Power & Resting

Three R's - resting, recharging, recovery - are as essential as other aspects of power.

No matter what inner power is to you, it's also part of a cycle that includes an essential resting and recovery phase. Learning the ways of honoring that resting space is important, but can be difficult at first in a society that seems to only respect hard work, how late you worked, staying up all night to get it done, how you pushed through your fatigue until the morning, and more guns-a-blazing examples of dedicated overgiving.

In my corporate sphere, our all-woman team frequently bragged about staying in the office until 8 or 9 p.m. getting the job done, or being up at 2 and 3 a.m. checking emails. We rarely bragged about the awesome extended time we took relaxing and getting some great self-care, usually, because we didn't do any self-care. Even these days, when I know better, when that recharging part of the cycle comes around I can still feel I'm being "soft" or "lazy" or "where did all my energy and drive go, what's wrong?" Oh yeah, rest, recharge, recovery!

As women we have many more cycles and metacycles that call on us to nourish that recovery energy than we think. The 24-hour daily cycle of waking as activity, and sleeping as rest, is only one of many. There's also the monthly female cycle with its own push for activity vs. drive for inwardness. There's the moon's cycle which still impacts us with its 28-day oscillation between waxing (gaining, growing) and waning (giving away, discarding). And there are individual personal cycles of your very own, that move between the need to recharge with dreamy, insightful, playful resting, to be able to return refreshed to the joyful, fiery, driving outflow of our creation in the world. We are multi-cycled beings existing in a society that attempts to recognize only the 24-hour and Monday-Friday/Saturday-Sunday cycles as the "legitimate" cycles in which you must produce vs. rest, as laid down back in the Industrial Revolution when mankind moved from the rhythm of artisanal and agricultural life, to the ceaseless drive of machine labor. Real resting is far more complex than that.

You do not give up your power during your resting cycle, but you do need to manage it differently. Your outward focus may disappear - indeed, you may be unable to really sustain a good outward focus at all. Your power to blazingly create, or to stand up confidently in front of others, may feel less than usual, or even inaccessible. You may feel more vulnerable to judgments or past weaknesses you thought you had long overcome. You may feel more interested in passive activities such as reading or a long slow walk, rather than even quiet creation in your private home office. You may not feel "fatigued" per se, but simply aching and craving for quieter pursuits that feel like the things that let the rest of you recharge.

Instead of trying to force all these things (going against the cycle), use your power to manage going WITH the cycle in the ways that you can. Take command of your need to rest, bravely. Realize that in doing so, you're engaging in an act of passive resistance, a dipping into true power rather than the artificial insistence that you produce at the same level day in and day out like a factory machine.

Use all your usual power tools to stand strong in giving yourself time and space to recharge. If you feel guilty about resting - "What is this doing to my productivity?!" realize you're letting some kind of fear run your show, and in the end, that's a power leakage. What's your real truth about your need for recharge at these times? How can you listen more deeply to that part of yourself?

Stand strong in also not letting others guilt you out of it either. You don't necessarily have to make it obvious or announce your need for recharge to others. In the workplace, see if you can dial back on intensity a bit, take a long walk during lunch, or just go home on time. But, if you do need it, then - horrors, I know - respect yourself, and take a day off, if you can. Don't let work-guilt manipulate you into the type of excessive outpouring where you repeatedly sacrifice your inner truth, health, and life-force to show "what a great team player you are" when you desperately need rest, and don't make your body drop you into illness to finally make it "OK" for you to stay home.

Find ways to recharge that reflect real rest for you. In your private space, make sure you're not merely dissipating your energy by watching endless TV or videos that can leave you fretful and jangly, the "tired yet wired" feeling that craves distraction because you're too fatigued to to anything else. Use your wisdom - what really brings you back in to balance? Don't guilt yourself for wanting or not wanting anything in particular, just explore.

Realize that to NOT honor this part of the cycle is as much of a power leakage as over-giving. It creates a drain on your life-force. Not honoring it is akin to not sleeping when your body wants a good night's sleep: sure, you can get a lot of work done if you cut hours out of your sleep, but the quality of what you're producing diminishes. Over time, neglecting the resting aspect of your cycle can create a chronic power-drained state of frustration and depletion. Your full range of living and being is diminished more and more. And in the end, all you do is sell out your true power by leaking it away through over-insistence on action.

To become reacquainted with the Rest phase of your power cycle, try the following:

• Learn to identify the symptoms that tell you you're in the rest/recovery part of the cycle.

• Realize this is natural and be OK with it. Be more than OK with it, realize, you're recharging so you can come back renewed and better.

• Be OK with the feeling of less external-focused power. Realize this is a natural cyclical flow that makes you less outward, less driven, possibly less interested in or capable of your usual levels of creative or directive flow as your energies go inward to recharge.

• Stop struggling against it, stop berating yourself, stop trying to force drive and production. Do not let others guilt you, do not guilt yourself.

• Take your power inward to create a strong rest and recovery environment. Make sure you get what you need. Rest? Play? Sleep? Fresh air? Less intense day? Read favorite novels? Quiet time?

• Accept that a powerful individual allows the relaxation and recovery cycle to be an essential part of their space. Have all your favorite recovery strategies ready for you when this aspect of the cycle comes around.

• As the rest part of the cycle completes itself, you'll naturally move back into activity and an outward focus.

As you move out of this part of the cycle, you'll find all your initiatives picking back up at their usual or even better levels, often even with improvements, innovations and new insights.

Make a commitment to understanding and honoring the rest and recovery aspects of your power cycle. Get past the modern idea of overwork as a "badge of honor", the false ideal of constantly 'on' productivity like a machine as "normal". Be a model for real productivity that involves an inward-looking time that balances the fires of creation and drive. Inner power requires the fuel of both aspects of the cycle.

What part of the cycle are you in today? In what ways will you rest and recharge when you next really need it?

Keep Growing,