Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

by Tricia Hersey

Let the chips fall where they may. I trust myself more than capitalism.

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.

Rest is a meticulous love practice,

Rest is radical because it disrupts the lie that we are not doing enough.

You must resist anything that doesn’t center your divinity as a human being. You are worthy of care.

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.

In our bodies we have our temples. It is the only thing we own. Our bodies are a tool agent for change. A site of liberation. Our bodies know.

I've always heard your body is a temple in relation to church and it's been interpreted for why not to get tattoos or have premarital sex, but this interpretation opened up the body as a holy site in a new way for me. It is our direct portal to the divine. Spirituality is an embodied practice, not just a headspace interaction.

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.

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.

There are more than two options. The possibilities are infinite, although living under a capitalist system is to be confronted with a model of scarcity.

Resting is an embodied practice and a lifelong unraveling.

We will not be able to interrupt the machine of grind culture alone. We need each other in more ways than we are allowed to believe.

We lose empathy for ourselves first and push excessively. We become managers, teachers, and leaders who fall prey to the allure of a capitalist system and treat those we have the honor of working with as human machines. We become rigid and impatient when our checklist isn’t completed to perfection.

What stories are we holding deep inside that are untold and uncovered because we are too exhausted?

I trust the Creator and my Ancestors to always make space for my gifts and talents without needing to work myself into exhaustion.

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.

sleep helps you wake up—it helps you wake up to the truth of who and what you are.

We have a lifetime. We can go slow. We can go deep. We can go into the cracks.

Can you find ways to get outdoors in nature, to sky gaze, to ground your feet in the grass, to connect with the land since the land needs healing also?

The role of the artist is to make new things and to resurrect.

It’s inspired by American maroons who decided they would never be enslaved on plantations,

The doors of the Nap Temple are open. Won’t you come? This is an invitation for weary souls to rest. This is a resistance. This is a protest. This is a counternarrative to the lie that we all aren’t doing enough. We are enough. This is a counternarrative to the lie that our worth is tied to the grind of capitalism and the lie of white supremacy. You are enough simply by being alive. Thank you for living. Thank you for resisting. Thank you for creating. Thank you for dreaming. Thank you for resting. We believe that our healing can visit us while we are napping. While we are resting. While we are sleeping. While we are slowing down. We believe that naps provide a dream and visioning space To invent To create To heal. To imagine This is what resistance looks like. Won’t you come? This is a resistance. This is a protest.

who my guides were for rest growing up as a Black girl in America.

The denomination of the Church of God in Christ, also known as C.O.G.I.C., is a beacon of Black resistance, a Christian organization in the Holiness-Pentecostal tradition. With over six million members worldwide, it is one of the largest Pentecostal churches in the world. It was founded by Bishop Charles H. Mason in 1907 and is made up of predominantly Black people.

As the congregation members tarried for hours on the days when the Holy Spirit took over, the final curtain, a display of Black bodies on the floor covered in white sheets, speaking in tongues, as anointed voices and hands on tambourines ushered them into an embodied experience. A healing portal of freedom from whatever prayers were being answered. A moment to test out our freedom in a sacred space created for just us.

but the toxic side to this passion was his overworking, exhaustion, and lack of caring for his body. He gave everything he had to others, while his physical health suffered greatly. The link between sleep deprivation and stress to the development of chronic diseases is real. He had major health issues at a young age: diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, and sleep apnea. An internalized grind culture set things in motion for an early death at fifty-five.

My commitment to saving my own life via rest is rooted in my commitment and study of womanism.

defines a womanist as “Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered ‘good’ for one. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female.”2 For me, the beauty of womanism is its holistic view of change. It centers the deep shared commitment Black women have to their family and community. Unlike white feminism, womanism holds space for race, class, and gender and understands the family and community of a Black woman are collaborators in the struggle for liberation. It seeks balance and flexibility.

we must actively practice, engage, and push back against the dominant culture. We must snatch and integrate rest in the quiet, loud, mundane, and full moments of our lives daily.

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.

We are not resting to be productive. We are resting simply because it is our divine right to do so.

Why are their homes and communities seen as a place that needs leaving behind to rest?

this work will not happen in the fake luxurious ways that we believe rest must happen. It will not happen away from our communities, held up in expensive hotels and retreat centers. If the message of rest is to be truly for all and a full-on decolonizing moment, it must be life-altering and within our own communities, homes, workspaces, religious institutions, academic spaces, and, most importantly, in our minds. I

Our rest praxis calls first for a mental shift that does not have an end date. We will be healing from our brainwashing from grind culture forever. We must be vigilant about the ways in which we will flow in and out of the grips of grind culture.

The work is to first gain deep awareness that the pace at which this culture is functioning is not normal or sustainable.

Stay in the space of knowing that you are not a failure, inadequate or unworthy because you are tired and want to rest.

My body is an antenna for infinite ideas and inventions when I disconnect from the energy of technology and when I rest.

I know that if I never check another item off my to-do list, I am still worthy and loved by God and my Ancestors.

reality of crafting a loving community as a justice practice.

You are the expert of your body. Your body knows more than we give it space to share. Our body is its own technology. Reimagining rest is about more than naps. It’s an ethos of slowing down, connecting, and reimagining.

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.

How can we access pleasure, joy, and liberation if we are too tired to experience it?

How many times have you attempted to connect with a friend or loved one but a brutal work schedule and a pull to hustle more have severed the connection, stolen your time together, or made it almost impossible to bond?

Liberation is a process. Freedom is a temporary state of being. Liberation is dynamic. It never ends.”

liberation being a lifelong practice.

grind culture is not some pie-in-the-sky monster away from us. It is in our everyday behaviors, our lack of boundaries for ourselves and each other, the choices we make, and how we engage with ourselves and our community.

Cultivate deep community that is not allowed to post online. Find and create spaces of intimacy, accountability, and vulnerability. Be subversive like my Ancestors on the Underground Railroad, like my Ancestors during the Great Migration. Invent a space of joy, freedom, and rest right now. Right in front of you. Lay down. Wander until you get lost. Be like the maroons. Decide you will never be enslaved. You are not on the run since you don’t belong to the systems. There is nothing to run from. Rest by slowing down. Rest in secret. Rest out in the open. Get off these phones. Write more handwritten letters. Document your existence in real time offline.

Collective Napping Experiences. The room is lovingly and carefully curated for the portal of rest to open and hold us. The elements for these experiences have remained the same since the first one back in 2017: yoga mats, pillows, blankets, candles, a rest altar containing archival photos of Black people resting, raw cotton, jars of water, fresh flowers, and a soundtrack of curated rest music.

We pass out copies of liberation text for everyone around the table to engage and analyze. There are herbal teas, healthy snacks, fellowship, and it all ends with a collective nap.

“Love as the Practice of Freedom” by bell hooks