About a year ago I invested in a sleep/health tracker that I didn't have to wear on my wrist- the Oura Ring. After a few months I stopped paying attention to my steps because I know my normal routine keeps me active enough. I continue, however, to track the quality of my sleep and take steps to protect it. That focus has allowed me to get on top of a lot of pernicious habits that I have historically struggled with-- smoking, drinking, late-night snacking and binge eating-- because I can see clearly within 24 hours how they affect my sleep and energy.
This attentiveness to quality rest has also made me better able to focus on my writing and to allow myself periods of real rest when I need them. I want my writing to come from a grounded place and not a desperate one, which means I have to be well rested. It's easy to buy into the ethos of grind culture and just push and push and push, but speaking for myself, the writing isn't better that way. There may be *more* of it, but at this point in my life I prefer quality over quantity.
Thank you Asha. I too am here for quality over quantity of writing - and that includes the writing experience as well as the output. I’m glad the oura ring works for you. I have an iWatch and like you I’ve found the steps take care of themselves. I hope you find other ways to rest throughout your day? Life is a marathon rather than a sprint, right?
So much this: “how hard it was (still is) to sit on the sofa and do nothing without feeling bad about it, even for two minutes. Rest with guilt is not rest.” I need to allow myself to rest without guilt.
I love how you reframe the idea of writing being an important activity. This is where I struggle most. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting closer to reframing that idea, and recognizing that I need to prioritize my writing. It helps that I have a friend (or a few) who keep encouraging me towards that direction.
Thanks Kristin. Resting without guilt is a lifelong journey we’re all on as we gently extract ourselves from the cult of hustle and grind. Writing isn’t desert, you don’t have to finish all the other tasks first. Here’s to a friend or two (or more) who encourages us.
As a person who also had to wait for a medical professional to prescribe rest and walking following my stroke, I have definitely prioritized taking time. Often it’s just lying on my bed with my pup snuggled up and reminding myself it’s ok to just be.
So much of this interview resounded with me.
Thank you Michelle for sharing so openly, and to Amanda for bringing such thoughtful writers to your Cave of the Heart.
Our companion animals are such good influences on us. They are unapologetic resters. I have 2 cats that enjoy snuggling up. One of them, Dolly, jumps on my arm when she feels I’ve done enough work. Does your pup let you know when its time to slow down?
She absolutely does let me know when what I really need is a snuggle! Her name is Candy and she is super sweet (she also reminds me when it’s time to eat, and time to walk). Her breed were bred to be therapy dogs, and she definitely leans into her therapist role. But we decided to keep her a family dog so that everyone gets snuggles.
She’s definitely just the right dog for our family. 💖
Thank you again for your thoughtful and gentle responses. And for your genuine responses to the interview. They were super insightful and will definitely have an impact on my practice of writing (and resting).
Wow! What an amazing concept for this Substack page @Amanda B. Hinton, and wonderfully thought provoking answers @Michelle Spencer! I think I'll have to come back and read this a number of times. There's a lot of powerful insights. I especially appreciate your thoughts on not having to bleed for your art, and the work that inspired the small steps, do what you can method. Thank you!!
"I wonder who benefits from the idea that creativity has to hurt in order to be any good?" This fits in with the thoughts and questions about rest so well. I just spent a few days offline by myself in a place with no electricity (propane heat and lamps) and sat for hours and hours by a river in the sun doing absolutely nothing. Not even napping. It was tremendously restful, but not in any of the ways I'm used to thinking of rest. 🧡
How wonderful your rest break sounds Antonia... i have a little stab of benign envy reading your words. I am starting to ask the question ‘who benefits’ about all sorts of discordant ideas and observations of culture. It started with too much crime fiction (cui bono?) and got a leg up from a therapist who said: “Forget what it feels like, look at what happens.”
Yeah, I started going to these forest service cabins a little over 3 years ago, for 2-3 nights by myself, 2-4 times a year depending on my work and my kids' schedules. At this point it's become a necessity, and I was a basket case before leaving last week since it had been so long since the last one. I used to get a lot more writing and revising work done during these times, but more and more am letting myself refill by simply being there completely. Being offline is a huge factor, but so is the river and the quiet and the lack of other people. Living in northwest Montana is a particular gift in that respect, the rivers and quiet and lack of people are more easily accessible than in a lot of places.
Thank you, as a reader and appreciator of your work, for prioritizing your rest unapologetically. Its often a dark fantasy that we can’t take time off, that we’re indispensable - its hard, sometimes brutally hard, but seldom impossible. Or so I remind myseld!
Well, it's a tough world! There are all the messages we receive about it, and then there are the realities. I harp on about barriers a lot but it's really important to me to make them visible, whether it's physical accessibility for walking, or time accessibility for rest, reading, etc. It can be brutally hard! It's important to me to look at what makes this kind of thing possible for me: where I live, the fact that I freelance for a living so my time is flexible, the fact that my spouse makes a salary that also provides us with health care (yay America for that needing to be an issue), my kids being in decent health and just old enough to do without me for a few days (though to be honest I pay for it in neglected homework and emotional meltdowns on my return), etc., etc.
But top of that is starting to dismantle the notion that sitting by a river for 4-6 hours a day doing absolutely nothing but sometimes watching the sun, or whatever a person's equivalent of feeling deeply restful is, is a bad or selfish thing. Which is why I'm so glad to read all of your thoughts and words here!
Thank you, Amanda, for continuing to bring us these different perspectives. And thank you, Michelle, for sharing. I especially love the new-to-me metaphor of a phlebotomist carefully extracting my inner words for the page — a much better way to view the experience.
What a spectacular interview. I loved many parts of it but the idea of slaying the goose with the golden egg definitely gave me pause. I really appreciate all of Michelle's brilliant insights and just today took her advice. Devastated by my father's advancing dementia I put aside "work" and gave myself permission to lean into my grief and write what my heart needed, not what was "required". I think I could read this interview over and over. There is so much there. Thank you!
Thank you Leanne! I remind myself of not slaying the goose regularly... I’m not the best goose girl yet, but I’m improving.
I feel with you being with a beloved elder with dementia... so many hard things ... having feelings can be exhausting but is more bearable if we give ourselves space to ‘go through the tunnel’ as Dr Emily Nagoski calls it.
Tried to pick out a few phrases that spoke to me, but would have ended up copying and pasting everything! Such a thorough, thoughtful and wise exploration of the creative process.
You have articulated beautifully what I’m coming to understand about my own writing, cementing my tastes of truths into some I can more fully ingest.
Thanks Amanda and Michelle for this great interview. I appreciate your comment that our various selves are a bunch of stories we tell to ourselves about ourselves! So true. This is a great reminder to pay attention and question the validity of those stories and what that particular self is telling us.
Like so many others here in the comments, I can relate to the discomfort that comes with intentional rest. There is some healing that needs to be done around this particular activity, at least for me😬!
Thank you Donna! One of the things I like about Internal Family Systems is the way it explains our internal conflicts, and offers a way we can understand ourselves better without making any part ‘bad’. The part that wants to rest, ‘the soft animal of our body’ is going to be in conflict with The Good Worker who knows its important to Do All The Things or we risk criticism. No wonder we struggle. Glad to have us all working through this together to make space for our creativity.
I've read a lot of great interviews on Substack, but none better than this. Thank you to both of you! There's a lot of real, carefully teased-out insight here which will keep me ruminating for days. Internal Family Systems is a new phrase/concept for me, so I'll be checking that out.
I heard Dr Becky Kennedy talk about it on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast (https://momastery.com/blog/we-can-do-hard-things-ep-170/) Link gives a transcript or you can listen. Tim Ferriss did an interview with Richard Schwarz who is the originator (I think, I haven’t heard that one).
“It isn't always procrastination that pushes you to take a break, despite what your inner critic might whisper.” Michelle and Amanda - I am so grateful to you two to have brought us this timeless sanctuary of wisdom. We needlessly use the trite method of painfully pushing ourselves in order to embody the hustle culture. I am so grateful Michelle for you to have broken this down so well. I deeply connect here with your gentle, yet firm knowledge of self and the world around you. 💜🌼
Thank you Swarnali for noticing that line about taking a break isn’t always procrastination. For a writer I so admire and connect with to connect back is a bit of everyday magic.
I am grateful to have found you Michelle. So many of us focus so invariably in the hustle forgetting that we deserve to take break and even if we do we cannot fully relax because of the inner critic. The awareness that you awakened on this facet shall remain with me for a long time. 💜
Your wisdom shines throughout this interview, @armchairrebel! You have a way of putting words to struggle that's unsparing and yet so nourishing and compassionate. What a gift, your honesty!
I have a Monday ritual of pulling a card from the Rest is Resistance deck by Tricia Hersey. This week, it says "I trust myself more than capitalism." What a balm. So fitting that your interview was published on a Monday, too!
Over time, I've learned that rest isn't limited to the hours spent lying horizontally or frolicking in idyllic settings. Rest is a value system unconcerned with how the time spent adds to status or material wealth. Rest is a way of living that honors the body's need to ebb and flow with daily and seasonal rhythms, and says a hard NO to excessive pushing. Rest is communion with inner knowing and ancestral wisdom available only by quieting down (or by staring off into the distance in the middle of the day!)
I have loved resting in this expanded sense all my life, but secretly so until very recently. I want to honor you, and how you opened up this much-needed conversation, by writing about rest loudly and proudly!
Thank you for this beautiful perspective Rumi! Oh my that third paragraph - you wrapped your wonderful insightful words around ‘rest is a way of living’. May I restack your words?
Tricia Hersey’s book is life changing. I did not know I was in a hidden resistance underground while I was in a cell of one. We truly are better together 🫶
My husband and I are in a tough season, frequently apart and always busy as his parents are in need of near-constant care. I spend a lot of time dreaming of our next beach vacation where we will do only as much as we want to do (which for me will include hours and hours every day of reading near the ocean). I need to figure out how to bring a little of that (non-)energy to life into my current daily grind.
Thank you for joining the conversation JKG. I feel you. The last year has been a busy season with health issues for a beloved elder. My plate was full and I somehow had to rest too! Sarah Knight (of No F***ks Given fame) used to keep a tray of sand and water under her desk, and a photo of her favourite beach on it, so she could take a moment here and there throughout her day. That gave me permission to do little things amid the hurly burly. Wishing you and yours well & do pop back and share any ideas that work.
So many points here capture my writing experience. Thank you. As far as rest is concerned, writing alternates with piano playing, housework, and a walk. Playing a musical instrument is a noisy contrast to the quiet of writing, and I need a means of physical expression. I also find that the structure of music mirrors and inspires the structure of writing - especially when you pair sonatas with novels. Housework provides routine and a sense of accomplishment. Once again, busy hands seem to aid a busy brain. Why does inspiration comes when you clean the bathroom? A walk in nature breaks the confines of the screen.
Thanks for reading and joining the conversation Annette! I agree light housework that can be done by muscle memory uses different energy to brain work. I feel less out of control when I can ‘commit a neatness’. I joke that you can have brains or legs, but seldom both.
100% agree about music too - though for me playing piano can be too physical at the moment, it requires sitting unsupported. The structure of music can be so soothing and stimulating. I find the orderliness of knitting and the repetition tends to help the ideas come in a relaxing way. Busy hands do indeed soothe a busy brain. Here’s to creative resting and restful creativity!
I love these sentiments about rest. I also love the "basement" of the self meditation, I am going to have to try that. Cheers to long, rejuvenating rests for all of us.
Thanks for reading and dropping us a dopamine hit in your comment. If you try the basement self-meditation, do let me know how it goes for you.
My basement now has a bench with a comfy cushion and a small candle lantern so its not pitch black and I don’t have to sit on the floor. I guess welcomes go both ways?
About a year ago I invested in a sleep/health tracker that I didn't have to wear on my wrist- the Oura Ring. After a few months I stopped paying attention to my steps because I know my normal routine keeps me active enough. I continue, however, to track the quality of my sleep and take steps to protect it. That focus has allowed me to get on top of a lot of pernicious habits that I have historically struggled with-- smoking, drinking, late-night snacking and binge eating-- because I can see clearly within 24 hours how they affect my sleep and energy.
This attentiveness to quality rest has also made me better able to focus on my writing and to allow myself periods of real rest when I need them. I want my writing to come from a grounded place and not a desperate one, which means I have to be well rested. It's easy to buy into the ethos of grind culture and just push and push and push, but speaking for myself, the writing isn't better that way. There may be *more* of it, but at this point in my life I prefer quality over quantity.
Thank you Asha. I too am here for quality over quantity of writing - and that includes the writing experience as well as the output. I’m glad the oura ring works for you. I have an iWatch and like you I’ve found the steps take care of themselves. I hope you find other ways to rest throughout your day? Life is a marathon rather than a sprint, right?
So much this: “how hard it was (still is) to sit on the sofa and do nothing without feeling bad about it, even for two minutes. Rest with guilt is not rest.” I need to allow myself to rest without guilt.
I love how you reframe the idea of writing being an important activity. This is where I struggle most. Over the past couple of weeks, I have been getting closer to reframing that idea, and recognizing that I need to prioritize my writing. It helps that I have a friend (or a few) who keep encouraging me towards that direction.
Thanks Kristin. Resting without guilt is a lifelong journey we’re all on as we gently extract ourselves from the cult of hustle and grind. Writing isn’t desert, you don’t have to finish all the other tasks first. Here’s to a friend or two (or more) who encourages us.
As a person who also had to wait for a medical professional to prescribe rest and walking following my stroke, I have definitely prioritized taking time. Often it’s just lying on my bed with my pup snuggled up and reminding myself it’s ok to just be.
So much of this interview resounded with me.
Thank you Michelle for sharing so openly, and to Amanda for bringing such thoughtful writers to your Cave of the Heart.
Our companion animals are such good influences on us. They are unapologetic resters. I have 2 cats that enjoy snuggling up. One of them, Dolly, jumps on my arm when she feels I’ve done enough work. Does your pup let you know when its time to slow down?
She absolutely does let me know when what I really need is a snuggle! Her name is Candy and she is super sweet (she also reminds me when it’s time to eat, and time to walk). Her breed were bred to be therapy dogs, and she definitely leans into her therapist role. But we decided to keep her a family dog so that everyone gets snuggles.
Candy sounds like a Very Good Dog ❤️
She’s definitely just the right dog for our family. 💖
Thank you again for your thoughtful and gentle responses. And for your genuine responses to the interview. They were super insightful and will definitely have an impact on my practice of writing (and resting).
Thanks Wake for joining the conversation 🫶 Its the middle of the night in Australia, which is why I missed saying that in my original comment.
It’s the middle of the day here, and I’m grateful for your response! No matter the form it comes in. 🫶
Wow! What an amazing concept for this Substack page @Amanda B. Hinton, and wonderfully thought provoking answers @Michelle Spencer! I think I'll have to come back and read this a number of times. There's a lot of powerful insights. I especially appreciate your thoughts on not having to bleed for your art, and the work that inspired the small steps, do what you can method. Thank you!!
Thank you Michael, and thank you for interviewing me on your wonderful podcast, which Is linked at one point.
My pleasure!
"I wonder who benefits from the idea that creativity has to hurt in order to be any good?" This fits in with the thoughts and questions about rest so well. I just spent a few days offline by myself in a place with no electricity (propane heat and lamps) and sat for hours and hours by a river in the sun doing absolutely nothing. Not even napping. It was tremendously restful, but not in any of the ways I'm used to thinking of rest. 🧡
How wonderful your rest break sounds Antonia... i have a little stab of benign envy reading your words. I am starting to ask the question ‘who benefits’ about all sorts of discordant ideas and observations of culture. It started with too much crime fiction (cui bono?) and got a leg up from a therapist who said: “Forget what it feels like, look at what happens.”
Oof, that's a good line!
Yeah, I started going to these forest service cabins a little over 3 years ago, for 2-3 nights by myself, 2-4 times a year depending on my work and my kids' schedules. At this point it's become a necessity, and I was a basket case before leaving last week since it had been so long since the last one. I used to get a lot more writing and revising work done during these times, but more and more am letting myself refill by simply being there completely. Being offline is a huge factor, but so is the river and the quiet and the lack of other people. Living in northwest Montana is a particular gift in that respect, the rivers and quiet and lack of people are more easily accessible than in a lot of places.
Thank you, as a reader and appreciator of your work, for prioritizing your rest unapologetically. Its often a dark fantasy that we can’t take time off, that we’re indispensable - its hard, sometimes brutally hard, but seldom impossible. Or so I remind myseld!
Well, it's a tough world! There are all the messages we receive about it, and then there are the realities. I harp on about barriers a lot but it's really important to me to make them visible, whether it's physical accessibility for walking, or time accessibility for rest, reading, etc. It can be brutally hard! It's important to me to look at what makes this kind of thing possible for me: where I live, the fact that I freelance for a living so my time is flexible, the fact that my spouse makes a salary that also provides us with health care (yay America for that needing to be an issue), my kids being in decent health and just old enough to do without me for a few days (though to be honest I pay for it in neglected homework and emotional meltdowns on my return), etc., etc.
But top of that is starting to dismantle the notion that sitting by a river for 4-6 hours a day doing absolutely nothing but sometimes watching the sun, or whatever a person's equivalent of feeling deeply restful is, is a bad or selfish thing. Which is why I'm so glad to read all of your thoughts and words here!
Wonderful. "Cui bono?" is such a powerful question, isn't it?
100% Someone is usually getting money or power out of all those things we look at and think: that doesn’t even make sense to me.
Thank you, Amanda, for continuing to bring us these different perspectives. And thank you, Michelle, for sharing. I especially love the new-to-me metaphor of a phlebotomist carefully extracting my inner words for the page — a much better way to view the experience.
Glad you enjoyed it Jen. I think that phlebotomist metaphor might even be original.
What a spectacular interview. I loved many parts of it but the idea of slaying the goose with the golden egg definitely gave me pause. I really appreciate all of Michelle's brilliant insights and just today took her advice. Devastated by my father's advancing dementia I put aside "work" and gave myself permission to lean into my grief and write what my heart needed, not what was "required". I think I could read this interview over and over. There is so much there. Thank you!
Thank you Leanne! I remind myself of not slaying the goose regularly... I’m not the best goose girl yet, but I’m improving.
I feel with you being with a beloved elder with dementia... so many hard things ... having feelings can be exhausting but is more bearable if we give ourselves space to ‘go through the tunnel’ as Dr Emily Nagoski calls it.
Tried to pick out a few phrases that spoke to me, but would have ended up copying and pasting everything! Such a thorough, thoughtful and wise exploration of the creative process.
You have articulated beautifully what I’m coming to understand about my own writing, cementing my tastes of truths into some I can more fully ingest.
Will be reading many times.
Wow, thank you so much for that comment Kellie. Its a joy and an honour to know my words have landed with you. Amanda’s questions are deep!
I felt the same!
Thanks Amanda and Michelle for this great interview. I appreciate your comment that our various selves are a bunch of stories we tell to ourselves about ourselves! So true. This is a great reminder to pay attention and question the validity of those stories and what that particular self is telling us.
Like so many others here in the comments, I can relate to the discomfort that comes with intentional rest. There is some healing that needs to be done around this particular activity, at least for me😬!
Thank you Donna! One of the things I like about Internal Family Systems is the way it explains our internal conflicts, and offers a way we can understand ourselves better without making any part ‘bad’. The part that wants to rest, ‘the soft animal of our body’ is going to be in conflict with The Good Worker who knows its important to Do All The Things or we risk criticism. No wonder we struggle. Glad to have us all working through this together to make space for our creativity.
I've read a lot of great interviews on Substack, but none better than this. Thank you to both of you! There's a lot of real, carefully teased-out insight here which will keep me ruminating for days. Internal Family Systems is a new phrase/concept for me, so I'll be checking that out.
I heard Dr Becky Kennedy talk about it on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast (https://momastery.com/blog/we-can-do-hard-things-ep-170/) Link gives a transcript or you can listen. Tim Ferriss did an interview with Richard Schwarz who is the originator (I think, I haven’t heard that one).
Thank you!
“It isn't always procrastination that pushes you to take a break, despite what your inner critic might whisper.” Michelle and Amanda - I am so grateful to you two to have brought us this timeless sanctuary of wisdom. We needlessly use the trite method of painfully pushing ourselves in order to embody the hustle culture. I am so grateful Michelle for you to have broken this down so well. I deeply connect here with your gentle, yet firm knowledge of self and the world around you. 💜🌼
Thank you Swarnali for noticing that line about taking a break isn’t always procrastination. For a writer I so admire and connect with to connect back is a bit of everyday magic.
I am grateful to have found you Michelle. So many of us focus so invariably in the hustle forgetting that we deserve to take break and even if we do we cannot fully relax because of the inner critic. The awareness that you awakened on this facet shall remain with me for a long time. 💜
Your wisdom shines throughout this interview, @armchairrebel! You have a way of putting words to struggle that's unsparing and yet so nourishing and compassionate. What a gift, your honesty!
I have a Monday ritual of pulling a card from the Rest is Resistance deck by Tricia Hersey. This week, it says "I trust myself more than capitalism." What a balm. So fitting that your interview was published on a Monday, too!
Over time, I've learned that rest isn't limited to the hours spent lying horizontally or frolicking in idyllic settings. Rest is a value system unconcerned with how the time spent adds to status or material wealth. Rest is a way of living that honors the body's need to ebb and flow with daily and seasonal rhythms, and says a hard NO to excessive pushing. Rest is communion with inner knowing and ancestral wisdom available only by quieting down (or by staring off into the distance in the middle of the day!)
I have loved resting in this expanded sense all my life, but secretly so until very recently. I want to honor you, and how you opened up this much-needed conversation, by writing about rest loudly and proudly!
Thank you for this beautiful perspective Rumi! Oh my that third paragraph - you wrapped your wonderful insightful words around ‘rest is a way of living’. May I restack your words?
Tricia Hersey’s book is life changing. I did not know I was in a hidden resistance underground while I was in a cell of one. We truly are better together 🫶
Please restack freely! Thank you for asking and I'm glad my stream of consciousness produced something that landed with you, Michelle <3
So much good stuff here. Really appreciated reading the whole thing. Thank you.
Thanks for reading Kaspa, and taking the time to give us a little dopamine hit.
My husband and I are in a tough season, frequently apart and always busy as his parents are in need of near-constant care. I spend a lot of time dreaming of our next beach vacation where we will do only as much as we want to do (which for me will include hours and hours every day of reading near the ocean). I need to figure out how to bring a little of that (non-)energy to life into my current daily grind.
Thank you for joining the conversation JKG. I feel you. The last year has been a busy season with health issues for a beloved elder. My plate was full and I somehow had to rest too! Sarah Knight (of No F***ks Given fame) used to keep a tray of sand and water under her desk, and a photo of her favourite beach on it, so she could take a moment here and there throughout her day. That gave me permission to do little things amid the hurly burly. Wishing you and yours well & do pop back and share any ideas that work.
So many points here capture my writing experience. Thank you. As far as rest is concerned, writing alternates with piano playing, housework, and a walk. Playing a musical instrument is a noisy contrast to the quiet of writing, and I need a means of physical expression. I also find that the structure of music mirrors and inspires the structure of writing - especially when you pair sonatas with novels. Housework provides routine and a sense of accomplishment. Once again, busy hands seem to aid a busy brain. Why does inspiration comes when you clean the bathroom? A walk in nature breaks the confines of the screen.
Thanks for reading and joining the conversation Annette! I agree light housework that can be done by muscle memory uses different energy to brain work. I feel less out of control when I can ‘commit a neatness’. I joke that you can have brains or legs, but seldom both.
100% agree about music too - though for me playing piano can be too physical at the moment, it requires sitting unsupported. The structure of music can be so soothing and stimulating. I find the orderliness of knitting and the repetition tends to help the ideas come in a relaxing way. Busy hands do indeed soothe a busy brain. Here’s to creative resting and restful creativity!
I love these sentiments about rest. I also love the "basement" of the self meditation, I am going to have to try that. Cheers to long, rejuvenating rests for all of us.
Thanks for reading and dropping us a dopamine hit in your comment. If you try the basement self-meditation, do let me know how it goes for you.
My basement now has a bench with a comfy cushion and a small candle lantern so its not pitch black and I don’t have to sit on the floor. I guess welcomes go both ways?