Actively Failing at Resting: Searching for Others Afflicted by the Busyness Bug

Dear Tribe,

Happy Sunday to you! In some of our respective cultures, a day of rest and meditation has theoretically been built into the “framework” of the week. For those of us in the Christian faith, the sabbath can either be Saturday or Sunday. As a kid that grew up spending long days in church, waking up early and returning late in the afternoon from a day of community building and worship, I always felt that Sundays were actually the least restful day rather than the most. I digress though, that’s another post. This post is not about the day you choose to rest but rather an exploration of methods of resting and the struggle to rest that some of us have.

The last two weeks of my life have been back to back commitments. From late night work programming, to classes, to conferences, to celebrating birthdays with my dearest friends. Work, or play, I’m pooped. My best friend’s low key birthday weekend extravaganza, was a series of fun ways to connect with friends and celebrate her: Friday night Game night, Saturday night movies and chill, and Sunday brunch. Literally, all of my favorite things with my favorite person and her favorite people. The problem is that I’m noticing that as I’m getting older, committing to marathon events, is increasingly harder for me and my body than it was in college. The exception would be a commitment to the week on a beach, pina coladas in hand. Other than that, more than one social event in a weekend span after a week of work is hard on me emotionally and physically.

After a lively game night ending around 3am, and waking up early to attend a conference Saturday morning, I realized pretty early on that another night of sleepover, in addition to the upcoming Sunday brunch was going to feel incredibly taxing on my already tired body. I knew I needed to back out of brunch but felt like I needed permission from someone, anyone but myself, to say no. My bestie never intrinsically put this pressure on me, but backing out of an event felt like a betrayal of the best friend code. After contemplating for most of the day and attending the late night movie, I finally admitted to myself and to her, that I needed to return to my own bed that night, and get a good night’s sleep so that I could use today, Sunday, as a day of recuperation before the upcoming week.

So, here I am. The day of rest started off well. I woke up at 9:30am, which is sleeping in for me. My body felt good to get those extra few hours of needed sleep. I lay in bed for a few extra minutes and immediately started to write my “to do list” for the rest day. I know… a rest day to do lists is oxymoronic.

I literally started to think about all the things I had to do today and during the upcoming week. Then, because I’m supposed to be resting, I started thinking about how to replace the today todos with wholeness todos:

1. Stay in bed, 2. Make a hot beverage and read, (I started scrolling my instagram, which immediately felt anti-restful, so I stopped), Meditate 4. Do devotion. Pause everything, I’m hyperventilating. Next, I started second guessing todo #2, wondering if reading something that I wanted to read, but that’s research for the book that I’m writing would still be considered restful… I know. That’s a ridiculous thought. Only I can decide if something feels restful or not. Somehow within an hour of waking up from a good nights’ sleep, I had managed to stress myself out. I found that hilarious and started cracking up in bed. In the midst of laughter, I had an Aha! Lightbulb moment.

I realized that I am terrible at resting. I find this comical because I’ve spent most of my life laughing at the fact that any day my mother takes a “rest” day, she always ends up filling it with chores, cleaning and helping everyone but herself and I usually yell at her for that. Here I am doing the exact same thing.

Please help! My name is Kris and I am addicted to busyness. I need a support group! A group for those of us who do not know how to rest. That’s how I ended up here at 10:48am writing this post.

I’m hoping it will actually be a crowdsource and help build some community for those of us with the “busy” affliction. Note, I have been pretty decent about integrating wellness harmoniously into my daily life, so it isn’t that I have trouble with short term breaks. I watch at least 30minutes of Netflix daily after work which is incredibly restful for me. But to date I have not found the cure for “busyness syndrome” on days of rest. A cure for feeling that a whole day of rest is a waste. I should be using that time instead to read, research, story board, clean my house and the like…

Do you all struggle with this issue? What are your strategies and how do you deal with it?