The Weekend Epiphany, Why Resting is the New Rebellion

For nine years now, I have lived alone with my best pal Gabe.

Nine years of building, creating, learning, supporting others, coaching, moderating, writing, dreaming and pouring my heart into Rebellious Aging, Whole Communities, my website and everything in between.

And for nine years my weekends have looked exactly like my weekdays. YIKES!

• Work.
• Thinking about work.
• Catching up on work.
• Creating more work.
• Reading stuff relating to work.
• Dreaming up new ideas.

Weekends were just an extension of effort. A chance to finally "get caught up." A place where I folded more tasks into every spare corner, telling myself this was all a "good thing".

Recently, something shifted. Not wholly in my mind, but also in my body. My body began whispering to me. Then nudging. Then finally saying, "Enough. This pace is no longer serving you." And for the first time, in a long time, I listened.

The epiphany that happened on Saturday morning. It started simply.

A quiet Saturday morning. Me, half-awake. No obligations. No deadlines. No events. And a voice inside me, gentle but firm, said:

• "Why don't you sleep in?"
• "Why don't you take an extended hike with Gabe today, it is a gorgeous day?"
• "Why don't you call the "Street Ladies" and go to dinner in town?"
• "Why don't you relax and enjoy what you have accomplished?"

If you have known me long enough you know I AM QUITE WEARY OF THE VOICE IN MY HEAD. I ONCE READ THAT THE "VOICE" IS FOR SURVIVAL NOT HAPPINESS. WOW! This voice I was hearing as I lay in my bed was not laziness, or quitting. The voice was wisdom. Perhaps a wisdom that has been maturing in me for decades and was finally ready to be heard.

My body wasn't breaking down, IT WAS WAKING UP!

The truth? My body was not tired. Nope! It was tired of being ignored. Every bit of resistance, every ounce of weekend unmotivation wasn't failure, it was information. My body wasn't saying "STOP." It was saying:

• "Choose differently."
• "Honor yourself."
• "Make space for joy."
• "Let yourself live."

And SO I DID.

This is all new to me and I am treading lightly. Over the last few weekends, I have been experimenting, playing, and learning what it means to reclaim Saturdays and Sundays. Not as catch up zones but as SACRED TIME. And oh what joy I have found.

Here is what my weekends look like now (two weekends in):

• Sleeping in without guilt.
• Reading a book until I feel drowsy...and then taking the nap.
• Much longer neighborhood walks and hikes with Gabe.
• Walking into our sweet town and enjoying the vibe, the activity, the experience.
• Lunch at a quaint cafe', just because.
• Calling a friend and going out to dinner.
• Longer, more on point, unrushed visits with my man.
• Sitting in quiet reflection, celebrating what I have done well and releasing my missteps (Instead of the other way around which I am queen of).
• Thinking of actually taking up "Nature Journaling". A magical practice I learned from my friend Barb Root. (This is so amazing, I recommend you give it a try.) I can connect you with Barb for an intro to nature journaling).
• Doing whatever feels good in the moment, not whatever I thought "should" be done.

I am not abandoning my purpose. I am honoring it, by honoring myself.

Did you know that we were not put here to GRIND.

This part is important:

Women of my generation were conditioned to keep going. To push through. To push ourselves. To be productive, even in our rest. To fill the silence. And through all of that noise, somewhere I or we forgot:

Weekends are not rewards.

They are rights.

We need softness.

We need joy.

We need pauses.

We need time that is not measured by OUTPUT.

A vibrant life, the one you and I believe in so fiercely, is built as much in rest as in action.

SO, Here is my New Weekend philosophy. (Two weekends in).

• Be slow.
• Be thoughtful.
• Be joyful.
• Be playful.
• Be lazy.
• Be unstructured.
• Be spontaneous.
• Be free.

Not every weekend will look the same. I love that! How about you?

The structure I follow now is simple:

• If it feels nourishing, I say yes.
• If it feels draining, I say NO.

That is my new boundary. My new compass. My new weekend epiphany. AND the good news is it's changing me in all the right ways.

Let rest be your new act of power.

Let weekends become your sanctuary.

Let joy return to your calendar.

A weekend well spent brings a week of content.

***Suz