Woke up at 7:30am with about 3.5 hours of sleep under my belt. No surprise, my body’s basically throwing a tantrum. “If you won’t rest, I’ll take your function,” it says. Fair enough.
Motivation? Gone. But honestly, that makes sense. I’ve been daydreaming about taking two full days off to reset. Not some half-assed break where I’m still mentally spinning, I mean actual, purposeful rest. But I kept putting it off, and now my brain’s decided to go on strike.
Last week I started noticing how whiny and negative my posts felt. It was real, it was valid… but it wasn’t how I wanted to be seen. I was spiraling. The goal posts kept moving, and yeah, that was happening, but ALSO, I let it happen. I couldn’t find my way out of the chaos, and the more I leaned into the victim mindset, the worse it got.
What’s wild is that I knew what I needed all along. I kept whining about not getting those two reset days. But I still couldn’t prioritize myself. Even when I recognized that I was falling into old, unhealthy coping patterns, I told myself it was okay. That I’d stop when I could. That I was practicing “self-forgiveness.”
But maybe I needed all of that to get here.
So today, I stopped. I packed a bag, grabbed a book and some music, and wandered down to the pool. I brought a notepad too, just in case my brain tried to hijack the peace with intrusive tasks or to-dos.
It took me two hours to actually get in the pool. I’d stand up… then sit back down. Eventually, I realized the truth: I didn’t feel safe enough to relax.
That hit hard.
Eventually, I did get in. I got maybe 20 minutes of reading in before my brain checked out again. I couldn’t retain a word.
I know this isn’t sustainable. I know I need to stop.
I just don’t know when I’ll be able to.