Sometimes rest is the work.
People in grief often say they are exhausted; something which goes beyond simply feeling tired and it can’t be cured by an early night or cup of strong coffee. It’s biology!
There is a biological explanation for this extreme fatigue.
The brain is processing a major life change
Stress hormones are elevated
Sleep is often disrupted
Immune and inflammatory systems are affected
The nervous system is adapting to the loss of an important attachment
People in grief are depleted … emotionally, spiritually, mentally, socially, physically, and psychologically.
There is the exhaustion of carrying memories,
Of making decisions when your mind feels foggy,
Of holding yourself together in conversations,
Of bracing for anniversaries, triggers, paperwork, loneliness, and all the tiny invisible moments that grief asks your body to survive.
This is not unique to early, raw grief. The tiredness can be experienced for years if not addressed, partly because we live in a world which values and praises productivity far more than restoration.
Today’s world that tells us to keep going, keep functioning, keep proving you are okay and so we only rest when we are forced to and rest can be seen as a weakness.
But what if rest is not weakness?
What if rest is one of the ways we begin to heal?
What is rest ?
Suzy Reading’s book Rest to Reset ( Suzy Reading), explores our relationship with rest as a culture and offers suggestions as to how we can improve how we engage with resting,
There are many lessons for grievers in her words.
In a cross over with how we view grief, how we view rest will have been impacted by how we were raised to view it, perhaps as lazy, indulgent, something we only do when everything else is ticked off the list.
The benefits of rest are wide ranging and useful for people in grief. Ranging from purely physical restoration and regeneration, to providing the space to reflect and gain clarity about what’s important and giving time to process emotions to help healing .
Again, similarly to grief, there is no room for judgement or comparison when it comes to resting. What is important is that we are intentional about it and name it for what it is.
Sometimes what we need is:
mental rest from overthinking
emotional rest from holding everything in
social rest from constant interaction
sensory rest from noise and stimulation
creative rest from pressure and responsibility
spiritual rest from carrying pain alone
physical rest from chronic tension and vigilance
Grief touches every one of these.
Suzy’s eight pillars of rest serves as a useful visual to remind us that not all rest is the same, some forms of rest are unexpected and don’t look like resting in the traditional sense. At times people may wish movement, at others they need stillness, sometimes solitude feels restful but another day company brings more peace.
Rest is not the opposite of resilience
A common definition of resilience is the ability to bounce back after a set back. Is this the best definition or are we misunderstanding resilience completely?
Resilience is not endless endurance.
Nor is it is gritting your teeth while slowly running yourself into the ground.
Real resilience needs recovery and that takes time and intention.
Bringing this back to the gardening analogy which I often use. The soil cannot produce endlessly without replenishment, fields are left fallow. Roots deepen in stillness.
Growth is seasonal.
And yet grieving people often feel guilty for needing rest, as though pausing would equate to failing.
But rest can be deeply purposeful.
Sometimes rest is the work.
My own lesson in rest
Recently, I took a solo holiday.
I wasn’t looking to “find myself” or to escape my life but in all honesty I wanted to see if I could do it … the complete opposite of a rest, more of a self imposed test !
However, what happened was unexpected.
Almost instantly, I stopped performing competence for everyone else.
I rested from decision-making.
From conversations.
From emotional labour.
From rushing.
And I noticed what happened when my nervous system was given space.
My constant internal bracing softened.
My thoughts became clearer and I could hear myself again beneath the noise.
It reminded me that rest is not empty.
It creates space
And often, like plants in a garden, healing needs room before anything new can grow.
A gentle invitation
Perhaps rest, for you, is not a week away.
Perhaps it is:
turning your phone off for an hour
sitting outside without needing to achieve anything
saying no without explanation
asking someone else to carry something for a while
going to bed earlier
letting yourself cry instead of holding it in
allowing silence without filling it
Small acts of restoration matter because slowly and in time they help you carry your grief differently.
And over time, this becomes part of resilience too.
Learning how to return to yourself with gentleness, over and over again
Perhaps resilience is not about how much you can carry but how gently you learn to care for yourself while carrying it.
My Living Forward programme of 1:1 coaching offers support while you learn how to move forward alongside your grief.
If you feel ready to explore what your next chapter could look like, you’re warmly welcome to take that step.
With warmth
Karen
p.s. last month I wrote to you about the loneliness that grief can bring and introduced the concept of collateral beauty, the idea that even in the face of loss something beautiful can grow.
The Grief Gardener at Reset and Rise Coaching - solution-focused grief support, creating the conditions for life after loss.
This is beautifully observed, Karen. I was especially struck by the idea that resilience is not endless endurance. There is something deeply humane in allowing rest to be part of the work, rather than treating it as an interruption. The fallow-field image will stay with me.