You're not lazy—you're out of survival mode
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The JD Letter February 22, 2025
No one talks about how much rest you need when you finally feel safe. After enduring survival mode for so long, most people feel guilty or lazy when they finally slow down. But what we all fail to realize is that it's normal to feel exhausted when we no longer have to be on guard. The deep fatigue you experience is your body's way of saying: "You're safe now—you can let go." However, it is up to you whether or not you allow yourself to rest without feeling guilty. I get it. It's hard when your entire identity has been built around forging ahead and pushing through. Slowing down feels like losing a part of yourself, and your subconscious can't help but suppress it. Every day, you're being told—subtly or not—that you're being soft or that you're not working hard enough. This messaging creates a paradigm of anxiety that prevents people from entering deep, restorative rest. And guess what the #1 cause of feeling restless is? You guessed it—anxiety. If you've been in survival mode for years, you can't shift this overnight, but trust me when I say: You can make progress. Think of this newsletter as a supportive guide from someone who inadvertently defaults to feeling guilty for resting. The Weight of Survival Mode"Rest until you feel like playing, then play until you feel like resting. Never do anything else." – Martha Beck You need time to rest and relax after years of being in survival. There is no way out of it but to rest. Because if you don't, your mental health will do it for you—and it won't be pretty. The problem is you’ve been running from a storm for years. Suddenly, you found shelter. The rain stopped. But instead of collapsing by the fire, you're standing at the door, ready to run again—because you forgot what warmth feels like. And now, you mistake comfort for complacency. Many of us do the same when we finally feel safe. We confuse rest with weakness because we’ve only ever known the strength of survival. Why Is This a Problem?Because if the above feeling is your reality, you start to feel trapped in your own life, like there's no way out of this cycle. You start to secretly wonder if this is all life has to offer—stress and exhaustion. The point here is to allow yourself all the rest you need. It's to start making conscious efforts to shift out of exhaustion and survival mode. I understand this feeling well because I lived in survival mode for the past four years of my life. There was no long-term stability. I spent my days fixing one issue after the other, not knowing when I would get to feel calm and safe. It was extremely exhausting. In the past year, I have progressively been making decisions that have incrementally allowed for more rest. While I'm not where I want to be, things are slowly starting to unfold, and my definition of a calm and stable life is much closer than it was before. Today, I can allow myself to rest. Twelve months ago, I couldn’t—not because I didn’t think rest was important, but because of guilt. The Power of Slowing Down"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?" — Tao Te Ching Let me see if I can articulate this. Stick with me here: Nature achieves everything without striving. Rivers carve canyons not by force but by flowing patiently over time. Trees grow strong not by rushing but by yielding to the seasons. Human beings are also part of this natural order. Yet, we often push against it—especially when we’ve lived in survival mode. We confuse constant action with progress. We believe stopping means regressing. But true strength lies in knowing when to act and when to rest. "The most powerful action often looks like stillness." – Laozi Winter is not a failure for a tree, just as your need for rest is not a failure for you. Healing is not synonymous with being passive. Rest is not the absence of progress. Rest is the invisible progress no one sees. Consider this: Let go of the fallacy that you must earn your right to rest. Please allow yourself to rest. You deserve it. If you're interested in reading more in-depth research specifically on how to have quality sleep, please read this previous letter: "The Art of Deep Rest." Rest is not the opposite of strength—it is what gives you the strength to endure life’s complexities. For years, you’ve carried the weight of survival. You’ve pushed through exhaustion. You’ve silenced your body’s cries for rest. You’ve convinced yourself that stopping meant failure. But let me tell you something: You were never meant to run forever. Rest isn’t a weakness. Rest isn’t complacency. Rest isn’t something you need to deserve or earn. Rest is part of the natural cycle of strength. Just as a tree does not apologize for shedding its leaves in autumn, you do not need to justify your need for recovery. So today, if you find yourself craving stillness—allow it. If your body is asking you to slow down—listen. And when you finally allow yourself to rest, something incredible happens—the world doesn’t collapse. Instead, you start to feel something you haven’t in a long time: calm and mental clarity. Thank you for reading. I hope you have a restful weekend! Chat next week, Jess Inspire, Empower, Transform. P.S. Here's one of the latest threads I wrote for my client on X: It led to:
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