There is a strange thing that happens after trauma. Life may finally become quieter, but your body doesn’t necessarily get the memo. You can be sitting on the couch, technically doing nothing, while your nervous system is still scanning the horizon for the next thing that might go wrong.
You might feel exhausted but unable to properly relax. Tired but wired. You might find yourself filling every available minute with work, errands, cleaning, appointments, exercise, scrolling or simply doing. Or in my case, rebuilding our entire property which is relentless. Because stopping can feel uncomfortable as it invariably means confronting the uncomfortable. And sometimes, after trauma, doing nothing can feel downright unsafe, like waiting for the fire to return.
But rest isn’t a luxury. Rest is part of recovery.
When we’ve been through something overwhelming, our brains and bodies can remain on high alert long after the immediate danger has passed. That doesn’t mean we’re broken or there’s something inherently wrong. It means our systems have been doing exactly what they were designed to do – protect us from a threat.
The problem comes when the emergency response becomes our everyday operating system. And this is where rest matters.
But who has time to rest?
I can hear the collective eye roll from here. “Rest? Are you kidding me? I’ve got a shit tonne of stuff to do.”
There’s meals. Washing. Work. Family. Emails. Appointments. Housework. Bills. Other people’s needs. Life admin that somehow breeds overnight worse than a rabbit. And if you’re a woman in your 50s, there can be an extraordinary amount of invisible responsibility sitting on your shoulders.
So we wait. We tell ourselves we’ll rest when everything has quietened down a bit. When the house is organised. When the work is finished. When everyone else is okay. When the kids’ move out. When we retire. After our parents’ have passed on. When we finally feel “better.”
Here’s the problem – those days’ may never actually come. Everything may never be sorted. There will always be another email, another load of washing, another problem to solve (oh how I wish I could have less problems to solve). If rest only happens when life is calm, you may be waiting a very long time. And forever is a very, very long time …
Rest doesn’t have to mean doing nothing
This is an important distinction. Rest can be ten quiet minutes with your favourite hot bevvie. It can be sitting outside without your phone (yes you can do that). It can be taking a slow walk without turning it into exercise. It can be reading a book, listening to music, having a bath, lying down in the middle of the afternoon or saying, “No, I don’t have the capacity for that today.” It can even be cancelling something that isn’t essential. Stepping away from that WhatsApp Group that will survive without you.
Rest is creating moments where your body receives the message, you don’t have to be on high alert right now. And sometimes, that’s exactly what your nervous system needs. I would say in fact, most times.
Recovery requires space
After my own experience of bushfire and loss, I became much more aware of how differently my brain and body responded to the world around me. I realised that recovery wasn’t simply about getting back to who I was before. It was about creating the conditions for my brain and nervous system to process what had happened and eventually find a different way forward. That required significant time and quiet space. It required slowing down and saying no way more often than before. And it required recognising that constantly pushing myself wasn’t proof of strength. Sometimes, stopping was and is the stronger choice.
So if you’re recovering from trauma, grief or a major life transition, don’t wait until you’re completely depleted before you give yourself permission to rest. Put it in the calendar if you have to. Protect it. Treat it as something important. Because it is. You don’t need to earn rest by being productive enough. You don’t need permission from anyone else. And you certainly don’t need to apologise for it. Even if it’s hours’ of doom scrolling You Tube, but I digress …
Rest isn’t the opposite of rebuilding your life.
It is one of the things that makes rebuilding possible. So today, ask yourself:
Where could I create ten minutes of genuine rest without feeling guilty about it?
Start there. Ten minutes. No fixing. No achieving. No performing. No decision-making. Just space to breathe.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing we can do while rebuilding our lives is absolutely nothing and that is absolutely okay.
Image: Chat GPT