We are sharing this chapter of Act, Rest, Reset, Repeat by Katie Hodgetts for members of our Hopeful Book Club.
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Chapter 11
The times are urgent; let us slow down
Bayo Akomolafe
If Rest was a person, she’d be lying on a sunlounger, cocktail in one hand and book in the other. She’d be blue skies and slow mornings, long walks and knitted jumpers. She’d be hygge and perpetually content. “Should” isn’t in her vocabulary. She would binge-watch all five series of Breaking Bad with no shame. She would enjoy the “fly” episode. She certainly wouldn’t be stranded in waves of existential questioning. Step One in learning how to rest is to erase this woman from your memory. Right now.
What stands in the way of meaningful rest is the idea that there is a right and a wrong way to do it. You might have experienced this first hand, when you finally try to rest after an arduous spell at work or school and somehow it feels like your body and mind are working against you. The slumbers aren’t deep enough. Your shoulders aren’t relaxed enough. Your mind isn’t present enough. You’re patiently waiting for a calm that doesn’t come. Let me introduce your mind beavers: furry little creatures that live in your brain. These clever little fellows live around your mind’s streams and rivers – your neural pathways. They build their cognitive dams in different places in your mind, often to hold back certain emotions, thoughts, questions and to keep your mental water levels consistent. Their dambuilding materials are often busyness, work, campaigns, hobbies and distractions; all employed to withhold certain things from leaking into the front of your psyche.
Busyness has become an epidemic and our mind beavers have been working overtime. When we were legally required to stop, during the COVID-19 lockdown, our mind beavers still found a way to learn Japanese, run 5km or perfect the sourdough loaf. We were finally afforded some space and rest but for fear of the dams bursting, and having to sit with what is, we were keen to build in new ways of distraction. This is no bad feat. Mind beavers are key architects in upholding a perceived semblance. Rather than intentionally suppressing emotion or thoughts, they are productive little workers attempting to protect you from larger, perhaps more unruly waters. Rest, or seizing their means of production, can therefore be uncomfortable as it disrupts a well-integrated, well-practised and well-respected system of business. Mind beavers have been running a life-time contract in your head and as their bourgeois ruler, you aren’t often generous with their holiday allowance. Burnout, the holy grail of beaver union action, calls for change.
Perhaps it’s not what Karl Marx would have wanted: to find communism, beavers and our internal cognitive landscape in an analogy. But it illustrates the complex systems in our brains that make slipping into a restful state a little more challenging. The expectation that taking rest is easy is where we often go wrong. This is magnified in the campaigning space, because rest oftens means stopping, which directly contradictions our slogans to “act now”. As our work is heart-led, rest can often be accompanied by guilt. Or it can also be understood as “bonus time” to think about strategy, campaigns or how to push for change in your organization. While admittedly great thoughts can come from rest, focusing on the productive outcomes of rest is mind-beaver trickery to dissuade us from prioritizing real, meaningful rest.
Rest Now, Not Later
The phrase “I will rest when …” is more trickery. I will rest when I’ve finished this essay or this campaign or this task, or when I have replied to all these emails or WhatsApp messages. While the intention of rest is a good first step, the “when” mentality delays rest and resilience for the future. The trouble is, once you’ve replied to those WhatsApp messages, the logic of conversation means that you will get more and your justification that “I will rest when I have replied to the WhatsApp messages” is reignited. If we assume the other person in this exchange subscribes to the same narrative, you will keep replying to messages backward and forward until you or the other person dies!
To exist in the present is to acknowledge that tasks and todo lists are an unrelenting cycle. Like dusting, wiping your surface once will not safeguard it from debris indefinitely. The dust will come again and the cycle of dusting will, by its very nature, continue forever. So, when rest is parked for the future, the future inevitably stays just that: not the present. Rest is kicked further down the line, sometimes until it’s too late.
Rest is Not a Reward
Rather than seeing rest as valuable for our work, we allow it to become a reward for work. Rest is considered a luxury rather than a necessity, often indulged in only after every ounce of effort is wrung out of us. While it is undeniably important to recuperate after intense labour, the benefits of prioritizing rest before and during periods of work are often underestimated.
Like most concepts in this book, I came by the value of rest through my own mistakes and observations. Rest was something I considered to be a “light” topic. It was helpful and “nice” but neither integral nor of spiritual importance. To me, rest was the opposite of productivity; it was synonymous with laziness, immobility, indulgence and lack of discipline. Rest was not compatible with a morning routine, a trip to the gym, a regulated nervous system or a healthy lifestyle. Therefore, in my early twenties I blended rest with “hangover” and “rested me” with “hungover me”. My hangover would consist of sleep, trash TV and as many sticks of garlic bread as limbs on my body. Most weekends I was ticking the rest box, yet I wouldn’t feel rejuvenated come Monday morning.
When my body pushed me into a state of enforced rest rather than optional rest around my first burnout, my examination was revived out of necessity. As I had redefined rest as the opposite of being productive, I first adopted the hangover mentality: sofa, horizontal body position, chickflicks, propping my head up on a battalion of garlic breads. For me, this didn’t feel as relaxing as I had anticipated. Why? Because lying on the sofa all day gave my mind space to run rampant, and what I truly needed was rest from my mind. I needed to stop thinking about planetary demise and campaigns and global politics. My enquiry led me to find an understanding of rest beyond taking a bath or the evening off or even going to the spa. I don’t attempt to devalue these as modalities of self-care; for me they are helpful and kind and wonderful, but not deeply restful. I knew that I was struggling with over-thinking, rumination and not knowing who I was beyond campaigning. As my rest was coming from exhaustion, I started thinking not around what was “restful” but “What activities increase my vitality?” Lying on the sofa did not. But climbing mountains did.
All these thinkings, from mountains to TV to cognitive beaver-communism, has led me to the work of Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, a US academic who introduced the idea that there are, in fact, seven types of rest. I chowed down on this concept, but hungry for an extra course and its relevance to activism, I worked with an international group of youth activists to introduce an eighth type of rest, which we imperfectly named “identity rest”.
The Eight Types of Rest
Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith broke ground by demonstrating that rest encompasses much more than simply shutting our eyes. She broke down rest into seven categories: physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social and spiritual.
- Physical Rest
Physical rest is perhaps the most familiar form and is comprised of both passive and active components. Passive physical rest includes the essential act of sleeping and napping, of which you might need eight to then hours daily. A more active physical rest involves activities that promote relaxation and recovery, such as gentle stretching, yoga or massage. Many people mistakenly equate rest solely with sleep. Dr Dalton-Smith emphasizes that sufficient quality sleep is just one part of physical restoration. Other examples of physical rest could include tai chi, gentle walks in nature or other activities that regulate your nervous system.
- mental Rest
Mental rest addresses the exhaustion caused by overthinking, constant decision-making and cognitive overload. This can be especially prevalent for campaigners and anyone working in social justice. It is not uncommon to hear of youths lying awake at night with racing thoughts about the world and struggling to focus during the day. To combat mental fatigue, she suggests incorporating mental breaks throughout the day, moments where the brain is free from intense concentration. Other activities include mindfulness, meditation, journalling, using a pocket diary to clear mental clutter or simply pausing work for a short, undistracted break outside.
- Sensory Rest
Our sensory attention is constantly occupied, from the glow of screens and flashing notifications to the incessant hum of urban life. Sensory overload leads to fatigue, irritability and even physical symptoms like headaches. Sensory rest involves intentionally reducing stimuli to give our senses a chance to recover. This can include dimming lights, muting unnecessary noise, setting aside technology-free time or stepping into nature. Sensory rest is what we achieve through our digital detoxes.
- Creative Rest
Creative rest is essential for those who engage in problemsolving, brainstorming or laptop work. The pressure to continuously innovate can leave people feeling uninspired and mentally blocked. Dr Dalton-Smith proposes that creative rest involves exposing yourself to sources of inspiration and awe, such as art and nature or engaging with beauty. Spending time outdoors, appreciating music or visiting a gallery can help reignite the spark of creativity and foster a sense of wonder. For those feeling creatively spent, creative rest restores their ability to generate new ideas and think imaginatively.
- Emotional Rest
Emotional rest means having the freedom to express your true feelings without fear of judgement, guilt or repercussion. Many people feel emotionally drained by the expectations of social roles or by suppressing their emotions to avoid conflict.
Dr Dalton-Smith advises seeking authentic connections with trusted individuals and giving yourself permission to share honestly and without masks. It also includes creating boundaries that reduce emotional labour, such as limiting interactions with draining people. In building a youth group to be one of care and compassion, you are fostering a sense of emotional rest, even if meeting together puts a strain on your calendar.
- Social Rest
Social rest is closely related to emotional rest but focuses on the dynamics of social interactions. It involves recognizing those relationships that energize us and those that drain us. Resting socially doesn’t necessarily mean isolation; rather, it means choosing to engage with people who provide positive energy and support, while setting boundaries with relationships that demand more than they give. Intentional solitude or seeking out supportive connections can fulfil social rest needs, especially for those who often find themselves feeling stretched thin in their social roles.
- Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is about feeling a deep sense of belonging, purpose and connection beyond oneself. For some, this comes through religious faith, meditation, community service or practising mindfulness. Engaging in activities that align with one’s values, volunteering or fostering a connection to something greater can provide profound spiritual fulfilment and peace. Spiritual rest can be understood as anything that allows people to reflect on their purpose and meaning.
- identity Rest
The model of the seven types of rest, while incredibly powerful, didn’t seem to wholly connect with the unique experience of young people striving for climate and social justice. So, I worked to co-design an eighth type with changemakers from 18 different countries to address these deficiencies. They coined something called “identity rest”. For changemakers, this involves stepping away from the roles and expectations society places upon them to be the generation to fix our problems. Identity rest is acknowledging that living in the polycrisis and being constantly visible leads us to occupy certain roles and identities, which come with set expectations. Living up to supposed expectations can weigh heavily on our energy reserves. If, say, you’re trying to be the “perfect climate activist”, this will leave you falling short of your own and others’ expectations 90 per cent of the time, due to the structures of modern living. For example, you will almost inevitably buy plastic, be that the container your tomatoes come in, a drink in your meal deal or your contact lenses. You might need to take a flight and you might also buy something that unbeknown to you involved exploitative conditions because capitalism is great at hiding injustice.
Identity rest is putting down the “activist” or “youth changemaker” or “facilitator” or “wise counsel” title momentarily and being a more expansive expression of ourselves, with space to be flawed and imperfect. In practical terms, this could look like resting from the expectations of “virtue”. You might rest from the expectation that you should be posting about every conflict in the world. It could be enjoying meat culturally or at Christmas or flying on a special holiday with your family. Identity rest is not giving up, it’s not ruining the planet and it’s not betraying the movement – it’s uncovering a deeper form of rest as a means to further sustain your movement, advocacy or change.
Of course, the term “identity rest” is fraught with difficulty. If your identity is marginalized, oppressed or scapegoated, resting from who you are is not a choice nor an option. Your identity may also be a source of pride. We recognized this tension and leave the title of this rest as the user’s choice. What “identity” aptly captures is allowing individuals to strip back the projections of who they are “supposed to be” – to recharge without constantly performing the role of “the advocate”, “the fighter” or “the leader”. Taking time to just be who you are, beyond the crises around us, is a powerful, transformative form of respite. When is the last time you did something entirely for you?
Denial Days
After my own burnout, I was lying on a UK beach with my friends when I started to develop the concept of denial days, which are similar to holiday days or annual leave. Just like time off, they are a set number of days where you’re given permission to switch off from the world and prioritize yourself. This means no listening to the news, no chat about your justice area and no checking notifications.
A part of my 21-year-old self wrestles back to this sentiment. She shrieks, “The privilege of it all! How dare you suggest we deny structures literally killing people. For so many there is no option for denial days! ‘Denial’ has cost our movement years.” And there is another part of 21-year-old me, the most tender part, whispering back, “Thank you for giving me permission to rest. I want to go to the beach with my friends today and talk about Little Mix.” To be clear, denial days are not permission for apathy. They are specific and time bound. They are chosen dates in the calendar where you get to install your software updates (more on that next). They are in service of your life, your vitality and your activism, not in contradiction of them. Sometimes we need to switch off to fully switch back on.
Take a moment to think about what a denial day would look like for you. What feels like it nourishes the you beyond activism? It might involve time with friends from home or muting/archiving group chats. Could you factor a denial day into a birthday gift you’d like to ask for, like seeing a musical, going to a gig or a day trip away? In this way, self-care starts to look far more expansive than a bath or a run. It becomes a cognitive and intentional decision we are proactively making, rather than passively consuming.
TATT – Tired All the Time
“Rest” has evolved into an amorphous, catch-all term. The same is true for the most used word in the English vernacular: tired, which has become so overused and unspecific that it’s hard not to go a day without hearing it. Everyone is tired. My friend, a doctor, said there is even an acronym for it they use: TATT (tired all the time). This friend claims he sees six to eight patients per day who have TATT. We’ve become so accustomed to using this word that we’ve neglected to further interrogate it. From a medical perspective, tiredness is a symptom of a never-ending list of various psychological, physiological and somatic happenings. Instead of simply treating the symptom, discerning the root cause is likely to have a longer lasting impact.
To begin this process, instead of your starting point being, “I’m tired, what can I do about it?”, I invite you to begin with a different question: not “What do I need?” but “Where are my deficiencies?”If you eat a largely plant-based diet, you might be deficient in iron or vitamin B12. So, get a blood test. Also sleep – it has magical powers. Covering your basics – food, sleep, water, nutrition – is an overlooked starting point, but it’s where I always begin. When you run into fatigue, resist the urge to fix it and first consider your sleep quality, the food you’ve eaten and how much water you’ve drunk.
Exercise: Why Am I Tired All The Time?
Objective: Once you’ve got your basics sorted, try to pinpoint the root cause of your tiredness.
Step One: What Is on My Plate Right Now?
Firstly, understand, name and write down everything that is on your plate, from personal to professional. Include the big questions and the small tasks. Nothing is too small – if it’s bothering you, write it down! Starting here allows us to see all our stresses on the page and perhaps bring ourselves a shade of compassion when we witness how much we’re holding. In detailing what’s on your plate, you can begin to explore how you feel about all these obstacles, relationships and challenges.
Step Two: Where Are My Deficiencies?
Consider overshoot (excess) and undershoot (deficiencies). We are often in overshoot with work, social commitments, our diet and stress, and undershoot in core requirements for the human spirit, such as play, creativity, connection, nature and fun. Consider the following examples of where your deficiencies may be.
- Long hours and multiple deadlines in sedentary work will leave you tired as you’re not being active, so when was the last time you engaged in play or creative rest?
- Dreaming up your own impact project will leave you tired, as it is heavy to hold all that on your own, so are you deficient in friendship and support or emotional rest?
- Running a home and a family will leave you tired because there are multiple demands on your time, so are you deficient in nourishing yourself the you beyond those demands? Is there a deficiency in your relationship with yourself, or “me time” or identity rest? When is the last time you did something just for you?
- Social media will leave you tired because it’s information overload. When did you last disengage from the digital sphere and immerse yourself in nature or sensory rest?
Step Three: What Do the Many “Me–s” Need?
Time may be linear, but your body is a hotel housing all of the past “yous”. They all live inside you and they all have needs. Inside me there is a 26-year-old who, in giving so much of herself to others, feels that she needs to hide away in solitude to reclaim her own soul. There is a 23-year-old who is devoted to acting on climate. There is a 20-year-old who loves a party and seeing the sun rise. And there is a very soft, sensitive little girl, unaware that her sensitivity will be devalued by the world she’s born into.
Sometimes I feel “tired” because these precious and flawed women are not being heard or nourished. For example, when I’m deep in work-mode, living a virtuous sober, vegan life, my party girl cries out that she is craving wildness or adventure. There are many “yous” inside you too. Ask yourself:
- Who are the different versions of me existing inside me?
- Who is my small child? What does she long for?
- Who is my teenager? What do they long for?
- What am I deficient in (see Step 2)? How can I start to incorporate these things into my life?
Installing Our Spiritual Software Updates
For all our arrogance, humans need updating too. After four intense years of dedicated work, growing The Resilience Project from a tiny seed to an international organization, navigating funding crises every cycle and personal stress outside my 9–5, I took a big chunk of rest in pursuit of the GROWTH Recovery Arc from Guidepost 5. With the support of my team, I took five weeks off and spent it chewing through these different forms of rest and really experiencing each of their impact on my body. I spent three days walking alone on the west coast of Scotland to explore physical and mental rest, crying alone in the hills when I realized that there was nothing “gentle” about this rest and I needed more softness. I also made time to visit my friends, gossiping over wine, stoking my identity rest of the virtuous activist. I made a lot of cakes, creatively resting. Some days I woke up at 6:30am and meditated. Some days I lay in until 11am and blissfully stayed in my pyjamas all day. These activities neither cost hundreds of pounds nor were hidden in exotic holidays. I didn’t do a ten-day vipassana or a pilgrimage or a therapeutic course or laughter yoga. I let joy and enjoyment guide me. I did not strive. Did not make goals. Did not excel. Did not pursue. I slowed down and reflected, yes, but more importantly I enjoyed enjoying my life. That was my mantra. Enjoy enjoying your life.
Over the weeks, I noticed changes taking place – better sleep, reduced cravings for sugar and a lighter spirit. Friends saw it too; they commented on the spark in my eyes and the calmness in my demeanour. Of course, not everyone can take five weeks off – in fact that’s very rare. What I advocate now in my life, working full time, is finding the small spaces where I can enjoy enjoying my life. This involves keeping at least two evenings free each week to prioritize the rest I need that day.
Any time of extended rest, non-striving or denial days, I liken to the body installing its psychological, spiritual and emotional software updates. Life moves at such an unrelenting pace that it’s easy to move from experience to experience without allowing the learnings to metabolize in the body. We change but we don’t notice. Sometimes change is obvious: dramatic life moments shift us instantly, pulling the ground from beneath our feet. Smaller moments can accumulate quietly, changing us without us even noticing. They can catch us off guard where we think, Where has the time gone? When did I change? Often this is a positive change; we become more self-assured as we age without even noticing or we become confident and proud in our difference. But other times, it can be less positive; the “work” takes over our personal life; we become alienated from those who don’t agree with our views; we become a version of who we think we should be rather than who we are deep down.
Installing your software updates is reclaiming time to simply be and process. When we look at our domestic landscape, maintenance is everywhere. We oil our bike chains, service our cars and pour salt in the dishwasher. We even replace our lightbulbs once in a while. They are required for smoother domestic life. Our internal life is no different and also requires maintenance. In the case of my phone, its software updates happen a few times a year. I am required to plug it into a power source and allow it the time it needs to pause and work its behind-the-scenes magic. Come morning, it’s installed.
While we certainly aren’t machines, perhaps in this instance we can pinch some wisdom from our gadgets. In the case of my own rest, I followed the phone instruction manual protocol. I knew software updates were needed. It was time to switch off and plug into the mains. I found that my power source was laughing with my friends, being with my family and spending time alone in nature, challenging my earlier conceptions of where I thought I got my energy from. I thought energy came from the climate movement, praise at work, campaign wins and positive climate news. While these are without doubt extraordinarily energizing, in my life they had only provided fleeting and temporary surges. Rather, laughing wildly with my best friend and being held by the person I love has provided a richer form of energy. What is love, if not plugging into the cosmic mains?
I found that qualifying my “no’s” (to non-essential requests on my time and spirit), with, “Sorry, am installing my software updates”, was a powerful and amusing practice. In a campaign setting, this could be setting fierce boundaries on rest time and carving out quality, uniquely enriching “you” time. Then, find your sustainable power source. It may differ from person to person, but I have a hunch that across the board it’s about people; about being loved, seen, heard and understood by those you trust. Find your version of the mains, plug in and let your body do the rest. This can be over a weekend, in a morning or integrating more “mains” time into your week. You might be surprised what you find. Perhaps the solution to the degradation of the soul is the reclamation of the soul.
Find the kind of rest that will lead you to vitality. Not “How do Find the kind of I feel less tired?” but “How do I rest that will lead feel more alive?” For me, it’s the you to vitality. Secrets I whisper to the ridges of the mountains, hundreds of miles from a hearing ear. It’s sharing tears over the kitchen table with my best friends and letting them in to my most vulnerable and soft side. It’s giving something life, either tending house plants, growing vegetables or nurturing a project from seed to idea, regardless of “success” or “impact”. It’s not Gmail, or hyper efficiency or even filling Moleskine diaries. It’s taking that first moment of the day to appreciate the sun on my skin, holding my husband’s hand under the pillow as we sleep, breathing in all the possibility of today and the gratitude for yesterday.
