Dear Ella: How Tired Do I Have to Be Before I’m Allowed to Stop?
Dear Ella,
I know I need rest.
The problem is that knowing it and actually doing it appear to be two entirely different skill sets.
I can take an afternoon off. Technically.
I can sit on the couch while thinking about Monday, answer a couple of texts, make a list, solve a problem no one has asked me to solve yet, and feel vaguely guilty that I am not doing something useful.
Apparently, I have learned how to stop moving without actually resting.
And when I am really tired, I still tend to keep going until I am exhausted enough to justify stopping.
I would never tell another woman she has to run herself down before she is allowed to rest.
So why is that the standard I keep setting for myself?
Signed,
Technically Sitting Down
Dear Technically Sitting Down,
I have unfortunate news.
Sitting down while mentally reorganizing Monday is not rest.
It is work with upholstery.
And waiting until you are exhausted enough to stop is not much of a rest strategy either. That is an emergency brake.
Let us be precise.
You already know rest matters. Your problem is not a lack of information.
Your problem is that somewhere along the way, exhaustion became the thing that gives you permission.
Tired? Keep going.
Running low? You can handle it.
Completely depleted? Fine. Now you may sit down without presenting further evidence.
That is a terrible system.
The question beneath the question is not, “How do I get better at resting?”
It is, “Why do I have to be depleted before I let myself stop?”
That is Integration work.
Because rest is not what happens when everything else is done.
Everything else will never be done.
There will always be another email, another decision, another person who needs something, another problem you could get ahead of.
If “nothing important needs me” is the condition for rest, congratulations. You have designed a system in which rest is permanently unavailable.
So try something different.
Stop asking whether you are tired enough to justify resting.
Ask whether you need rest.
Then believe the answer before your body has to start shouting.
And please do not turn this into another thing to be excellent at. You do not need a better rest protocol, a color-coded recovery plan, or a Sunday routine involving seventeen restorative practices.
Sometimes you just need to stop.
Not because you earned it.
Not because the work is finished.
Not even because resting will make you more productive tomorrow.
Because you are a human being, not a resource to be fully utilized.
You already give other people this grace.
You do not need to be the exception.
Sit down.
Actually, this time.
Ella
Ella’s note: If collapse is the only thing that gives you permission to stop, you do not have a rest practice. You have an emergency brake.
