Liberation Requires Rest

Finding freedom... by slowing down

A few months ago, I decided to enroll in a breathwork class. The timing wasn’t ideal, since it started in the midst of a full-to-the-brim summer, but as soon as I read the description I knew on some deep level that I needed to take it. And though I’ve only been able to catch a few of the recorded sessions so far, it has already been quite eye-opening (or… I don’t know… lung-expanding?). 

During one of the sessions, an instructor said something that made me pause the session so I could write it down: It is part of liberation to rest.

In the weeks that followed, the concept kept rattling inside my head (though I mis-remembered the exact phrase and it morphed into liberation requires rest). It struck me as important and true, so I knew I needed to explore it a bit in this space.

“Night is for sleeping / Day is for resting.” Sign spotted in Victoria BC.

Liberation, to me, means breaking free from the things that keep us oppressed and imprisoned. This imprisonment can happen within our own minds, or within relationships, or due to social and cultural pressures, or because of the policies and actions of institutions. Liberating ourselves from the things that keep us contained can allow us to reach our greatest potential, to find our unique gifts and share them with the world—and to work collectively so that this freedom is available to all.

Because it isn’t enough to be individually liberated. You can love yourself fiercely and express yourself in a way that is in line with your true spirit—but still find yourself the target of hatred and violence out in the wider world. No one is free until we are all free, that much is clear—so how do we get there? Working toward individual/psychological liberation is hard enough. But the collective work is even more difficult, overwhelming, and complicated. And it never lets up, never slows down, never ends.

So this idea that rest is required for liberation… I was enticed by it, sure, but also a bit skeptical. Because if we’re resting, nothing’s getting done… right? 

I recently read Emily Lynn Paulson’s memoir Hey, Hun, about the author’s rise through the ranks of a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company. One of the things that struck me most about the cult-ish world of MLMs was the way that its workers are kept extremely busy ALL the time. There’s always another event to plan or attend, a conference call to lead, an end-of-month sale to push. Paulson asserts that this is a strategic move on the part of the company: if people are constantly spinning their wheels trying to keep up (and maybe even get ahead), they aren’t able to slow down long enough to look up and think, why am I even doing this? 

While this example may be especially extreme, it’s not exactly unrelatable. Aren’t we all pulled in a million different directions at all times, bombarded with information and sensory input (which often comes at us in a jumble of mundane, important, amusing, heartbreaking, infuriating, and irrelevant content that we have to sift through and make sense of)? Consuming and/or producing all this content can take up a ton of brain space. It also may continually remind us that the problems of the world are urgent and immense, so we need to do something about them NOW.

I understand this urge. I feel it too. But I also know the value of slowing down. Of time spent in quiet contemplation. I never would have been able to finish my books had I not drawn firm boundaries around news and social media consumption, both of which tie my brain into knots and suck energy right out of me. There were many times that I had to step away from the world entirely in order to engage with the material on a level that was deep enough to feel satisfying. (I also recognize how hard it is to carve out space to do this, and that it’s a privilege not available to everyone. But it should be—another reason why larger-scale collective work is needed.)

And so we come back around to: Liberation requires rest. In order to free ourselves both individually and collectively, rest is REQUIRED. How else can we possibly have the space to zoom out, to assess where we’re at, to reflect on what we’ve done and could maybe do differently next time, to calm our frazzled nervous systems long enough to remember our creative selves and re-awaken to the possibilities that this life holds? 

Still, part of me wonders… what if we like rest a little TOO much and never get back to the actual work? But I think the point here is that rest needs to be emphasized because it is critical yet so often overlooked, to the point where many people do amazing work for a while and then completely burn out. Rest helps increase our stamina so that we can continue chipping away at the work for the long term. Plus, with it comes clarity, which can help us avoid distractions and stay focused on the real issues.

Which brings up yet another question: what does “rest” really mean? I’ll tackle that one next week, because there’s a lot to be said about that topic as well. Stay tuned!