Rest, joy and liberation
Reflections on a 40-day sabbatical and how to make your sabbatical a reality
We arrived at the soft-sand beach with our extended family, everyone sweating and carrying bags with tortillas, pots with guisados, towels and fruit. We always found a side of the beach where big rocks or trees would provide shade for the elders through the hot sunny day. And, then I was free. We kids would jump, under an open sky, in shallow clear water, to splash, explore, learn to swim, laugh and be loved by the ocean until the sun started to set.
I started working when I was eight. I grew up facing the hardships of poverty growing up in the outskirts of la ciudad de Oaxaca. I come from lineages of Indigenous families. Both my parents were pushed to migrate to the city at a young age. Due to the brutal impacts of colonization and caste systems in Mexico, as an Indigenous person, having to do hard physical labor and be a hard worker has often become tied to survival, redemption, dignity and identity.
As children, growing up, we were not allowed to rest. We were expected to always be busy. The only times when we had a break was when we went to visit my grandma Toya on the coast of Oaxaca. There I felt liberated. My connection to the ocean became strong, deep and loving. Rest to me often feels like the joy of jumping into the water and floating on the ocean, being caressed by her waves. This sabbatical opened up the recalling of the teachings the ocean has given me about rest, joy and liberation.
Rest
At Collective Liberation in Practice, we have been experimenting in the last two years with short periods of rest and retreat. This helped me to decide to take my first sabbatical. I also had the privilege of being a coach for leaders of color through the BIPOC ED Coalition, a Washington state-wide organization leading revolutionary work for our movements and communities of color through their sabbatical program. My role started as a coach and by weaving my traditional practices it transformed into a role I like to call sabbatical doula. As a sabbatical doula I accompany leaders preparing to rest with reflective practice, planning for the phases of their sabbatical, engaging with different forms of rest, as well as with organizational development, culture, structure and succession planning.
An important part of getting ready for my sabbatical was giving myself permission to rest for a long period of time, understanding that I also deserve rest and being ready to receive it. I know there are many people who cannot take a sabbatical right now who really need it and we are fighting for a world where we all can thrive and have time to rest. Working through all of these feelings and truths while navigating burnout and trying to make more time for rest is a challenge. As an Indigenous person who is also an immigrant, I was socialized to work, to work hard, to push past the limits of my will and body, to work until I had nothing else to give. It took me a long time to see the systemic violences that had pushed me to think of my body as a working machine. Also, my leadership development as a young person and in community work was to serve others, to be a servant leader. It was hard for me to learn to include me in the service. For example, I would skip meals and work long days at the office staying hungry and tired because I wanted to finish all my tasks to have successful programming for youth, or I would ignore pain in my body caused by stress in order to finish reports for funders to keep getting the support we needed for our programs. Eventually, I realized that I was not modeling what I wanted for youth and I also had to deal with health issues caused by not listening to my body. Undoing and regenerating new practices is taking time and intentionality. It is a constant fight against the systems of capitalism, neo-colonization and oppression.
In my journey toward reclamation, transformation and sovereignty, I have studied leadership models, governance, and frameworks through the years with a particular focus on Indigenous ways of being. These knowledges along with the wisdom of Black theorists and practitioners have been pivotal in transforming my practices. A fundamental text for me is Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hershey. In her book she lays the ground to reimagine, dream and rest by resisting grind culture and practicing rest with an analysis of capitalism and white supremacy. She explains clearly: “Grind culture is a collaboration between white supremacy and capitalism. It views our divine bodies as machines. Our worth is not connected to how much we produce. Another way is possible. Our shared history is one of extreme disconnection and denial. We ignore our bodies’ need to rest and in doing so, we lose touch with Spirit. In our bodies we have our temples. It is the only thing we own. Our bodies are a tool agent for change. A site of liberation.” As we continue on our rest practice we have to do so in the context of racial and social justice, with futurity visions and an understanding that resting means to go against systems that make it almost impossible to do it. And, yet, to remember that it is possible to rest.
Planning for a sabbatical needs to be put into our plans as a priority as it requires intentionality and time to craft it carefully. There is a period of time to plan the sabbatical and there is another period of time to plan to be ready to leave. You have to make a plan to plan for the sabbatical, otherwise, it may not happen. Also, you should seek someone’s support to help you plan and keep you accountable. This could be your counselor, a coach or your bestie. This support is essential to make space to plan, create your plan, dream your rest time, hold you accountable, encourage your rest and accompany you in the process of reconnecting when you come back.
It is also important to be ready and open to care for your physical self and emotional body as rest invites you into healing. In this sabbatical, rest made space for me to listen to my body in ways I wasn’t able to do before. It also allowed me to tend to grief I needed to care for in my journey. Somatic practices and the traditional Indigenous healing of curanderismo allowed me to be open, and when I added rest, it created a portal of time and space, to listen more deeply and tend to my body and spirit.
Joy
In getting ready to do intentional rest I thought “I’m going to rest all the time. Catch me at the hammock!” And, although that seems like a dream for an exhausted body, I also craved movement and connection during my time away. I designated my first two weeks to visit and spend time with my grandmother. She lives in the mountains in rural Oaxaca and I arrived when it was time to farm, clear the land, plant corn, grind coffee, gather wood, and other hard physical labor. It was challenging to wrap my mind around the fact that I imagined those two weeks as a time of rest and to realize they required work. I kept my commitment to rest even during those days making pockets of rest and journaling. As the second week came up, and because I stayed clear in my intention of rest and being present, I had the clarity to see that I received other forms of rest. I had mental, emotional and spiritual rest. My soul felt rested. I deepened my connection with my grandmother, my ancestors and the land. I also got to laugh and play, dance and strengthen my familial and community relationships. The joy of this experience will forever travel with me.
Setting the right expectations of disconnection are also important. Disconnecting and resting go hand-in-hand but are not necessarily the same. You can disconnect from the city or the people and get no rest because mentally you are thinking about work. Or, you can rest and miss the connections to the people you love having in your life. A question to explore is: What kind of rest do I need right now?
Through the forty days I was away, I was able to experience different kinds of rest. I felt rested by spending long days swimming and playing in the water with my partner, reading while eating fresh fruit, hiking with my dad after a storm had passed, making earrings for my aunty, embroidering slowly, journaling, talking with my parents while eating arroz con leche, definitely a lot of laying on the hammock and taking naps, periods of silence, contemplating the mountains, the sky, the ocean, meditating and dancing on the streets of Oaxaca with my Zapotec teacher Evita. Rest allowed me to have many moments of joy.
Liberation
Rest will also open space to practice liberation. Liberation is the radical process to step away, even if temporarily, from systems that seem inescapable and by doing so dismantling those same systems. We have to practice liberation. And, it is hard because we are constantly working against systems of oppression and socialization that pull us away from ourselves and our commitments.
We have to practice in small ways how liberation feels in our bodies and continue to experiment and open avenues that are healthy, in good relation and transformative. For many years, Black feminists and womanists have been opening the way for liberation. This is a place to begin exploring, an invitation to liberation for your body and spirit. What is an area in your body that you are willing to set free from the confines of societal expectations? You may want to take a moment, close your eyes, take a few slow breaths, and feel that part of your body speaking to you right now. What healing is needed for you to be able to explore and experiment with that liberation? You may want to journal what you feel and continue to explore these questions and be open to what your body is ready to teach you about healing and liberation.
Beginning with experimenting, creating and deepening our own liberation practices is an important step that can allow us to support each other to build liberation zones, solidarity movements and collective liberation.
Rest, joy and liberation are interconnected. In our search for collective liberation, we want everyone, especially Black people, Indigenous people and other People of Color, to have the best conditions to thrive. Rest allows us to have clarity and grounding to engage in healing. This healing sets the environment to deepen our collective liberation, not only for ourselves but also for generations to come.
Eight practices to support your sabbatical dream
A plan to practice rest is essential. Here are practices that have helped me in this sabbatical journey and that I invite you to include in your care and rituals.
Keep an imperfect rest journal. Write in your journal how you engaged in rest, how rest is showing up or being slippery, your commitments and your progress. It is a forgiving and imperfect journal because if you have to pause you can always return to it again and again.
Practice with the Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture every day or as often as you can. Make time to pull a card, meditate, reflect and practice.
Explore an area of your personal life that has been speaking to you. Make time to listen to it and hold it tenderly.
Make a list of what brings you joy and include those actions in your life as much as possible.
Delete your email app and other work apps from your phone on weekends. Observe your relationship with work apps and work texts. Spend a day, or more, without email, TV and social media.
Take short times of rest. Create mini sabbaths, like a long weekend, at home or at another location, to experiment with rest to help you prepare for a longer sabbatical. Find experiences of rest, including a rest-date, which is dedicated time to rest, like a mindful walk in a local park. Begin to dream your full sabbatical.
Make moments of pleasure and rest that stay away from consumerism. Find moments of bliss, like eating a ripe mango, sipping your favorite tea on a cozy blanket or laying naked on your bed after a bath.
Choose a liberation practice and experiment with it.
I recently, in my local area, went to a sound and swim immersion with the Oshun Swim School that allowed me to step into a zone of liberation they created for BIPOC women and nonbinary people. We got to play, float, laugh, and connect to other people, the water and healing sound. I am experiencing more and more zones of liberation lately and I hope you get to do the same. I dream that together we will continue to find what brings us joy, rest, liberation and healing for ourselves, our collectives and for the future generations.
