Rest Is Not the Opposite of the Work

Most mornings, before I open my laptop or look at my phone, I brush my teeth, wash my face, apply sunscreen, put on something comfortable, and head out for a walk. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I listen to music. Sometimes I walk with my dog, or with a friend, or with nothing but the early morning around me. Some mornings I simply notice things. The way the light filters through the trees. The warmth of the sun on my face. The sound of birds before the world gets busy. The fact that I am still here and have another day.

Those walks have become one of the places where I do some of my best thinking. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I process. Sometimes I work through an idea I’ve been carrying. Sometimes I don’t think much at all. I simply pay attention. I did not always live this way. For a long time, rest was something I planned to get to. When the project was finished. When the deliverable was submitted. When the finances felt more stable. When the kids were okay. When things finally settled down. That season never came. And eventually, my body stopped waiting for my permission.

What We Were Taught About Rest

Most of the people I know care deeply about what they do. Some are raising families. Some are building businesses. Some are leading organizations. Some are caring for aging parents. Some are trying to do all of those things at the same time. Different lives. Different responsibilities. But underneath them, I often hear the same story. “I’ll slow down after…”

After this deadline. After this season. After this project. After things settle down. Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that rest is something we earn. Historians who study work and labor in America remind us that these beliefs didn’t appear out of nowhere. Over generations, we inherited cultural ideas that treated productivity as virtue and rest as something to be deserved. Those messages became so familiar that many of us stopped questioning them. We simply absorbed them.

For people whose work is rooted in service, that belief often runs even deeper.Many of us care deeply about the communities we serve. We know the needs are real. We know the work matters. And sometimes, without even realizing it, our commitment quietly turns into permission to postpone caring for ourselves. Research from the Center for Effective Philanthropy suggests just how widespread this has become. In its State of Nonprofits report, nonprofit leaders overwhelmingly report concern about burnout and its impact on both their organizations and themselves. Those aren’t statistics about people who don’t care.

They’re about people who care so deeply that they’ve forgotten they are part of the mission, too. The Ms. Foundation for Women found similar patterns among women and nonbinary leaders of color, describing burnout not as an individual failing but as the result of chronic underinvestment, invisible labor, and the ongoing expectation to do more with less. Reading those reports didn’t make me feel discouraged. Oddly enough, they made me feel less alone. They reminded me that what so many of us are experiencing isn’t simply a personal failure to find better balance. Much of it is happening inside systems that were never designed with sustainability in mind.

That doesn’t mean we’re powerless. But it does mean we may need to tell ourselves a different story. One where rest isn’t something we earn after we’ve proven our worth. One where rest becomes part of how we protect the people, the purpose, and the life we’ve worked so hard to build.

What the Body Already Knew

I believe the body keeps the score. I know this not only because scholars like Bessel van der Kolk have documented it so carefully, but because I have lived it. There was a season in my life when I was trying to be everything to everyone. I was working full time, attending school, raising children, caring for family, and doing my best to show up well in every role that mattered to me. Like so many people, I convinced myself I could carry just a little more.

I always felt like I had a little more capacity. Rest always felt like something I could put off a little longer. Just finish this project. Get through this week. Make it to the next deadline. Then I’ll slow down. For a while, I believed that was true. Then the signs started. Difficulty sleeping. An inability to turn my brain off even when the day was over. Anxiety I couldn’t quite explain. Less patience with the people I loved most. Recurring health concerns that I kept putting on the back burner, the way I put everything else.

Eventually, life stopped asking and started insisting. Looking back, I became curious about what was happening. Why did I keep pushing past my limits? Why did my thinking feel different when I was exhausted? Why was it so difficult to slow down, even when my body was clearly asking me to? As I began reading, I realized there was far more happening than simple fatigue.

Neuroscientists have found that some of our most important mental work happens during periods of rest and reflection. The parts of our brain that become more active when we step away from constant task-switching help us process experiences, regulate emotions, connect ideas, and make meaning of what we’re living. Rest is not the absence of thinking. Sometimes it’s where our deepest thinking happens.

Research in organizational psychology points to a similar conclusion. Recovery isn’t simply time away from work. It’s an essential part of clear thinking, sound judgment, creativity, and sustainable leadership. The very things many of us are trying to protect by pushing harder are often strengthened when we finally allow ourselves to recover. The body knew all of this before I did. It was trying to tell me. I just didn’t have the language, or the permission, to listen.

What We Are Actually Carrying

When my father died in 2020, I had already spent years helping care for him. Like many caregivers, I learned how to keep moving while quietly carrying more than anyone else could see. When he passed, I expected grief. What I didn’t expect was how much everything else would surface alongside it. The exhaustion I had ignored. The emotions I had postponed. The weight of constantly being the person others could depend on. Grief has a way of doing that. It doesn’t just ask us to mourn what we’ve lost. It has a way of revealing what we’ve been carrying all along.

Not long after, I found my way back to therapy. If I’m honest, I probably needed it long before then. What made therapy so transformative wasn’t simply having a place to process my father’s death. It was having a place where I didn’t have to hold everything by myself. For someone who spends much of her life supporting other people, that became one of the most restorative gifts I could have given myself.

That season helped me recognize something I now see in so many of the people I know. The things that are hardest to put down are rarely just our own responsibilities. They’re the client who needs one more revision. The child who’s struggling. The parent who’s aging. The friend going through a difficult season. The community that needs volunteers. The people we love.

As I continued reading and learning, I realized there was language for what so many women, especially women in service and leadership, experience every day. Researchers describe invisible labor, emotional labor, and the quiet expectation to carry responsibilities that were never written into the job description.

When I read those words, I didn’t feel labeled. I felt seen. Because most of us aren’t carrying too much because we’re incapable of setting boundaries. We’re carrying too much because we love deeply. Because we care. Because we know the work matters. But somewhere along the way, the weight becomes familiar. We stop noticing it. We mistake heaviness for purpose. We begin to believe that if we’re tired, we must be doing something right. I’ve learned that’s simply not true. Eventually, your body tells the truth you’ve been trying not to hear. And the longer we wait to listen, the louder that conversation becomes.

A Teacher I Did Not Expect

Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned about rest didn’t come from a conference, a book, or another leadership training. They came from watching someone I love live differently than I was living. Over time, I noticed that one of my children protected his wellbeing with a consistency I admired and, if I’m being honest, initially struggled to understand. He made time for the things that restored him. Running. Jiu-jitsu. Reading. Time that wasn’t scheduled around someone else’s priorities. He didn’t apologize for protecting those parts of his life. At first, I caught myself feeling something that surprised me.

Resentment. Not because I wanted him to have less. Because I realized I had stopped believing I could have those things too. That was a hard truth to sit with. It would have been easier to tell myself my circumstances were simply different. That I had more responsibility. More people depending on me. More reasons to keep pushing. Some of those things were true. But they weren’t the whole truth. The harder truth was that somewhere along the way, I had accepted a version of leadership that required me to disappear inside of it.

Watching him challenged that belief. My therapist uses the phrase “self-full” instead of “selfish.” I think about that often. Because what I was witnessing wasn’t selfishness. It was someone taking responsibility for becoming the healthiest version of themselves. And the more I sat with that, the more I realized that protecting our wellbeing isn’t something that competes with our purpose. It’s one of the ways we honor it.

What Rest Actually Is

One of the most freeing things I’ve learned is that rest is not always sleep. That may sound obvious, but it took me a long time to truly understand it. For years, I thought rest meant stopping. Doing nothing. Catching up on sleep after I’d pushed myself too hard. Now I think about it differently. Rest is less about inactivity and more about returning to myself.

For me, that often begins outside. It’s feeling the warmth of the sun on my face during an early morning walk. It’s listening to the birds before the world gets busy. It’s sitting near the water long enough to notice the rhythm of the waves instead of the rhythm of my to-do list. It’s stretching out on a blanket in a park with a good book. It’s painting without worrying whether what I’m creating is good. It’s journaling because I have something on my heart, not because I’m trying to produce something.

Sometimes it’s a warm bath at the end of the day. Sometimes it’s music. Music has become one of the most reliable ways I return to myself. Different songs meet different parts of me. Some steady my nerves before I walk into a presentation. Some help me process grief. Some remind me of God’s faithfulness. Some simply make me smile. I don’t always need the same song. I just need the one that meets me where I am.

Over time, I’ve realized that the things that restore me have less to do with what I’m doing and more to do with how fully present I am while I’m doing it. Sometimes that presence looks like catching up with a friend or one of my children. Sometimes it’s sharing a meal with people I love. Sometimes it’s therapy.

That one surprised me.I first went because I needed help navigating the grief of losing my father. What I found was much more than a place to process loss. I found a space where I didn’t have to hold everything together. Week after week, I began to understand that tending to my own wellbeing wasn’t taking me away from the people I loved. It was helping me return to them more present, more grounded, and more whole.

I’ve also noticed that rest and joy aren’t always the same thing, but they’re often close companions.Many of the things that restore me when I’m alone become something even richer when I share them with people I love. A walk becomes a conversation. A meal becomes a memory. A quiet afternoon becomes laughter around the table. Those moments don’t just restore my energy. They remind me what it was all for. I’ve stopped asking myself, “What should feel restful?” Instead, I ask a different question. What helps me return to myself?I think the answer is different for each of us.But I also think it’s one of the most important questions we can ask.

What Rest Makes Possible

By this point, you might be thinking this is simply an article about slowing down. It isn’t. It’s about what becomes possible when we stop living in a constant state of depletion. The research certainly supports it. Neuroscientists have found that periods of rest and reflection help our brains process experiences, connect ideas, and make better decisions. Organizational psychologists have reached similar conclusions, showing that recovery isn’t separate from good leadership. It’s one of the conditions that makes it possible.

What interests me most, though, isn’t simply what the research says. It’s what I’ve experienced. When I am rested, I don’t just feel better. I think differently. I notice things I would have rushed past before. I listen more carefully. I make decisions with greater clarity instead of reacting out of urgency. I find myself responding with more patience, extending more grace, and remembering that not everything requires an immediate answer.

I’m a better consultant. I’m a better coach. I’m a better mother. I’m a better friend. Not because I’ve become someone different. Because I’m finally showing up as the person I already am.I’ve also noticed something else. When I’m constantly exhausted, my world gets smaller. Everything feels urgent. Everything feels important. Everything feels like it has to happen right now. But when I’ve made space to rest, I recover something I didn’t even realize I was losing.

Perspective. I remember that not every opportunity is mine to accept. Not every problem is mine to solve. Not every burden is mine to carry. And strangely enough, that doesn’t make me care less.It helps me care more wisely. The longer I do this work, the more convinced I become that sustainable leadership isn’t about doing less simply for the sake of doing less. It’s about making sure the best parts of who you are are still available to the people who need you. Because eventually the goal isn’t just to finish the work. It’s to still recognize yourself when you do.

What Do You Want to Sustain?

This month, I want to leave you with a different question.

Not: How do I get more rest?

But: What do I want to sustain?

I’ve been sitting with that question myself. The older I get, the more I realize I’m not simply trying to build meaningful work. I’m trying to build a meaningful life. One where my health, my faith, my relationships, and my sense of purpose can grow together instead of competing with one another.

When I imagine the years ahead, I don’t find myself thinking first about accomplishments. I think about being fully present with the people I love. I think about living in a way that reflects my values. I think about creating relationships that feel safe, honest, and healthy enough to last. I hope the people closest to me experience me as someone who was available, who loved deeply, and who kept doing the work of becoming healthier, wiser, and more whole.

Your answer may be different. Perhaps what you want to sustain is your creativity. Your health. Your marriage. Your friendships. Your curiosity. Your community. Your ability to keep showing up for work you believe in. Whatever your answer is, I hope you’ll treat it with the same care you give everything else that matters. Because the truth is, nothing in nature is asked to bloom every day of the year. There are seasons of growth and seasons of rest. Seasons of planting and seasons of harvest. Even the richest soil is given time to recover before it is asked to produce again.

We are part of that same rhythm. Somewhere along the way, many of us began living as though we were the exception. We’re not. The work matters. The people matter. And so do you.

Rest is not a reward.

It is not a bonus.

It is not the dessert we receive after we’ve finally done enough.

It is a key ingredient.

Part of how we think clearly.

Part of how we love well.

Part of how we lead with wisdom.

Part of how we build lives, relationships, organizations, and communities that can flourish for the long haul.

Rest is not the opposite of the work. It is part of what makes the work possible.

A Closing Affirmation

May you remember that your worth was never meant to be measured by your exhaustion.

May you find the courage to honor the limits that make your life sustainable.

May you protect what matters most with the same care you give to the people and work you love.

And may you trust that making room for rest is not stepping away from your purpose.

It is one of the ways you prepare to live it well.

Journal Prompts for July

As I move through this season, these are the questions I’ve been returning to. I hope one or two of them meet you where you are.

What have you been postponing until “things settle down”? What would change if you stopped waiting? What are you carrying that no longer belongs to you? What helps you return to yourself? What do you want to sustain over the next year? What needs your attention if it’s going to flourish? Where might rest become less of a reward and more of a way of living?