Rest wasn’t something we were taught to practice. It was something that happened only when the body gave out, when there was no other choice. Strength was praised. Endurance was expected. Pausing was treated like a luxury we hadn’t earned yet.
Last year, I went to the doctor not because I had time, but because I was finally too unwell to ignore it. My blood pressure was dangerously high. The doctor looked at my chart and told me to go straight to the hospital. I had already pushed the appointment back once. I kept telling myself I just needed to finish a few projects for both of my businesses, take a trip to see my godsons, and then I’d go. A little heart flutter here and there didn’t feel serious enough to stop everything. I convinced myself it was fine. I was still functioning. Still producing. Still showing up. I gave myself false comfort, because slowing down felt like pushing things back for other people. That was the lie I’d learned to live with—that taking care of myself could always come later.
On the plane to visit my godsons, my heart started fluttering nonstop. My breathing felt off. Something in my body shifted from whispering to insisting. I knew immediately it was time to pray. It wasn’t loud panic. It was quiet bargaining. Talking to God. Promising I would do better. And beneath that, a steady knowing that my body was no longer asking for my attention. It was demanding it. I spent the next 24 hours in a hospital bed under observation. That wasn’t a decision I made. It was a requirement. I couldn’t push through anymore. I had to stop. I had to rest. I had to submit.
The work I do around mental health gave me language for moments like this. It taught me how to recognize when the body is asking for care, not discipline. But knowing that didn’t make me immune. It simply meant I could name what was happening instead of ignoring it. I was used to offering that care to others more easily than I offered it to myself. Even then, my first instinct wasn’t to rest. It was to worry about other people worrying about me. I’m used to being the caretaker. The strong friend. The one who holds everything together.
Lying there, I realized how deeply that role was stitched into me. My value had long been tied to how much I could carry without complaint. Being forced to stay still felt unsettling. Vulnerable. Almost irresponsible. Rest felt like punishment at first, but it was the opposite. It was something I needed. Even with quiet client demands and my mind drifting to how I could still please others from a hospital bed, I had to shift. This was the moment boundary setting stopped being theory and became practice.
As I reflect back, I remember watching my grandmother in her eighties cook Sunday dinner. She would stir the pots, then sit down at the kitchen table for a moment, rubbing her arm stiff with arthritis. After a few minutes, she’d get back up and keep going.
You couldn’t tell her to rest. Her version of rest was nodding off briefly in her chair between tasks. Even then, it wasn’t intentional. It was exhaustion, and her love for family Sunday dinners often came before her own wellness. Growing up, my mother worked seven days a week until she retired, most holidays included. She worked so money would be there no matter what my father had or didn’t have. What I saw was devotion. Commitment. Love expressed through consistency.
Rest wasn’t part of that picture. Not because it wasn’t valued, but because family came first. I didn’t grow up seeing rest as care. I learned it as something you reached for only after everything else was handled. Everything shifted after I learned my blood pressure was dangerously high. Six months later, it was back on track. That mattered to me. But what mattered just as much was what the process revealed. Wellness isn’t fixed. We’re all unlearning in real time, and what care looks like can change from day to day.
I listen differently to my body now. Not only when it’s screaming, but when it’s quiet. My boundaries are firmer because I understand what they protect. I’m doing things my ancestors fought for, and that means rest isn’t a luxury. It belongs in my life. Rest, I’ve learned, isn’t something you earn after pushing through everything. It’s what keeps you from losing yourself in the pushing. As Black women, we’re often told we have to be twice as good. That weight is real.
But I’m learning that being twice as smart sometimes looks like stopping. Like saying no. Like choosing softness. Like letting rest count.
