‘How can i relax when I still have so much to do?’ ‘How can I accept myself when I’m still so imperfect?’ ‘How can anyone love me when I am still so unworthy?’ These are the questions my 20-year-old self scribbled into the pages of her journal as she tried desperately to stay afloat in the dark, icy waters of depression.
As I read them back years later, I grieve for how deeply the young me believed that her worthiness was tied to her productivity. Growing up, I didn’t see other women allowing themselves to relax either. My mother was hard working, devoted and endlessly giving – and she was also stressed, over-stretched and exhausted. The only time I saw her rest was when she was so depleted it was her only option.
Over the years in my work as a psychologist, I’ve sat with women whose stories mirrored mine and my mother’s. ‘I’m afraid to relax because I’m scared that if I take my foot off the gas, everything will fall apart,’ was a common refrain. While no woman’s experience was the same, there was an echo of exhaustion, overwhelm, loneliness, guilt and shame, a sense of being trapped, of being lost, a deep longing for slowness, stillness and deep rest.
After hearing the collective cries of overwhelm, I began asking: why are so many women so exhausted? I began my own research and embarked on a study on women’s relationship with rest, and founded The Relaxed Woman – an online community devoted to supporting women recover from burnout.
I shared my experiences on Instagram and one post went viral: ‘Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman,’ I wrote. ‘Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At ease women? Women who weren’t afraid to take up space in the world? Women who prioritised rest and pleasure and play? Women who gave themselves unconditional permission to relax – without guilt, without apology, without feeling like they needed to earn it? I’m not sure I’ve ever met a woman like that.’
Thousands of women from all over the world told me that they had never seen a relaxed woman either. My words resonated more deeply and more widely than I could ever have anticipated, not because they were extraordinary, but because they revealed something ordinary that we’ve been denied: the sight of a woman relaxing – and the permission that rest is allowed.
Moved by how deeply the post resonated, I kept researching, kept learning, kept listening to women’s experiences of stress, exhaustion and burnout, and slowly shaped my findings into a book, The Relaxed Woman: How To Reclaim Rest And Live An Empowered, Joy-Filled Life.
There are so many barriers – psychological and societal – to women getting the rest we need. And it makes sense that so many of us find it difficult to relax when so few of us have been taught how to do it. In fact, most of us have been taught the opposite – to work hard, to push through, to be more disciplined, to have more self-control, to never rest, never cry and never quit.
I wrote The Relaxed Woman to awaken women to the possibility of a more restful way of being and to give them the tools to find freedom from compulsive productivity, perfectionism, people-pleasing, rushing, overworking, endlessly giving, lack of boundaries, and silently carrying the mental load.
Fifteen years on from writing that diary entry, I no longer ask myself those questions because deep in my bones I know we are all worthy of love, that imperfection is beautiful not shameful, and that rest is our right.
It has taken me time to untangle my worth from my productivity, to find freedom from my long-held patterns of urgency, self-sacrifice and people-pleasing, to listen to my body and allow myself the rest I need – even when I have unanswered emails, there are unwashed dishes and my to-do list is long.
As I write this article, I realise that my book is a love note, of sorts, to my mother. And to all the women who live in a constant state of inner urgency, who measure their worth by how much they get done for every- body else, who feel guilty for resting, and ashamed for having needs. To the women who are ruled by their to-do lists, who keep going even when they’re exhausted, who have internalised the expectation they should be everything to everyone, without needing anything themselves.
And as you read this, I hope it inspires you to let yourself rest and to become the first relaxed woman you’ve ever known.
'The Relaxed Woman’ is out now