Rest for the Wicked

I once had a dream that all my teeth fell out. I was eight and I didn’t see the need to brush my teeth before bed when I’m obliged to do it first thing every morning. After all, it’s not like I was going to eat anything during that time spent sleeping.

I’ve had a few dreams like it dotted throughout the years ever since, something awful happening to my teeth. But all it took was that one dream to convince me to do what my mother’s words couldn’t.

In today’s world, where self-care and rest are priorities, the notion of burnout – which has been hiding in the shadows for the past couple of years, is being brought to light, deconstructed and de-stigmatised. Essentially because the whole world has been made to slow down or in some instances, to stop altogether. In this forced stillness, what are we to do but reflect on the pace of what was, as it slowly becomes outdated?

While taking time to be physically still, and making space to do nothing are vital parts of rest and recuperation, I’ve come to realise, in this age where there isn’t much to do except that, to be still isn’t all there is.

Resting is not only of the physical body, but it’s also of the mind, the spirit, and the heart. If rest is peace of mind, then to rest is also to do, with open eyes.

In the first few days of summer 2008, my brother and I were playing in the backyard. I watched as he climbed up the gumtree that was about twice as tall as our one-story house, pretending I wasn’t impressed. I declared that I could climb higher, which I did, only to fall a few moments later. I used my right arm to break my fall, which in turn meant that I had a broken right arm and a heavy bruise on the left side of my forehead. I was ten (nearly eleven) years old.

I had to wear a cast for five weeks and there were four weeks left of the summer holidays so you could imagine just how shattered I was. Every time the ice-cream truck drove through my street, I couldn’t run out with my brother and little sister to chase it. I couldn’t ride my new bike that I’d gotten that Christmas with the kids around the neighbourhood. I couldn’t play patty-cake or braid hair when my cousins would come over and we’d play dress up.

That was it. No more tree climbing, sock wrestling or taking a shower without assistance. Do you think I listened? Absolutely not.

I would make various attempts to participate in all those things, only to get caught and scorned by my mother and form aches in the same spot in my casted arm that had lost its clean white appearance and succumbed to preteen grime.

One evening, my mother had become fed up with my antics and sent me straight to bed after dinner. It was 7:30 pm and the sun was still out. It was just unheard of.

After about an hour of sulking in my bed, my mother came into my bedroom. I faced the wall as she entered, mainly so that my irritability would ward off any other attempts she would make to scorn me, but also to hide the fact that I was angry crying.

She sat patiently on the floor by my bed and waited until I faced her. When I did, she spoke, and her words were small and simple.

You need to rest so you could give your arm a chance to recover. Otherwise, how is it to mend?

She then told me a story that her mother told her when she was a child, swimming in the deep River Nile at times when she shouldn’t.

When lizards lose a limb, they can grow it back. But you would never see one behave so recklessly with their arms and legs because of it. Even they understand the importance of rest and how it cannot be rushed, only given time.

There were many things I noticed and lessons that I learned from that interaction all those years ago.

I noticed that I had a real issue with forced stillness, but even so, I learned then, that if you look after your body, you’re not only sending it a message, but you’re encouraging it to look after you.

It was also the first time that I truly saw my mother.

She was a single parent to four young kids, a migrant African woman raising her children in a lively suburb in Australia. I knew then, though the words were never said, spoken into existence. I’d see it in the way she folded our clothes, and how her hands, calloused with labour, would come alive when she’d cook for us. How her vibrant eyes looked at me while she dressed me for school.

I’d realised that I had never seen my mother rest. She often fell asleep after everyone else did and was out of bed before everyone at the start of each day. And yet, in my eyes then, she was the most unbroken person I knew.

All these years later and my mother still calls me every now and again, reminding me to take it slow on my drive home from work on a Tuesday evening. To create some stillness in my life, even though she knows I’m searching and living by my guides, but still, I say into the reliever: 'I know Ma, I know.'

So from one wise woman to the next, here are my guides to living a rested and recharged life.

Spend some time in nature. It seems so obvious and essential, but why is it the thing we do least of when life gets a bit busy?

I say make it a daily habit, and if that seems too ambitious, start slow. Take some time to immerse at least one of the five senses a day. It could be breathing in some fresh air or listening to the sounds of rain. Hiking to the highest point of your hometown or taking the long way home with your windows rolled down. You are part of this natural world and the ecosystems within it, let it recharge you and your spirit will thank you for it.

Eat some good food - I don’t mean food with incredible nutritional value, even though to do so a couple of times a week is good for your body. I mean food that is good for your soul. Something that is made with love by somebody you love. Every once in a while, go to a family owned restaurant in you area or a place where you feel at home to eat some food given time and made with immense love. Even if it’s made by yourself, for yourself. Even if it's a grilled cheese sandwich or a bagel. You could even ask your friend for their favourite recipe and share a meal together. My belief is that if it's made with love, it's good for the soul.

Find a way to express yourself!

If you don’t write, paint, if you don't paint, draw, or dance, or go for a run or a walk, or simply just record yourself talking to you. A future version of yourself, an hour into the future or the 'you' of a few decades passed. We spend most days riding the waves of our emotions, take some time to let it out.

Play! – whatever that means for you. Find something that sets your soul on fire, and make sure you’re doing enough of it.

Three years ago, right after I graduated from university and found a job in the arts, naturally, the structure of my day to day changed. I no longer needed to commute for an hour to get to class, I had a full-time job and a car. In many ways, the dust that is kicked up from the hustle of those university years and working two part-time jobs had settled. But by that point, I was feeling the most tired I’ve ever been.

I found that no matter how much sleep I got, I’d always wake up feeling sleep deprived and endure the day in a state of utter lethargy. After months of this, I went and saw a doctor who ran some tests and told me that I was not only iron deficient, but also anemic.

There was nothing to worry about, he assured me, anemia is very common amongst young women. Just take your iron supplements and you’ll be right as rain. Do you think I did? – Absolutely not, well, not immediately anyway.

The obvious solution in my head was just to rest, to sleep. So much so that it became all I did and what I most looked forward to at the end of the workday. I’d get home, take a nap, have dinner and go to bed. But I wasn’t resting, even though resting was all I thought I was doing. How can it be when copious amounts of sleep never felt like enough? When every time I would lie on my bed it felt like my bones were made of lead and that the mattress was going to swallow me whole?

Still, I saw no major issues, mainly because sleeping when my body was that exhausted just felt so damn good.

I remember waking up one Thursday evening from a nap I took after work, and my older sister was sitting on the edge of my bed, smiling at me like I’d made some bad joke – or rather – like I was one. She’d moved an hour away to the city by this point and I hadn’t seen her in weeks. When I queried what she was doing here at such a random time and why she visits so little, she laughed and said she’s been coming every second Thursday. Every second Thursday and it’s the same thing, mum welcomes her in, they have dinner together, she greets the other siblings, but never me, because I’m always asleep.

I laughed, but I remember feeling rather silly. I told her I had anemia and she said she knew, because she did too. My older sister smiled at me kindly and simply said:

‘We rest to live, Kia, we don’t live to rest.’

Three years on, and those words still play on my mind from time to time. I needed to rest my body in order to overcome the anemia and everything that came with it, not by dazing in bed under the covers and endless sleep, but by giving my body what it needs so it could give back to me. That meant taking supplements and getting an infusion and improving my diet. Even if it took me some time to wrap my head around.

Because, unlike a broken arm, anemia was something I couldn’t see with my eyes.

The lessons I learned from my journey through anemia and into wellness are some I still practice today.

Tune into your body throughout the day. Take notice of your natural rhythm of breathing, your posture, what aches at what point, and listen to it. It won’t shut up, which is what’s glorious about the human body, with time, it will only get louder.

Don't be afraid of your alarm.

On the mornings when you must be up before your slumber is complete, choose an alarm that will wake you, but in a calm and gentle way. A sound or a song because that will be what gently pulls you out of the dream world and into this one.

Find some time to tend and care for a plant. If you don’t have a plant, adopt one and place it in a space you spend some time in. Learn about it and take care of it.

Reflect on yourself - On your emotions, without judgment. Look back on the things you wrote, photos you took, text messages you sent telling your mother you love her, voice notes you recorded, playlists you created. Because sometimes it's hard to see how far we've come when we don't look back.

Indulge in things that bring you great comfort!

Light your favourite candle, take a bath in your favourite soap, wear your comfiest hoodie and your favourite perfume. Take some time to watch one of your favourite movies or tv series. You enjoy those things for a reason, it’s okay to passively or passionately indulge in them. None of these things are rewards for enduring the day, taking time to relax and unwind is not a luxury, but rather a necessity.

Perform at least three acts of self-care before bed. It can be as easy as taking a long shower or washing your face, cleaning your teeth or brushing your hair, making a cup of tea, or moisturising your body. Do it, until those things, those routines become ritual. If we were to simplify these things and peer into its core, it’s looking at yourself, your skin, your being and saying – hey, I care about you.

As we grow and change and as our vantage points shift, the very essence of what keeps us going doesn’t. It merely evolves and adapts as we do. To rest is to search and find what our wants and needs are and how they can be met, so that rest comes as easily as the night, allowing and giving space for us to be the best versions of ourselves by day.