Rest is Resistance

Tricia Hersey is the founder of a movement digging in it’s heels and opening up third spaces inside capitalism and white supremacy. A womanist with deep roots in theology, black liberation and afrofuturism, her book is both a manifesto and a guidebook to accessing and practicing rest as a divine right. Much of Hersey’s own biography is woven throughout the book, both tales of her ancestors and her more current experience of running the Nap Ministry - creating community spaces for people to come together as a collective to rest. She does an excellent job of clearly explaining and re-framing grind culture and burn out as a direct result of capitalism as a vicious circle; which is inextricably rooted in slavery.

When I think about the history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, chattel slavery, and plantation labor, I am stunned by how much we have chosen to forget that capitalism was built from these systems. An experimentation in how to push a human body to a machine-level pace for centuries led by white people dizzy with hate and brainwashed by a system that trained them to look at a divine, human body as property to be owned.

For me, the best thing about the book is also the worst - it’s exceptionally repetitive. On the downside, I got a little bit bored - I felt like the book could have been half the length and you’d learn the same amount. On the other hand, I think this is intentional, and sort of the whole point. Her message to move away from fast media, allow our imaginations the full dream space they need, truly step out of sleep deprivation, break cycles of burn out and grind culture, and fundamentally start to heal our overworked bodies; we must slow down. She repeats the message over and over, to rest, to nap, to slow, to lie down wherever it is safe to do so; and if she didn’t repeat it so many times I don’t think the impact would’ve been the same. This is system changing justice work; and it must be drilled in to stand a chance of getting past the inherited and reinforced cynicism that is inevitably frontal lobe when coming across this work.

Rest is not popular, supported or modeled in this culture. It is an outlier movement until capitalism and white supremacy are dismantled. Therefore, we cannot wait until we are it’s okay to rest. No one will tell you this. You will have to make space for yourself and others around you to rest. Resting is not a state of inactivity or a waste of time. Rest is a generative space. When you are resting your body, it is in its most connected state. Your organs are regenerating. Your brain is processing new information. You are connecting with a spiritual practice. You are honoring your body. You are being present. All these things are so foundational for liberation and healing to take root.

There are so many lessons and practical meditations to take away from this book, and it really has become a lens through which I’m re-evaluating much of the way I approach work and the idea of balance. There are also so many intersectional themes drawn upon that I’m motivated to use this manifesto as a launching point into other connected written works, recognising that to truly move into a practice such as rest as resistance, there is a whole ecosystem of context at play to get to grips with - not least, actively practicing anti-racism and inclusion.

To create temporary spaces of rest and space no matter what. It’s truly a deep mental shift to thrive in a place with no pause button. It’s a Third space and a spiritual space. It’s intuitively knowing the pace is not sustainable and a politics of refusal that opens once you tap in.