The Courage to Rest - Martha Beck

About this episode

How do we justify resting in a world that wants us in constant motion? Martha and Ro address this question with compassion and irreverence, digging into the cultural context of human exhaustion. They explain that we work our fingers to the bone because we think productivity makes us good people. But rest isn’t a luxury, it’s an imperative! And when we learn to be WILD—embracing unscheduled time, the power of choice, and naps—we find balance. Martha urges us to chase joy with abandon and rest without guilt.

Show Notes

This show opens with a deeply relatable listener quandary. Carmen tells us, “I find it hard to let myself rest without feeling the need to justify myself.”

With their trademark mix of empathy and humor, Martha and Ro dig into the dark history of overwork, exhaustion, and our bewildering tendency to denigrate inactivity. Why do we see resting as a sign of weakness? Well, Martha points out that culture is the culprit here, since our society is obsessed with earning wealth through gobs and gobs of hard work and we’ve conflated “productivity” with “irrefutable human goodness.” We work ourselves toward illness and burnout, convinced we’re being noble. Yikes.

The antidote that Martha and Ro suggest? Be more like a lion, which pursues activity with unbridled enthusiasm then rests deeply and without guilt. Move from a state of bewilderment where we believe that resting is a luxury, to a state of beWILDerment where we can respond not to culture but to the needs of our wild, true natures.

Listen in to find out how.

Episode Links and Quotes

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Henry David Thoreau Quote:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..”

― Civil Disobedience and Other Essays