Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

by Tricia Hersey

hope you are reading this while laying down!

wish you rest today. I wish you a deep knowing that exhaustion is not a normal way of living. You are enough. You can rest. You must resist anything that doesn’t center your divinity as a human being. You are worthy of 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, and quilting. Playing a musical instrument. Deep eye contact. Laughing intensely.

When you are exhausted, you lack clarity and the ability to see deeply. Your intuition and imagination are stifled by a culture of overworking and disconnection. You must be open to go deep into the cracks to examine and to understand. It may take years to fully crack open and it will be a lifetime of practice, care, and creativity. It’s your life, body, and community; therefore, it is yours to hold, protect, love, and care for. Exhaustion will not save us and will only lead us further into the clutches of grind culture.

When we are aligned against the ideas of the oppressive culture, we understand we didn’t arrive on Earth to be a tool for a capitalist system. It is not our divine purpose. You were not just born to center your entire existence on work and labor. 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.

We are going up against such violent systems in our attempt to disrupt and push back: white supremacy, capitalism, ableism, patriarchy, classism, anti-Blackness, homophobia, etc. Any system that degrades and ignores our divine right to have care, rest, leisure, and space must be examined and illuminated. The time is up for any shallow wellness work that doesn’t speak about dismantling the systems that are making us unwell. We must blame and interrogate the systems. They are the problem.

Grind culture has placed fear as our only compass and keeps us frozen in a way that is now a habit. To start and continue the process of resting in our toxic and urgent culture, our imagination must be our only compass. It is the glue that will hold you together as you give love to yourself via rest. Imagine a life outside of grind culture right now. You can create it because you are more powerful than you believe.

My rest practice started off with fifteen-minute catnaps on campus in seminary and once I arrived back home. I also rested when I was attempting to study. I implemented sky gazing moments in between classes that involved sitting down outside and staring at the sky. To be in nature, breathing slowly, while I was sometimes navigating my day on four hours of sleep from the night before was life shifting. When I couldn’t go outside, I would stare out of windows and watch the leaves on my favorite tree sway in the wind. When a window wasn’t available, I did techniques I learned in ballet class, somatics training, and breathing exercises I learned in childbirth workshops. All three practices involve extreme focus, intentional breathing, and coordination.