120 ~ Redefining Rest: From Fear And Scarcity To Trust And Restoration

What if rest wasn’t a prize you earn after burning out, but the source of your creativity, clarity and kindness? We pull apart the tangled beliefs that keep us sprinting from the fear of losing momentum, the scarcity around time, and the nagging worry that energy might never return and offer a grounded way to choose rest before the crash.

Together, we map the difference between sick rest and restorative rest, and why both matter. You’ll hear candid stories about pushing past limits, learning to read the body’s early signals, and the surprising relief that comes from canceling plans without guilt. We get practical: simple rituals for low-input restoration, a candle-and-oil wind-down that nourishes the senses, and a quiet-leaning approach for those who crave silence. We also share a quick energy audit to build evidence that rest “works,” helping you trust your body over the loud "shoulds".

Rest isn’t always stillness. Sometimes movement is the medicine. From an unhurried walk, to free dancing (with or without music), to gentle somatic practice that helps emotions metabolize. We offer a litmus test to decide: Is your body truly tired, or are you tired of feeling emotions/feelings? That distinction unlocks momentum without self-abandonment. We also look at how boredom primes the mind for creativity, why sustainable pacing changes with age, and how honoring your cycles protects your relationships, your work, and your health.

We explore rest for rest’s sake... We invite you to do the same. 

Here are some episode highlights: 
• difference between sick rest and restorative rest
• age, energy capacity and letting go of the push
• daily rest rituals and low‑input options
• human design nuances and pacing styles
• emotional fatigue versus physical fatigue
• evidence‑based energy audits to test what works
• boredom as a doorway to creativity
• when rest invites big feelings and what to do
• choosing between rest or movement each day
• protecting relationships by resourcing early

an added note: When using grounding as a rest method, a minimum of 15 minutes is required to impact the viscosity of our blood. So for example, that means we need a minimum of 15 minutes of barefoot/palm contact when on grass/sand, in water, or when touching a tree. 

Chapters

• 1:38 Rest For Rest’s Sake
• 4:45 Sick Rest Versus Restorative Rest
• 9:20 Age, Energy, And Letting Go Of Push
• 13:40 Daily Rituals That Restore
• 18:20 Personalizing Rest And Reducing Input
• 23:40 Evidence-Based Rest And Energy Audits
• 28:20 Creativity, Boredom, And Cultural Pressure
• 33:00 Rest, Big Feelings, And Movement As Alchemy
• 39:00 Choosing Rest Or Movement Today
• 42:40 Final Reflections And Listener Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

Welcome to Desire is Medicine. We are two very different women living a life led by desire, inviting you into our world.

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

I'm Brenda. I'm a devoted practitioner to being my fully expressed true self in my daily life, motherhood, relationships, and my business. Desire has taken me on quite a ride, and every day I practice listening to and following the voice within. I'm a middle school teacher, turned coach and guide of the feminine.

SPEAKER_01: 0:36

And I'm Catherine, devoted to living my life as the truest and hopefully the highest version of me. I don't have children, I've never been married, I've spent equal parts of my life in corporate as in some down and low shady spaces. I was the epitome of Tired and Wired, and my path led me to explore desire. I'm a coach, guide, energy worker, and a forever student.

SPEAKER_00: 0:58

Even after decades of inner work, we are humble beginners, on the mat, still exploring, always curious. We believe that listening to and following the nudge of desire is a deep spiritual practice that helps us grow.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12

On the Desire as Medicine podcast, we talk to each other, we interview people we know and love about the practice of desire, bringing in a very important piece that is often overlooked: being responsible for our desire. Welcome back to another episode of the Desire as Medicine podcast. Hello, family, friends, listeners. The lovely Brenda is here with me today. And we're excited to talk about something that I'm sure we've talked about before, which is rest. Today we're talking about rest for rest's sakes. That might be a little bit of a tongue twister for me. Rest for rest's sake. So funny to me right now. Saying all those words together. Versus when we're resting, because our body just paused. We're sick, or we had to have surgery, or something happened where we got knocked out, and the universe is and or the body is just like, no, no, we're not doing anything. And Brenda and I have discussed that I'm pretty good at the put everything down, um sick rest. Not so good at the oh, um, recovering rest. It has like a different pathway in my mind because I have had some hardcore reasons of getting sick, like I've had surgeries, and so post-surgery, you're in a lot of pain, maybe pain medication, one or two days. There are physical limitations to movement, physical limitations to being active, and so rest is sort of forced by the nature of what's happening. The other way is not so forced. The other way when we're resting because we want to get resourced, yes, I I have some things that I do well. I know it's nighttime, nighttime means sleep, I know it's mealtime means mealtime means eat. Ooh, I'm getting stressed out because of X, Y, or Z. What can I let go of? What not? Or what can I not let go of? But the friction for me happens in I don't feel like doing anything. And then I have thoughts that pop up. The gremlins in my mind that start saying, hmm, am I sick? Maybe I'm getting sick because I'm really tired. So maybe my body's fighting something. When I know good and well that if I'm really sick, I'm gonna be sleeping. And that is I get very tired, like sleepy tired, not just I just want to lay down. There's an there's uh emotionally tired, an emotional, mmm, I'm just tired of feeling what I've been feeling. I'm feeling feelings I don't like, and so I'm tired of that. I don't want to do that anymore. There's that sort of emotional fatigue. There is the, oh, I've been going, going, going. Sort of, I went on vacation. Brenda and I had a show that we did, which was amazing. Uh, just something for the podcast, Desire as Medicine, and we had a booth, etc. I traveled again, the the all these things back to back. And so I was sick last week, and then after that, I was sort of in the I don't want to do anything state. And in those places, in that location, my first question is gonna be Am I sick? Wait, I'm not sleeping. So if I'm not sick, if I'm not sleeping, that means I'm not sick. And if I'm not sick, then what's wrong? Like, why am I not in the mood to do something? I slept really well last night. What's wrong? And Brenda and I suppose we're discussing this. We're not sure if this is uh 30 parts wisdom, 50 parts wisdom, as in is this just age happening? Is it that our physical body past 50 is like, nope, we're not doing that. We're not pushing like when we were 21, when we were just like on caffeine pills all day long. Well, that was me, or on coffee all day long. Like, we're not just going to push the boundaries of the body. When the body speaks, we're listening and we're asking questions. The questions that pop up for me can be sometimes scary. Like, uh-oh, something's wrong. Maybe I'm sick. Should I be concerned? Am I ever gonna have energy again? I get that one too. Like, am I ever going to feel 100%? Is this just it? Did I hit a retirement stage? Like, am I just is there no turning back? Oh no. And all this scarcity and all this fear that is the actual opposite of, oh, I'm tired. Let me trust that this is the right thing. Let me get resource and trust that the energy is gonna come back and that energy is infinite and that it's always energy is never lost, it's just transformed, and that it's just transforming. It's going from tired to potentially way back up. Or can I be honest that I've been going a bit and that this is just the natural down from having so many highs? And with that, I pass the torch to Brenda.

SPEAKER_00: 6:58

The natural down from having so many highs, that's really good. You're so good at resting when you're sick. Anytime you're sick, you you go ahead and try and call Catherine or text her because she's not on her phone. She's sleeping in bed. You're really good at that. That's actually something that I'm not as good at. I will definitely rest when I'm sick. I used to just go to work when I was teaching. I would just go to work sick. I would just pop pills and go to work, teach all day, come home to my own kids and wonder why that shit lingered for so long. I don't do that anymore. It was quite a revelation to just cancel things when I was sick and actually take time off. And the thing that really surprised me, which really isn't a surprise at all, but it surprised me at the time because I hadn't had that experience, was wow, I recovered much quicker. We have such a distorted view of how we use our own energy and our culture that we just had this grind, gotta keep going culture as if the world was going to end if you didn't do what you were supposed to do or you didn't cook dinner. No, the world is not gonna end. In fact, the world might be a little bit better off if you just pause and rest. It's great to rest. And I'm so grateful for that that I have really learned to pause and rest. But you are really good at the sick rest. I'm working on that one. I'm really good at daily restorative rest. And it really comes from age for sure, age and wisdom. And also, I just actually can't push through the way I used to. That that is definitely true. So it's not like, oh, I'm just choosing to rest. I mean, yeah, I am, but also I cannot push through the way I used to. It just doesn't work anymore. Like the amount of exhaustion that I feel if I do push through or if I have plans for too many days in a row, it just doesn't work for me. So it's really about learning what your body needs. And there is always a need for rest. Like we go to sleep every day. She's laughing.

SPEAKER_01: 9:21

I mean, I'm giggling because I have this aura ring and it will tell me there you have minor or major signs of something coming. And every time it says that, I'm like, what do you want for my life? How am I gonna change this? And it's true, you are so good at daily resting. Like, if my body is just a no, I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna go to bed. Let's see. And if I'm not sleeping, I'm like, hold up. What is wrong? I should be either sleeping or doing what happened. That that part in between where you're let's talk about that piece for you, because you do this really well, where you're restored enough that you can't really sleep, but you're not energized enough to do. And you're an energizer bunny for people that don't know. Brenda is an energized bunny. She's saying, Oh, I used to, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes we're together and she's like, Okay, we're gonna do. And the list is like eons long. And I look at her and I'm like, Yeah, okay. That's and in my head, I'm like, okay, we're gonna accomplish like two of those things. But on her own, she can really do a lot, like energetically, you have more of that do a gazillion things. I have a more turtle pace, a little turtle over here.

SPEAKER_00: 10:52

Welcome to human design. We're not gonna go down this rabbit hole too much, but if you're listening and you're into human design, Catherine is a generator, and I'm a managen, a manifesting generator. We're both generators, so we're both doers. And that's great. Generators are more slow, steady energy. And manifesting generators are faster. We skip steps, we jump ahead, we do things that don't make sense. And there's magic in both of these. So we're both doers and goers. I definitely can just, oh my God, my favorite thing to do is just buzz around my house, putter, do things, and then I'm like, oh my God, I have this great piece of writing that wants to come through. And then it turns into a course, and then I'm making a sales page for it. It's it's just great. But here's here's what I wanted to say. I am really good at rest, and I've learned it. I've learned it. Here's one of my favorite things to do, and I forgot about this. I did this the other night. Okay, I get into bed alone, I turn off all the lights, I light a candle, I'll put on some music, and I just hang out there. And then I oil myself up. So I have this vitamin E oil that I get from Trader Joe's. If you don't have that, it's so good. I just put oil on my body. I put castor oil in my belly button because it's really good for your body. I'll put eye drops in my eyes. I'm just like oiling up everything. I'll put this cream that my daughter made me, this homemade cream, and I'll like put it on my cuticles. And I'm just listening to the music, and it's beautiful resting time. It's so nourishing to lay there. And I forget sometimes how nourishing that really is. Now, do I want to do that all the time? No. I don't even know if I want to do it every day, although I probably could. But it's really beautiful time. We have an episode about ritual and how to make life special. How do you make your life special? There you go. There it is. Just taking care of yourself and making your own life special. And that's just one way to do it. Rest is just where the juice is.

SPEAKER_01: 13:14

I also think that rest has a particular personal component. I could potentially do a version of what you're talking about if I had to hit my consumption peak. Like I don't want to consume anything. So potentially I would probably do that exercise in quiet. So maybe that would mean no music, you know, when it means I don't want to watch a show or a movie, or I do hit that sometimes. Like I don't want to scroll. And for all my friends and family listening, I love you. And sometimes I just don't want to talk to people. Like I feel it, the sensation for me in my body is like I feel full, or just like I don't want any external input of any kind. I just sort of want to be in my own energy. I have a friend that says, Oh, clearly you just enjoy your own company. And I said, maybe that's part of it. But I it it's part of it. I don't need to be distracted from myself, but also I think I need energy to be, let's say, listening to someone and holding space for somebody, whether a client, family member, friend, we need energy for that. Like I need to be present for what somebody's offering, which is why that it should be consensual, right? When I say, hey, do you have five, 10 minutes? I really want to run something by you. You don't have to give me an answer or a solution to anything. Just hold space for me. Or however, we've done so many episodes on this. Just plenty. Check out toolboxes. I think there's a lot of gold in finding what feels restorative for you. I am still somewhat tweaking that one. Yes, the beginning of yesterday definitely felt like I would never have energy again. And today I feel good. Like I feel like it's less than 24 hours later. But yesterday I was definitely like, oh, I don't know what happened. Last week I was sick, and I am clearly rested, and my body's still a no to doing certain things. Forgetting that this isn't forever. In that moment, when I'm tired, I forget that it's not forever. I'm assuming it's forever. Like you somewhere my energy vessel or my battery was amputated and it's never coming back. It was given to someone else.

SPEAKER_00: 15:51

It's a scary spot. And I think that's why people avoid rest is because they think something's wrong. And this goes back to what I said. We have a distorted view of what rest is because there's so much scarcity and fear mixed into it, we think we're gonna get stuck there. You're not. And honestly, even though I'm here talking about this, I still do think that sometimes. The voices are loud, people. Don't listen to the voices. You cannot listen to your mind's voices. They're not your friend. You need rest. And even though I am really good at rest and I know how to give it to myself, even last week when I wasn't feeling well, I was resting for days in a row. I didn't even go out for a few days in a row. And those voices came in. I should be doing something. I should be working, I should be blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wow, that's really shocking to me that I am a hundred percent in rightness that this is exactly what I need to be doing right now. I don't feel that I should be doing anything else, but yet those voices are there. And I'm just saying that because if you're listening to the voices, you might want to reconsider and listen to your body instead, because I think so many women are in overdrive, just going and going and going. Whether you have children or you don't, whether you're working, however you work, we're just so normalized to think that we just need to keep going. And it's not true. It's not true. In fact, the opposite is true.

SPEAKER_01: 17:33

It has me think about um like people who own a house. I just heard of this uh percentage thing from one of my money coaches the other day that if you buy a house, you should have at least one percent of the price of the house in funds because things will break. So if you have a hundred thousand dollar house, you have at least a thousand dollars separate a year, not like for the lifetime of the house, but every year. So if you've had the house for 10 years, you have easily spent over 10 grand in repairs of some kind. And I think about things that whether a homeowner or a landlord does not take care of in the beginning when it was just a drip, and the next thing you know, you have a huge leak, and then you've destroyed$7,000 floors, and then like it could have just been fixed a leak, not just fix the leak, now fix the floors, now fix the apartment below or the floor below. It can so easily get away from us. So what I would love to encourage everyone, including us, to do is to remember that when we're needing rest, whether it's because we're sick or something else, that there's a bigger bang for our rest buck if we do it sooner rather than later. And we can pretty much 100% count on the voice that's gonna be like, you shouldn't be doing this. Just it's gonna be there. I don't know why, Brenda, but it's gonna be there. Saying you should be working or why is this taking so long? Why don't you just feel better, etc.? Until you're on the other side. It's sort of part of it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:29

Amen. It's really true. I mean, this is really cool. And I share this in my choir movement practice that I teach. We do all these movement practices, and then at the end, just like in a yoga class, you lay down for savasana and you're integrating. That's what rest is. It's a time to integrate the things in your life. But this is really cool. Lionesses sleep 15 to 18 hours a day. I know, isn't that shocking? To build energy to act when needed. Now, we're not going to sleep 15 to 18 hours a day. That's not really the way we're built. But I think that's really cool. We're not supposed to keep going, but we've really normalized depletion and exhaustion. But our best selves don't emerge from that. Our best selves come from resting.

SPEAKER_01: 20:21

What would you say is like the part of your best self that emerges when it's rested? What does that mean for you?

SPEAKER_00: 20:29

In short, easy, simple terms, I'm not a bitch. How's that? If I rest, I'm not a bitch. I mean, like there's so many th ways I could answer that, but which really means that I can regulate my body and my emotions better if I'm rested. So truly, if I am doing too much and I'm going too much and I don't have the rest that I need, I I reach my cup gets too full, not in the good way that your cup is full. It gets full of just busyness and doing. My brain is tired and my fuse gets really short. And I get reactive. I can't show up the way I want to. Like suddenly my partner's talking to me and I just don't give a shit what he's saying. And I'm just like, I like blah, blah. I just I can't. And I don't like to be that way. I don't want to show up in my relationships that way. So it's like what you said, it's like catching it earlier, catching it earlier when there's a drip, and just pausing and giving yourself some space and time to rest and integrate. We're constantly integrating our day, our lives. So that's what it is for me. I can show up how I want to show up, which is, you know, loving and kind and patient. How about you? It's sort of the same.

SPEAKER_01: 21:58

And I say sort of because I I don't know if I'm like, oh no, blah, blah. Like it doesn't occur. I just don't experience it that way. What ends up happening is that I go, uh oh, what did they just say? Like it completely goes over my head. It's almost like I need you to repeat that. It takes me twice as long to stay present. I can't catch it. I feel sort of foggy, maybe, or um like droopy or dumb. Like just I feel not fast. Like I can't catch things. I'm not catching the gist of maybe what somebody said, or I'm doing something. Maybe it's something that's work related, and I'm like, why is this so scratchy? Why is it not smooth? What there's so much inner resistance almost. It's as if I'm walking through life and the bulb is off. I guess it's a sensation of like nobody's home. Like something happened to my brain, and like the robot has left the building, and just the pure animal is walking around trying to figure out this world. It's as if I took turn primal and very low-functioning in some way. I think that's the best way to describe it. It's it's as if I haven't slept. I think that's this the feeling, like sort of as if I'm sleepwalking. The feeling is, oh, and then I become really susceptible to cold air or to like if I'm too hot, too cold. Any sort of thing that's out of balance might as well be a bomb. And I'm like, oh, I I become irritated by things rather easily. So if somebody's telling me something, I'm like, I just need to know the thing that you need to tell me. It's taking so long. And it's because it's requiring so much more energy for me to stay present in the connection, right? That's not their fault. I mean, maybe partially, maybe they could be clearer and more concise. That's so mean. Right? But I get it, it's a practice, not everybody has it, and for the most part, I recognize that. And I, you know, we adjust for our environments. We're not looking for perfection. And so the environment's not gonna be perfect, but we can work on what we're bringing from within ourselves. Like, am I rested? And I think the biggest part of what I wanted to talk about today in bringing the topic of rest is do you rest well? And that I don't know how we measure that. One measurement could be, are you rested? Do you feel rested? Another measurement could be when you're sick, do you rest? Like, are you a good patient? Are you able to ask for support in a way that's supportive? Support yourself in a way that's supportive, put your thoughts down, understanding there's nothing I can really do from here from this foggy place where I'm not a hundred percent. And are you good at restorative rest? And what is the best way to restore in that location? Like one thing that I thought of about you is you dance almost every day. And I'm sure that to a certain extent, that's restorative for you. So it's not always just be still.

SPEAKER_00: 25:49

Absolutely. And that's a really important distinction. And I absolutely love that you brought in the part about practice. And just like nature and the seasons, we're in New York recording, and we have all these amazing seasons, and we're going into the end of fall, into winter now, we're not the same every day. As women, as people, we are different every day. And if anyone listening is anything like me, sometimes I sleep really well and I feel rested. Sometimes I don't sleep so well and I'm not quite as rested the next day, or I stayed up too late watching that show on Netflix and I still had to get up early. So I don't quite feel as rested from sleep. And so I might need more rest during the day, or it might catch up with me in a few days. So every day really is different. And let's face it, sometimes there's times in your schedule where you don't get rest or you don't have time in your schedule. I remember when I was in college, I always, my roommate and I used to call it like the marathon day. We had that day in our schedule. We we hadn't like an 8 a.m. class, barely a lunch break, and then you're going till 7 p.m. And that's just the way it is sometimes. That's life. And that's energizing and kind of fun in itself. But you can't do that every day and expect to be healthy. Like that's where we get stressed out. Our body gets stressed out. We have cortisol in our bodies, and then we're not well. So it really is different. And I wish it was just the same every day. Well, that wouldn't be as fun. Because then I would know. But what it really takes to live this life as someone rested is to be connected to your body. Like to know what you need and when you need rest, when you might need more sleep. Really, you need to be connected to your body, which is all about slowing down. And we have a bunch of episodes about both of those things. So it really is a practice of being connected to yourself and asking yourself, what do I need right now? What would be most nourishing and supportive to me right now, today? And also, it is true, like I said before, there are days and times in your life that are faster and more packed than other days and times in your life. And even still, and I do have to brag, I'm quite good at this thing, is when your day is packed and you're busy, how can you be easy inside of it? So maybe you do have one of those work days where you're going to work and you're picking up your kids and there is no time to rate lay down and oil your body. But what can you do? What can you do to make it a little easier for yourself? Because we also put all kinds of pressure on ourselves. Oh, well, I have to do this and I have to do that. It's good to stop and ask yourself, do I really need to do that? We're so used to being in overdrive that you think, oh, I do need to go to the cleaners, I do need to go food shopping today, I do need to make that recipe, I do need to pick up my neighbor's kid. Well, the invitation is to ask yourself, is that true? And what is your true yes and no? Which we talk to, talk about all the time. These are all little factors. They're not even so little that play into your life, that create your health. This is what creates your your life and your health and your well-being and your life force energy and your creativity, your rest. It comes from that. And then there's also, I mean, we talked about so many kinds of rest. We talked about sick rest, we talked about recovering rest, right? And then we talked about like daily life kind of rest, which also has its distinctions. We have the kind of oh, I'm just gonna lay down. And watch Netflix or read a book, kind of rest. And then there's maybe I'm just going to rest and do absolutely nothing, which you're also really good at. You'll say sometimes you'll just lay on the ground for 10 minutes and ground. You know, there's different levels of what you might need. And it's nice to have a toolbox in your life for all the different kinds of rest and give yourself permission to do these. And sometimes I cannot even listen to music or I do not even want to have the TV on. I can't even stand lights because my body feels tired or overstimulated. And I honor that.

SPEAKER_01: 30:43

I love that. I think that we don't always have examples. I'm thinking right now of Yeah, I think this is sort of like a new concept. I think about growing up, and if my mom was tired or needed rest, she'd be like, I'm sleeping right now. Sleeping was we were not to interrupt her when she was sleeping. So I grew up understanding that that was restful. But other than that, I don't think I ever saw my mother rest at any point in time. She did pass young, so it could have been an age thing. But I think about aunts, I mean, other than once they retired, I don't have that many visions of women really resting. Maybe after food, you have dinner, and sort of there's a little bit of a communal time or holidays where everybody's sort of kicked back eating and chatting. So I hear that it's important to have a toolbox, and I also recognize that there may not be that many examples while you were growing up, and there's a sort of willingness to play trial and error here. Like what is going to work, what didn't work. Okay, I wanted to Netflix and chill. I I can't watch a movie right now. This movie's stupid. Okay, close out the movie. Maybe I'm gonna lay down super quiet, eyes closed. No, that didn't work. I fell asleep. Okay, I'm gonna lay down, eyes open. All right. That wasn't super helpful. Maybe I need to move. Let me say to myself, I'm gonna go out for a walk for five minutes. Let me try that. Okay, that wasn't really fun. All right, let me see if I dance around for a minute, five minutes. How do I feel after that? Just playing with different ways of doing things to see where did I feel more resourced at the end. There's something, I don't, I think we've done this. We did an episode on an energy audit, right? It's like I, and so in this case, if we were to adapt the energy audit to this particular thing of rest, whether it's sick rest or just need restorative rest. All right, I'm gonna choose to do X, whether it's lay flat, dance, listen to music, watch TV. I'm gonna do it for this amount of time. How did I feel at the end? This is how I felt before, during, after. This is how I felt 24 hours after. And that's how we start to get really comfortable seeing rest as necessary because then we have proof, facts, then we have our own proof to look at. Oh, this worked, that didn't work. I have found that to be very helpful.

SPEAKER_00: 33:37

Evidence, baby. Evidence. It's great for the mind. And it's also great because you might have beliefs. Maybe you didn't see anyone in your family resting, but your body is on overdrive and you're exhausted and you're yelling at your kids all the time. So maybe you do need evidence, and that is really cool to see, actually. What am I doing and what are the results of that? And here's this other last piece I want to bring in about rest. Cool shit happens when we rest. Like you're laying in bed or you're just sitting, this could be anywhere. Maybe you just go to the park and you rest and you just sit on a bench. We're so used to moving all the time that I don't know that we just sit around and rest. But when you're just resting, let's just use the park, for example. You're looking at the trees, you're looking at the sky, your mind kind of enters, your whole body enters this new space of dreaming. I mean, like awake dreaming, pondering, imagination, just space to do nothing. It's kind of like, what? What are you talking about? Like, I don't think that we give ourselves time for that. I mean, there used to be a time in school where kindergartners would take a nap for two hours a day. Now kindergarteners just being tested and it's like go, go, go, do, do, do. So we're raising a breed of people who really don't know how to rest so much. It's really all about achievement. And we lose something inside of that. We do. We lose, we lose creativity and imagination. You don't have to be stimulated all the time. It's cool to be bored. Because maybe you'll have some new creative thought that you didn't have before.

SPEAKER_01: 35:29

The truth is that it comes after being bored, right? Those creative sparks, they come after that.

SPEAKER_00: 35:36

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:38

So rest, rest, rest. I sort of don't want to ignore the other the elephant that just entered the room for me in my own brain. Of I think people also are afraid to rest because it maybe it comes with sadness, or then there's all these feelings to feel, and it's like, oh no, am I depressed? Am I sad? Am I grieving? Like all the things that you've been suppressing as you've been moving start to pop up because you gave yourself space to feel. So I do want to say, yes, that's gonna happen. There's no guarantee that it'll happen and that you'll have the boogie monster emotions popping up, but it's possible.

SPEAKER_00: 36:28

It's a really great point. Because that really does happen. And that still happens to me sometimes too. I'll just be resting and then I'm like, oh, I feel kind of sad in my heart. What's wrong? And that could be scary. And so I'm really glad that you brought that up because that is one reason why we keep going.

SPEAKER_01: 36:47

Well, I mean, when we pause, things naturally happen. If you don't have stimuli, you're going to be introspective. And so you're with yourself, you're with your thoughts. Maybe you have judgments about your thoughts. Maybe you start thinking, am I really sad? Am I this? Am I that? Oh no, I've been resting for this amount of time. And I'm not gonna go too far down that rabbit hole, but I will say that a good litmus test in that arena is if you're just not becoming restored. In that case, like you you've rested and you rested again, and it's just you in your bed, and it's like day five, whatever, you took a family leave act, and now it's just you resting. You're like, I'm gonna become rested. I'm gonna get to the other side of this. A good question to ask is is my body physically tired? Or am I potentially sleeping to override wanting to be awake? Like, am I sleeping to override the discomfort that's coming accompanied with being awake? Is my body really tired, or am I just tired of feeling the emotion that's coming up for me to feel? And lastly, am I really tired or am I just tired of the thoughts that I'm having? And if you're having difficulty with that, like if it's the latter and you're like, oh, it's actually my body's not tired anymore. My body's fine, but the rest of me is like shit. We're in the dumps, then I suggest movement. My recommendation would be get out, even if you're in New York City, even if it's 30 degrees, even if you can only do five minutes, but if you can do an hour, that would be my recommendation. Do it as much as you can because there's alchemy that needs to take place. Maybe you take a yoga, a yoga class, maybe you take a koya class, maybe you see a somatic therapist, but there's some form of movement to be had, and it seems almost counterintuitive because the feeling is you're gonna have to drag yourself. Don't think that what I'm saying is that you're laying there and you're like, I'm kind of sad. You know what? I'm feeling sad, so I'm gonna go for a walk. That's a great idea. No, that's not how it's gonna feel. It's like, oh no, I've been sad and I've been sad for X amount of days, or I've been insert emotion, or I have been thinking, insert thought, and it won't stop. But my body itself is like pretty fine. Like when I move my muscle, when I move my legs, like maybe I lift my knees, like there's no achy, achy. All my joints are fine, like everything else is fine. My body has recovered, but I have not recovered. Often we need movement. Like we just there's potentially somewhere where something is stuck in the body, and we need movement. And however you're willing to do that for yourself is your way. Like, I don't think there is a best practice in that arena. And the reason why I say in hours is just because there is actually something that starts to happen with the actual act of walking after 10 minutes, after 15 minutes, after 20, after 30. There have been plenty of studies around that. If you live in a warm state, you could actually walk on grass or uh ground, or if you're by a beach, go stick your feet in the sand. There is something to be said about being in nature, moving, being with the elements, and becoming grounded. It can be very helpful in that location.

SPEAKER_00: 40:46

This is such a deep topic. I feel like we could talk about this for hours. There's so many different kinds of rest, and everything that we're suggesting is our suggestions to open your mind and get you to think about well, what does my body need? And one of the big questions that I'm always asking myself is, do I need rest or do I need movement? Sometimes it's really tricky to know the difference. So you just pick one and try it. You know, going back to it's a practice and our bodies are different every day. Sometimes if I'm resting too much, if I've if I'm rested, let's put it that way, if I'm fully rested, I'm complete, trying to rest more or continue resting is actually more irritating to my body because I need, I've built up my energy and now I need to move again. So there's a time to rest, there's a time to move, and it really is different for everybody. And it and different on different days for you and different ages. Sorry, folks, I wish we had a better answer for you. But it really does come back to again being connected to your body, being connected to yourself, and tuning in every day or maybe multiple times a day, asking yourself, what is it that I need right now?

SPEAKER_01: 42:09

1000%. There's no one size fits all. There really isn't. But above all pieces, recognizing that the body is not a machine. We can't just swap out the part. It's something that we have and we're gonna be with for the rest of our lives, and we have to tend to it and cater to it and do our best with it. And being resourced, giving ourselves what we need, whether it's sick rest or different kind of rest, ultimately does our body good. Like we can't just run on fumes. And when I say can't, I don't mean literally can't, because we're not a car, even without gas, we can force. And Brenda had said earlier, like, oh, it's not healthy for us. And sometimes or a lot of the time, it's not visible. Like the the cost that we're paying, we don't know. We don't, we can't physically see that our geno glands are borrowing from our bladder and our stomach energy. Like we we don't know all the energetic medicine pieces. But we do know through science that rest is important. And we do live in a time where stressors are definitely pushing up against us. Like we do, it is our responsibility to kind of handle our stress load on ourselves, whether it's the environment or our external or internal environment. I hope that this episode feeds your soul in the way that it's fed mine. And hopefully you can walk away with a little tidbit from either Brenda or I or from our shares. If you loved it, please rate, like, share this podcast. That is the best way for you to support this work. And we appreciate you so much. Thank you. That's all for now.

SPEAKER_00: 44:21

Thank you for joining us on the Desire is Medicine podcast. Desire invites us to be honest, loving, and deeply intimate with ourselves and others.

SPEAKER_01: 44:29

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