Permission To Rest
For years I had a complicated relationship with “rest”. When I started training in my early 20’s I remember how good exercise made me feel, a feeling I’d never been able to create for myself doing something “healthy” before. And I didn’t understand that days off were imperative for continuing to feel good from training sessions.
Instead I overtrained. I took no days off. Because I thought more of the thing that was initially making me feel good was better.
Eventually I burnt out physically and mentally. Then I was forced to take time off, reassess my training and make some changes. The damage I did in a period of 9 months took YEARS to undo. I never got diagnosed with anything but I messed my hormones and nervous system up terribly. I carried on training, just a little less intensely, had days off, but still had that compulsive drive to do more and achieve more, and train harder.
It’s one of the reasons I think aerial ended up being such a good fit for me in the beginning. There was a hard and punishing element to it. Getting bruised, feeling incredibly sore after training, pushing myself to learn new skills, being better than I was the training session before…
That wild drive to be better, stronger, more athletically capable pushed me to achieve a lot in a few years. Also the willingness to learn. But every time I went through a big push with my training and didn’t de-load and put proper rest in there, I became injured. Which forced time off. And then I spent more time rehabbing, trying to get back to where I was before.
It’s hard to strike a balance. I’ve always struggled with that because I am someone who gets hooked on things that I enjoy.
What’s ended up really changing things for me has been performing. Most of what I’ve been doing is short shows for kids and families. They can rarely tell how difficult a skill is, and they won’t see that small mistake you’re hyper aware of. And being able to get through 3 shows a day means prioritising your body by keeping routines simple. I’ve never pushed my body as hard as I have performing. And I’ve also never cared less about how complicated or high-level my routine is.
As long as I’m smiling and I look the part, and I’m entertaining the audience then I’m doing a good job. I don’t have to have an overspilt or a million dynamic tricks. I also need to be performing movements that I can do when I’m exhausted with no risk of injuring myself. This experience completely changed how I viewed myself as an aerialist.
It also changed my desire to constantly be doing more and learning more. And I realised the only thing I really want from my aerial practice is to enjoy it. Performing so much took some of that joy away. Since taking a break I’ve been able to find more of what matters to me in my training. And really appreciate taking days off whenever I want so that my body actually feels good during my training sessions.
We always think we need to be doing more, training more, and achieving more. If we can’t do X skill we’re not valid as an aerialist. If we’re not good enough to perform (who even decides that?) we’re not valid as an aerialist. Social media creates the desire to be perceived as doing more and doing better.
I don’t know who these imaginary people are, or who made any of this up, or why we set these internal standards for ourselves. I can’t tell you how freeing it is not to care about whether anyone else thinks you’re good enough. I honestly feel now that the only driving force behind whether I’m going to train something or not is joy. Does it bring me joy? It’s liberating to feel that I’m no longer trying to prove anything to anyone.
But it’s taken me 13 years to get here. It’s taken multiple injuries to get here. It’s taken a lot of work to transform my relationship with exercise and aerial and my body. Even just recognising the signs to know I need to rest has taken a long time. I never thought “I’m about to get injured” before I then got injured. But when I reflect back I can see it coming.
So I’m not here to tell you that you have to rest now, you get to choose this for yourself. I’m simply sharing more of my story in the hopes that it might help you to feel like it’s ok for you to take some rest if you know it’s what you need. And with the holidays coming up this is actually a great opportunity to take time off.
I have in the past trained on Christmas Day. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, I always see people out for a walk or a run. But my drive behind doing that wasn’t because I really wanted to, but because I felt like I could not take time off. That honestly wasn’t a great place to be.
Taking rest does not mean you’ll get behind.
It doesn’t mean you’re lazy.
It doesn’t mean you’re failing.
And it absolutely doesn’t mean you’ll lose all of your gains.
It literally allows you to recover mentally and physically, which is vital as an aerialist.
Now I jump at the opportunity to have a couple of weeks of just chilling out. It means I will feel ready to go when January hits. So if you need permission to rest, here it is. I invite you to join me for a chilled out December.
