Rest is Not a Luxury

We’re halfway through the year… which is wild, because in some ways, it still feels like March. And in others, it feels like we’ve lived five years since January.

This is the moment, right now in the sun-drenched swell of summer, to pause and ask:

What have I already done that I haven’t given myself credit for?

Not in the metric-driven, achievement-obsessed sense — but in the deep, human sense. What have I held? Released? Carried? Opened? Grieved? Begun?

Even if things haven’t gone the way you planned, you’ve been becoming. You’ve been doing real, invisible, meaningful work. And you deserve to name that. To honour it.

And maybe even — to rest in it.

Because contrary to what our social system teaches us, you don’t have to earn your right to rest. Or your joy. Or your aliveness.

You are joy. You are enough.

You don’t need another checklist to prove your worth.

Lately, I’ve been inviting people to explore their relationship with rest, with support, and with play. Not as luxuries, but as vital components of wholeness. We did this through meditation — imagining ourselves floating in a body of water, holding “rocks” that symbolize obligations and responsibilities, and “balloons” that represent our support systems.

It’s a simple image, but potent.
What do you grip too tightly?
What do you refuse to accept help with?
Where do you let yourself rise?

Many of us are overidentified with our rocks. We’ve been praised for how much we can carry — how competent, how self-sufficient, how strong.

But strength is also letting go.
Strength is saying yes to being held.

It’s asking for help.
It’s laughing.
It’s letting the dishes wait because your kid wants to dance in the kitchen.

It’s remembering that life is not a linear march toward success — it’s a tide. It rises and falls. And if we’re always resisting the rhythm, we miss the beauty of the ebb.

As play researcher Dr. Stuart Brown discovered, the work we find most fulfilling is often a continuation of the ways we played as children. That’s not an accident. It’s an invitation. One we’re often too busy, or too tired, to hear.

But play isn’t frivolous. Rest isn’t indulgent.

As Tricia Hersey writes in Rest is Resistance:

“We will rest. We will dream. We will imagine. We will not be tools for your grind culture machine.”

Rest is liberation.
Play is rebellion.
Joy is truth.

So if you’ve been chasing, striving, doubting, over-efforting… what if the answer isn’t to push harder?

What if it’s to soften?

To let delight take the lead.

To trust that your most powerful, magnetic, visionary self isn’t found in the grind — but in the glow.

This summer, I invite you to take stock — not just of what you’ve done, but of how far you’ve come.

• What are you ready to set down?
• What supports are already available to you — and how can you say yes to them?
• Which parts of yourself are ready to re-emerge, to play, to create, to be wildly unproductive and joyfully alive?

There is no prize for burnout.

There is no trophy for exhaustion.

But there is a life — a big, bold, beautiful life — waiting for you on the other side of letting go.

You don’t have to earn it.

You just have to say yes.

Are you willing?