When I talked to my friends and clients and just look around at the world right now, people are tired. Most of us are really good at hustling. We are really good at showing up for other people. We are good at saying busy and being distracted, and we are tired, like deep in your bones exhausted, but we don’t really know how to rest.

Sitting on the couch with a bag of chocolate chips and scrolling your phone. Isn’t recharging you like you want it to, that’s why this week on the podcast, I’m showing you how to rest. So you can deal with life in a healthier way. And then if you want the chocolate chips, you can still have them, but just for fun, not because you need their energy.

I hope you will take these few minutes with me to rest. You may be multitasking, but if you can, why don’t you lay down, get a glass of water, relax your jaw and your face and your shoulders. Feel the tension slide away. I told you that I recently started doing yoga videos on YouTube and I’m super new to it, but I love how the teacher always knows where you’re tightening your muscles or curling your toes for balance.

And she nicely reminds you to stop it. That’s what I want to do for you today. Gently remind you that it’s okay to take a break more than, okay. In fact, it’s necessary. Let’s first talk about why we don’t take restorative breaks because ladies, we have a lot of excuses. What are your top go-to reasons why you can’t take her?

I’m just going to list the ones I hear the most. My to-do list is so long. I have kids. I have a job. I don’t have time. I’m going to sometime in the future, I don’t have enough money to get a massage, hire a babysitter, or go on vacation, et cetera. If I stop everything just piles up and it’s worse after I’m done wrestling.

I can’t turn my brain off or it’s lazy to rest. And there are so many others, but really what you start to see is, are just a bunch of different versions of, I don’t have enough. I’m going to do it later, or I can’t because of what I make it. Let’s tackle these one at a time. So you can break down your excuses and be one step closer to taking a break because here’s the truth.

You can do the action of resting, but it doesn’t really help you. If you can’t let your mind rest, you’re still going to feel all those negative feelings first up is I don’t have enough time, money, resources, help on. Anything like that, we call this scarcity in coaching and it can show up all over the place.

When you see your brain going into scarcity mode, you have to catch it and ask yourself this question. Is it true? Do you really not have enough? And you may have to ask your brain a few times because it’s first answer is always going to be. Yes, it’s true. Let me give you a really simple example. Say you were burned out, running on fumes and all you want is a power nap or an hour to yourself to catch up your friends suggest that you hire a babysitter depending on where you live.

How many kids you have, et cetera. That’s maybe going to run you like $5 to $20 for a. Your brain will immediately reject this idea. There’s inflation bills and you can’t afford to pay someone so you can have a nap. I mean, who does that later that day? You are so frazzled. You look at the clock and realize it’s five 15, and you haven’t even thought about dinner.

You end up ordering pizza and spending $50. You also forget to pay a bill and end up with a $25 late fee. Those things you pay for it without scarcity, because it seems like you don’t have a choice. You probably have some guilt afterwards and you’ll beat yourself up, but you just spend the money because dinner and bills are non-negotiable for rest for you.

That’s at the bottom of the pile. It’s not worth it. It’s a waste of resources. If you want to turn this around, you have to start valuing yourself. Believe that your wellbeing is important in and of itself. Your wellbeing also affects the people around you at home at work in traffic.

And I see this a lot with my clients. They’re really afraid to invest in coaching because they have so many other things. And yet sometimes the best money you can spend is on you is on your mental health, on giving yourself 45 minutes a week, just to focus on you. When we talk about not having enough time, I can tell you that I don’t know very many women who would say they have loads of time, so much time that they don’t know what to do after they finish eating Bon bons on the chaise out by the pool.

We are. Is so committed to this. I’m so busy story. The way to turn this time scarcity around is to notice how, when you do not make time for yourself to recharge into rest, you are never going to be running at your peak. You’re going to forget things be late, not actually be present because you’re thinking about the next thing you have to do.

When you think you don’t have enough time and you refuse to put yourself on the schedule, you end up making your thoughts true in so many ways. Think of another way to look at it, put yourself on the schedule, believe that you’re important enough to take care of and keep your commitment. We would never stand up our friend if we had made a lunch date with them.

So don’t stand yourself for dates with yourself, either which leads right into the next excuse. I’ll do it later. Some of you listening are professional procrastinators when it comes to taking a. You’ve got a vacation plan that you’re going to take when COVID lats up. When the kids are older, when things slow down at work, after you lose some weight.

So you can look better in that swimsuit you’ll rest when the little one naps, but then you have so many things to do, and it’s so much easier to do them without little help. You just have to finish a few more things and then you’ll sit down. But one thing leads to another and again, it’s five 15 with no dinner plans and you feel like you didn’t accomplish enough and you are exhausted.

 You want to spend 20 minutes working out or reading or meditating or praying or reading scriptures or taking a battery charge you, but you keep pushing it back or planning it for the end of the day. But by the time bedtime rolls around, all you can do is fall into bed.

And then you feel guilty for not doing self-care, like Amy said, and your brain is just running all over the place and the cycle starts all over again. The next. It’s no wonder we are burned out. We don’t know how to take a break. How you turn this excuse around is again to schedule yourself and keep the commitment that works for a lot of people.

It will take time to prove to yourself that it’s worth it, but keep going, the more you keep those dates with yourself, the more you take time out to rest. The Memorial proved yourself that it is valid. For some people, they need more flexibility. So you don’t have to write it down. You don’t have to schedule it, but you can give yourself a deadline.

Like I’m going to do a 20 minute yoga video before I start work or before 10:00 AM or whatever it is for you. Maybe you plan that bath for earlier in the day, I have a friend who has hit that magical time in motherhood when all her kids are older and they’re at school all day and she loves to take baths in the daytime.

And it was funny. We were talking about this because that’s something I just never thought of. I always thought best for an end of the day thing, but they are not. You can take one anytime because you are a grownup lock the door, tell your partner, you need 20 minutes. So. What you want and make it happen, do it for you and for everyone else around you.

And our last excuse is what are you making it mean? This is usually a huge aha moment for my clients. When we start digging through what is happening, usually goes something like this. They tell me how they’re feeling and why they’re feeling that way. In this case, it’s usually stressed or overwhelmed because they have so much to do.

But after I ask a few questions and we do some brain dumping together, what is really happening is the way they are thinking about how they’re supposed to show up is causing them to hustle way too hard. They aren’t listening to themselves or their body. I was coaching a client and we found out that the root of her need to be productive.

Came from the messages she’d gotten as a child. Like if you’re watching TV, you should be folding laundry. Rest was not okay. Rest was not productive. In coaching, we take this as information. That is something your brain on default is believing and it’s showing up now, but you don’t like the results you’re getting.

So you have a choice because what creates your results now is what you are thinking. Now I challenged this client to. One to start opening up to the idea that rest was productive. When you give your brain a job, it will follow through, but you have to point it in a direction. So you have to ask how rest can be productive for you.

And the other challenge was to stay just 10% more in the present. We always start with little steps. If this has been a pattern for a long time, because not only are we telling a story about productivity, we are usually in our minds thinking about all the other things we have to do.

We’re not just getting the task in front of us done. And that’s where it’s mentally exhausting. So look at the beliefs. You may have picked up along the way. Maybe coworkers get praised for staying late and answering emails on weekends. Maybe your parents said things to you. If you ever slept in, maybe your spouse has certain expectations of what your day should look like.

Maybe you believe that your worth is tied to how much you do and resting is lazy or wasteful. Or maybe you worry what other people are going to think if they knew you hired a babysitter. So you could have a nap. Fear of judgment is so strong for so many people. What are you making it mean? If you take time to rest physically or mentally is going to stop you from taking meaningful breaks.

That’s why working with a coach is so vital. , not only do we identify what’s going on, I stay with you as you make these changes in your life because your brain hates change. It prefers the familiar uncomfortable to the unknown. So it will keep you on the path to full burnout instead of dealing with the uncomfortable emotions that might come up.

When you make changes and start prioritizing yourself, you have to remember that you are in the driver’s seat. You can make meaningful change. It might not happen overnight. And it’s something you’re going to have to keep practicing because there’s always going to be things that want your attention. As I record this, we’re in the early weeks of Russia invading Ukraine, this has been very distressing for a lot of people, especially because we finally seem to be coming out of the pandemic and boom, such terrible news.

I am actually half Ukrainian. My dad’s grandparents immigrated from Ukraine to Canada, and I know how much that country has been through throughout history. I get frustrated that there are so many leaders who rule in such a cruel way without caring for the people they’re supposed to be taken care of.

I’m sad for both sides involved in the conflict soldiers who for the most part are doing what they are told because of. There are likely heavy consequences if they don’t no matter what they believe. And of course the people who are scared and fleeing for their lives and trying to protect their homes and their families.

And it’s easy to find yourself glued to the news. It is set up to keep you there and it seems very selfish to do anything else. And so this is another place we need to give ourselves permission to take up. This could also go for if pregnancy announcements or social media things are really taking a toll on you.

Same thing. It’s okay to turn it off. It’s okay. To take care of you. It’s okay. To turn on a podcast that makes you laugh and go for a walk. It’s okay to limit what you input into your brain, especially when you are grieving. Seeing so much suffering can crush your RD. Tender, broken heart. It’s okay. To take some time to cry.

You can even schedule that if you want tears or nature’s pressure release valve. And I highly recommend them. Sometimes rest means you stop and let yourself feel those feelings so you can move through them. Bottling them up only makes you feel worse in the. It’s even okay. To take your family and go somewhere and have a total blast.

You deserve rest, your body needs it. Your brain needs it. Your life will be so much better. If you start even just a little to take breaks, set your phone or your watch to remind you be firm. If the people around you question you stop making it mean anything negative. If you put yourself first align with yourself and with what you do.

Check in with yourself. Where are you in your cycle? What is your body telling you make a list of things that recharge you and make it easy for you to do them, right? Remove some of those barriers. When you make rest a part of your life, everything is going to go smoother. It’s not selfish. It’s a necessary part of maintaining your mental health in the world.

We live in today. And. It’s not about what you do. It’s about what you were thinking that will help you actually make rest effective and replenishing and nourishing to body and soul focus on creating that for yourself and the rest will fall into place. If you’re feeling burnt out and you’re ready to find yourself again and follow through with taking care of you.

Come talk to me. There’s a link in the show notes, or you can go to smooth stones, coaching.com. I’ll see you next.