This past week I’ve been sick…really, really sick. I haven’t been this sick in a long time and it has been rough.

When you’re a kid being sick isn’t great but you get a few days off from school, your mom takes extra care of you and you get to watch bad daytime TV.

Getting sick when you’re adult…it doesn’t have that same allure. Life continues to move, work piles up and dishes, laundry and all the other things you planned to do are still sitting there waiting for you once you feel better.

As I sit and think about the past week all I can think about is how annoyed I am that I “lost” a week of my life. I lost a week of being able to get work done, a week of seeing clients, a week of working on my podcast, a week of pitches articles for publication, a week of potential missed opportunities…a week…a week…

Then it hit me.

This week I just “lost” isn’t going to make or break my life or my career or anything else. Pressing the pause button for a week or even two weeks doesn’t mean my entire world is falling down around me and I’m now so behind in life that I’ll never catch up.

Why do I feel this way?

Why am I upset with myself for getting sick and having to slow down and take care of myself for one week?

Crazy making…right?!

Yet we do this to ourselves all the time. We beat ourselves up for being human and we get upset when our humanness prevents us from always being a “super-amazing-hustler-shotcalling-boss lady” 24/7.

Our culture tells us the “best” and “only” way to be is to always be hustling. Always be on the go. Always be on your way to a fabulous party. Always be on an incredible Instagram-worthy vacation. Always…always…always.

We feel so much pressure to live these amazing social media worthy lives that we don’t allow ourselves to be what we really are…human and flawed and vulnerable.

When you get sick, it’s your bodies way of saying, “Slow down. There’s something here that’s not working quite right and we need to rest and reset.”

So this is what I’ve been doing this past week. Reluctantly resting. Binge watching old episodes of “Project Runway” and drinking large quantities of juice, water, bone broth, and tea. Rescheduling clients, cancelling plans, rearranging meetings.

I did something I normally don’t do…I placed value and importance on rest. I gave myself a giant break and didn’t worry so much about how things would get done.

It made me feel a little sad when I thought back to how hard it was for me to let go because we all need a break, we all need rest, we all need play but we don’t value it and we don’t honor it.

Once upon a time, all the great inventors, scholars and thinkers used to take long walks in the woods to think and ponder. It was during these walks that they would have a major breakthrough or an amazing thought or idea would come to them.

This is my challenge for you, don’t wait until you get sick or laid up to rest and relax and ponder and play, pick a time right now when you can really let yourself go.

What would it be like if you left your phone at home and decided to take a long walk in your neighborhood? What would it be like if you had an hour to sit and think and stare out the window?

The possibilities are endless. The point is to start valuing play and rest and doing fun things for the sake of simply doing fun things. Allow yourself to be uncomfortably still and quiet. This is when the magic happens.

Have a great week,

Tess