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I hope you are reading this while laying down!
Love this beginning
We are sleep-deprived because the systems view us as machines, but bodies are not machines. Our bodies are a site of liberation.
Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. Both these toxic systems refuse to see the inherent divinity in human beings and have used bodies as a tool for production, evil, and destruction for centuries. 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.
If we are not resting, we will not make it. I need us to make it. We must thrive.
Rest is imperative
I invite you into the portal rest provides. Capitalism cannot have me. White supremacy cannot have me.
Grind culture is a collaboration between white supremacy and capitalism. It views our divine bodies as machines. Our worth is not connected to how much we produce. Another way is possible. Our shared history is one of extreme disconnection and denial. We ignore our bodies’ need to rest and in doing so, we lose touch with Spirit.
TENETS OF THE NAP MINISTRY Rest is a form of resistance because it disrupts and pushes back against capitalism and white supremacy. Our bodies are a site of liberation. Naps provide a portal to imagine, invent, and heal. Our DreamSpace has been stolen and we want it back. We will reclaim it via rest.
I've got #1, but I'm working to understand #2
Capitalism has cornered us in such a way that we only can comprehend two options. 1: Work at a machine level, from a disconnected and exhausted place, or 2: Make space for rest and space to connect with our highest selves while fearing how we will eat and live. This rigid binary, combined with the violent reality of poverty, keeps us in a place of sleep deprivation and constant hustling to survive.
yes!
This space makes you falsely believe there is not enough of everything: not enough money, not enough care, not enough love, not enough attention, not enough peace, not enough connection, not enough time. There is abundance.
This is difficult to trust
We will be disrupting and pushing back against grind culture for a lifetime.
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.
Embrace knowing that you have been manipulated and scammed by a violent system as powerful evidence. Now with this knowledge you can grieve, repair, rest, and heal. We can rejoice for the beauty of a veil being removed. This is the beginning of the new world we can create.
How long do the sadness and anger (at being hoodwinked) last? Is the grief perpetual?
Let deprogramming from grind culture surprise you. Let your entire being slowly begin to shift. Get lost in rest. Pull up the blankets, search for softness and be open to the ways rest will surprise and calm you.
This makes me want to cry, it's so inviting and lovely.
I feel like a legacy of exhaustion resides somewhere in all of us, but specifically resides in the bodies of those who have melanated skin.
Even those who claim to be a part of the wellness industry are pushing hustling, grinding, capitalism, girl boss, competition, and co-opting the work of Indigenous practices for clout and money.
Yup
You are worthy of rest. We don’t have to earn rest. Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out. I hear so many repeat the myth of rest being a privilege and I understand this concept and still deeply disagree with it. Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us.
Rest is not a privilege because OUR BODIES ARE OUR OWN
I believe the powers that be don’t want us rested because they know that if we rest enough, we are going to figure out what is really happening and overturn the entire system. Exhaustion keeps us numb, keeps us zombie-like, and keeps us on their clock. Overworking and the trauma of burnout continues to degrade our divinity.
me too
Get up today and tomorrow and think to yourself: “When and where can I find a moment of rest?”
When and where can I find a moment of rest?
Those moments intensely settled my spirit.
This afternoon I was ten minutes early to pick up Zahira, so I drove to the beach and got out. By the time I was 15-20 feet out on the dunes, I felt something tight release within me. That is rest.
I have seen my brothers and sisters crying round mother for food, and she having none to give them.’”
I love the thoughtfulness of grounding this in the narrative of an enslaved person
Release the shame you feel when resting. It does not belong to you.
Rest is a divine right. Rest is a human right. We come into the world prepared to love, care, and rest. The systems kill us slowly via capitalism and white supremacy. Rest must interrupt. Like hope, rest is disruptive, it allows space for us to envision new possibilities.
In so many appealing ways, Hersey understands that she simply doesn't know what this rested world could look like. She invites us to imagine it into being with her.
In the spirit of Audre Lorde who said, “Revolution is not a one-time event,” we intentionally don’t participate in social media challenges around naps, or in trendy one-off events that don’t include intensive education centering Black liberation and history.
The Rest Is Resistance framework also does not believe in the toxic idea that we are resting to recharge and rejuvenate so we can be prepared to give more output to capitalism.
THIS is what I struggle with.
We are not resting to be productive. We are resting simply because it is our divine right to do so.
Stay here for a while. Stay in the space of knowing that you are not a failure, inadequate or unworthy because you are tired and want to rest. There is no need to now attempt to figure this all out today and to be totally on board to embracing rest in a way that doesn’t feel right to you. This protest against grind culture is for you to create in your own body. Your body is yours.
Although it can be unsatisfying and contain more questions, there is courage in embracing the idea if rest without having it all planned.
For those who are attached to your phones, start off small at first by blocking out two to four hours to be off all social media sites. By deleting the apps off the phone, or placing your phone in another room, tucked away in a drawer, you can increase your chances of finding a natural rhythm without the voices and noise that social media provides. Even if your timeline is curated to only include joyful, thought-provoking, and encouraging messages, detoxing is still necessary and valuable. Your mind needs space for silence. Space to process what it is feeling without the participation of
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Step one
When we rest, we are pushing back against a system created on plantations, with a central belief that we must have money, a fancy mattress, and the allure of individualism for our rest to be generative. This is a lie. We must slowly unravel daily to understand that our liberation, freedom, and everything we need is already within us.
The rigid idea that justice work centering Blackness, born from a lens of Black liberation, is only for Black people is limiting and false.
Anyone attempting to create and expand on our rest message must reach deep into the cracks to study and uplift Black liberation.
Rest provides a portal for healing, imagination, and communication with our Ancestors. We can work things out in a DreamSpace. What miraculous moments are you missing because you aren’t resting?
Rest keeps us tender and there is power in our tenderness and care.
Resting can look like: Closing your eyes for ten minutes. A longer shower in silence. Meditating on the couch for twenty minutes. Daydreaming by staring out of a window. Sipping warm tea before bed in the dark. Slow dancing with yourself to slow music. Experiencing a Sound Bath or other sound healing. A Sun Salutation. A twenty-minute timed nap. Praying. Crafting a small altar for your home. A long, warm bath. Taking regular breaks from social media. Not immediately responding to texts and emails. Deep listening to a full music album. A meditative walk in nature. Knitting, crocheting, sewing,
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This is so helpful
Capitalism commodifies whatever it can and doesn’t allow space for us to experience the full spectrum of being human.
The teachers, trained under grind culture, assumed daydreaming was a student not paying attention.
I admire the way she carefully holds everyone with grace. It would be easy to blame people. Instead, she blames systems.
To hear the simple and bold proclamation “You are doing too much. You can rest. You can just be. You can be” is revolutionary.
This sounds lovely. . .and outlandish. Should I begin first to tell my daughters? My father? My colleagues?
Even when we don’t have all the answers for the best ways to deprogram from our brainwashing regarding rest, we can still go forth. We can always be open to dreaming into the process of rest.
I love this idea that the answers will come while we rest.
To rest in a DreamSpace is a red brick through the glass window of capitalism. I want our intentional rest to scream at oppression on a bullhorn, then emerge soft and full.
Killing capitalism with rest and care.
Rest is real-life conversations. I don’t know any other way to go. Rest is the road map. The guiding force—a truth teller. Rest is a meeting with self. With a typed agenda. Rest is on your knees whispering words silently, on the right side of the bed. Rest is lunchtime dreaming. The energy of the Rastafarian who showed me how to pray standing up, with my eyes open hands stretched wide. “Because how will you see and know when prayers are answered?” Rest is holy oil from my mama’s wooden dresser. Pompeian Olive Oil, the fancy kind in glass. Blessed by the Elders. Poured over our heads as we
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Barter and participate in mutual aid, make community care your biggest goal, learn to grow your own food, or support a Black or Indigenous farmer who does, build with an herbalist and other root workers.
I am not trying to pick, but I am curious why only Black or Indigenous farners?
Grind culture is violence and violence creates trauma.
As long as we refuse to address fully the place of love in struggles for liberation, we will not be able to create a culture of conversion where there is a mass turning away from an ethic of domination.”
-bell hooks
Yes! This is why I was drawn to Tovi's work when we started two + years ago. She always made room for love in the idea of liberation.
You were born to heal, to grow, to be of service to yourself and community, to practice, to experiment, to create, to have space, to dream, and to connect.
I don’t want a seat at the table of the oppressor. I want a blanket and pillow down by the ocean. I want to rest.
Reimagining rest looks like so many things. The possibilities are endless and infinite. Rest looks like tapping in and listening to what your body and soul want. It’s extra time while bathing, even an extra ten minutes of concentrated silence. Rest is taking a leisurely walk and dancing. Rest is a tea ritual allowing you to meditate while breathing in each warm sip. Rest is not returning an email immediately and maintaining healthy boundaries. Rest is honoring the boundaries of those you engage with. Rejecting urgency. Rest is detoxing from social media. Rest is listening and healing from
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The possibilites are infinite
I have connected the dots spiritually and physically between this history and my life today. I will resist and I will rest no matter what.
This beautiful belief that to rest is to honor the ancestors
How can we imagine a world without police if we are unable to imagine a world that includes rest for all? How can we build systems of care if we don’t even care for our own bodies and the bodies of others?
Our bodies are a site of liberation; therefore, wherever our bodies are, we can embody rest.
The concept of laziness is a tool of the oppressor.
Your early understanding of “productivity” is most likely tainted by the toxic socialization we all received growing up. It must be examined.
