i don't dream of labor, but i do dream of REST

“i dream of rest” sept 3, 2021

“During slavery, enslaved Africans worked for 20 hours a day for centuries as machines and as capitalism’s first experiment. Sleep was one of the many things stolen from them. I believe that rest and naps allow descendants of those brutalized by slavery the opportunity to reclaim that Dreamspace. It becomes a form of resistance against a system that continues to see Black people as non-human and it is also a form of reparations. Rest offers us the ability to invent and tap into the ancestral realm to gain power and guidance today. Its liberation and racial justice without the gaze of white supremacy.” Tricia Hersey, Founder of the Nap Ministry

REST

  • noun: inactivity // noun: remainder of something // noun: base, foundation

  • verb: be calm, sleep // verb: lie, recline // verb: depend, hinge 

  • synonyms: vacation, break, breather, calm, downtime, ease, respite, slumber, stop, stillness, unwind, recline, pause, settle, lounge, be supported, dream, peace, interlude, intermission, interval

i dont dream of labor

but i do dream of rest

intermittent

And regular 

abundant and spacious 

REST

For the last month I have found myself journaling, jotting down and rewriting my values and goals as a process for unearthing, remembering and reconnecting to self. At first it would come in scattered paragraphs on loose paper. Then it moved to the journal portal, the sacred space and showed up repeatedly as two distinct columns. And the values that came up, not second or third but always first, in big bold letters were TIME & SPACIOUSNESS. In other words: rest, time off, breaks, off screen, off work, unstructured time, time without pressure, without pressure to perform, produce, work. Time for breathing, time for lying down, time for artmaking for myself or in community, time for writing and self-reflection, time for reconnection, time for detachment from the machine.

In my life, the types of labor I have engaged in have ran the spectrum of unpaid labor, customer service/retail/food, event planning to professional 9-5 office type work, in classroom teaching, consultant, contractor, vendor, artist, gig work. I have been thinking a lot specifically about the last 6/7 years and about how much shame I have carried around way that I move in and out of work spaces or on and off the plantation. This shame is mostly the result of measuring myself up against a machine, a system that feeds and profits off my Blackness, my Womxness, my struggles with maintaining a healthy sense of self-worth and mental wellness, my Poorness, my Queerness, my HSPness, my neurodivergentness, my Otherness. Believing and internalizing a sense of great failure for not staying at work places for years and years, for not ascending the professional latter, for not working 40, 50, 60, 70hr weeks, for my desire to not be completely consumed with labor and productivity.

I get it. I do. The whole work thing.

We have to work. We need to work to afford shelter for our humxn forms that house our spirit. We need work to gain access to health care for our bodies and minds. We need consistent work to have a little bit of access to this paper currency that is needed to survive and move about in this world. 

Some of us are privileged enough to have arrived at a place where we are able to do work that is for the most part in alignment with our values, is practicing a love and decolonizing ethic and receive right compensation for said energy exchanges. 

The other of us must do work that may not be necessarily aligned and are more often than not still grappling with and struggling through a culture committed to white supremacist patriarchal capitalist values around work. 

We’ll have to suit up, armor on, shields in hand and traverse the everevolving plantation of exploited labor and the myriad of interpersonal and peer to peer battles that show up as a result of out of practiced mission statements, values and purpose, microagressions and commitments to OVERWORK, OVERPRODUCE, OVERPERFORM, pressure to assimilate to group thought/ group speak, face assaults on our boundaries, sense of self and worth, attempts to silence dissenting/counter/other/transformative thought, the insidious push for the humxn flesh to become more machine like, less feeling etc etc. 

My response has always been to choose rest over dynamics and pushes to OVERWORK.

My response has always been to choose rest over assaults on my mental health.

My response has always been to choose rest over pressures to swallow, remain silent, and keep going. 

I save the little coins I have and I buy a little time. 

I invest in the abundance of spaciousness.

I invest in moments of rest. 

Regarding the shame that comes up for me when I feel like I am just not quite making it in this “go go go” work culture, I feel like I’m at a place where I can metaphorically place that shame in a clear bottle with a lid on top. 

I can still see it but it’s muted. 

And in that moment of silence, I see what has emerged as a clear and strong commitment to honoring this body, this mind, this spirit of mine. 

As a person living that whole millennial elder/young builder status, I can commend myself for the imperfect, a little messy, AND incredibly determined, experimental, and spirit-led way I have been trying to figure out my right relationship with labor, work, and rest. As someone who is an HSP (highly sensitive person/empath), introvert, neurodivergent, one who has felt safer outside of traditional work/learning spaces than in, I have been circling around this idea of a rest ethic for years that I have felt hard to name and ashamed to value. 

It is a value not a flaw to prioritize and center rest. From a value rather than shaming lens, I can look at the ways I move thru work spaces and see that on the spectrum of rest what has become incredibly fundamental for me are INTERVALS of REST. 

I need them. 

Regular and frequent moments of detachment and separation from the system of labor. Regular and frequent moments to disengage with the system of OVERWORK, OVERPERFORM, and OVERPRODUCE and reconnect with the body. Allow for the internal messages to become more clear. Inner messages urging us to tend to our bodies, give it rest, give it water, give it time, give it movement, give it attention. Regular and frequent moments of pause in order to reconnect with community, loves, family, mentors, guides. Regular and frequent moments to reestablish a connection with self, shed what no longer serves us, reconstruct identity toward greater alignment with our ORI, our higher purpose, our spirit’s calling. I am speaking of something that is a little more imaginative and abundant than the 20-30 days of PTO and holidays off that are typically given or the long summer breaks of educators in k-12. 

When it comes to uncovering and centering this ethic around rest, for me the regularity and frequency are key. The intervals being paid for/valued/invested in is also key. What would it look like to have 1-2 weeks off after every 6 weeks, 2-3 weeks off every 4 months? And be compensated at the benefit level of a full time employee? What would it look like for the parameters of full-time work to look more like a 27-30 hour work week? What would a 5-6 hour work day look like? What would it look like to be on the screen 3 times out of the week and 2 days off screen? Or 2 days on screen and 2 days off? What would it look like for orgs and companies to include frequent intervals of rest within their quarterly/yearly plans. Folks will work years before they’re able to take a solid 4-6 weeks off. What would it look like to work for 1 year and then take the next year off? Can we commit to reimagining our rhythms around work and rest? Can we look to investing and offering coins to rest just as we do work, labor and performance? Can we pay folks right compensation for their incredible energy that comes from both their rest and their labor?

Unfortunately because of this country’s history and present commitment to extractive capitalism and labor exploitation choosing to honor rest or more specifically intervals of rest comes with costs especially if one comes from a working class under-resourced background. Cost that can look like:

  1. Economic insecurity, lack of access to consistent flow of cash resources/income. The labor-force/matrix of distributing income does not value rest. As a result, folks entering into intervals of rest are not paid. And thus will need to rely on savings, support from community/friends/fam for the duration of their rest period. OR forego rest and WORK.

  2. Lack of access to healthcare and mental health support as a result of the inconsistent flow of income. 

  3. Harm to social and economic reputation. This harm to ones social status and economic mobility stems from the centering of white supremacist values around work that misconstrues what is a prioritization of a rest ethic as being lazy, difficult, underperforming, unproductive and unable to commit.

These cost are huge. And are the reason I find myself, like many of us, always returning back to the job hunt and prepping to engage with the labor system at some point or another. In the past, I have been privileged to buy a little time and invest in rest for a moment knowing full well the costs. And at the same time, there is no denying the the fruits that emerge when I gift myself with spacious time and rest. And this space and time is beautiful, generative, and healing because from this portal of respite comes: 

  1. Releasing, clearing out and resetting of my energetic field

  2. Time for reconnecting and reshaping self & identity

  3. Mental ease and clarity

  4. Space to reconnect with the body, offering it attention, water, good food, inspiration, breath

  5. Remembering, Reconnecting and Reprioritizing my relationship with the ancestors and receive guidance

  6. Connect with artmaking & movement as medicine and sacred healing

  7. Engage with Communal care, Communal Movement, Communal Witnessing, Communal Expression

  8. Receive insights pushing self toward greater alignment and to be able to move with more intentional purpose 

  9. And ultimately, embody and work with a vessel that is more invigorated, energized, clearer, and ready to share, collaborate, and engage with intention and care once again.

DEEP GRATITUDE & Blessings to the Champions of Rest, WorkSpace Transformers, Healers of the Body/Spirit, ArtMakers, and Divine Protectors of the Body who are doing this work and feeding us with so much abundant possibility for something other. I feel incredibly affirmed and looking forward to continuing down the winding journey of maintaining an ethic around rest and moving with and honoring the yearnings for intervals of rest. 


Further Talks & Readings & Resources for Affirmation and Support

  1. Rest & Collective Care as Tools for Liberation - Tricia Hersey, Founder of The Nap Ministry

  2. Website: The Nap Ministry  

  3. Kimberly Foster/For Harriet - Is it even worth it to work hard talk 

  4. Your job is not your political home - Lutze Segu

  5. House/Full of Black Womxn - Black Women Dreaming: Divine The Darkeness

  6. Supine Possibilities Lab - The Church of Black Feminist Thought

  7. 12 Signs Your Exhaustion Is Due to Emotional Labor — And How to Create Healthy Boundaries - Ramona Rio - The Body is Not an Apology 

  8. Self-Care & Sustainability: Why Healing is Valuable Work - Shivani Seth - Rest for Resistance

  9. The Privilege of Getting Rest: Let’s Shift the Balance - Dom Chatterjee - Rest for Resistance

  10. Alice Walker - “In Search of Our Mothers Gardens”

  11. June Jordan - “Ah, Momma”

  12. bell hooks - “Work Makes Life Sweet” Sisters of the Yam

  13. bell hooks - “Knowing Peace: An End to Stress” Sisters of the Yam

  14. bell hooks - “Commitment: Let Love Be Love in Me” All About Love

  15. Audre Lorde - “Uses of the Erotic”

  16. Cyndi Dale - “Energetic Boundaries”

  17. Thich Nhat Hanh - “Peace of Mind”

Shani Ealey