Co-Resting
How, Why and all the +
Last week, on the eve of the election, I was hanging out in a warm, fire-flickering house with two women very dear to me. A tidal wave of fatigue washed over my body suddenly. Maybe because of political anticipation and also that I could finally drop down after an 8-week rapid stretch of moving our home and holding the emotional center for my family. I curled up on the couch with my eyes closed as these women tinkered and cleaned up and laughed together.
I listened to their sounds.
I listened and listened.
Then a magical thing happened.
I experienced my body wholly letting down. Wholly and holy.
Me melting, un-guarding, eyes softening, jaw loosening, breath deepening.
If the felt-sense had words it would have said, “They’ve got it for right now. Rest.”
My body had a faint ancestral memory of it—lying in a room with others (usually women) tending to all of it while I rest and knowing that, when I’m replenished, I tag in and they rest.
The idea isn’t revolutionary. I’ve cognitively understood that humans (children and adults) generally love the sound of soup being made while they nap on the couch. Why? Because the body knows someone else is watching out, making sure all is well.
I felt it when my mom cooked white-colored food for me when I was so pregnancy-nauseous I couldn’t move.
I felt it when I gathered with college friends and they cared for my babies.
I felt it when I was collapsed on a gurney in the ER surrounded by nurses prepping me for a blood transfusion.
But, why does it take an extreme or special situation to make this happen?
The next day, some resting was happening again and one of the women said, “Let’s rest” and we did for a while in silence and then out of my blue-ish cozy nest, I said, “We are co-resting. It has to be co-resting.” I tried to imagine all the women before m, and my women friends resting alongside of us. It was hard. I sort of had to insist, insist, insist. Get down. Like down. It’s okay.
After a while she said, “It’s like the Nap Ministry.”
I said, “Yes, exactly.”
But I want to track my nervous system while doing it. I suspect many of us don’t have capacity for rest in modernity—and some more than others given epigenetics and the reality of everyday micro-aggressions.
How many times have I announced to my family, I’m going to rest now and one of my daughter's eyeballs me and remarks: Mom, you don’t look very restful? Damn, I think, I wanted to model it for you. I can fake it (and maybe that’s a start) with a posture but what is happening inside me? I’m curious about physiological capacity for rest, what feels possible in each body and what doesn’t and the difference between co-resting and resting and being watched over and a combination of both. I wonder: is it easier or harder to rest alone vs. with another or others? Our bodies may resist rest initially along with the many social scripts that tell us resting is non-action, not allowed, and downright lazy. There’s a good reason for those belief systems (survival strategies passed down from parent to child through the system over and over again). Now, in 2024 though, those strategies are largely maladaptive.
We are living an epidemic of chronically under-rested humans.
Because lying on a couch scrolling through TikTok isn’t actually restful to your body.
Because task-switching drains our brains.
Because individualism as the answer is a lie.
Because the world is one big constant existential and physical threat.
Too much too soon too fast is not restful.
Eek.
So, how do we rest?
It’s not lounging while eating grapes.
I don’t actually believe that would be very restful.
We need mobilization.
We need good ‘stress.’
We even need the worldwide web with all its gorgeous potential for connecting.
We also need adequate and frequent pauses—and we’ve been at a deficit.
We, as humans, cannot do those alone.
Togetherness, purpose, circles, tagging in and out.
Co-resting.
I want to speak directly to those in female bodies. My words may trigger those who aren’t. So be it. A few weeks before telling Eula and Bo about the move, I walked the land we had inhabited for 15 years and grieved. Hard core. I grieved and grieved and grieved and understood that my female body was inherently acting—transmuting the emotions of the whole. I didn’t have to direct it. It just did it because I can hold it. Of course, my family grieved too. But I did most of it. Not only for myself. For them. For other people leaving their beloved places. For what’s happening to the earth and to people. Who held me? The Great Mother Earth.
If this sounds Woo to you, I’m so sorry (and I mean that) that your cord to the earth has been compromised.
The female body processes for the whole. I don’t need to prove it to you. Women everywhere since the dawn of time have gathered in circle singing, wailing, praying.
But there is a limit. We have reached the limit.
You can’t process for the whole without being replenished.
That is where we are.
Almost every bright-eyed woman I know has faced serious and chronic health issues.
Enough.
Enough.
For them. For me. For all the bodies everywhere.
Co-rest. I’m going to bring this practice into all the spaces I facilitate as well as into my friend circles. Both co-resting altogether with no one watching over and then co-resting with some tagging in and out. Who knows what will happen, but it’s a start.
Co-art. On Sunday morning, my girls and I, along with a school friend, walked across the street to our new wonderful neighbor’s house and she led us in a few hours of art making. THE BEST. *I had 1,000 “important” things to do instead and I still have them and I still went and I returned spirit-full and better able to sort and do them and more resourced to show up for my work on Monday morning. My work is gathering people to create and thereby be in co-creation together. I will always do so.
Remember the stat about your 5 closest friends determining the quality of your health and life and well-being? It’s about influence. If those friends smoke tobacco, you are likely to. If those friends create circles, you are likely to. On and on.
Consider that.
I’m hopeful about influence when it comes to rest!
If one person begins, perhaps those around that person will and then the grand oceanic concentric circles take over and then, oh, then, we have movement.
It has already begun in many places.
Let’s keep it rolling.
Remember, rest looks different for everyone.
What does it look like for you?
I could go on and on about nuances and ways and cyclical living.
I’m going to end here though.
My dogs are eager for a walk.
I am eager for a walk before turning back to my work in this world.
I am eager to greet the trees in the mountains of my new place.
My rest.
Reaching out to you through the ethers with a high-five,
