Without The Right To Rest

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

This year, for the first time in several years, I managed to hang out at the dacha for more than a month without a break. Previously, it somehow turned out that in the summer I came to the dacha for a few days, then for a few days - again to the city, then back. The regime was as follows - I worked for several days in the city, rested for several days.

It so happened that there was no business in the city. Arriving at the dacha, I decided to stay not just for the weekend plus one or two days, but … "while the weather is good." It was already so lucky this year that the weather was good for two whole months. Occasionally - short rains and then the sun again, 28-30 degrees Celsius, which, of course, is extremely unusual for the Leningrad region and therefore very valuable, I wanted to make the most of this weather.

It would seem - great, you can enjoy your vacation. The sun, a lake nearby, rustic cottage cheese and meat, own cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, etc. However, no, there is some anxiety inside and all the time thinking: “We need to go to the city, enough rest, I’m wasting my time,” and so on. Despite the fact that there is no need to go to the city - some of the clients are on vacation themselves, with someone I work on Skype.

Having caught such thoughts and experiences (anxiety and anxiety) in myself, I remembered that clients also often bring similar anxiety. Anxiety that they will not have time to do something important, guilt for their "idleness" and "laziness". Moreover, these are clients, usually quite successful, working hard and hard and achieving good results in their activities.

There is even a description of a certain syndrome called "weekend syndrome". A person who works a lot and works hard does not know what to do with himself on a day off, anxiety and anxiety grows, he waits and cannot wait - when to return to work. They also talk about workaholism - when there is only work for a person, everything else is simply ignored, deleted from life.

What causes anxiety, what are people afraid of, whose continuous, often very fruitful and effective work is suddenly interrupted by rest - vacation, day off? Often these worries look completely irrational. So, for example, the fear that the brain "will stop" and will not be able to "start" again in the previous effective mode.

I remember when more than 30 years ago I was taken into the army, many friends advised me to load my brain with something in the army - read books, learn English, etc. They said that after 2 years people from the army returned completely stupid, forgotten how to think and, almost, not read. I was absolutely seriously afraid that I would not be able to go to college after the army and study there, that my brain was degrading. So the fear that for a month of rest in the country, sunbathing in a sun lounger or doing simple agricultural work, I degrade intellectually - apparently from there.

In fact, this is a mystery to me. Did I really degrade in two years of the army, for example, and was this degradation irreversible? It seems to me that no. Although, of course, I cannot say for sure. And if for two whole years of low intellectual load I have not been thrown back to the Neanderthal level of thinking, can idleness (in fact, rest) on the weekend or even a whole month of rest in the country house so much harm it?

Another problem that "workaholics" (let's take this word here in quotation marks, it seems to me not quite correct) face during their rest - the feeling of guilt. During inactivity, these people feel guilty. Their superego tells them: “You are lazy, you have to work, don’t sit around,” etc., etc.

Do I need to explain that these are parental messages? After all, the parents wanted the best - for the child to grow up to be hardworking, not lazy, to be successful, to achieve a lot in life (to provide for them when they become old). One of my clients told me (in fact, she writes poetry, and very good poetry) that in her youth, if she just sat at home on the couch (often at that moment she had lines of new poems born), her mother, noticing this (sitting on the couch, not poetry) told her: "Why are you sitting around, do something."

"Do something, don't sit around …" Also, proverbs (successfully pretending to be folk wisdom, but in fact being introjecting messages) contribute: "A girl must work", "Business is time, and fun is an hour" and etc. Probably, there is a certain benefit from them, but people introjected by these messages, under their influence, unconsciously understanding them as absolute rules, begin to feel guilty when they rest, even being completely exhausted by some current affairs.

What to do? Psychotherapy to help! In a session with a psychologist, you recall and analyze these messages. Often - you see them or the absurdity or the fact that you unconsciously take this message too literally - as if work, effort should be continuous, as if you have no right to rest. This is not so - you have every right to rest without being tormented by guilt and without fear that after two weeks or a month of rest, your brain will atrophy so much that you will not be able to engage in intellectual activity.

Relax right now! After you finish reading this post, take some time off. How do you like to do it?