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The Power of Intentional Rest with Autumn Colon
39 Plays3 months ago
Welcome to this week’s episode of The Sol Well Podcast! Today, we’re exploring a concept that’s often overlooked but profoundly essential: the power of rest and recovery in fueling personal growth.
In this episode, I unpack why slowing down doesn’t mean giving up and how prioritizing rest can actually accelerate your progress toward your goals. We’ll discuss:
- The hidden costs of grind culture and why rest is a revolutionary act.
- How rest supports emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
- Actionable ways to incorporate recovery into your daily routine, even with a busy schedule.
I also share some incredible resources to help you deepen your rest practice, including:
- Rest Is Sacred: Reclaiming Our Brilliance through the Practice of Stillness.
- Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey.
- The Nap Ministry’s Rest Deck: 50 Practices to Resist Grind Culture.
If you’ve been feeling burnt out, overwhelmed, or stuck in the endless cycle of “doing,” this episode is your reminder to pause, recharge, and give yourself permission to rest.
Actionable Takeaways:
- Embrace rest as a form of self-care and self-respect.
- Schedule intentional pauses throughout your day.
- Reflect on how your body and mind respond when you give yourself space to recover.
Connect with Autumn:
- Instagram: @solwell_
- Website: www.solwell.co
- Join the Sol Well Community at https://themomspace.mn.co/collections/2369816
Join the Conversation:
Share your plans to rest and tag @SolWell on Instagram! Let’s support each other in achieving our goals and creating a meaningful year. Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Email us at podcast@solwell.co
Subscribe & Review:
If you loved this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us grow and reach more listeners who want to live with intention and harmony.
What’s Next?
Get ready for next week’s episode, where I’ll be joined by wellness advocate Yenory Pouncil for an inspiring conversation on Cultivating Self-Love and Self-Trust. You won’t want to miss it!
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Transcript
Introduction to Sew Well Podcast
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey, mamas, and welcome back to the Sew Well podcast, where we focus on helping moms of color prioritize mental health, self-care, and inner growth. I'm your host, Autumn Colon, and I'm excited to dive into today's topic, rest and
Challenging Hustle Culture
00:00:37
Speaker
recovery. How slowing down can be the key to speeding up your growth. In a world that glorifies hustle culture, slowing down can feel counterproductive. I mean, all of the messages that we're hearing all the time is,
00:00:50
Speaker
grind it out, woman boss, mompreneur, you know, go as hard as you can. Sleep is forbidden. I mean, these are the messages that I have been bombarded with pretty much all of my life. But what if I told you that rest isn't a sign of weakness? It's a strategy for success.
00:01:11
Speaker
And today we're going to unpack why rest and recovery are essential for your growth and how you can embrace slowing down to speed up in the long run. Okay, so let's get into it, y'all. Before we go into the episode, I always like to ground us in affirmations. And today's affirmation reads, when I change my thoughts, I can change my life.
00:01:39
Speaker
When I change my thoughts, I can change my life. I always love it when I pull an affirmation card that closely relates to what we're going to be talking about today. And we're talking about rest. And in order for you to really take in what is going to be talked about in this episode, I need you to and need you to change your mind a little bit.
Empowerment Through Personal Experience
00:02:01
Speaker
And I also want to let you guys know that Everything that I'm sharing on this podcast is not coming from a place of hierarchy. I am a regular, regular mom, just like you. I am managing children, entrepreneurship, school, trying to be healthy, friendships, marriage, just like probably most of our listeners on this episode. And so these this advice doesn't come from a place of knowing it all. It comes from a place of just wanting to share.
00:02:31
Speaker
and just wanting to give you guys more insight to help you feel empowered to make change and to heal well and to love yourself. And so with that, we're going to get into today's episode, starting with talking about hustle culture.
Myths of Hustle Culture
00:02:53
Speaker
All right. So let's start by addressing the myths of constant hustle. Society tells us that the only way to achieve our goals is to work harder, push through exhaustion, never stop. You know, I mean, the messages we hear are just a constant state of hustle culture. But we all know as moms listening to this podcast, to be honest, all it really does is lead to burnout.
00:03:22
Speaker
Right? That hustle mentality, that working hard, that never stopping, that does not lead to success. It leads to stagnation. What your CEOs of Fortune 500s and entrepreneurs who are successful aren't telling you is that they have help.
00:03:39
Speaker
And so they have the ability to do more. They aren't telling you that they're able to rest, um to be able to do what it is that they need to do. But I'm here to tell you, because I'm gonna keep it real, right? When we're running on empty, we're not operating at our best. And that impacts every area of our lives from being and showing up as the best mom we can possibly be, to our careers, to our relationships, and our mental health.
The Importance of Rest
00:04:08
Speaker
I want you to think about this, right? You have a car, a car cannot run without gas. And even if you drive a Tesla, eventually you're going to need to hit up a supercharger. You're going to need to refuel and we too moms, we need rest and recovery to allow us to do what we do. Um, and I want you to know that when you neglect that we end up stuck spinning our wheels without moving forward.
00:04:37
Speaker
Rest is not a luxury. It's a necessity. It is your right. It is your privilege, okay? Studies have shown that rest improves creativity, problem solving, and decision making. When we step back and allow our minds and bodies to recover, we can we gain clarity, perspective, and energy to move forward with our purpose.
00:05:00
Speaker
Last week's episode, we talked about vision. We talked about setting an action plan. We talked about dreams to done. You can't achieve your dreams if you aren't fueled properly. Okay. And so rest is your right. And so I want you to think of rest like planning a garden. You can't water it nonstop and expect immediate growth.
00:05:25
Speaker
You need to let the soil settle, give the plant sunlight, and wait for nature to take its course. Your growth works the same way. It requires moments of pause to thrive. I'm going to say that again. It requires your success, okay? And your growth requires you to pause to thrive.
00:05:52
Speaker
Now, I want to make sure that the Soulwall Podcast, that you are not just hearing a lot of filler content. My goal for this is really for you to walk away from each episode with actionable steps that you can take right now to incorporate what I'm talking about. So while we'll still have our guest episodes, right, where we're having really deep conversations and learning about mom's stories and hearing from our wellness educators and facilitators,
00:06:21
Speaker
Um, that's all great, but I want this new year in 2025 and this new way that we're doing the podcast to be an opportunity for you to take notes and then take action.
Autumn's Journey and Insights
00:06:33
Speaker
And so with that, I want to share with you but some resources. So before we dive into those actual steps.
00:06:40
Speaker
I'm always going to give you some resources because I'm not just pulling this out of my, you know, out of nowhere. I want you to know that this comes from a place of research and really constantly always working on myself and wanting to give to others what I have learned. I'm currently in the process of pursuing my degree to become a psychologist. And so everything that I'm learning and the tips that I'm sharing, what I've used to better my own life and the lives of people who I work with,
00:07:09
Speaker
and counseling, that's what all this information is coming for. And so I want to give you these three resources that I think would be really helpful for you. So the first one is a book. um and it It beautifully explores the sacredness of rest and how stillness can help us reconnect with our true selves. That book is called Rest is Sacred, reclaiming our brilliance through the practice of stillness, okay?
00:07:39
Speaker
So that is a really, really great book. It is written by Octavia Rakhine. So another black woman. Okay. That is a really great book. um Make sure you check that one out. The next one that I'm going to recommend to you is Rest Is A Resistance. Okay. A Manifesto written by the author Tricia, Tricia,
00:08:09
Speaker
Hersey. She is the founder of the Nat Ministry, if you are not familiar with what the Nat Ministry is. Trisha calls herself the Nat Bishop, okay? um And they really, really explore in this manifesto our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream and dream a future where rest is exalted. It is such a great read, um a quick read. So whether you do it on audiobooks or get the hardcover, um this really challenges the idea of grind culture and reminds us that rest is an act of resistance, especially for communities like ours that have been historically denied it. Okay.
00:08:56
Speaker
And so the next one is actually a product of the Nat Ministry and it is the Nat Ministry's Rest Deck. 50 practices to resist grind culture. This deck offers practical bite-sized practices to incorporate into your daily life. It's a wonderful tool for anybody who needs actual steps to get to where they're going. These resources remind us that rest is not just a pause, but it is a profound of reclaiming, okay, and a profound act of self-care. So you're not just doing this because you wanna, you know, you wanna nap for nap state, though you have that right. Rest is, it's for you. It's needed. It's not just for the betterment of growth. It is your right. It's your human innate right. So go take a nap.
Actionable Steps for Embracing Rest
00:10:01
Speaker
to start to reframe rest in your mind and begin to partake in intentionally taking time? um Let's talk about how you can make it a priority. These three steps help you to embrace rest and recovery in your life, and you can do them today. The first one is going to be schedule your rest.
00:10:23
Speaker
Treat rest as a non-negotiable. Block time in your calendar for a nap, quiet reflection, meditation, or just 10 minutes to breathe. If it's scheduled, it's sacred. If you are anything like me, who is a newer divergent mama with many, many things, if it's not on the schedule, it's not happening. And so schedule your rest. The next one is going to be listen to your body. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. Are you tired, irritable, unfocused?
00:10:53
Speaker
um You can even use an app to start to track sleeping, right? And and just tell yourself, hey, i am I feeling this way because I just didn't get enough rest? Do I need to pause? Do I need to take an app? These are signs that you need to pause, right? If your body is irritable and you're stressed and you're not focused and you can't, you know, finish an email, honor these signals instead of pushing through them.
00:11:15
Speaker
I know our culture tells us, you know, push through, push through, do the to-do list, but also the to-do list isn't going to get done in a way that's intentional without you paying attention to what your body needs most. And then lastly, it is redefine productivity. I want you to remember that productivity isn't about doing more. It's about doing what matters.
00:11:39
Speaker
Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is rest so that you can come back stronger. So these are your three actionable steps. Very easy um to remember. Not always easy to do, right? As us moms, we always, you know, we're like, I'm going to take all this information in, but actually doing it can sometimes be difficult. But these are easy, right? Schedule your rest, listen to your body and begin to redefine what productivity is.
00:12:09
Speaker
And so I want you to remember moms that, you know, putting yourself last, we're not doing that no more. We're not, we're not doing that in 2025. Like we're just not, we're not doing that. Um, I want you to remember that that rest that you are seeking is essential. So allow yourself the rest. You're not only nurturing your own growth, but also setting an example for your children about the importance of self care and taking care of self.
Community and Changing the Narrative
00:12:37
Speaker
I want to remind you if you are listening to this podcast for the very first time or maybe you're a long time listener and haven't joined yet, you should join our Momspace community. It is a safe space for candid conversations, support, and resources to help you prioritize your wellbeing while navigating motherhood. We are doing this together. It takes a village to raise a mother that is our mantra, that is our mood, and I want to see you him in the Momspace.
00:13:06
Speaker
so If you are interested, check out the show notes um or go to our website sowell dot.co backslash the mom space so you can join us. We wanna support you girl, we wanna support you. So change starts right here, right? I'm gonna close this episode by saying we as mothers who birth nations, who birth communities, we have to change the narrative. Rest isn't the enemy of growth.
00:13:36
Speaker
It's the fuel for it. By slowing down, you're giving yourself the space to heal, reflect, and move forward with intention. You deserve that and so, so much more.
00:13:50
Speaker
Thank you for tuning into the Sew Well Podcast. Don't forget to follow, share, and leave a review if this episode resonated with you. Check out our resources mentioned in today's episode and let me know what you think of the book. I hope at least you listened to this episode and have learned something. I hope you heal well, and I'll see you next time on the Sew Well Podcast. Bye.