Dr. Sola Togun-Butler

Rest is not a face mask on a Friday night if you spend the whole time thinking about work. Rest is not a holiday if you come back to the same life that exhausted you. Rest is not scrolling for an hour because you cannot think of anything else to do.

And rest is definitely not something you have to earn.

That last one is the one that keeps most women stuck. The idea that you have to finish enough, give enough, produce enough before you are allowed to stop. But the finishing never comes. So the rest never comes either.

Real rest is allowed to look ordinary. It is allowed to look like nothing. It is allowed to happen on a Tuesday afternoon with dishes in the sink and emails unread.

You do not have to perform rest for it to count.

If you have ever slept a full night and woken up feeling like you barely closed your eyes, this is for you.

It is not weakness. It is not a sleep disorder. It is what happens when your body and mind have been running on empty for too long and sleep alone is not enough to fix it.

Save this and share it with a woman who needs to understand why she is still so tired. Because understanding it is the first step to actually doing something about it.

You lie down and immediately your brain starts listing everything you should be doing instead.

So you get up. Or you stay down but you are not really resting because your mind is already three tasks ahead. Either way you do not actually rest. You just feel bad in a horizontal position.

The guilt was taught. By a world that measures your value by how much you produce. By watching the women before you never stop. By the voice that says everyone else is still going so what gives you the right.

But those women are tired too. They are just better at hiding it. Or they have not hit the wall yet.

Resting when you are exhausted is not falling behind. It is the most logical thing a person can do.

Drop a 🤍 if you needed this today.

You are not lazy. You are not weak. You are not bad at resting.

You are just resting one part of yourself while every other part runs on empty.

Save this; it is one of those posts worth coming back to.

The laundry will be done and then it will need doing again. The emails will be cleared and then they will fill back up. The house will be tidy and then it will not be. The to-do list will never have a final item.

So if you are waiting to finish everything before you allow yourself to rest, you will be waiting forever.

Rest is not what happens at the end. It has to happen in the middle of everything, while the dishes are still in the sink and the messages are still unread and the list is still unfinished.

Because that is just life. It does not pause for you to catch up. And your body cannot wait for it to.

You are allowed to stop. Not because you have earned it. Just because you need it.

Save this for the next time the guilt tries to talk you out of it.

This one is for the woman who has reorganised her kitchen at 10pm instead of going to bed.

We know what rest is. We just cannot seem to let ourselves have it. And there are real reasons for that, reasons we are unpacking all month.

Tell me in the comments, which one do you do? Or add yours, because I know this list is not complete. 😅

Welcome to August. 🌿

We spent June talking about burnout. We spent July finding our way back to ourselves. This month we go somewhere most women quietly avoid.

Rest.

Not the kind they sell you. Not the face mask on a Friday night or the holiday that fixes nothing. The real kind. The kind that requires you to actually stop. To put things down. To let the world keep moving without your help for a little while.

And if that already sounds hard, that is exactly why we are talking about it this month.

This month we are going to talk about why rest feels so impossible, what is actually getting in the way, what real rest looks like when it is not wrapped in a product or a price tag, and why choosing to stop, in a world that profits from your exhaustion, is one of the most powerful things you can do.

If you are tired of being tired, stay close this month. This one is for you.

You do not have to have yourself figured out to start coming back to yourself.

That is what July taught us.

We talked about what burnout takes beyond the exhaustion. The things you stopped doing. The not knowing what you want. The guilt of wanting things for yourself. The slow unglamorous truth of what healing really looks like.

So many of you showed up this month. You commented, shared, reached out. That meant more than you know.

If you moved even one inch closer to yourself this month, that counts. Do not let anyone, including yourself, tell you otherwise.

August is coming and we are going deeper. But first, I want to know, how are you feeling compared to the start of this month? Tell me honestly in the comments.

The guilt of putting yourself first is real. But so is this.

A woman who knows herself, who has been seen and supported and restored, gives her people something that a burnt out, depleted, always-last version of her never could.

Your healing is not just for you. Swipe through and read this one slowly.

Save it for the next time the guilt tries to talk you out of choosing yourself. And when you are ready to stop carrying it alone, the Virtual Burnout Support Group is open.