THE MYTH OF REST

THE INHERITANCE OF EXHAUSTION

If you pause and think back to the models of rest you grew up with, what do you remember?

Maybe you saw your mother collapse on the couch at night after working, caring, and cleaning, only to get up early the next morning to do it all again. Maybe you were told to “earn your break,” or scolded if you “slept in too late.” Maybe you heard comments like, “I’ll rest when I’m dead” tossed around casually, as though exhaustion was a badge of honor.

Most of us inherited a story about rest:

• That it must be deserved.

• That it is selfish.

• That it comes only after the real work is done.

But here’s the problem, life is never “done.” There’s always another bill, another responsibility, another expectation to meet. Which means rest remains a moving target, always dangling just beyond reach.

Rest as Currency

We learn to treat rest like a currency we can buy only after paying our dues. If I finish the to-do list, then I can rest. If I hit my goals, then I’ll rest. If everyone else is okay, then I can finally breathe.

This belief keeps us permanently depleted. Because there will always be more to do, more to earn, more to fix. Rest that is conditional is rest that never arrives.

Imagine this: a farmer works the same soil season after season without ever allowing it to lie fallow, without rotating crops, without replenishing nutrients. What happens? The soil dies. It produces less and less until nothing will grow at all.

Your body, mind, and heart are the same. Without restoration, your inner soil becomes barren. Rest isn’t what you take after producing. Rest is what allows you to produce anything at all.

The Cost of the Myth

When we buy into the myth that rest must be earned, we don’t just lose energy, we lose parts of ourselves. It reshapes how we see our identities, our relationships, and our worth.

We mistake exhaustion for identity: I’m the one who keeps going, no matter what.
Maybe you’ve been praised for your ability to “push through.” People marvel at how much you can carry, how reliable you are, how strong you seem. And at first, that affirmation feels good. But over time, it becomes a trap. You start believing that being the strong one is who you are, rather than simply something you’ve been doing. You wear exhaustion like a uniform, convincing yourself that without it, you’d no longer be needed. Yet identity built on depletion is a fragile house, and it eventually collapses in on itself.

We confuse depletion with devotion: If I sacrifice myself, it proves I care.
Think of how often women are applauded for giving until nothing is left; for children, for partners, for work, for community. We equate love with emptying ourselves. We say “yes” when every fiber of our being is begging us to say “no,” because somewhere deep down we believe that if we give more than we can afford, it will prove our love. But real devotion doesn’t demand self-erasure. Real love is not measured by how much of yourself you abandon but by how deeply you are able to show up whole.

We conflate busyness with worth: If I’m always doing, I must matter.
There’s a certain pride in having a calendar so full it barely breathes. People look at you with admiration: “How do you do it all?” The question sounds like praise, but it’s really pointing to a deeper truth. Doing it all often means being stretched so thin you can hardly feel yourself anymore. Busyness can give the illusion of importance, but underneath, it often hides emptiness. Worth built on constant doing is fragile, because the moment you stop, you fear disappearing.

This is the cost of the myth: a life defined by depletion, by sacrifice, by busyness without depth. A life that applauds your exhaustion but never offers you wholeness.

A Different Story

But there is another way. A way of living that doesn’t glorify exhaustion but honors restoration as sacred. This story doesn’t come naturally. It must be chosen, practiced, and remembered.

Rest is not indulgence but intelligence.
You would never call it indulgent for a phone battery to recharge, or for the soil to be replenished, or for a musician to tune her instrument before playing. You understand instinctively that those pauses are what allow the phone, the earth, the music to function beautifully. The same is true for you. Rest is not an interruption of your life. It is what allows your life to be sustainable, beautiful, and alive.

Slowing down is not weakness but wisdom.
When you move slowly, you begin to notice what matters. You hear the signals of your body. You catch the sound of your child’s laughter instead of brushing past it. You taste your food instead of just swallowing calories. Speed may look impressive, but it often leads us blindly. Slowness is where wisdom lives, because wisdom requires attention and attention requires time.

Rest is not the absence of productivity but the presence of life.
Rest is not a void, not a blank space where nothing happens. Rest is full. It is where creativity brews, where your nervous system repairs itself, where desire returns to your body. When you rest, you are not doing nothing. You are doing something essential. You are returning life to your bones, clarity to your mind, softness to your heart. Rest is presence, and presence is what gives productivity its meaning.

The Courage to Redefine

Redefining rest is not simply about adding naps or taking a day off. It is a shift in worldview, a rewriting of the story you’ve lived by. And rewriting stories takes courage, because it means questioning the rules you’ve been carrying. Rules that may have been passed down for generations.

It takes courage to declare:

“I do not have to collapse to deserve restoration.”
For many of us, the only time we give ourselves permission to rest is when we’ve reached the point of breaking down. We rest when our bodies are too sick to keep going, when our emotions have boiled over, when our minds finally shut down. In other words, we collapse, and only then do we say, Okay, now I can stop.

But restoration should not be reserved for emergencies. You do not need to reach the point of collapse before you are allowed to care for yourself. You are worthy of tending before the crisis. Giving yourself rest before you fall apart is not indulgence. It is wisdom.

“My value is not tied to how much I produce or how little I sleep.”
We live in a culture that praises busyness and burnout. Staying up late to finish work is applauded. Answering emails at midnight earns respect. Carrying heavy loads without flinching is seen as strength.

But none of that defines your worth. Your value does not come from how much you can squeeze out of yourself before breaking. It doesn’t come from how many tasks you complete or how little rest you can survive on. Your value is innate, woven into you simply because you exist. Productivity may create results, but it does not create worth.

When you redefine rest, you stop using exhaustion as proof of your value. Instead, you allow yourself to be valuable even in stillness.

“I can honor my humanity by tending to it, not by running it into the ground.”


Your body is not a machine. Your heart is not a piece of equipment. Your mind is not designed for endless output. And yet, many of us treat ourselves like tools to be used until they are blunt, or batteries to be drained until they are empty.

But you are human. And humanity requires tending. Tending looks like slowing down, feeding yourself with care, pausing to breathe, letting yourself cry, laugh, rest, play. To honor your humanity is to remember that you are more than what you do. You are someone who needs to be nourished in order to flourish.

Running yourself into the ground isn’t noble. It’s neglect. Tending to yourself is not selfish. It’s sacred.

Closing the Chapter

The myth of rest says: do more, then you can rest.
The truth of restoration says: rest, so you can do what matters.

The myth of rest says: rest is weakness.
The truth of restoration says: rest is wisdom.

As you move into the next chapter, carry this with you: Rest is not the end of the story. It’s the beginning.