Sustainably Living the Activist Life: Rest (pt. 2 of 12)

As we ramp up into the holiday season and wind down the year there is a lot pulling at us. At the end of a long and tumultuous year what we all use is rest. All too often we don’t think of rest as part of our practice of activism but I believe we should. Without rest we can’t function properly. This is as true in our activist work as in any  other area of our lives. 

But what does meaningful rest look like? I think there are multiple elements to meaningful rest. There is the rest of our bodies, of course, but there is also the rest of our minds and our spirits. I’m pretty sure that you’ve had days when your soul is just exhausted. Crushed beneath the weight of the injustice in the world. 

In this season that is meant to be about celebrating and giving thanks for the blessings in our lives we can easily get off track. Pulled by the pressure to consume and to outdo the Joneses we can find ourselves more depleted by the end of December than we were at the beginning. 

This year my challenge to all of us is to do things very differently. To create some new, non-consumer driven traditions, and to think about the role of rest in our lives and our activist work. To make a plan for incorporating rest into our regular schedule so that we have what it takes to keep showing up. 

Let’s look at each of our pillars in the context of rest.

Let's start with Commitment:

December is the perfect time to put pressure on the powers that be by opting out of our consumer driven holiday culture.

Here’s a little story for you, many years ago I had a friend whose father was a famous entertainer. The family was quite wealthy and could easily afford lavish holiday gift giving and celebrations. But there was a rule, no purchased Christmas gifts. Gifts were exchanged, but they had to be made. The kids and the parents made gifts for one another. That had a couple of impacts including that there weren’t a ton of gifts under the tree. When you’re making things by hand there’s a natural limit to what is possible. 

When my friend told me about this I remember being so surprised. At first it felt like they were somehow losing out on Christmas but then, as I thought about it, I realized how beautiful that tradition was. I thought about how much more likely they were to remember the gifts they’d been given. How they would certainly remember the gifts they made. And I saw how beautiful that truly was.

This season we are being asked to restrict our consuming (specifically boycotting Target, Amazon, and Home Depot) as part of a larger plan to save our democracy from those who are selling us out to put more money in their already bulging pockets.

Let's face it, we have been trained to consume. I recall George W. Bush telling us, in the immediate aftermath of September 11th, to go shopping. Shopping. As if that was somehow going to ease the pain of the hole in the sky outside my window where the Twin Towers had been. 

Resistance history is replete with stories of people withholding their financial participation in a corrupt system and forcing change. From the Salt March in India in 1930, the Anti-apartheid Movement boycotting Shell Oil, to the Montgomery Bus Boycott from Dec. 5, 1955 - Dec. 20, 1956, economic mass actions have changed oppressive systems for the better. 

As we gear up to what I believe will be a mass economic blackout of large businesses in the U.S. (likely sometime next year) we can practice by restricting our spending at the time of year when these businesses make the bulk of their money. We can make, swap, and buy local. We can gift experiences rather than things. We can use cash rather than credit to keep more dollars in our local businesses and out of the hands of big banks. 

I am going to shop for gifts, but I’m going to do my best to avoid feeding the machine. I’m going to check out thrift stores. I’m going to shop locally and pay with cash. I love my town’s winter market where local artists sell their creations. I’m going to see what I’ve got that can be gifted (if I’m not using it and it will bring someone else joy, that works for me). And, I’m going to shop keeping this handy rhyme in mind. “Something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read.” I don’t do all four for anyone, and two gifts is my max for children. We don’t need to teach them to be mindless consumers. Everyone gets a book, socks are also a go to for me. Cozy socks and a book = bliss.

We can rethink how we do things, despite the ways in which we’ve been trained to feed the machine. 

How does all of this relate to rest? So much of the stress in our lives is economic. There is so much pressure to be seen in a certain way, with certain things that confer status. Opting out of that paradigm is deeply restful. Not incurring unnecessary debt is restful. Not having a home full of stuff we wanted for a minute and then forgot about is restful. Keeping more of our money and being more intentional in our spending is restful. Basically, getting off the hamster wheel of automatic consumption is restful. 

And, in a time when so many Americans are facing extreme financial stress due to job cuts, the high cost of living, and exploding health care costs, spending less, and mindfully, creates more peace of mind. And peace of mind is a deeply restful state.

Next up, ritual.

Here in the northern hemisphere it is winter, and I love winter. I love the quiet that comes with snowfalls, I love the coziness of thick socks and sweaters. I love the time to be more inwardly directed as the days are short and cold. I appreciate that in the slowing down I have more space to think, to plan, to reflect without the impulse to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather. 

Winter invites us to create rituals that are restorative by their very nature. The soothing cup of hot chocolate, the jigsaw puzzle, the book that’s been sitting on your coffee table waiting for you to pick it up, the craft projects that got little attention over the busy warm weather months. 

Setting up these rituals to transition us out of urgency and into restoration now, in the quieter time, means that when the busier seasons again arrive we will already have practices of restoration in place. 

Maybe it’s a long, hot bath. Perhaps you set up a regular call with a friend who lives far away. I have a monthly call with a dear friend and it always gives me the experience of resetting. I often find that, in explaining what is going on in my life to her, that I gain increased clarity about things that have been swirling in my brain. You may find that a regular meditation practice is what you need. Maybe solitary walks in nature without listening to anything but the sounds around you.

Whatever means you choose, the point is to move into a steadier, more tranquil internal experience. 

Lastly, creativity.

Being creative uses a different part of our brain than when we’re just being analytical. Being creative releases endorphins. Being creative brings us joy. What can you make in this season that’s become so caught up in excess? Doesn’t have to be something big, one Christmas I burned a CD for my dad of different covers of one of his favorite songs. He loved that gift, and I loved making it for him. 

When I’m using my creative muscles, no matter how tired I am at the end, there is an experience of being restored in a deep way. 

Turning to creativity in a season that has become so stressful for so many of us is a reclaiming of our spirit, a reclaiming of the true meaning of the season, and a rebuke to the culture of consumerism. 

This year let’s opt out of pouring our money into coffers of those who have demonstrated time and again that their profit, not our well-being, is their highest concern. Let’s exercise our imaginations and creativity to craft a season that isn’t about how much money we spend but how much joy and connection we can create. 

Measured spending, experiences over things. Creativity and play over consuming. 

We can create beautiful, joyful, restful holidays without the pressure and expense that has become so normalized. We can set ourselves up to enter the New Year refreshed not exhausted. We can use this season to begin to create the habits of rest that will help us sustain our activist work over the long haul.  

We are deserving of beautiful lives, and the beauty of those lives is to be found in the experiences we have far more than the things we have. So let’s reset. Let’s dial down the consumption and ramp up the connections, to our family and friends, to our communities, to ourselves. 

Happy holidays!