Why do we resist our needs?

On intuition, conditioning, and rest

We’re all familiar with the line “you can’t always get what you want” by the Stones. Many of us are living it right now, unable to get the bare minimum (jobs, health insurance, a sense of safety in our bodies, and so on).

But what about the things we need that are accessible to us, but we resist?

For me, that need has always been rest.

Thanks to Long COVID, I’ve gotten better at identifying when I need to do less, sooner. If I don’t honor that inner knowing, I get signals from my body like eye pressure, brain fog, migraine, joint pain, and gut issues, followed by persistent fatigue. You’d think with messages like that, listening would come easy! But after a year of gaining back capacity, it’s paradoxically painful for me to accept. It’s like the roar of approaching the finish line after a rough race—I just want it to be over. I want to push the rest of the way. But that’s how I got here in the first place.

My mind swirls with thoughts pointing to frustration and fear. Last week, I jotted them all down in my sketchbook to make sure my inner self felt heard. As I got everything out of my head and onto paper, the deeper feeling that arose was sadness. I asked myself, “why would I feel sad that I can’t do a few errands today? Rest is nice!”

Well for one, it reminds me of last year, when my dips would last for weeks, or months. (Totally valid.)

And how will I feel like I did a good job today if I didn’t “do” anything? There it is. By giving myself space to work through my thoughts and emotions, I identify a belief that is not mine. Even after all this time, I believe that I have to do to be good.

I know that rest is productive. I know that rest is helping me heal and do more in the long term—for myself, my purpose, and my people. So I reorient myself towards what I know, instead of what I’ve been conditioned to believe. This process isn’t immediate (far from it!)—it’s a practice. I come home to myself again and again. It’s the most important work I’ve ever done.

To bring it full circle, “if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need.”

This reflection reminded me of a poem I wrote in April of last year:

Rest, love -
You don’t always need to be thinking something
Doing something
For someone
To someone
For yourself
To yourself
Every act a grain of sand
In a growing pile.
You can simply stay still
Against the relentless passing of time
And every now and then
Let the wind blow you apart
And then start again.

If you find yourself needing a little reminder, feel free to grab this background for your phone. It comes with alll the love and hugs. x

Thank you, as always, for being here,
Lisa