Circe, fully conked out. 🧡
“That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
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I take naps now.
At first, these were quick, furtive, guilty moments stolen from the machinery of the day. Then they became necessary way stations as I traveled through the busyness of my waking hours. Finally, my naps evolved into acts of empowerment, downright feminist, where I reclaimed my life every afternoon - snatched it out of the grasp of email and texts and deadlines and requests. Instead of being another demand on my time, my naps have become a sanctuary I retreat to when my body says enough.
I could share all the health benefits of napping, but what I want to talk about instead is the utter sweetness of laying yourself down to rest. Of pulling the blanket over your body, of settling in. My naps are when I am kindest to myself. They are such a luxury, such a wholesome part of my day. I don't pressure myself to sleep. Instead, I just enjoy experiencing the body at rest. My kitty will curl up beside me. My breath will deepen. The pace and stress of the day goes on mute. And then: I sleep.
My naps are an act of self-love. No surprise: the more I nap, the more I make time for my writing.
It's weird, but I think it's because I'm signaling to my body, heart, and spirit that there are more important things than the to-do list and day jobs and the many concerns of our lives: laundry and returning a call and setting up or cancelling an appointment. And this has a ripple effect on my habit energy: All the errands I thought I "had" to do that day are put into perspective after my nap: I can suddenly see how they can wait, and how good it would feel to write instead.
In laying my head down and choosing myself over the busyness thrust on me by society, I end up choosing my writing, too.
It's a symbiotic relationship: self-care and writing go hand-in-hand.
I know that napping is a privilege. There are so many people, many of you reading this, who literally do not have the time because of the intense demands life has placed upon you. My hope is that, if this is the case for you, you are in a temporary, impermanent season and that you have many restoring naps in your future.
I also know that many of you are like me: raised in a culture that sees slowing down in any way as laziness, as a missed opportunity, as fundamentally unsafe because slowing down at all is the first step toward ending up unhoused. I see and hear you. I am you. It is so hard to speak to those parts of ourselves and let them know that rest is a basic right and a gift. It's a GOOD thing.
It's also hard not to twist it around and make the argument that rest will make you more productive. Whether or not that's true, that's missing the point entirely: we are not productivity machines.
This is the cycle of capitalism: this system makes you want things you don't need and you must have money to get those things and you must work, and work a lot, to buy those things and then you need to keep working because you bought the things and now you will lose them if you don't stop. It is a vicious, truly hateful cycle. It steals our lives, snatches away our writing time, makes it impossible to be present for all the beauty and wonder life has to offer.
We are not here on this planet to be productive or to consume. We are here to be creatively engaged with existence. And we cannot do that when we are burned out.
As is often the case, my dear friend, the writer Camille DeAngelis, just wrote a post on the de-optimization of her life and I loved it. Less hustle! Less bustle! WE ARE NOT ROBOTS!!! I so appreciated seeing the ways her life transformed through the very revolutionary act of de-optimization. There are some good practical tips in there, too.
Tricia Hersey, aka The Nap Bishop, at the Nap Ministry is doing the Lord's work, as my Lutheran grandma would say. Her instagram is one of the few places on that platform that I'm okay checking in on from time to time. While her work is focused on encouraging Black women to rest, there is much in her generous approach to rest that is universally applicable, but especially to women in general.
I'm seeing so clearly the link between my shame around napping and capitalist brain washing. I'm also seeing how capitalism doesn't want me to create. It wants me to consume. And I can't consume if I'm resting.
This poisonous burden of unwarranted urgency (buy now!) and need for power (always be competing!) and obsession with progress (which often strips away our connection to the earth and flow and peace) are hurting us as creatives.
It's time to stop the noise. To rest in silence. To trust the body.
I write this to all of you on the biggest shopping holiday of the year here in the States - Black Friday, which is not a day anymore but a whole season of being bombarded with emails and sales and a fabricated sense of urgency bordering on hysteria. If you have a scarcity devil, they will be highly activated right now. American / Western socialization demands that you go out and take advantage of these deals. Why pay more later when you can pay less now? Not enough in the bank to take advantage of these stupendous deals? That's what credit cards are for!
Capitalist culture hurts our creativity.
There's an amazing exercise in the Zen book The Engaged Spiritual Life that uses our craving and attachment to things and sales and sparkle as an opportunity to get to know our relationship to wanting shit: to see how our body and minds react to being in a space where we're asked to consume. To notice what deep wounds get poked when we tell ourselves we shouldn't or can't buy something.
Below I offer this rich practice that is unlike anything I've heard of and might just transform your relationship to rest, productivity, and consumption.
Step One: What you do is: you go to a store that really activates your desire to buy. A place where you might lack self-control, engage in lots of anxious justification. A place that causes you to suffer because you either want things you can't have or buy things you know you don't need. For me, that's a place like Marshall's or Home Goods, a place where there are deals on everything and you never know what amazing thing you're going to see that you have to have. That'd you be bananas NOT to buy at that price. Screw the budget, screw the twingy feeling in your chest. Never mind that you're breaking promises to yourself - you absolutely NEED this thing. Sound familiar?
Step Two: You set a timer and you walk around the store for 30 minutes. You are not here to buy anything, You will not buy anything. Your job is to walk around and simply notice how your body and mind reacts. Get to know your scarcity devil. Get to know those parts of you that get activated by being told that can't have something. Notice your breathing, your thoughts. Just be curious and open. What grabs your attention? What memories or patterns arise?
Step Three: Leave the store. You might practice a bit of lovingkindess afterwards (I have some recordings on the subscriber portal and on my Insight Timer page). You might journal a bit about what came up for you. Share with a friend or your therapist. Process in whatever way feels good to you and see what shifts are up for grabs.
An exercise like this can be so powerful for us as creatives. First, we're getting into the nitty gritty of the interior landscape and our characters are most resonant when we can do that for them, too. But we're also identifying something that steals time from our writing and confronting it.
How many hours a week, a month, a year do you lose of your writing time because you are buying things, thinking about buying things, writing lists about buying things, returning things, traveling to buying things, having to work more because you buy so many things...
What has our consumerist culture stolen from your creativity?
Disclosure: As a writing coach, I am inevitably part of capitalism. Of course I want to continue offering 1:1 Breakthrough calls and my on-demand courses and other workshops. There is nothing wrong with fair energetic exchanges for things that will support and nourish and inspire you. We all buy things we need and want. What I'm talking about here is turning our attention to why we buy what we do, what is motivating it, and the ripple effect those purchases have on our creativity. If you find you're in a real bind with how your lifestyle and livelihood are interacting with your creativity, and you want support working through that, you know where to find me.
As you move into the holiday season, I wish you many naps, much rest and ease, and a sweet settling in to winter's request that we burrow and stay warm and allow the season to do its good work of healing and recovery after a hard year of labor and reaping all that we sowed.
To you and your pillow-
