Between Motion and Stillness: Learning When Rest Is the Work
Between Motion and Stillness:
Learning When Rest Is the Work
By: By a.d. elliott | Take the Back Roads - Art and Other Odd Adventures
Dear Henry,
There’s a strange tension that sets in once you finally decide to stop pushing. My entire life has been a script of "try harder" and "push more," anything else was seen as laziness or failure. Until now, when I've been told to sit quietly.
Not a complete collapse, just restraint, and keeping the fatigue under control.
We live in a culture that treats productivity as a virtue and rest as a lapse in character. If you’re not moving, producing, optimizing, or improving something, the assumption is that you’re failing. The body, of course, rarely agrees with this philosophy.
Lately, my body has been very clear. Excess thyroid catabolizes muscle and fries the nerves. It can't be rolled out, sweated out, or flushed out. It must be metabolized, and that is a process of time and patience. Unfortunately, patience has never been one of my virtues.
But until the thyroid settles, until the excess hormones, heat, tremor, and exhaustion stop fighting each other, anything beyond gentle movement is not discipline. It’s sabotage. Pushing harder doesn’t build strength; it drains it. And learning the difference between too much and not enough has been harder than it sounds.
We tend to imagine rest as doing nothing. In reality, rest is often the most active choice available. It requires restraint, attention, and the humility to accept limits without turning them into identity. Gentle walking. Stretching. Water. Sleep. The unglamorous basics we dismiss because they don’t look like effort.
There’s something uncomfortable about this season. Not because it’s empty, but because it resists measurement and because it resembles vice. No milestones. No visible gains. No satisfying sense of accomplishment to point at. Just maintenance, quiet, repetitive, and necessary.
But maintenance is not stagnation. It’s what keeps the system intact long enough for the next stretch of road.
I’m learning—slowly—that not every phase of life is meant for acceleration. Some phases exist to recalibrate the instrument before it’s played again. Ignoring your body's limits doesn't make you brave; it makes you brittle.
So this is a season for gentler motion. For listening instead of forcing. For allowing the body to do what it’s already trying to do, without interference.
The waters will part soon enough. For now, the task is simpler: don’t rush the repair.
About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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