feelings that brings up. Life will still be tiring, exhausting, trying, maddening, and stressful at times, but when we can recognize those feelings, feel them, and breathe calmly, relaxing into them, they don't wear us down as they did. When we can recognize that our stress is more about how we think about things and less about how they are, then we gain as bit of control. In any moment we can notice our thinking, notice our feeling, take a breath, let it all go, and allow ourselves a moment of rest. Why resist?