Imperfect Rhythms of Work and Rest

Reflections on my latest Spiritual Direction

I told my Spiritual Director yesterday that ever since my oral thesis defense, I’m bouncing through a lot of different emotions. Overwhelmed, grateful, awed, shocked, exhausted…

I’m finding it hard to be at rest lately, because my brain wants to engage all the things I put aside to get this project and paper finished. I took Monday of this week as a Paid Time Off day, and kept my regular mid-week day off for working Sunday to catch up on rest, and have time and space to revel in accomplishment.

Monday was a perfect rainy afternoon to spend time resting, but my brain wouldn’t shut up! Part of it was saying “yo, we have new paints, what are we doing just laying here?!” and part of it was saying, “relief and gladness, and pride have had their day in the sun. Overwhelm, stress, and snippiness would like to have some face time as well!”

We talked about how my self-care has been limited, but also dug up a tendency that I have to be perfectionist - surprise, surprise - even about my self-care. As an Enneagram 4, I am very into aesthetics. As a lover of beautiful and cozy things, my idealized notion of a self care day at home is relaxing on my couch with some nice freshly brewed loose leaf tea, with a book, in the early morning when the sun is just coming up and my cat is still too sleepy to be a giant B; choosing instead to snuggle up onto my chest.

After tea and some reading, moving to morning pages and journaling, and then to my art space to do some painting. A nutritious breakfast after that, more reading, more painting, nutritious lunch, and a nap, and then journaling.

Sounds like a great day, right? I did a mini art retreat a while back, where I did do each of these things and it was, indeed, great. The problem, I discovered yesterday, is I have idealized a version of time off that is very specific, remarkable circumstantial, and always better in my head than in practice.

You know what else is a great day off? A good lie-in, even if I’m wide awake, taking my time to get up and stretch, and make coffee; grabbing the closest mug from our little command hook mug station, and watching MasterChef with Reesee Muff the Cat and Andrew; eating spelt and buckwheat zucchini muffins at our little TV tables, inevitable dropping more crumbs than intended on the floor, mugs and plates on the tables for the duration of Master Chef, forgetting about them until a little later, maybe making time for an art, more likely watching more MasterChef, snacky lunch, and reading together until we decide to do something else.

I was thinking about self care practices and habits today at Three Minute Ministry Mentor’s Free Write Friday at the Writing Table.

Again, the vision in my head of what successful time in my writing space looks like is always overshadowed by the one thing that keeps me from getting up on time to be at the writing table and ready to go at 7am: fear.

Fear of the empty page sticks to my bones like a weighted blanket, keeping me asleep, or at least trying to fall back asleep, when I really want to join the community to write. Fear of the empty page, and what might NOT happen during my dedicated writing time in my carefully curated writing space keeps from experiencing what COULD come of that space and time.

Ridiculous, right? It sounds so silly to even write it, but the fear of the empty page, fear of a “wasted” writing session, though quite silly, is also very, very real.

My Spiritual Director asked me yesterday what it would look like to imperfectly let go of perfectionism in work and rest. I’m still working with that. For today, it is recognizing that nothing about the act of writing: showing up to the page, moving a pen across the paper, is EVER wasted. For today, it is recognizing that a perfect restful afternoon today after getting home a little bit earlier than usual will likely look like the most imperfect chaos cobbled into a meaningful evening of time with Andrew, going to the gym and the massage chairs after a run, then hitting up the laundromat and the glorious little antique shop right next door (a recent discovery); folding or hanging laundry together after Reesee has sufficiently peppered our warm and freshly cleaned clothes with her fur and her cattitude.

For today, it’s recognizing that working full time and writing a thesis is hard work, and what I was able to do in my full time job, while some had to be absorbed by my pastoral associate, was enough. The imperfections of letting some things fall through the cracks are not tarnish enough on the consistent pastoral care that was offered, to make any of it less than adequate, for that season.

For today, imperfectly letting go of perfectionism is recognizing that rest looks a million different ways, self-care that has staying power is not about aesthetics but about recognizing all the little imperfect ways we lean into rhythms of work and rest, and that I am enough: at work and at rest.

How are your rhythms of work and rest sounding these days?

P.S. for more on self care that subverts capitalism and actually feeds the soul, please check out Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes’ book, Sacred Self- Care, and her substack, No Trifling Matter.

Photo by Lesly Juarez on Unsplash