The Damsel's Christmas Diary Part Three: Pursuing Rest

I have been pursuing rest over the past few days, if that isn’t too much of an oxymoron…!

But it takes time to settle into a more restful posture, after a long period of activity and stress. The last three or so years of my life have been brimful of chaos, uncertainty, pain and healing. And in the past six months since my father died, my brain has gone into overdrive to process the remaining longstanding hurt – those pieces of understanding, insight and restoration which have now become available to me. Building my business alongside that complex healing work has been inspiring, uplifting and absorbing – and I think some of the most profound healing can sometimes happen when we’re not directly focusing on it. Our brain is mulling over it in the background, considering sticky aspects of the situation from a range of angles in order to come to a resolution. For example, I have had some extraordinary dreams recently, but that’s a story for another time…

One analogy came to me last night as I was reading when I couldn’t sleep. After a childhood of having practically short hair, I’m now in full rebellion mode with hair that reaches right to the base of my back – I can almost sit on it…! I absolutely love it – BUT, I will be the first to admit, it can also be a somewhat knotty challenge. It’s a bit like the way wired headphones get inexplicably tangled to an extent that seems completely unreasonable given the time that has elapsed – do they do some kind of dance when we’re not looking?! So, last night as I was reading, I was instinctively detangling my hair by running my hand through it. And I noticed that, even when I thought the job was done, there were still plenty of tangles to be found if I persevered. Which I think is similar to how the process of healing can be – we think we’re done and then more stuff emerges, more tight knots and tangles which need our loving attention. And sometimes, one particular knot may only be accessible for us to untie once we’ve dealt with certain other tangles beforehand.

Right now, I think I have the smoothest, least knotted hair I’ve had in years – but I can be sure that this effect won’t last all that long…

Which all reminds me of an amusing anecdote from my childhood. I was an only child, so I often had to make up my own “fun”… One day, probably inspired by some kids’ TV show or another, I decided to make believe I was Superwoman. Now, make believe is all very well, but I got it into my head to make the whole thing a little more real…And so, my first task to demonstrate my emerging power was to show that I could remove sellotape from my hair…except, just a tiny snag in my plans, my actual “superpowers” in the real world didn’t extend to being able to peel extremely sticky tape off my delicate locks…! To my horror, I had to creep around our flat, hoping not to be discovered by my parents hunting for a pair of scissors so I could cut out the offending sticky stuff – along with great tufts of my hair! (Amazingly, neither of my parents noticed my ragged haircut, and my mother was totally astonished when I finally told her this tale a number of years later…!)

Again, sometimes I’ve found that healing can be like this – something is harder than I imagined it would be, and the remedy is also tougher. But worth it in the end to take the next step forwards. For example, in situations which remind me too much of my difficult past, I have needed to take radical action to protect myself from further harm – taking myself out of the situation, even cutting connections occasionally if needs be, just as I cut my own hair as a frustrated seven-year-old Superwoman-wannabee. Sometimes we need to do what we need to do, as lovingly as we can…

So, now is a period for resting. I feel it in my bones. I am more ready for rest now that I have attained greater hard-won peace about what has happened in my life. If I am sure of anything, it is that the process is not yet finished, but I suspect it will become a tad gentler from now on.

But how do you rest when you’ve been speeding down life’s metaphorical highway for so long? It almost feels as if I’ve forgotten the art of resting, if I’m honest. So – and please don’t laugh at me too much! – I decided to learn more about the concept of rest last weekend. What do we know about it more scientifically? Not a totally relaxing activity, you might observe, and you’d be right! But it felt like a start, and I do really enjoy learning for its own sake.

I found the Rest Test most fascinating. The world’s biggest survey about people’s experiences of rest, it yielded some really interesting insights. For example, I’m introverted and so often crave time by myself or with a few close friends and family. But I assumed extroverts would generally rest by being with others in some way. Turns out that’s not necessarily so. Most of the Top 10 restful activities are typically done alone, such as daydreaming, having a bath, practising mindfulness and – yes, you’ve guessed it – simply having time alone. Some can be done with others but not usually in such an extroverted way, including watching TV.

I love it that watching TV made it into the Top 10. We have a huge snobbery about this, but actually I have always found TV programmes to be a wonderful way to unwind after a long day, as I’m able to slip into another world and get absorbed by the storyline and the characters. Now, obviously, one has to take a bit of care about which world one chooses to visit – no horror movies or intense psychodramas for me just before bedtime, please! Whilst I follow most sleep-related advice given my insomnia, I’ve always rebelled against the No TV Before Bed Rule and enjoyed a programme or two with the hubby just before laying my head on my pillow, and it invariably helps me to drop off. Something engaging, entertaining and uplifting fits the bill nicely to help me drift off into the land of nod.

And reading came out on top of the Rest Test list. Which I thought was pretty cool since I was reading about rest! Interestingly, reading is not necessarily a passive activity, even though one is generally sitting down – but it turns out from people’s experience that rest doesn’t have to mean expending little or no energy. For example, walking makes it into the Top 10, and a significant minority of people (including me) find physical exercise extremely restful in terms of calming and focusing mental activity.

I haven’t actually had a chance to read properly for a while. I didn’t feel able to head straight for a novel at this point. My brain is still revving somewhat. So I’m doing some more reading for research purposes, and I’m finding it stimulating and absorbing. It’s positive to know - and begin to feel - that I am also giving myself some much-needed rest.

In many ways, I think I’m currently in a buffer zone, before I descend into Rest Proper during the festive season. I’m acclimatising myself to less activity, before giving way to the joy of No Meaningful Activity at Christmas itself.

It used to be like this in the office, most years. Whilst I used to continue working until just before Christmas, things would tend to wind down somewhat in the week before Christmas, deadlines permitting. I would spend time getting my work affairs in order so I could go away for Christmas feeling relaxed about my work. Of course, it wasn’t always like that – sometimes deadlines went to the wire, and I was crazy busy until the day I left the office. That was never easy to handle. Buffer zones make things a little more straightforward.

My next Christmas challenge is to figure out how to take the next steps in my rest journey – proper rest with no objective other than my own peace and wellbeing. But what I must try to avoid – and I’ve fallen into this trap before – is to get stressed about not being relaxed. That is a serious knot indeed! Let’s see how we go…

P.S. If you're interested in finding out about my journey to heal and reclaim joy in Christmas after longstanding emotional abuse, my book - Reclaiming Christmas - is available at Amazon in ebook, paperback and audio versions. Spoiler alert - it has a happy ending!! You can find the Amazon links here: https://www.damselnotindistress.co.uk/books.