You’re Not Lazy: Your Nervous System Needs Rest
🎙️ This is a transcript of Episode 7 of the Nervous System Care & Healing Podcast with Liz Zhou, a neurodivergent therapist of color. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to receive notice when future episodes come out.
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01:55 What is your relationship with rest?
04:18 How can you work with your cycles, energy, & wiring (not against them)?
07:26 What expectations are you carrying, and how do you feel about those expectations?
10:08 What would support or expand your capacity right now?
13:11 What would be an easy version of this task?
Intro
So for today's episode, I'm going to start by painting a scene and then I'll segue into today's topic. So in this scene, I want you to imagine that you're just sitting on your couch, just chilling and relaxing, not doing much.
In the back of the mind, you're aware that your to-do list is piling up, but you just don't have the energy to get up and do it right now. And then a thought comes into your mind and the thought says, I'm so lazy. Why am I so lazy? Okay, so end scene. I wonder if this scene feels familiar to you if you've experienced it yourself.
In today's episode, I'm going to share five questions, five super open and curious questions to really help us approach the parts of us (that get so self-critical saying, you're so lazy), to approach these part with more compassion.
So I'll go through these questions one by one and share examples. My hope is that by the end that you'll have a shift or a reminder in yourself of why you're not lazy and it's not bad to not do anything, and I'll share some alternative ways to approach this scene of sitting on a couch instead.
What is your relationship with rest?
…and what is your relationship to work? What have you been taught about what it means to be a valuable member of society? Because I know there are so many messages, so much programming that we get from the systems around us like capitalism, colonialism, as well as messaging that we get from our own upbringing, our own family systems and cultures, that tell us something along the lines of: you're not allowed to rest or you only get to rest after you've worked yourself to the bone and you're at the point of collapse.
So many of us have been told that rest is something that we earn rather than something that we need, that we have an inherent right to experience.
I'll just name here that capitalism, right, living in a capitalistic society can really convince us of this story that if I take a break, I'm being weak. If I'm not being productive, then I am not worthy or valuable. it takes a lot of intentional unlearning to really let go of this messaging.
I will also name, speaking from my personal experience in immigrant culture, for those of us who are first generation, second generation, 1.5-gen immigrants, many of us grew up in households where we really learned that working super hard is how we got here.
And if we stop working super hard, then there are major consequences to our sense of belonging or our sense of survival, right? We work to survive to the next day. That messaging is so ingrained in so many immigrant homes, so many immigrant families. It makes sense to me why that's a message.
The point of my question here, what is your relationship to rest, is to bring more awareness and attention to the ways that systems and cultures really impact the way we relate to rest and whether we allow ourselves to rest.
How can you work with your cycles, energy, & wiring (not against them)?
So what do I mean by that? In terms of cycles, right there are seasonal cycles. Winter, summer, fall, spring.
If you live in a place that experiences these four seasons, or maybe it's dry season and rainy season, right, it's really natural for your energy to also correlate or at least be influenced by the climate and the environment and the seasons around you.
Many of us feel more energized in the summer and spring and more tired, more hibernation mode in the winter.
To work with those cycles means that we don't have the same expectations of our energy every single day of the year.
It would make sense if you need more rest during the winter months. It is also totally okay if you need a lot of rest during the warmer months. Your body will let you know how it's relating to each season.
And then there are also menstrual cycles. If you menstruate, you will probably notice that from week to week across months that your energy, it cycles. It is not consistent. It moves, it sheds, it lets go, it regenerates, it rests.
So I want us to really think about energy as not a straight line, but rather as a wave. It has peaks and valleys. It ebbs and flows, it goes up and down, highs and lows.
So maybe you notice when you feel most focused and energized, right? What is your cycle? And then when do you need to rest and recharge? In terms of working with your wiring, I'll just mention a few examples here.
In terms of your to-do list, maybe your brain actually needs music or soft noises in the background to really get things done. maybe your energy stagnates if you're in total silence. On the other hand, maybe someone else's brain actually needs total silence to get things done and the music is a huge distraction or even dysregulating.
Maybe you need more movement breaks and your nervous system needs to stim or release energy in order to move through a to-do list.
Or maybe you do your most focused thinking or your most creative brainstorming or your most efficient work after dark because you're actually a night owl. But maybe you've been trying to be a morning person this whole time and that's what's causing some friction.
So this is where I'd get really curious about, what your brain needs, what your nervous system is telling you, and to see to what extent can you design or accommodate your life around that rather than expecting your life to fit into a box that is a size and shape that wasn't built for you.
What are you expecting of yourself right now, and how do you feel about those expectations?
So it's two questions in one, but in terms of what I'm expecting of myself, this could be either conscious expectations that you are aware of or unconscious expectations that sort of lurk in the background of your mind but you haven't explicitly named out loud.
It can be so helpful to make those unconscious expectations conscious just so we know what we're working with.
There are a couple types of expectations. There are internal expectations. That is the inner voice that you hear in your own mind. And that voice can sound like, oh, I should be working faster, I should have gotten this done yesterday, I should really be more productive right now, I shouldn't be tired. Why am I tired? I should just power through.
And then there are also external expectations which come from outside of us. Like for example, if your boss is instructing you to complete this work assignment by a certain timeline, right? That's an external expectation.
Of course, sometimes internal expectations can come from the external environment. So there is a blending here. They aren't totally separate categories. But the point I want to make here is once you are consciously aware of what expectations you're carrying, then you can really assess how you feel about those expectations.
Do the expectations make sense to you? Maybe it feels okay. Maybe it feels really right for you to hold yourself to a certain expectation. And maybe for other expectations you see them and you feel irritated or frustrated because it's just not realistic.
Maybe the timeline that your boss expects you to complete this project does not align with your human capacities or your human nervous system. And in that case, it would make sense that you feel frustrated. And I am aware that sometimes we cannot control or change the expectations that are being placed on us if they're coming from an external source, whether that's from work, from home, from culture, from the systems…
But to even being able to say, I am being held to an unrealistic expectation, it can at least help the parts of us that criticize us for being lazy, to maybe take a step aside and be gentler on us because we see the bigger context.
What would support or expand your capacity right now?
If you're thinking to yourself, I'm so lazy, what that also means is that there's probably something that you're trying to do or expected to do that you just don't have capacity for.
Maybe an option here is to ask for support or accommodations that would help you reach the needed capacity.
For example, can you maybe delegate groceries and meal prep to someone else in the household if you don't have the energy to do that this week? Can you ask a friend to body double with you as you complete a tedious task like doing your taxes?
For context here, body doubling refers to when you are sharing space, with someone else and you're both working on tasks next to each other and that increases both of your focus or efficiency. And this is helpful for a lot of neurodivergent folks who might struggle to overcome the inertia to start a task and who may need another nervous system presence to accompany them in getting something done.
And you don't even have to be doing the same task together. Maybe you're doing your taxes and your friend is writing an email, but just that shared presence gets both of your brains in let's get it done mode. So that's really helpful for expanding capacity. It also shows how important it is to have community and connection. Maybe our to-do lists aren't meant to be always a solo endeavor.
Another option here is if you do want to engage in a formal process of requesting accommodations at work or at school, right, requesting formal support that may open up access to being able to work in a sensory friendly space or being granted more time to finish assignments or exams at school… that could really make the difference between feeling like you're in your window of tolerance versus burning out in that environment. So that is an option that is sometimes available and appropriate as well, depending on the situation.
I will also say that in terms of supporting capacity, you might also explore adjusting the expectations.
Let yourself go at your pace. Let yourself move at the speed of your nervous system, rather than at the speed of capitalism, which is a very fast and unsustainable speed that maybe only robots can keep up with.
Adjusting expectations can sound like, okay, do I really need to finish this tonight? Or can it wait till tomorrow? Will the world end if the dishes do not get done tonight? Or can I be gentle with myself if I miss this deadline?
What is an easy version of this?
Sometimes our brains can look at a task and then make the task seem more complicated than it is.
I know that's true for myself, especially just the way my brain works. And sometimes the task is complicated, but sometimes there's an easy version of it or a simpler version of it that's just hiding in the background.
For example, how would you write an email if you weren't trying to include all of the fluff and small talk that, you know, the social niceties that you're expected to? If you just had to communicate the core concept and message, what would that email say? And then you just start with that. And then if you want to add the fluff on top, you can or maybe it feels good to just send it as as is. That could be an easy version of that to-do item, right? Send that email.
Another example is if you are trying to cook dinner tonight, maybe your brain is telling you, okay, this needs to be an elaborate multi-course meal with ingredients that represent every color of the rainbow, it becomes this big thing.
If your capacity just is not there, could you prepare something simple and nourishing using just three or four ingredients? Maybe you make it a game to see what you can make in under 45 minutes with three or four ingredients in front of you.
So these are just some ideas of how to really be gentle and compassionate with ourselves if that inner critic is really getting you down, getting in the way of you doing what you want or need to do.
I'll repeat the five questions again and let you sit with them, and I hope that they're helpful for you as you work with your wiring and move at the speed of your nervous system.
What is your relationship to rest?
How can you work with your cycles, energy and wiring? Not against.
What are you expecting of yourself and how do you feel about those expectations?
What would support or expand your capacity right now?
What is an easy version of this?
Alright, that's it for now. Take care of yourselves and I'll be back again next week.
If you need help taking care of your nervous system, I’d love to support you.
Online Therapy in Colorado | Coaching Worldwide
Helping highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults heal their nervous systems & connect with their authentic selves.
About the Author
Liz Zhou (she/her) is a neurodivergent therapist, coach, and speaker. She helps highly sensitive, neurodivergent adults & couples heal their nervous systems and connect with their authentic selves, using brain-body modalities (Brainspotting, EMDR, IFS, psychedelic integration) that are quicker & more effective than traditional talk therapy. Liz offers Nervous System Healing Intensives online worldwide.
