Hey you. Welcome in. I’m really glad you’re here.

When was the last time you rested? In earnest? Truthfully, gleefully, intentionally set your life aside to carve out a crevice of rest? When was the last time you did that without guilt coming along for the ride? For many of us, the answer spans from ‘I can’t remember’ to ‘I don’t think I’ve ever managed that.’ How human of us.

Today, we’re exploring the relationship between self-worth, hustle culture, and rest. We’ll challenge our cultural narrative around “hustling” and get curious about coming back to our self-worth. We’ll start with a conversation about burnout then, we’ll move towards rest and stay there. This can be an activating topic, so take care of yourself.

If this feels like too much to engage with right now, this is the essence: You deserve rest. Cocooning inwards is a right that you do not have to earn. Poet Galway Kinnel says, “Sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness.” More on this, soon.

ON HustlinG

“Hustle” culture is a narrative that preaches: the more work, the better. I don’t need to introduce this idea to you. You’ve lived it. It shows up in every frame of our lives: Work, academia, relationships with family/friends, health and wellness, financial well-being - the list goes on. In exchange for long hours, a packed schedule, and emotional exhaustion, we are promised the sweet nectar of success, recognition, and happiness. Our self-worth hangs in the balance.

And you may have found that the promise was empty. Fool’s gold. You’ve worked so hard only to find that contentment, and a sense of peace, seems as out of reach as. Hustle culture whispers, “Just a little further. Almost there. Keep going.”

And if someone was selling that to you, you probably wouldn’t buy it. But we all own it, in some form or another. Maybe it was a hand-me-down from someone in your family. Maybe it was framed as ‘the only way’ to succeed and find happiness. Maybe there’s a piece of you that worries that if you stopped to rest, even just for a moment, that you would never start again. The bottom line – it is not your fault that you feel this way. It’s woven through the fabric of our lives.

And hustle culture isn’t likely to slow down for us. Nor will it support our desire to take a step away from our constant doing, striving, and achieving. The onus to lean towards simply being is in our hands. Throughout my journey of slowly backing away from this concept of hustle, I’ve often wished for someone to be the adult lifeguard of my life – to blow the whistle so that everyone gets out of the pool, leaving me to eat a proverbial snack in the sun, shame-free. In other words, if everyone would rest alongside me, it would feel much more acceptable to just be.

But here’s what I’ve found – not only do we get to be our own lifeguard, sometimes we have to be. Sometimes resting is not the easy choice; it does not feel intuitive or rewarding at the moment. And everyone isn’t going to do it. Maybe, it’s just you. But I would argue that in the moments that we are so passionately resisting the break, so insistent that we can stay in the pool, might just be when we need rest most of all.

Your nervous system, hustling

I want to take a few moments here to acknowledge the nervous system and its sweet caretaking of us while we engage with hustle culture.

Our nervous system is flexible, like the dear friend that always says, “I’m up for anything.” So when we steep ourselves in stress and constant doing, our nervous system reaches to support us. It adjusts, responding with, “Okay. This is the way things are now. This is what we’re doing.” So as we spend our days in a state of stress, our nervous system grows accustomed to existing in this activated, fight-or-flight state. This energy becomes our new baseline, our jumping off point to engage with the world around us.

Eventually, your nervous system will start speaking back. Asking you, perhaps subtly at first, to please slow down. When we ignore it for long enough, it might plead with us to listen – to give ourselves the rest that we so desperately need.

In a culture that doesn’t teach us how to stay connected and attuned with the sensations of our body, it’s easy to miss the signs. How human of us. The process of reconnecting with rest is intricately connected with befriending our nervous system, perhaps starting with, “I’m sorry that I ignored you for so long. I am here. I am ready to listen to you.”

Reclaiming Rest

So we are tasked with reteaching ourselves our loveliness. Our innate worthiness. The simple truth that we do not have to earn our right to just be. Our worth comes from who we are, not what we’ve achieved. We are irrevocably deserving of deep rest.

The process of tuning back into ourselves, of stepping out of our own way, might be long and nonlinear. Unlearning our propensity to hustle, especially when it’s actively reinforced by our culture, takes time, effort, patience, and compassion. We will still hear the siren calls of achievement. But as we heal this part of ourselves, we’ll acknowledge the call and come back to our worth. It might sound like..

There’s a lot for me to accomplish today. That feels really overwhelming and I choose to allow myself to rest. I’m carving out this hour not because I have so much to do, but because I deserve it.
I acknowledge these feelings of stress and overwhelm, while staying with the truth that my worth does not rest on my ability to achieve.
Wow, hustle culture is really loud right now. I’m choosing to give my nervous system the break that it needs. I’m deciding to give myself the most nourishing medicine right now.
My nervous system deserves this moment of peace. I give myself permission to just be. I know that the feeling of guilt or shame might sneak in. That’s okay. I can acknowledge it and continue to unsubscribe from the narrative of hustle culture.

Like oil and water, our belief in our goodness will slowly and distinctly separate from our sense of achievement. We might start to move from a place of deep-knowing that while our accomplishments are important, they are not the bedrock of our being.

Incorporating deep rest

Like all new things, let’s start small here. Be gentle with yourself as you lean into something unfamiliar. When we begin to settle into rest, it will feel uncomfortable. You might be thinking, ‘I’m so exhausted. I promise it won’t.’ And while it may feel soothing at first, the whispers of productivity will sneak in, volume getting intermittently louder. This might be in the form of thoughts (listing all that you need to do or thinking you do not deserve to rest), emotions (anxiety, fear, shame, guilt, sadness) or body sensation (a rapid heart rate, tingling, a pit in your stomach.)

Like we touched on earlier, your nervous system might actually feel on edge when you reach towards rest. Our nervous system has lovingly agreed to meet us in our constant state of stress – growing used to this revved up way of being. As a result, a newfound sense of serenity feels uncertain and unfamiliar. We can make space for that discomfort while compassionately telling our nervous system,

“You’re safe. It’s okay. I know we’ve been hustling for so long. I know that we’re used to living in an activated, chaotic state, but we’re trying something new. I promise to stay with you in it.”

Here are a few things to try as we slowly, gently start to integrate deep rest into our daily lives:

1.Scheduling rest

I am a passionate advocate of scheduling rest. I know it sounds cringey, and while it would be ideal if we could rest when we feel we intuitively need it, the pace of life will almost always get in the way. So when can you carve out time for rest? Commit moments just for you? Mornings are my favorite time for deep rest. When I can, I like to carve out one weekend morning to melt completely into rest, whatever that may be.

2.Finding What feels most restful to you

Get curious about what works for you. It might be meditation, cooking, drawing, napping, reading, or gentle stretching. I will challenge you here: you might be doing something that cloaks itself as rest. Maybe you love to clean while listening to a podcast - while enjoyable, this isn’t inherently restful. As pleasurable as binge watching friends can be, it’s a distraction from our lives, rather than a presence within them.

3.Setting rest boundaries

This can feel so hard, but setting our boundaries, in advance, can help us withstand the siren calls of productivity or responsibility. This can look like so many things, but here are a few examples:

Making your scheduled rest known to those around you i.e ‘I have 10am-12 pm every Tuesday carved out for myself. I would be really grateful if you could respect this time.’
Or saying to a loved one, ‘I’m feeling exhausted. I would like to take the rest of the day to attend to my needs. Would that be okay with you?’
Setting boundaries with your technology - this can be difficult, but is so important. This might be, setting an automatic email responder for a weekend or one day of the week, putting your phone on do-not-disturb, or leaving it in a drawer for an hour or a day while you tend to your need for rest.

I’ll leave you with this quote from Tricia Hersey author of Rest as Resistance: A Manifesto:

Treating each other and ourselves with care isn’t a luxury, but an absolute necessity if we’re going to thrive. Resting isn’t an afterthought, but a basic part of being human.”

If you feel pulled toward this topic and want to work with one of our clinicians on burnout, stress, and anixety reach out for a free 15-minute consultation. If you’re interested in therapy but a little unsure, this is a good way to dip your toe in the pool.

〰️ As always, be gentle with yourself and stay with the truth that you are deserving of this very moment of rest.