What Your Body Needs Before It Can Rest — Part 2 of 3

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It was Christmas Eve and I was sitting on the couch with my laptop on my lap. I knew that as a business owner, I needed to take advantage of moments when people would be on social media the most. And holidays are one of those times, you know, while we're sitting around waiting for the main meal or trying to pass the time while an annoying relative regales us with their latest family gossip. I sat on the couch buried in potential marketing ideas, trying to write a few scroll-stopping hooks. My partner would try to grab my attention by pointing out something that happened in the movie, the movie we're supposed to be watching on this holiday eve. But to me, this was just more time I had to take advantage of, to be more productive with. Hi, I'm SuperKate. Welcome to Connecting with Super Kate for women who have too many job titles, too many commitments, and are done just getting through it. This is the second episode in my three-part series, Why Rest Isn't Working. If you haven't downloaded the free worksheet yet, grab it now from the link in the show notes. Episode two has its own section and it's worth having open while you listen. You can grab a time machine and visit just about any moment in my earlier career and find me working while eating a meal. Because why do we have to stop what we're doing to eat? Or you'd find me getting frustrated that the Wi-Fi wasn't working on an airplane because it felt like I'd wasted four hours I could have spent answering emails. Every single one of those moments, I felt like a failure if I wasn't producing something. I would bounce my knee, drum my fingers, or once I had a cell phone, scroll to distract myself. Because at least scrolling gave me a sense that I was doing something, making decisions about which videos to watch, getting the reward of watching something from start to finish. And here's what I know about all of that restlessness. When we slow down, we have to confront all of the thoughts we've been avoiding by staying busy. And for a long time, I didn't want to meet those thoughts because those thoughts said things like, Why aren't you further along? Why aren't you doing better? Why do you think you'll ever be good enough? It's really difficult to hear those thoughts. It's much easier to fill our time with doing things to drown them out. But as you learned in the first episode, real rest requires completing the stress cycle. And I would love to tell you that that can be accomplished through one perfect affirmation. So that all you need to do is write it on a post-it and hang it in your bathroom or next to your computer. But the nervous system responds to movement, not affirmations. So think about what you noticed last week, those moments when your body was tired and wanted to stop, but you kept going anyway. Those mind-racing moments, reaching for the phone, uh, the tightly clenched jaw, the elevated heart rate, these moments are what these tools are for. And if you wrote any of those moments down in the episode one section of your worksheet, pull it out now. What you noticed last week is the exact thing we're working on today. Here are two that I use myself and with my clients. The first one can be done just about anywhere, but I love doing it lying down, which makes it a great tool if you're struggling to fall asleep. Start at your hands or your toes and slowly begin to clench your muscles one small section at a time. Starting with your toes, then your feet, then your ankles, then your lower legs, then your knees, and so on, all the way up through your body. Once everything is taught, rigid, every muscle is contracted, hold that for a few breaths, and then release. Release every single muscle, every single bone, every thought. Feel them melt out of your body as you let go. Can you feel the weightlessness as if you might float off the bed? Some of you who've done my guided meditations will recognize this feeling when your body can exhale everything it's been holding. That's a moment when your nervous system is completing the stress cycle. The second tool is to shake your body. I like to start with either my feet or my hands, and I prefer doing this standing, though it works seated too. I typically do this for two to five minutes, and I love adding a good song to shake too. If that feels too structured, a walk around the block works. A full body yell into a pillow works. Anything that creates a genuine physical release and a sense that the tension has somewhere to go. The goal with both of these isn't to feel zen afterwards, it's just to feel different than you did before. This is how you begin to teach your nervous system that it's safe to slow down. So this week, when you notice the anxious feeling, when you feel the pull to stay busy instead of rest, try one of these tools first and notice how your body feels before and after. Use the episode two section of your worksheet to track which tool you tried and what you noticed in your body before and after. A few words is enough. Tune in on Saturday when I release part three. We're going to talk about how these practices connect to your actual life because it isn't going to slow down and wait for you. And if you're interested in how I support women like you to have more energy, book a sales call. I look forward to connecting with you.