Rest will save us.

How this challenging mindfulness practice is necessary to uphold our democracy

Contemplations

How can you practice rest as a form of resistance against white supremacy?

What does your unique practice of rest look like?

***

Last time I wrote to you, I was bursting with joy after celebrating Lunar New Year — a special holiday that I now look at as a affirmation of my heritage as a proud kid of Vietnamese refugees.

Shortly after Tết¹, I found myself stricken with some kind of sickness that left me useless for about two weeks. Worried that I had the latest strain of COVID, one of the flus or RSV, I kept on searching for answers and wondered if I fell victim to the quad-emic.

I went to urgent care, hoping to get some more answers, only to receive negative test results back for everything and for the doctor to tell me, “I guess you’re just sick.” To which, he emoji shrugged and left the room. How about that for our American healthcare system?

I wasn’t sure what was more frustrating — that I was sick or that I didn’t seem to have any answers as to why I was sick.

A dear and wise co-worker of mine gently asked me on one of my “up” days if it was simply exhaustion that made me sick. A few hours later, another colleague of mine asked me the same thing. I had adamantly answered “no” to both of them.

But their inquiry did make me reflect on the week prior:

• Monday: I drove two hours into the city for a huge in-person presentation at work in the evening and then drove back with my cousin that same night.

• Tuesday: We drove 45 minutes to the monastery to start Lunar New Year festivities. We went home that night.

• Wednesday: We drove back to the monastery to continue Lunar New Year.

• Friday: I drove back to the city for a work lunch and wound up staying and catching up with my boss.

• Saturday: I ran errands with my best friend before driving back two hours home.

I’m exhausted just recounting it to you so it’s probably no surprise that on Sunday night I started to feel incredibly fatigued — the COVID-level of fatigue where your body and mind is heavy and then I had no choice but to sleep through most of Monday and Tuesday much to my chagrin.

My body was SCREAMING at me to please sleep.

I found out later that as joyous as it was to be in community at the monastery, it been a petri dish for our sangha², as many of the sisters had also gotten sick shortly after. This was validating to me at the time because I work really hard to stay present and connected to my body, to know its limits. This is part of my practice.

I didn’t really want to admit that I pushed myself too hard the week before even though, I did know. Last week was a lot, I kept on telling my colleagues after rejecting the idea that perhaps my overworking was the main driver for me getting sick.

For weeks, I had asked my colleague if I was needed at our Friday luncheon, knowing my threshold for my commuting. The sheer fact that I needed to drink coffee — keep in mind that I have weened myself off caffeine for years — was a sign that I wasn’t resting enough.

The next two weeks, I battled the feeling of powerless. I wanted to have access to my full faculties, I wanted to have the agency to choose rest not be forced to rest. Ever since I was a kid, I have always hated being sick for this reason.

Yes, I understand the irony, my friends. But I’m just sharing my truth here.

My recovery came in spurts — first with me able to take off my sleeping mask, not needing to shield myself from light sensitivity to moving from the bed to the couch to going from work phone calls off camera to eventually getting back to my desk.

Here’s the ironic part — everyone around me was advocating for me to REST. I have been in horrible work environments and situations before where the people around me do not care for my best interest. In fact, often co-workers would ignore how sick I was because my lack of productivity was putting the overall project at risk — I am a producer after all. My job in simplest terms is to produce. But isn’t that the case for all of us?

How rest is mindful resistance

It wasn’t until my wife got whatever bug I had and I saw her struggle with the same challenges as me. I found myself saying the same things she was saying to me the week prior: Don’t push yourself. Why are you working? Aren’t you supposed to be resting?

It was in these moments that I took it as an invitation to re-examine this habit energy that is so deeply ingrained in each of us and in our capitalist society.

I wrote about this almost exactly one year ago which I find to be hilarious. I guess it’s obvious this is something I need to keep exploring — so welcome and thanks for being along this ride with me 🤣 BUCKLE UP!

If you don't know how to take care of your body, how to release the tension in your body and give it permission to rest, you don't love your body. We all know that our bodies have the capacity of self-healing. When we cut our finger, we know that we don't have to do anything besides clean it; our body will take care of the rest. We panic when we forget that our bodies have the power of self-healing. If we simply allow our bodies to rest, our bodies can heal themselves without a lot of medicine.

— Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh

I often revisit Tricia Hersey’s brilliant work Rest is Resistance in these times when I see how much productivity and capitalism is part of my subconscious behavior. As a Black woman, she reflects on how productivity and capitalism has progressed into its modern form through chattel slavery and she reminds us how much of this country has been built on the backs of Black and Latina women.

As I was stricken with whatever seasonal cold I had, I was also watching, like all of us, our democracy disintegrate into a fascist oligarchy as more and more executive orders continued to dismantle our federal government in the name of giving more power to states. But let’s continue to name it for what it is: White supremacy is being forced down our throats reversing decades worth of DEI policies and xenophobic culture is becoming the norm, as Trump has completely changed immigration policies and acceptable rhetoric in the first month of his administration.

It was in this moment, surrounded by snotty tissues, that I understood more deeply how rest is resistance. I have thought a lot about how we can fight back Trump and his blatant power grab. As someone who used to be in political communications and have dear friends who are trying to light some kind of fire under the Democrats to do something, I keep coming back to core principal that I think will get us through to the other side: care.

We must continue caring for ourselves — and for each other — in this moment. It is the only way for us to hold onto our humanity, our resilience so we can have the clarity and endurance to fight back against what is unfolding.

So how does this come back to rest?

Well, care is not possible without rest. And resistance is not possible without rest. I went on a rampage the other day after reading a piece on infighting on the left and the need for community building that reminded me how we are own victims of this vicious cycle of burnout, particularly in the social justice space:

It’s this proliferation of the self, this need to eviscerate ourselves and cancel each other in the name of righteous anger, to save democracy that will be our demise. When in actuality, what happens is that we are left with nothing more than a hollow, misdirected sense of what we’re actually fighting for. Screaming at each other from a state of burnout, mistrust and a self-perpetuating cycle of trauma is not the way we are going to fight fascism.

I remember a story that my dear teacher Kaira Jewel once shared that after 9/11 happened Thầy³ was requested to help relieve the suffering of those affected by the attacks. She said the monastics were panicking, rushing to get everything ready to care for others when in his wisdom, he told everyone they were going to the beach first to everyone’s shock.

Why are we going to the beach?, one of the monastics asked.

He didn’t answer but just said that it was time to rest. It wasn’t until after they visited the beach that the monastics realized the deep wisdom from Thầy who knew that they would be most effective in their service to others if they were working from a full tank. How could they inspire others with hope and groundedness if they themselves were rundown and scared? We have to learn the art of deep relaxation, Thầy has said.

I realize now that rest is a source of freedom, of sovereignty. I realize now that my body was not taking away my agency but actually was wiser and strong enough to override the deep conditioning of white supremacy, capitalism and productivity. And the practice now is for me to get back to that deep wisdom that my body — our bodies — know. The practice is to drown out the noise, to slow down enough to hear it, feel it and allow myself to be exactly where I am.

So let’s take a collective deep breath together. Let us in this moment, in sickness and in health, remember the vital importance of rest. Let us remember that the chaos being created is strategic to knock us off our center. We are all collectively suffering, our nervous systems going in and out of fight or flight or freeze mode. We will not be able to tap into our wisdom, our clarity if we are exhausted, if our actions are coming from a place of clouded judgment. How can we be the change we want to see if we literally cannot simply be?

So as counterintuitive as it may be, please learn from me — and rest. Our future depends on it.

Practice

Here’s a chance to practice: A deep relaxation practice guided by Kaira Jewel Lingo. Shared here for your convenience but you can find more deep relaxation practices on the Plum Village mindfulness app.

1. Lunar New Year

2. Community in Buddhist terms.

3. Thầy, meaning teacher in Vietnamese and what the community lovingly calls Zen Master Thích Nhất Hạnh