How to be tired

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all your feedback on the last newsletter about tiredness and the Laziness speech! It’s totally changed the way I relate to my own energy levels, and level of output, to realise that it’s not *me*, it’s the society we live in. I’m grateful that it was helpful to some of you, too.

Today, I’m going to explore the topic of tiredness a bit more, but this time from a slightly different perspective.

If you haven’t read the last email that explained the imbalance of fire energy in our society, please read that first, as this is a continuation of that thought process!

This week, I want to talk about our bodies, and authority. The ways we give authority over our bodies to other people, entities, and concepts, because its what we’ve been taught how to do. And some small, subtle, easy ways to start getting this authority back (that don’t involve, like, quitting ur job, walking away from ur family, going to live in a hut in the desert for 20 years. :D)

<3 Rebecca

Contents:

1. Our bodies and authority

2. Learning to trust ourselves, and trust our bodies.

3. Intrinsically motivated action

4. Herbs that help with embodiment.

5. Ways to play with this.

1. Our bodies and authority

-Have you ever said ‘I’m hungry’ and then checked the time, to see whether its the ‘right’ time to be hungry?

-How about been tired, then checked the clock, to see if your tiredness is justified.

-What about feeling tired, or run down, and starting to try to figure out why it could possibly be that you’re feeling ‘off’.

If you think about it, the idea of being hungry, but then checking to see if its time to eat, is quite funny: our bodies tell us when they need fuel, and why would we run that past the authority of the clock to determine if our bodies are actually correct in being hungry!

Or we feel unwell and think back to see if we could possibly be unwell, despite our bodies loud and clear messages (am I the only person who has ignored this for a few days before realising that, yes, I am sick?).

This is how we’ve been taught to live.

It’s how we’ve been taught to keep ourselves in line.

By thinking that our bodies ‘should’ be hungry at certain times (and want to eat certain ‘correct’ things and certain ‘correct’ amounts of them!), we essentially teach our bodies like naughty school children, who are only ‘good’ if they do the right thing. We are ‘correct’ if we wake up at the right time (preferably early), and ‘correct’ if we are hungry at the right time and aren’t craving anything that doesn’t sound ‘correct’.

What is the right thing?

Does the right thing look the same for all of us?

Do our bodies all need the same nutrients?

The same amount of calories?

The same frequency of snack times?

What about sleep? Do you know people who can get by on 6 hours sleep and feel completely fine? Do you know people who need 9 hours and a nap? What about night owls who genuinely do better and feel healthier when staying up late and sleeping in late?

There is so much variation and variety among us as human beings.

Just as with any ecosystem, our diversity is our greatest strength, and maybe one of the most beautiful things about humanity. Not just our physical diversity, or our cultural diversity, or neurological diversity, but also our diversity of experience, and perspective. The diversity of our own natural paces, which range from Usain Bolt to my little sister who takes 3 hours to get ready every morning (I’m sorta joking, but I do adore her for this).

While I appreciate systems and order and guidelines, I think there is danger when systems become the thing we see as the truth, instead of the truth being the thing that the system is pointing to. There is also danger when we do not stop to look at where the system itself came from (like for example, the system that dictates the 'logic' of our preferred daily schedule is one that has us being good worker bees, but isn't necessarily great for all of our health equally). Systems and rules that give us timelines, pacing, and ‘correct’ ways of acting in our lives cannot possibly encompass the spectrum of diversity of the human being. As a result, those of us who fall outside the tiny slice of ‘normal’ that actually naturally does all of these ‘rules’, are constantly trying to correct ourselves into fitting in.

Where did the idea that we should all sleep early and wake early and sleep 8 hours year-round despite seasonal changes and bodily changes come from?

Where did the idea that a certain number of calories was what we all needed come from? Where did the idea that there is a certain size range that is considered ‘normal’ and that anything outside of that needs to either eat more, or starve itself, to fit into that size range?

Where did the idea that personality traits that are not productive need to be controlled, tamed, and made more productive come from?

I can tell you where they didn’t come from.

They didn’t come from our own bodies!

Which brings me to the topic of tiredness.

Every time our bodies tell us they’re tired, and we check the clock, or check to see how much we’ve done that day, to see if our tiredness is justified (or say we’ll lie down after folding one more pile of laundry), we deny our bodies the simple pleasure of expressing itself and being heard.

We do ourselves a major disservice by placing our to-do list above our own physical needs.

So how do we change this?!
It starts with learning to listen to-- and trust-- our bodies.

2. Learning to trust ourselves, and trust our bodies.

“But I’d never get anything done if I listened to my body”.

That might be true at first, because your body could need some time to catch up and restore itself. But you’d actually be surprised at how strangely productive you can be when you give yourself permission to do exactly what your body wants to do*, as opposed to following a list. There’s this point that happens with a lot of my students in The Wonder Sessions, where at some point someone will say ‘I gave myself a ‘nothing’ day and actually got more done in one day than I would have in a week and I want that again.’

It makes me so happy when this happens, because once you’ve done it once, you can have it more and more. When you learn through experience that your FLOW can actually still be real-world-useful, you learn to trust it more.

When you learn to trust it, you can then start to bring this feeling more into your every day life.

Imagine trusting your body so much, that the ebb and flow of your energy levels are never a cause for alarm, but more a cause to embrace the natural variety that your own body expresses into the world. Trusting that your fallow periods would be followed by periods of doing, simply because it is in your nature to ebb and flow.

The more our time is paid for by other people, the less option we have to do this all day every day, BUT, there are still ways to incorporate this into your life, regardless of who runs your schedule.

*IF you aren’t exhausted and your body doesn’t NEED REST first. Caps for emphasis. Yes I’m looking at you, type A parent who’s been adjusting to a pandemic while running the house while homeschooling your kids while trying to stay upbeat while wondering if life will ever return to normal or if you’ll ever have alone time again :P.

3. Intrinsically motivated action

“That’s great Rebecca but we have LIVES, and things to do that mean our survival, or our kids survival. Most of us don’t get to choose to take a day and spend it in bed when we feel tired. So how does any of this apply to me.”

We have this assumption that to give in to the tiredness means somehow going to sleep forever, neglecting all that we have to do, and eventually losing everything we’ve worked so hard to create.

That the only answer is to keep going. Drink a cup of coffee, push through, get it all done because there’s no other choice.

There are more than two options, however. It’s not ‘either rally or go to sleep’. We have been misled to think that there’s only one valid way of being productive in the world, and that’s not true. There’s another way of existing, and getting stuff done, and moving through life, and it’s actually quite simple:

Be tired. Move tired. Exist however your body wants to exist. Let the tiredness of your body dictate your pace and your capacity. Not as a ‘I’m tired but I’m going to drink a gallon of coffee and push through and get X amount of work done’ but simply letting the impetus for movement come from a slower, deeper place inside yourself.

I don’t mean simply dragging through, slowly, and ignoring the way your body feels. Instead, it is being fully present in the depths of your own feelings. Let tiredness bubble up. Let the tiredness inhabit you. I warn you: the first time you allow all that tiredness to actually come to the surface, you might cry your eyes out. Both from realising how big it is, and also from the feeling of relief of simply letting it out.

‘How’, you might think. ‘How can letting this out be a good thing? How can it not consume me like a tidal wave? How would I ever come up for air?’

When you let it go, something bigger than you catches you.

Have you ever rested so deeply that you feel your body being fed, nourished, and replenished by the earth? (Wonder Sessions students, that might sound familiar to you :) ). It’s like, you release all your edges, and then the earth’s energy flows into your body in a completely limitless, generous and abundant way. It is actually always there, but when we become stressed and tense and focused on what’s immediately in front of us, we block it out to get into that ‘highly focused, getting-shit-done mode’.

Often, we notice this state when we finally collapse. Those few moments at the end of the day when you get into bed and think to yourself ‘this feels so good. I wish I had more time here'. But this feeling of our bodies starting to rebuild and replenish doesn’t need to happen only in a state of complete stillness. Once you FIND this place, of being nourished and restored, you can actually move from it too, as long as you move slowly enough to stay there. You notice when you’re moving too fast for your energy levels because the replenishing feeling stops. From this place of receiving, there is a lot that you can do: you can make dinner. Drive. Work. Do what needs to be done.

Only you can know what the pace is that maintains this connection while still doing things. It might be mountain slow. Or it might be slug slow. Or it might be lounging cat slow. Acting from a place of tired requires a deep sense of awareness, and a surrender to the authority of your own body. It also means that you’re not going to be quick, or efficient, or get an entire to-do list done (unless that list is small).

Here’s a few things I have done while tired, and feeling like I’m being restored at the same time as I did them:

-Walked a mile (it took a few hours).

-Written a newsletter (it took a few days).

-Made dinner (it was really simple and it took ages but it was lovely).

-Driven home from New Mexico (I wouldn’t do this again but it was important at the time and it took way longer than it would have were I alert enough to drive at my usual speed-demon-pace).

-Seen clients

-Uh, created a course on a whim.

We have this idea that ‘to do something while tired’ means to rally what we can, and get it done as quickly as possible. Maybe even with a vat of coffee! We think of ‘doing’ energy as being this one type of highly activated, possibly even adrenalised energy. When in fact, that’s only one way for us to be awake. One way for us to get things done. And most of the time it isn’t the best way.

While rallying and getting it done quickly gets the task out of the way, it quiets what the body is trying to express in the process. It doesn’t replenish you. It doesn’t feel like action that comes from within, and it often comes with a side dish of resentment.

Intrinsic motion starts inside, with where you truly are. It moves at a pace where you can still feel the earth underneath you. You can pay deeper attention here, and the connection from earth, to body, to emotions, to psyche, to action remains intact the whole way. We don’t cut off parts of ourselves to hurry through what’s happening. Instead, we slow down, to really take it all in. At this pace, we actually get to process as we go, so that there’s nothing leftover, hanging on like psychic dust bunnies at the end of the day.

Let the moment itself feed you.

The moment is the medicine.

4. Herbs that help with embodiment.

Herbs that I’d recommend for this are herbs that help us sink into FEELING our own feelings. Feeling our own bodies. Our own wants. These aren't 'tonics' or adaptogens or herbs that will give you energy. They're herbs that will help you feel your own body and move from a place of deep honest expression about your energy levels.

Pedicularis spp // Pedicularis

I first read about pedicularis as yin tonic in Thomas Avery Garran's book 'Western Herbs in Chinese Medicine'. In it he talked about one of my local pedicularis species (p. semibarbata) as a yin tonic, which got me thinking about WHY it'd be a yin tonic. You see pedicularis is a muscle relaxant. It works phenomenally well, and affects the mind too, putting you in a really lovely relaxed, chilled-out, happy, jello-like frame of mind but not stupid or hungry or paranoid (I may have a canna-bias). It's not really available commercially anywhere but ask a wildcrafting western herbalist what their favourite chill-out herb is and they'll likely tell you it's pedicularis (or kava). Because it's not available commercially and is, from what I read, impossible to grow, it's not the kind of thing that any of us herbies really want to become super popular out there, but I do feel it's worth writing about here just in case you do find your own local stand and want to try a little.

So anyway, pedularis as yin tonic is something I hadn't thought about before Thomas' book, but it got me thinking because, in a way, it makes sense. In terms of the systemic yin (as opposed to say, straight up body fluids, or the yin aspects of different organs or systems), pedicularis puts you in a really relaxed, easy frame of mind. If you're the type of person who has a nervous system freak-out every time you have to do something, or need to get into HYPERSTRESS MODE (TM) in order to function, then pedicularis can be a guide to a better (read: more sustainable) way of doing things. A half-dropper of the tincture and you're definitely, definitely feeling more chilled out, but at the same time, still have energy. I think it's the perfect herb to teach us how to function in the world in a 'yin' state. That is, to not have to drive ourselves forward at a hundred miles an hour, but still to move forwards, just at a pace where our bodies are able to regenerate their own reserves at the same time.

Kava kava // Piper methysticum

One of the reasons I love kava kava is that, when used in context with the polyvagal theory above, kava is a *social* relaxant: it makes [most people] enjoy human interaction more. It makes us more touchy-feely (though not as much as damiana, below), as it relaxes our muscles, and our minds.

I think, what kava does is unwind whatever tension there is that's holding us back from our creativity, our sensuality, our exuberant enjoyment of life. So many of us would be much more creative and carefree if not for the giant stress loads we carry around. Kava doesn't take the things away (it doesn't put you in a bubble like, say, cannabis does) but it does relieve your tension so that you can shine through regardless of the stress load.

This 'easing' of tension applies to other areas too. Anxiety for example. Anxiety, the way I see it, is fear energy getting stuck somewhere (and often for long periods of time). What I mean by that is, fear is a reaction to a stimulus that's supposed to get us moving. We release adrenaline, we get ready to run, or fight. For many of us, life is so stressful that we're constantly in a place where we experience fear and yet we're stuck in place and have nothing to fight against except ourselves. That energy that gets released to get us moving gets trapped in the body, often in the chest, and that's when we start to feel anxious. If we do this over long periods of time (or say we have a trauma or series of traumas in life that cause us to continuously experience lots of fear and we don't know how to, or don't have the option to express it), then it builds and builds until the tiniest trigger can cause a cascade of fear-reactions which in most peoples' language get translated to anxiety, panic attacks, etc.

Kava can really help with this. By relaxing the tension that's holding all that old fear in place, you can start to move the fear out. It'll stop anxiety in the moment, of course (I'll never forget my first class EVER, where I was so scared, I took way too much kava, and the first, incredibly high words out my mouth in public were 'ah f**k I took too much kava'), but over the long-term, using it to help relax and release old fear can be really magic.

Read more: jim's article

Damiana // Turnera diffusa

When discussing the social engagement system and trauma, and relaxation of our muscles, it'd be impossible to leave out Damiana. Damiana slowly, gently, melts through the layers of 'freeze' that we accumulate due to trauma (small or big), and helps us to reemerge and re-engage with the world, and with our own bodies. Damiana is often referred to as an aphrodisiac herb, and in many ways it is (though it's SO much more than that), but it is only because it makes us enjoy the erotic aspect of touch again.

Sensuality and sexuality are often treated as if they’re the same thing, but this is a misconception. Sexuality is of course, the fundamental basis of why we’re all here: without sex, no creation happens, and nobody is born, and life grinds to a halt. Sensuality, on the other hand, is our ability to feel pleasure through our senses. It is so much bigger than sex (and sex is already big) because sensuality is the basis of our physicality.

Andreas Weber, in his book “Matter and Desire” says: “The Eros of reality begins with touch. There is no life without contact. Without touch there is no desire, no fulfillment— and no mind. When a light wave changes the structure of my retina, when I stroke the skin of my beloved, or when a nerve cell sends out an electrical impulse by spilling calcium ions, this is always an act of physical seizure.”

All of our senses are heightened by touch, and touch is the way we interpret the world. It is through FEELING that we become aware, our perception of the world various interpretations of our ability to touch and be touched.

We are taught, for the most part in society, to restrain both our sensuality and our sexuality. Sexuality is seen as lewd, promiscuous, and dangerous (or a sign of one’s virility and celebrated); and sensuality is seen as a representation of our capacity for sexuality. Thus, if a person is naturally sensual they are often treated as though they are being overtly sexual, and have to deal with the judgements and advances that come along with that.

So we tend to restrain our natural sensuality as much as we do sexuality. And while I don’t agree with either, and think we’d be a lot happier as a society if we didn’t have so much shame tied into sex, I think that restraining our natural ability to feel pleasure in our senses is very dangerous indeed, for two main reasons:

1. Our senses are how we interact with the world around us, so restricting our ability to use them is restricting our ability to interact with the world.

2. Pleasure isn’t this wicked, immoral thing— feeling pleasure doesn’t mean that the world is going to shit and everyone is going to stop working and we’re two steps from devolving into apes who do nothing but sit around and eat and live in one giant orgy all day while the kids go hungry and society crumbles around us.

Really the worst thing that happens when you feel pleasure is that you start to interact with your own body, and start to experience the world around you, and maybe start to feel good about yourself. Feeling pleasure connects you with your own sense of joy: because pleasure reverberates through the body, like one happy, wiggling cell passing on its joy to another.

In order to feel pleasure, one has to *allow* pleasure. In the same way as we have more muscles in place to close our eyes than to open them, our energy has the same thing: we have more muscles in place to protect ourselves than we do to open ourselves up: it’s the ancient game of survival and we *need* these protections. But sometimes we learn these protections really young and they’re for no reason: sometimes its simply because to be a sensual child scares adults, because sensuality AND sexuality, especially in Western culture, are not freely expressed (see above about world falling apart). So maybe a small child starts playing with their own genitalia or maybe they just exhibit their natural sensual inclinations in other ways, and maybe they aren’t even told not to, but they feel something change in their parents, because so much of what we learn is through the most subtle cues: a tiny bit of tension, a small frown. Energy changes when we disapprove, and its through disapproval that we learn how not to act. Maybe what so many of us learn earlier than we can even think it through rationally, is that to be sensual means we won’t receive the love we need (or think that it is this part of ourselves that makes us receive unwanted attention). So we stop it. It’s self-protection.

And then we carry on doing this, because everyone else in society is doing it too.

Learning to allow pleasure is a rebellious act.

Believing that you deserve pleasure is an act of self-love so great that it shatters barriers.

Believing that you deserve pleasure, and allowing yourself to feel it, teaches other people that they are worthy of it too.

What does any of this have to do with damiana, and with muscle tension? Because when we block ourselves from allowing kindness, love, and pleasure, we do that with a resistance that is quite firm, that often can be seen and felt in the physical muscles, and it’s something that can only be softened from the inside. Damiana helps, so gently with that softening, and it does so from within, in an empowering, and beautiful way.