McMusing: What Our Bodies are Telling Us
How can we help the next generation honor the need to rest?
I wrote this McMusing a year ago. I have done better at making intentional choices not to push myself beyond my limits, but I sill have quite a ways to go.
This was a great reminder for me today, maybe it will be for you also.
I went to the doctor today as a follow-up to going to the ER on Sunday. Painful stuff, but not life-threatening. Still, it totally took the wind out of my sails and I have a conference to speak at on Friday. I also had a board meeting tonight—an important one. But as I struggled to follow along, I heard my Nurse Practitioner say on repeat....
"I am not telling you anything you do not already know. Your body is telling you to rest. You are in great health but your body is telling you to pace yourself better and rest."
She wasn’t wrong. February and March are complicated months, but it gets harder and harder. I started thinking about what it means to be a survivor of childhood trauma. No one ever asks you if you are tired. No one ever says, "Ah, just stay home from school if you are anxious." I mean children are resilient, right? No, they are great survivors.
I was a preacher's kid which meant that the only time I ever missed church was when I tore the tips of my toes off while riding my bike barefoot and screamed at the thought of putting shoes on. What I learned as a child and kept practicing as an adult is that I can push my body to do whatever it needs to do. Until I can't. The problem is that survivors get so good at this that we don't see the wall until we face plant into it.
The most amusing thing I said today (well kind of amusing) was that it is hard to be good at everything. I am not wrong about that unless it requires me to be athletic. No, just no. She laughed, but said, "Yes, but you don't have to do everything." A good point.
I keep blaming this on almost being 70, but that isn't true. I have been collapsing physically my entire life. It has to do with being a little girl who never was given space to heal and rest. Not blaming anyone—no one understood what I needed. But now I am an adult. And dang, I have to figure out how to rest. That is going to involve skills that I have not yet attained.
Help your children rest. Honor rest. Allow mental health days. Let them miss church when they are overwhelmed with their schedule. You are not making them irresponsible by doing this, you are helping them make choices about their own well-being. Help them recognize when the wall is looming in front of them and stop before they face-plant into it. Face-planting into walls of exhaustion is not what we want to hand to the next generation!