How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

It's summer reset time for me. We've passed through a number of home, work and travel challenges. And though I'm not done working or traveling in July, I've already felt the downshift in my body.

My family and I have the good fortune to be able to spend a few weeks each summer not far from the shores of Lake Michigan. It's a smaller, simpler life for a little while. And, despite the fact that we don't hit dusk until 10 p.m., being there seems to reset my sleep cycle somehow.

The first night, I slept until 8:30 a.m. for the first time in years. The second, I slept all the way through until morning -- skipping even my obligatory middle-aged guy bathroom break.

This tells me two things. One, I've been running hard and clearly need to slow it down a bit. And two, that my relationship with rest isn't totally broken. Even though I am the worst sleeper in our household, the body still knows what to do.

I haven't always been sure of that.

One day, early in my career, I crossed paths in the office with the big boss. He asked me how I was doing, and I mentioned I was feeling pretty tired. (I'd been working a second, part-time job to supplement my nonprofit salary.) He told me I shouldn't be tired because I was young and there was too much work ahead in advancing the organization's mission.

Don't be tired. There's too much to do. Push through it.

It's a terrible message for a young professional, and one I've spent a couple of decades unlearning. And it's a message that surrounds us, squeezes us, unrelenting.

When we have too much to do, at home and at work.

When we're outraged, or scared, by the state of the world.

When society places more of a burden on us because of who we are.

All of these challenges get in the way of our rest. And paradoxically, they all make our rest more important.

What is one small step you can take this week toward better sleep? Can you take a short nap? Or go to bed a half hour earlier, just once? Or stop looking at your phone an hour before you finally shut your eyes?

It is an act that seems counter-cultural, revolutionary even. Yet it's essential for our work as leaders and our survival as humans.

Pause. Breathe. Rest.


Bonus material, on the theme of love, growth and rest... with all the feels:

(With gratitude toward Midnight Oil for the inspiration on the headline.)

Image: Danpape, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons