You are already enough: Rest is Resistance

As a sleep coach, I find there’s always more to uncover about rest. It might be daydreaming, relaxing before sleep, listening to podcasts, reading books. Or as Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey says, we fight back against grind culture by resting one moment at a time.

In her book and as creator of the Nap Ministry, Tricia powerfully describes how rest is a tool for healing—not just the self, but dismantling our society’s oppressive culture.

Tricia puts into words the deep, profound power of rest. She names the truth of how we’re caught in the clutches of impossible, machine-like productivity, which erodes our ability to let ourselves rest.

I highlighted so many sections of her book, I almost couldn’t export them all from my ebook. What can I say? I liked it. Here are a few of the quotes that resonated most with me:

The profound power of rest

• “Rest is a meticulous love practice.”

The grind culture’s impact on rest

• “Grind culture has made us all human machines, willing and ready to donate our lives to a capitalist system that thrives by placing profits over people.”

• “To be colonized is to accept and buy into the lie of our worth being connected to how much we get done. Keep repeating to yourself: ‘I am enough now.’”

Rest and Black liberation

• “Black people’s… bodies were America’s first capital, and our rest and DreamSpace are stolen constantly…. We must rest like our lives depend on it, because it does.”

Radical power of rest changes the grind culture

• “We are resting not to do more and to come back stronger and more productive for a capitalist system.”

• “We internalize the toxic messages… and begin to hate ourselves unless we are accomplishing a task. We seek external validation from a violent system void of love. Dreaming and creating the space to dream is the remedy and cure.”

Wisdom of our bodies

• “There is massive knowledge and wisdom lying dormant in our exhausted and weary bodies and hearts.”

• “Rest is somatic work—connecting your body and mind. Rest is anything that [helps you] connect with your body and mind.”

Social media keeps us from rest

• “The digital world and social media are places of connection for many, and also are places of toxicity, disconnection, and exhaustion…. Live into the nuance and be hyper-aware of the energy and time we use for it…. If you are not very intentional about detoxing regularly from it, I believe deep and connected rest will be impossible.”

Resting during the day

• “Resting can look like: Closing your eyes for ten minutes…. Daydreaming by staring out of a window… Slow dancing with yourself to slow music…. A Sun Salutation…. Praying…. Crafting a small altar…. Taking regular breaks from social media…. A meditative walk in nature…. Knitting, crocheting, sewing, and quilting…. Laughing intensely.”

Divine power of rest

• “We have been trained to believe that everything we accomplish is because of our own pushing alone. This is false because there is a spiritual dimension that exists in all things and in everything we do.”

DreamSpace

• “When you are exhausted, you lack clarity and the ability to see deeply. Your intuition and imagination are stifled by a culture of overworking and disconnection. You must be open to go deep into the cracks to examine and to understand ….”

• “The mystery of what is not seen by the naked eye and instead felt energetically and spiritually.”

Personal Sabbath

• “My Sabbath is a personal, spiritual, and political practice. I stop to declare that there is enough, and I have done enough.”

Her work is a path to understand the personal and cultural obstacles to rest, and ways to become liberated, including grieving, poetry as a form of rest, being a womanist, Audre Lord, and more.

Her vision has moved me in my own life and to help others as a sleep coach.

Put this book on your reading list… and before that, take time to daydream, see the clouds move, and remember—you are already enough.