My husband asked me something the other day while I was working around the house: Why is it that you can’t seem to relax?
He was half joking at the moment, but it got me thinking. I am always looking for something to do.
It’s an automatic habit that even while I’m in the middle of something, I find a way to maximize that time.
If I put something on the stove and it’s gonna take 10 minutes to boil, I find something to do within those 10 minutes so I’m more efficient.
While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be efficient, it’s also a cover for not wanting to feel lazy.
When you have a skewed view of rest, when it’s needed, or a lack of feeling like you deserve it, that’s when we get into trouble.
For moms like me who love efficiency, planning, and being productive, it’s hard to know when to slow down. In the past, unfortunately, I’ve missed those signals so many times that it takes me getting sick or something else that forces me to slow down.
The truth is that going without rest is not sustainable, and we will suffer in the long term if we don’t make time for it.
Why Moms Struggle to Give Themselves Grace
I think for those of us who might struggle with this issue, you have to think back on where you even got this idea from. For me, it was definitely my mom.
She was always doing something, whether that was cooking, cleaning, ironing, sweeping, dusting, or any other number of household activities.
My mom worked full-time, so she didn’t have time during the day to take care of those things, so the only time that she could do those things was in the evenings or on the weekends.
There were high expectations of discipline and excellence, and an expectation of hard work, and those are lessons I am incredibly grateful for. While I think that level of work ethic is admirable and important, it doesn’t always leave room for the reality of rest.
Sometimes we’re in circumstances where rest seems impossible to get, or it’s busy season, but I’m learning that if you don’t make that time, the Lord or your body will do it for you.
Rest is something that’s a necessity regardless of whether or not we think we’ve earned it. That’s not to negate hard work. If you are truly being lazy that’s one thing, but for those of us who are running households and going to work and taking care of babies and trying to maximize the time that we have it can be difficult to turn that off.
God said that precedent from the beginning. He worked hard, He created for six days and then he rested.
You need to take the time that you need to recharge, whether that’s an hour or an entire evening. That’s something that we have to shift our mindset around.
For me, rest is something that makes me feel guilty. I don’t think I always deserve it, or I’ve done enough to earn it, and if I were to look objectively at everything I do all day as a wife, mom and as an employee, it’s not true, but it’s a mindset shift that I have to adjust.
If I don’t adjust it, it will lead to burnout, and burnout tends to occur at those inconvenient times. But the consequences of my actions could’ve been avoided if I had taken the time to sit down somewhere and rest.
The kids will be ok.
My husband will be ok.
And the house will be ok if I sit down and rest.
What True Rest Looks Like
When we go back to the beginning when God created and we see that he rested, obviously it’s different from the type of rest that we need to take.
God was not stressed and tired and about to get sick. And it’s something that God didn’t need to do. He set the precedent for us that rest isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity.
The other day, I was really tired. I am in my ninth month of pregnancy so no real explanation needed there, and I have twin toddlers who are almost a year and a half old so that should tell you where I’m at.
But this day, I was just like – I cannot. There was a list of things that I wanted to do, but what I needed to do was to sit on the couch and put my feet up and do a whole lot of nothing except what was necessary, like diaper changes and feeding little people and whatnot. Aside from that, I wasn’t doing anything.
I wasn’t trying to be extra productive. I wasn’t trying to see what else I could do while I was on the couch to make it the most efficient. I told myself no. I put something on the television and I rested.
I spent that evening also doing nothing and then it hit me – for all of my planning and organizing, I never actually planned in rest. That might seem a bit strange but for someone like me if it’s not on the calendar, it’s not happening.
If you’re someone who struggles with actually making the time to rest, you might need to literally put rest and relax on your calendar for a certain amount of time so that it actually happens.
The house is not going to go up in flames if you take some time to rest. And part of unraveling that belief that things will fall apart if you’re not constantly moving, if you’re not constantly doing, there’s generally something deeper going on there about your belief about yourself or your belief about God.
What truly is driving that behavior? If our goal is to be more like Jesus, he dipped out so many times to pray somewhere, relax somewhere, and sleep somewhere, and he didn’t have any issues resting. So we can’t really say we’re trying to be more like him and we never take care of ourselves.
So ask yourself, what is it that’s driving this constant need for productivity? This constant drive to work. It could be just habit. It could be something deeper as well.
We have to ask ourselves what is driving this need to keep moving – because constant work without taking care of yourself is not what was modeled.
When It’s Not Rest – It’s Avoidance
There is a fine line between resting and procrastination. This might not be that huge of an issue for my productivity ladies.
Your form of procrastination is probably some form of busy work around the house instead of doing the thing you need to do.
Sometimes, when we are supposedly resting, we are avoiding the work that needs to be done, and rest cannot be used as an excuse for avoiding discomfort.
There is a time and a place for I’m tired, I’m exhausted, and I can’t bother.
But the time in place is not when you are avoiding something, or someone, or a conversation that needs to happen.
For example, I see a lot of posts online from moms about piles of laundry. Life happens.
We’ve all seen the pile of the laundry in that basket and you keep passing it and you’re like I am gonna get to it and it just doesn’t happen that day.
That’s fine, but if you hate doing laundry, and it’s been weeks and you keep avoiding the laundry basket, that’s a bigger issue. I think we all truly know when we’re avoiding something, and it’s not really being intentional about rest.
We keep passing by that thing that we need to take care of, and we use “I’m tired” as an excuse. You weren’t so tired to do this other chore that you don’t mind doing, so you need to take care of it. The laundry pile isn’t just taking up physical space, it’s also taking up mental space. Take the time and clear both.
How to Find the Right Balance
It can be difficult to find the right balance between rest and productivity, and to be honest with you. I haven’t found it yet.
I just started putting “relax” in my calendar, and to be honest with you, it’s been helping.
Last night, after the kids were in bed, I sat down and watched a show. I cannot tell you the last time I just sat down on the couch and did nothing else but watch an interesting show for a couple of hours. And then this morning, I had more energy, and I was able to be more productive today because I rested yesterday – imagine that.
So this is a situation where rest was productive. It was something I needed to do.
There are going to be seasons that are busier, but that time needs to be built in. The productivity that you truly wanna have it won’t happen because you’re running on a quarter tank.
Acknowledging that it is important when it comes to motherhood for those of us who love being productive and love having goals and crushing them. The level of expectation needs to adjust.
Have flexible expectations of your level of productivity, and overestimate the amount of rest that you’ll need because more than likely you’re probably not taking enough anyway.
Build rest into your schedule and don’t just walk around expecting that it’s going to happen. Rest will need to be intentional.
Intentional rest is needed.
You do not need to run yourself into the ground to be considered a good wife and a good mother.
You can build rest into your life without guilt.
So let me challenge you – When was the last time you took some time to rest?
Let me know when the comments, and we can work on this whole resting thing together.
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