The Long and The Short Of It

Episode 184 - Rest

Transcript:

Jen: Hello, Peter.

Pete: Hello, Jennifer.

Jen: I need to talk to you about a four-letter word today.

Pete: Woah, okay. There's so many options here. I've been playing a lot of Wordle, so I'm in the five-letter word territory. But like, let's strip it down to four.

Jen: Yeah. This four-letter word is something I actually want more of.

Pete: Okay.

Jen: It starts with an "r"...

Pete: Ah. Oh, I was going to say like, love. But, okay, it starts with "r". Hit me.

Jen: Oh, yes. Everybody wants more love. No, I want more rest.

Pete: Ooh, rest. Yeah. I feel like you are so not alone at this moment in time, so we should definitely, definitely talk about this. This is The Long and The Short Of It.

Jen: Do you remember several weeks ago, we did this episode called Balance, and I was sharing with you that I'm really good at time management, but not that great at energy management. And it isn't until my energy well is depleted, that I even realize it has been depleted. Like I'm very bad at noticing that I'm running out of energy, and that I need to rest. And I'm like, "Ooh, I bet Pete Shepherd, of all people, has some good strategies to share." Because I know you value your sleep, and I know you value your mindfulness time, so I want to hear about how you refill your rest cup.

Pete: Yeah, this feels timely, juicy, important.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: All the above, for a few reasons. One is, I would say that I have had more conversations with friends, leaders, clients, executives, other humans around this idea of feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, burnt out (all of the above), in the last like month or so than I can ever remember having. Like I feel like, you know, especially a lot of the work I do is, as listeners know, in the corporate world or with executive teams. People are so depleted right now.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: They're tired, and needing rest. So yeah, I say all that to say I feel like this is very timely. And I have my own struggles with this whole idea, so I guess I could share. It's funny, the first place I go to is I think I have a pretty good strategy, for Pete, on energy management. Like you said, I'm very good, probably to a fault if you ask Tracy, at prioritizing sleep, prioritizing mindfulness time, prioritizing my morning swim, prioritizing working out, eating healthy, drinking water. Like I feel like for me, I tick enough boxes for me to feel like I do a pretty good job at energy management. The really interesting thing...at least I find it interesting, though...I've had to work at this for so long. Like I've been the person that works the twelve/thirteen hour days, from 6am until 6pm, and then gets home, has some dinner, and keeps working. Like I feel like I did that for many, many, many, many years. Don't recommend it. And so I've worked so hard on trying to not do that and prioritize rest, and the hardest thing I find is that what I often hear in my head is, "You're being lazy. You're not doing enough. You're not working enough. You're not being enough. You're prioritizing rest, when you don't actually need to." And so I share all that to say, I feel like no matter where you are on this spectrum of like "well rested" versus "not rested at all," it's a struggle, because of the stories that we tell ourselves, because of the stories that culture tells us, and what we do need to be doing or should be doing with our time. So, just lumping all that on you.

Jen: Well, it's really interesting. Because hearing you talk just now, I'm like, "Huh. I wonder if we need to maybe define 'rest', and what it's for, and like when we actually need it." Because I mean, obviously, each night we need to rest, we need to sleep. But there are days that I do at the studio called my "marathon days" which, I will teach classes from 10am to 10pm. And I love it. It is so exhilarating. It's so hard for me to come down after it. It's like a twelve-hour adrenaline rush, and I don't at all feel like I need to rest during that day. Like, I could keep going forever. But then there are days where I teach one two-hour class, and I'm like, "Huh. I'm completely exhausted." So I think for me, it's less about the number of hours I work and it's something else. I don't know what the something else is. But I don't think it's the number of hours I'm working.

Pete: Ah, that's fascinating. I tend to agree, I guess. Like, I feel like emotional labor can take many different forms and isn't necessarily correlated with how long something takes. So, I could give an example. But before I do, the two questions that you just made me think of or invent off the top my head was...that I think could be useful for me, and listeners, and maybe you, is like, "What drains me?"

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: As a question, to just like write down, "What are the things that drain me?" And then, "What refills me?" I feel like in this context, what we're talking about with rest, I think is like how we refuel or refill our cup, if you like. So I think, "What drains me," and getting clear on that versus, "What refills me," could be helpful.

Jen: Well, that's really interesting, because the twelve-hour day refills me.

Pete: Yeah, that's so fascinating.

Jen: Isn't that wild?

Pete: It's so interesting, and I think important for everyone to do, because everyone is so different, to state the obvious. Like I, it's funny, I had a workshop I ran for a bunch of senior leaders last Friday. And it was 7am in the morning for me, because they're in Chicago, and it ran from 7am until 8am. And then on 8am, I hopped on a call with a collaborator that I'm working on this completely different project with. And I hopped on the call, and like five minutes later, I'm like, "Sorry, I just finished this workshop." And she was like, "Oh my god, do you want to do this call? Like, aren't you exhausted? Don't you want to go and like stare at, stare at a blank wall?" And I was like, "No, I am so fired up that I don't even know what to do with all of this energy. I need to put it somewhere." And we were laughing between us of like how if she had have done that one-hour workshop, she would like shut it down for the rest of the day, and she's an introvert, and, "I need to recharge." And I was like, "Oh, I'm the opposite. I have so much energy right now that I need to channel it somewhere."

Jen: Mmm. Yeah, that is really interesting. That's really interesting.

Pete: Hmm. All that to say, I guess like getting clear as an individual, first and foremost, I think, on, "What are the things that drive me? What are the things that refill me?" That was where I was going with that.

Jen: I love those questions. That feels like some good journaling fodder.

Pete: Mmm, mmm, mmm.

Jen: It's also making me realize that I think I have some warped idea of what rest is, where like rest is, "Go lay down and close your eyes and sleep." Maybe that's not what rest is. Maybe that's one version of rest. Well, I think I've mentioned this on a couple recent episodes, that I've been meditating twice a day for twenty minutes.

Pete: So good.

Jen: Which I'm loving, totally loving it. And it's not extensive. And it's not laying down. I mean, I do it with my eyes closed, but it feels active, if focused. But that does feel like rest to me.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah, it's so interesting. It's like resting...I know this is not scientifically probably true. But is it like resting different parts of your brain? You know? So if I'm running a workshop, a certain part of my brain is firing.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: If I was to run a workshop all day, I think for me, at some point, it would get to a point where I need to rest that part of your brain in order to be able to then...so like you were saying, after your ten-hour day, you need to figure out a way to rest that part of your brain so that you can sleep. I mean I joked about, I talked about Wordle in the intro, but I actually consider doing something like Wordle like a rest.

Jen: Yeah.

Pete: Even though I'm actively using some part of my brain to try and solve a Wordle, I would consider that I "rest" from my work, for example. So it's not that I'm doing absolutely nothing, hovering in a, you know, plain white room with cushions everywhere, like having this peaceful moment. It's that rest is actually just like a break from the regular routine, or something like that.

Jen: Okay, I'm having a couple of aha moments here. One is, I do the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. And although it is very mentally active, I do think of that as rest. And depending on if it's a Monday, you know, I can do a Monday puzzle in, you know, five or six minutes. But the Saturday puzzle takes me usually closer to an hour.

Pete: Wow.

Jen: So, you know, as the week goes on, the minutes get longer of how long my brain is "resting". But the thing that I'm realizing about my twelve-hour classes day is that each one of my clients is working on something totally different, so I'm constantly changing gears. But if I had to work with one client for twelve hours, I would be flat on the floor by the end of it. So I'm kind of digging your hypothesis that part of it is using different parts of ourselves, letting this part of me rest while this other part takes over, and then sometimes all of you needs to rest.

Pete: Right. Yeah. So then I go back to, I think, what your original question was...which I'm pretty sure we talked a little bit about in the Balance episode, but happy to revisit...in terms of how Pete thinks about (I just referred to myself in third person, that was strange), how I think about rest, which is on the daily. So I have a...again, I'm pretty sure I mentioned this, but I'll do it again. I have like a list of what I call "healthy habits", that are things that I know that good for me, mentally, physically, emotionally, like journaling, like exercising, like swimming, like going to a float, going to get a massage, going for a walk with a friend.

Jen: Wait, going to a float? What is that?

Pete: Yeah, a float. You know, the...I don't think we've talked about this. Have you heard of the like floatation therapy, flotation tanks, sensory deprivation tanks?

Jen: Yes. Yes, I have. That's what you mean, go to a float? Got it.

Pete: Go floating, yeah. Go floating. I do that every month, actually. I've done that once a month, I want to say six or seven years. And I find it to be a very effective way to rest.

Jen: Wow.

Pete: Anyway, so I have like this master list of things that, I think I call them "healthy habits". But I guess in this context, I would say they're things that help me rest, to some degree. And I usually pick three, sometimes four, sometimes two depending on what day it is, and just I literally write it down at the start of the day in the morning, "These are the two, or the three, or the four that I'm committing to doing today." So today, for example, was, "Swim. Meditate. Journal." And I put, "Walk?" If I get time, I'm going to try and go for a walk this afternoon. So I literally have a list of things that I think are helpful for developing rest, and then I commit to doing a couple of them a day. So, that's a very practical way that I think about this.

Jen: Oh my gosh, I'm really hoping that listeners are currently opening their email apps and typing in "hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com" to send us their ideas to add to the healthy habits notebook, because I would love some more suggestions about things that I could add to my routine to get a little more rest in my life.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. So then, the interesting...again, I keep labeling this thing interesting, but it's to be decided because it's just a thought I have. The reality that I have, at the moment, I guess also having the luxury of having a lot of control over my schedule (which not all people do) is the story I tell myself when I spend, whatever this means, "a lot of time resting". And I see people around me, like you know, my fiancee, Tracy, just working so-

Jen: Wait, wait, wait, did you just say, "Fiancee?" I think that's the first time you said it on the podcast.

Pete: I'm trying it on. How did it sound? Did I say it right?

Jen: It sounded so good.

Pete: Just trying it on. So like I see her, who, because she works for a company, has less control over her schedule. Works so hard, is so diligent, is so driven, is so motivated, is so incredibly, I would say, productive. (Again, whatever that means.) That when I, at 2:00pm when we're both working from home, I'm like, "I'm going for a walk for an hour," I'm on that walk like, "You are not doing enough. You are slacking off. You are, you know, like you're all of those negative things that you could insert here, basically," because of comparison, because of the fact that, I don't know, I guess society tells us that we need to keep moving forward, and keep working, and doing more, and doing more, and getting more done with less, and all of that. So it's funny, like even when creating space, I still think it's hard to then enjoy, and sit with, and be comfortable with space and rest.

Jen: That's interesting. Well, this reminds...so, I guess it was interesting. After all, it was interesting.

Pete: Validated.

Jen: No, it's making me think back to the episode that we did called The Reading Is The Work, because a lot of the work you're doing with your clients requires thinking space. So going for a walk, I mean maybe in that case, maybe it doesn't even qualify as rest if you're using it as thinking time. But that is...hmm. I feel like rest, as a concept, is just expanding in many different directions for me right now.

Pete: Right. And so maybe the question...I keep turning this into questions for our listeners, and for myself...is like, what does rest even mean to me? Because I think you're right, I would consider that rest. However, I also, in a different context, might think...like I could see myself having two separate thoughts on any given day, and the same outcome. So, "I really need some rest. I'm going to go for an hour walk in fresh air," I could see myself saying that and doing that. The next day, I could see myself saying, "I really need to think about this problem that Jen and I are working on. I need to go for a walk for an hour and think about it." And like, and use it as almost like intentional thinking time. But I guess what I'm doing in both instances is, I'm resting from looking at a screen, I'm resting from responding to an email, or from interacting with a client on a call. So again, I'm back to that idea of, I think I'm resting some part of my brain which then might trigger and fire other parts of my brain. But I don't think that means it's not rest.

Jen: So at the beginning of the year, you were talking about wanting to live your life by this word, "intentional". And I think that is coming up here, which is, we can set intentions for what our time is supposed to do for us. You know, it goes back to the question of, "What's it for?" So, "I'm going for a walk." Well, what's the walk for? "Well, this walk is for rest. I'm setting the intention that this is going to be restful for me."

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: That I'm setting that expectation, I'm setting that intention. Whereas tomorrow, "What's it for?" "It's for brainstorming. It's for freestyling, while talking into my Otter app."

Pete: Yes. Yes. Intentionality. Yeah. I mean, for the last couple of months last year, in 2021, I experimented with working a four-day week.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Pete: And that came about for many reasons, one of which, I was noticing that I would sometimes do a half day off but half work, like I'd never intentionally committed to either taking a day off or spending a day doing a particular type of work. I'd kind of dip in and out of both, if that makes sense.

Jen: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Pete: And so I thought, "What if I intentionally said that every Monday is a day where I don't open my laptop, and that is a day off from opening my laptop from work?" And it was so unbelievably more effective than sort of half resting/half not because I hadn't quite committed to either one intentionally. And I would get a bunch of jobs done. I'd do the washing, I'd clean the house, I'd, you know, go and go for a swim, and do a workout, and go about my day, just without worrying as much as when I was doing that during what I would say is a normal workday. So yeah, I guess more validation of this idea of getting intentional about what we are doing for rest, what we are doing for work.

Jen: Yeah. My big aha moment that I'm having throughout this episode is, I have been very intentional about everything in my life except rest.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: But because I'm really good at being intentional about things, I can bring rest into that equation. It's not like I'm starting from scratch. I have strategies that I use with my time, in order to be intentional with how I spend my time, I just haven't really brought rest into the equation before. So yeah, I think this is like possibly a turning point in my life, like this very moment right now, right here, listeners.

Pete: Yeah.

Jen: I think I'm going to start intentionally resting. And one other thing I just wanted to point out, when you were talking about your four day work week, the Monday "off" when you're not opening your computer, you said all these other things that you're doing. You're doing the wash, you're cleaning the house, you're doing this, you're doing that. So it's not that you're lying on the couch with a sleep mask on for the entire time the sun is up, it's that you're just doing other things.

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. And one final thought I would have on this and how difficult it is, is, I think part of the reason it's so difficult is because no one else puts rest in front of you.

Jen: Mmm.

Pete: Or it's very rare that someone puts rest in front of you and you feel obliged to do it, or you do it because, yeah, someone else put it in front of you. Whereas work is constantly being put in front of us. There are more emails always to respond to, there are more meetings always to attend, there are more clients always to try and interact with. And the thing about rest is, you just have to be so intentional and so proactive that it's very difficult to continue to consistently make time for, at least in my experience.

Jen: Oh my gosh, my mind is blown with the truth bomb that you just dropped. It's so, so true. Nobody's going to you and saying, "You know what I need from you, Pete, right now? I need you to rest."

Pete: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And if you have those people in your life, my goodness, hang on to them.

Jen: Well, you know, I'm thinking about being a parent. You do that to your children when they're of napping age, where you make them stop what they're doing and you're like, "No, you need to go rest. You need to go take your nap." And then at a certain point, that just stops. I want to bring that back.

Pete: Let's bring that back. Let's bring that back.

Jen: Wow. Thank you, Pete. And listeners, I'm serious, hello@thelongandtheshortpodcast.com. I would love to hear your strategies for bringing more rest into your life.

Pete: Please reach out and tell us, we love hearing from you. And that is The Long and The Short Of It.