If you've experienced trauma, you may awaken to a trauma response that literally looks like going from one extreme to the next. We use other words to describe this pendulum swing experience, like going from:
Avoiding to Overindulging
Withdrawing to Clingy
Procrastinating to Overworking
People-Pleasing to Inconsiderate
It's not so much about the actions or the patterns of the extreme, as much as it's about your awareness of how and when you engage in these patterns.
Learning your patterns can be evidence that you are doing some kind of work to heal. Healing is work.
The patterns is also work, but it can be a more familiar work that doesn't feel like actual work if you have a strong attachment to the pattern.
Doing this work also means you will tap into internal resistance and more keen to external resistance.
Healing requires rest.
Trauma Recovery requires rest.
Growing requires rest.
Increasing your self-awareness requires rest.
Rest is often not accessed because it's mislabeled and criminalized as counterproductive, as boredom, as unnecessary, or as something you have to make yourself worthy of deserving. Rest doesn't have to come with force or pure physical or mental exhaustion or mental or creative blocks.
Rest is not just limited to sleep or naptime, but also means breaks mentally and breaks socially. Rest also means pacing, having a healthy balance of higher energy engagement and low to no energy engagement. Rest is in the healthy middle of the extremes listed above. Rest is releasing. Rest is pausing. Rest is rejuvenating. Rest is productive. Rest is accessing peace. Rest is readjusting. Rest is preparation.
What do you need rest from in this season?
How can you honor your need for rest in this season?
