Rest is Resistance
This book by Tricia Hersey may save your life
I read a LOT of books in the aftermath of my workplace trauma, including several on how to rest / do nothing. But the book Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey (founder of the Nap Ministry!) takes the idea of the need for our bodies to rest to a whole new level.
While the author does speak directly to Black women, the messages are universal about how our capitalist society grinds us to a pulp. I feel so strongly about the book that I have offered to send a free copy to any Black woman just for the asking. (And that offer still stands.)
So I was thrilled to read this review by Sharon Hurley Hall, who I follow for her excellent anti-racism newsletter that often celebrates others’ work.
Here is how Sharon starts her review:
Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey is a revolutionary book. It's revolutionary because of the way it views rest as a birthright and a human right. That's in a context where many of us, especially Black people, and even more especially Black women, have been long denied our rest. In fact, our rest has sometimes been stigmatised as laziness. It has been denied us because of the capitalist urge to constant productivity and because of the systems that mean that some of us have to work two or three jobs in order to eke out a living and provide for our families.
And here are a few quotes from the book itself that Sharon highlights:
Rest is not a luxury, a privilege, or a bonus we must wait for once we are burned out. I hear so many repeat the myth of rest being a privilege and I understand this concept and still deeply disagree with it. Rest is not a privilege because our bodies are still our own, no matter what the current systems teach us. The more we think of rest as a luxury, the more we buy into the systematic lies of grind culture."
"America is not a welcoming place to all bodies. America was built on the backs of Black and Indigenous people who labored without rest for centuries as the country built its economic power. White supremacy became a vehicle to poison the hearts and minds of an entire nation to view human beings as less than divine. Rest is resistance because it is a counternarrative to the script of capitalism and white supremacy for all people."
"Marginalized women, specifically Black and Latina women, make up the largest group of laborers in a capitalist system. Our labor historically has been used to make the lives of white women less hectic and more relaxed. So when I hear and see this “filling your cup” language repeated on memes on social media and in the larger wellness community, I realize that our view of rest is still burdened with the lies of grind culture."
Please read the rest Sharon’s review, buy the book either for yourself or a friend (or both!), and subscribe to Sharon’s newsletter with a PAID subscription as I have, especially if you are white; it’s on us to get educated and change the system.
Then go have a rest!