Issue #182: Okay, But How Do We Actually Rest?

Practicing regenerative rest.

📚 No Fault by Haley Mlotek: It’s often a sign I’ll be recommending a book here when I pull out a highlighter as I’m reading it, to capture favorite lines and references. Mlotek’s memoir, out today, explores both the intimate beauty of marriage, and the paradoxical flourishing that can come from divorce, in the context of her own (like me, she was with her partner for over a decade but married for one year).

📺 “White Lotus” Season 3 on HBO Max: Though there’s only been one episode of the latest season, I’m already excited to see the ways in which this series explores privilege and violence—this time, in the context of a wellness retreat in Thailand with as killer a cast as ever.

☕️ Cardamom Date Almond Milk by

Barrett and The Boys

: I had already mentally filed this away under “things that would be nice to make, but realistically will never happen.” As you’ll read below (!) a clandestine change in weather opened up some time to make it, and I’m so happy I did. It’s easy to make (as long as you have a blender, strainer, and coffee filter or cheese cloth) and yielded delicious, cardamom-rich, just-sweet-enough milk. I usually use my Nutr to make small servings of nut milk, but it was so nice to have this in the fridge for the week, for coffees, chai lattes, and oatmeal (Note: I replaced about a third of the almonds with cashews.)

P.S. ‘The Gorge’ on Apple TV+ was completely unhinged, had more plot holes than Swiss cheese, was way overdone—and yet, I couldn’t stop watching it?? I also enjoyed the Bridget Jones movie ‘Mad About the Boy’ on Peacock, but it’s more of a “have it on in the background” movie!

Office is closed, enjoy your snow day! My internship supervisor texted me while I was out to coffee with friends early Thursday morning. Sure enough, by the time we finished our drinks and parted ways, the snow was coming down fast. I headed home, making a quick stop at the grocery store for provisions before pulling into my driveway, already blanketed with snow.

The unexpected day off came as an enormous relief at the end of a difficult week that included a case of norovirus and the stressful realization that I likely need to add a secondary internship in order to accrue the client hours I need to graduate on time from my master’s. I hadn’t been able to eat, sleep, or exercise properly in days and was physically and emotionally exhausted.

It was clear I needed a day to rest and recover, and the snow had arrived like a gift from the climate gods. I accepted it gladly, but the question immediately followed: Okay, but how do I rest?

The fact is that most of the time I’m “resting,” I’m really just acting out a performance of what I think rest should look like: melting into the couch with Netflix and a bowl of popcorn. There’s absolutely a time and place for melting, but it can also be the opposite of what we need in the moment. Often, I felt restless and bored, then inevitably find myself gravitating back to check emails or fold laundry. It was a far cry from the generative, restorative, and embodied rest I craved.

It turns out that rest—even once we’ve been convinced of its importance—isn’t so easy to achieve. Even the New York Times columnist Ezra Klein admitted in a recent episode of his podcast, “I’ve been struggling so much with this idea […] that I actually don’t know how to rest.” Today’s issue is all about answering that question—Okay, but how do I rest?—and finding the answer that works best for you, whether that’s melting or something else entirely. Read on for:

• Three guidelines I’ve found invaluable for practicing restorative rest

• Exactly how I spent my own recent rest day, with photos, a playlist, and pasta recipe (!)

• Why the most restorative rest is often active

• How to have a dialogue with your body, and my favorite supplements and tonics for calming down when I need a little help

Early morning: coffee with friends