Extra•Ordinary ~ When Rest Becomes Empowerment

Tending to your nervous system in a world that thrives on your depletion.

“Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~Pema Chodron

Henri Rousseau | Carnival Evening, 1886 - Public Domain

There’s a kind of tired that sleep can’t touch. The kind that settles in the marrow. Not from doing too much, but from being asked to carry too much, too often, with too little space to recover.

I’m seeing a troubling pattern in the people who attend my classes and workshops. They’re shut down, completely overwhelmed by the stress and overload of their nervous systems. They’re searching. Hungry to be in touch with their spiritual side, their energetic bodies. To soothe their aching hearts.

We live in a culture that praises the grind, glorifies the hustle, and disguises depletion as ambition. We’re told to keep going. To consume more. To produce endlessly. To ignore the signals.

But the body always knows. It is wise.

When the mind can’t process one more input, one more ping, one more crisis, one more headline, one more pressure to be on, it starts to short-circuit. The nervous system, brilliant in its design, shifts into survival mode: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. These responses were written into our DNA long before modern life began asking us to be always-on and always-available; an ancient system still trying to protect us in a world that now feels like a battleground.

Under threat, the brain douses the body in cortisol, preparing it to run or shut down. Dopamine, once our joy molecule, is hijacked to keep us seeking, scrolling, shopping… anything to keep the system satiated.

It’s not pleasure we’re chasing anymore. It’s escape disguised as reward.

You might not even notice it at first…

The quiet disengagement.
The neverending scroll.
The glass of wine that turns into three.
The shows you don’t really care about, playing in the background to fill the void.
The mindless eating. The spending. The endless stream of “just one more.”

This is the direct result of the brain being flooded with mixed signals — cortisol, adrenaline, dopamine all spinning the wheel. Not because you’re weak. Because your nervous system is trying desperately to regulate in an environment that doesn’t allow rest. In a society that calls your exhaustion laziness and your need for silence a problem to be fixed.

What if the shutdown isn’t failure, but a signal?

A sacred whisper from the heart saying, “No more noise. I need stillness.”

Instead of numbing the fatigue, what if we listened to it? What if, instead of reaching for the quick fix, we reached for time spent in nature?

We are not meant to live as machines. We are cyclical. Emotional. Sensory. Human.

We are meant to move slowly through trees, to gather with others around fires, to put our hands in soil, in clay, in dough, in someone else’s open palm.

When we orient toward oxytocin and serotonin — the chemistry of connection, calm, and contentment — we begin to feel into a different kind of aliveness.

Healing lives in stillness. In story. In song. In slowness. When we root back into nature, into our impulse to create, into community, we begin to remember the rhythm of rest as a sacred act, vital to do more than survive; it allows us to thrive.

If you feel tired in a way that sleep can’t touch, you’re not broken. You’re overloaded.

Unplug. Reconnect. Return to the real. Make space.

You are not a machine.

You don’t have to earn your rest.

With tenderness and truth,
(((tina d.)))

---

Practice

Raw Pixel | “The Climb”

Listening to What Exhaustion Is Trying to Tell You

Your fatigue is a message. A biological signal from a nervous system that’s been asked to carry too much, for too long, without pause.

This is more than burnout… it’s sensory and emotional overload, intensified by a culture that demands constant output and numbs discomfort with distraction. Your body is begging you to listen.

You don’t need to override the signal. You need to honor it.

One thing you can do right now:

Give your nervous system a 10-minute reset.

• Turn off all notifications.

• Step outside or sit by a window.

• Take 10 slow breaths: deep into the belly, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

• Gently place a hand on your chest or belly. Feel your body. Come home to it.

• Ask yourself: What do I need less of right now? What do I need more of?

Bonus: Write the answers down. No editing. No judgment. Just listen.

This is where regulation begins. One pause at a time. This is how we start to heal the collective exhaustion.

It doesn’t take hours. It takes presence.

---

Perspective

I’ve been slowly building a network of engaged, thoughtful souls here on Substack (the platform where my newsletters live). As I’ve stepped back from the noise of social media, I’ve found a growing circle of healers, environmentalists, and activists doing meaningful, heart-centered work — rooted in place, in purpose, and in deep care for this world.

One of my favorite new connections is Robin Motzer, whose publication Wildlands feels like a breath of fresh air. Robin’s work is soulful and grounded, offering inspiration that reconnects us to the earth, to each other, and to what truly matters.

The world needs more voices like hers: clear, kind, and fiercely rooted in what’s real. Check out her most recent post:

A Journey to Health, Well-being and Sovereignty

---

Pep Talk

The world hasn’t exactly made rest feel safe.

You’ve been running on fumes because the culture taught you that slowing down is falling behind. That being still is being weak. That the only way to matter is to produce, respond, consume, repeat.

But here’s the truth, rest is yours:
You’re allowed to stop.
You’re allowed to listen inward, not outward.
You’re allowed to protect your peace like it’s sacred — because it is!

This kind of rest isn’t passive. It’s liberation. Every moment you spend tending to your nervous system is an act of defiance in a world that profits off your depletion.

Gentle Nudge: You don’t have to justify rest with exhaustion. You don’t need to “earn” a break. Start now. Not when things calm down. Not when you’ve crossed everything off your list. Now.

Choose calm over chaos. Stillness over stimulation. You’re not behind. You’re right on time.

---

Power Statement

I choose presence over overwhelm. I reject the noise that keeps me numb. My energy, my breath, and my peace are my birthright.

---

Parting Pulse