Everything in our culture is winding us up, keeping us awake, and not allowing us to feel the tiredness that rests deep in our bones. A large part of our culture revolves around beverages aimed at turning off the body’s signals for rest. There is so much to do, and so little time as the saying goes.
Of what use is tiredness in this world?
I think the first time I ever really let myself be tired might have been when I left my job in Washington, D.C. It didn’t happen right away, though. I had returned to Ohio to figure out what to do next and while I was there it felt like everything I wanted to happen wasn’t coming to fruition fast enough.
But one day, while relaxing in an overstuffed chair at a local coffee shop, with nothing in particular to do that day, it dawned on me that there was a gift held within this time. I had done so much in the past four years — running a radio station, then being recruited into AmeriCorps, and working in D.C. at a prestigious fellowship. This is all of course among other things like graduating college, ending and starting serious relationships, and all of life’s myriad surprises.
What I realized is that perhaps the universe was granting me a “savasana period.”
Savasana is the pose at the very end of a yoga practice where we rest, lying on the floor, essentially doing nothing. You let go of the breathing technique, you let go of holding onto anything. The purpose of this pose is to allow the body to integrate the postures that have been practiced that day.
Our minds and souls operate the same way.
We need periods of rest to integrate what we have learned, dream up new outcomes, and heal the body and mind. Without periods of relaxation, we are almost doomed to repeat the same circumstances over and over again. Contrary to popular belief, rest is incredibly productive.
While there is plenty of research out there to explain why and how this happens, we can conceptualize this idea by comparing it to eating food. Our thoughts, the information we consume, and the experiences we have are like the food we eat. Just as our bellies need time and space to digest, so do our minds and souls. When we take the space to just allow for “nothing” to happen, we can integrate what has happened to us and release anything in excess.
Tiredness is sacred and an essential part of being human on this planet. Aside from the more tangible physiological benefits, I find that tiredness shows us more information about how to structure our world. It lets us know how we are feeling and allows us to be in touch with the softer parts of ourselves.
We know that being tired at night when the body is producing more melatonin is completely natural and perfect. We are meant to sleep after the sun has set.
But being tired constantly, while at work or with other people, is a sign of something deeper. If we over-caffeinate or speak negatively to ourselves when we feel fatigued, we are denying the divine messages of our souls.
When I was younger I would just “push through” and “make it work.” What I wasn’t able to see is that I was putting in too much effort and I needed to pull back. That I wasn’t receiving as much benefit as I was giving. I would work myself to the point of exhaustion or even illness. The body will find a way, either through depression or physical malady, to bring you to a halt.
This period of pause, if used skillfully, will reveal to you where change needs to happen.
If you are constantly feeling drained when around certain people, then likely there is an energetic imbalance happening here. You might be over-giving your time or resources without anything in return. The invitation here is to revise those relationships or release them to find people more suited to you.
When it comes to our jobs, if we are feeling weary and weepy, hitting the snooze button multiple times before waking, this could be a sign to change something up. Of course, there are menial tasks in all jobs and periods of hard work, but if it is consistently trying in the day-to-day then something needs to change.
In the not-too-distant past, we humans would work the land for some time and then there would come the harvest. After the harvest, there would be preparation for the winter. During the colder months, we would feast on what we had nurtured in the previous seasons. At this time we could reflect on what was done, what worked for us, and what needed to be better.
Presently, we seem to have lost the natural rhythm of the earth — of which we are a part. We continue to do more and more, for longer and longer, faster and faster yet many of us feel more tired, depressed, and hopeless than ever before. Working against our body’s natural inclinations only leads to more self-harm. We see this self-harm then reflected at the level of the collective.
I thought the promise of the technological future was supposed to bring more freedom and rest.
Sometimes the things we think are inconvenient are actually blessings in disguise.
The more I leaned into the “inconvenience” of a slower life, the more fulfilling and magical my life came to be. Growing my own food, bicycling instead of driving, sleeping without an alarm, and leaving my phone at home when I go out are a few of the ways in which life has more opportunities to surprise and nourish me.
I tend to feel more whole, have more wonder, and meet more people than when moving as fast as I can from one thing to another.
It reminds me of this Kurt Vonnegut quote from a 2005 PBS interview:
Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:
“Oh, she says, well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?
And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.
I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is — we’re here on Earth to fart around.
And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it’s like we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”
Let’s all get up and move around a bit right now… or at least dance.
Tiredness seems to be one of those inconveniences that offers up an unrecognized opportunity.
An opportunity to learn more about ourselves.
An opportunity to learn more about our wants and needs.
An opportunity to heal and transform.
An opportunity to release what is no longer serving us.
An opportunity to dream up the future.
An opportunity to have the capacity for so much more.