Enough

Most evenings, in my life, there is usually a voice that turns up the moment I slow down.

'You could have done more today'

It chatters away about the work I could have done, the steps I could have done, i could have made more positive choices, I could have planned better... Could have.

It never shouts. Its so much more reasonable than that - it just points out, rather politely, that the email I didn't send or the post I didn't write means I haven't earned my rest.

I have deliberately chosen a slower season this autumn and winter. This time last year, I went onto anti-anxiety medication. I had just sold a house, I was the heaviest I had ever been, I was not in a good headspace following 4 redundancies. I went to the doctor and said that I felt like I was physically sprinting all day long, I just couldn't slow myself down despite all the meditation, knowledge, therapy, practices I knew and had had to support me in those tough times. The medication I was given helped my body physically slow down. It meant it took me out of survival mode, and with that meant I could bring my mind down with it.

This year, knowing what I experienced last year, I worked fast and hard through the summer with the view that come winter I would like to be in a steady mode, not survival mode.

So knowing all this, knowing the lessons learned and the things I want to prevent happening again - why does it feel, some evenings, like I'm 'getting away' with something?

We talk alot about slowing down as if its a treat, and equally as much as if it is something that will happen at the end of a long list of things. Something you'd love to do if only you had the time or had all the things done. What we don't talk about is how uncomfortable it can feel when you actually do it.

The pace changes, but the voice doesn't. That pesky voice is still running on the old timetable.

It's not only this season either. Somewhere in the last few years, my life started calling for a different pace altogether, but I was stuck in the habits and expectations of 'Stacey of old'. My body no longer bounces back the way it once did, I can't run on 2 hours of sleep like I did in my twenties. The speed that used to feel normal now feels like pushing a car uphill. I know that, I've mostly made my peace with it but that voice, simply hasn't had the memo.

If I listen closely, and I have been trying to, it's saying three things.

The first is that rest must be earned. I can sit down once everything is ticked off. But, everything is never ticked off because the list isn't a list - its a run plan that is forever growing. So the sofa stays out of reach, I end up half resting: sitting down with the laptop on, or with one ear on everything I'm not doing. (Surprise that this is where doom scrolling likes to creep in!)

The second is that everyone else is clearly doing more. If you scroll for 30 seconds, there is a woman launching something, running something, building something, all before breakfast. I know perfectly well I am just seeing the highlight reel, but it still hits heavily.

The third, is the sneakiest. It measures today against what I used to manage. I could have managed that in an afternoon, once. Maybe thats true, but the woman who would have had it done in an afternoon was living a life very very different to what I live now, with a different body, a different idea of what mattered. I wrote recently about letting her go but this is one of the places she still turns up.

I think most of us learned, very early on, that our worth is tied to our output. Busy is good, Tired is proof, A full diary means you matter.

It's not really our fault, it's in the water. But it means that when you slow down, on purpose and for good reasons, it doesn't register as a choice. It registers as falling short, failing. The voice doesn't know the difference, instead the voice believes less equals less.

There's an old farming practice you still see round here in the borders. You leave a field fallow. You don't plant it for a season. You let it rest so that the soil can recover what the last few harvests took out of it. People don't drive past a fallow field and think the farmers being lazy. Nobody see's the field as failing. Generally, it is understood that this is how the field keeps growing for years to come. Rest is part of growth.

We don't give ourselves the same understanding, instead we treat every season as if it should be a harvest, fruitful, abundant - then we wonder where the tired creeps in from.

A fallow field is not a failed field.

So what is enough? I don't have a clean answer and I am a little suspicious of anyone who does - but here's where I've landed so far. 'Enough' is not a fixed amount. It changes with the season you are in and the life you are living. What was enough at one pace won't be the same in another and what is enough right now might look, from the outside, like very little. It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else, and importantly it will typically not look the same as anyone else's pace. Isn't that the point? We are all so different - why are we using the same measuring stick?

Rest does not have to be earned. Instead, it should be factored in, diarised, prioritised - because rest allows us to continue enjoying the things we do. A little break, coming back fresh and energised, keeps the momentum and interest.

Rest is not a reward at the end of the list - some seasons, it is the list.

When that voice turns up in the evening, instead of arguing with it, I try to ask a question back: More than what? By whose measure? For which version of myself?

If you are in a slower season too, maybe chosen by you, maybe your body chose it for you, and you are hearing 'your should have done more' at the end of the day where you did what you could, I'd like you to hear something else alongside it.

You haven't fallen behind. You have changed pace. These are not the same.