My Evolving Relationship with Rest

A Terrifying Four-letter Word

Rest. A four-letter word that used to absolutely terrify me. Since discovering Human Design in 2019 and learning that I am a Projector Energy Type, and therefore need “more rest” than the average person, the topic of rest has been a fruitful and interesting exploration for me. What does rest really mean? How do I know if I’m getting enough? What actually feels restful to me? In this blog post I will grapple with these questions and explain where I’m at and what I’ve been through in order to come to terms with this four-letter word so many of us struggle with. 

The first book I read about Human Design was Chetan Parkyn’s Human Design: Discover the Person You Were Born to Be. In his description of Projectors, I remember he mentions that a Projector had better find a comfortable armchair to relax into, because we need more rest than most. I remember absolutely balking when I read that. I thought to myself: ‘More rest? Me? HAH! I’m an endurance athlete, able to cover long distances very quickly on foot and by skis. I’m tough as nails. I can do anything. I don’t need more rest than the average person! That’s ridiculous!’ 

However, soon after reading those words, I was hit like a ton of bricks by the harsh reality that I was extremely burnt out. Human Design is interesting in that the information goes in cognitively through the mind, but it really is felt on a deep level in the body. The language of Human Design is specifically designed that way - to impact in an undeniable way, deep inside. While my mind was absolutely NOT on board with being a Projector and needing more rest, the words and their meaning had sunk into my body and penetrated me to my core. From there, resting became a choiceless choice. Once I had heard my body’s screams (and yes, they were screams at that point, after ignoring/not hearing the whispers for years), it was impossible to un-hear them. The fact that I needed more rest was the first part of Human Design that truly took hold in my life and changed its direction. Because of the lifestyle I was living - running and skiing up and down mountains and training in the gym for hours and hours every week - my body crying out for rest immediately dismantled some of the cornerstones I’d come to count on in my life. 

Within weeks of learning I am a Projector, my body was overcome with extreme exhaustion. I found that I couldn’t make myself do the things I’d been doing for years, and I felt no true desire to. My mind definitely fought with my body for awhile. I dove headfirst into Human Design research and tried to find more information on Projectors as athletes, and whether there was any way a Projector could be an endurance athlete. What my research concluded was: “Sure, of course Projectors could be endurance athletes.” I had been for many years. Everyone has a free will choice to do whatever they want in this world. But for myself, in my own life, what came in so strong was: “Sure, you can be an endurance athlete… but at what cost?” It was easy to see that for me personally, at that juncture, the cost was too high. My soul was feeling pulled to other things; To my true strengths, and to my more authentic path. My mind was having a MASSIVE temper tantrum, of course, but my body knew what it knew. It was time to move on. 

Within three months of learning I am a Projector, I had moved out of Canmore where I had lived for five years. I knew I needed to do this in order to move on, because being an undefined Sacral in a town where almost everyone is either an Olympian, a serious mountaineer, or a self-proclaimed “endurance junkie”, I needed to escape that conditioning. (Mini HD lesson: We pick up on and amplify the energy of other people in our energy centres that are undefined. So although undefined Sacral beings - Projectors, Manifestors, and Reflectors - are designed to “do” less and rest more than Generators and Manifesting Generators, we can be tricked into thinking we are “super doers” when we pick up on the doing energy of other people in our undefined Sacral centre, which is the centre of life force energy. That’s what was happening for me big time when I lived in Canmore!). 

In those initial months of my Human Design experiment, resting more simply meant stopping my practice of (almost) literally killing myself with the amount and intensity of endurance activities I was doing each week. I stopped training and started listening to my body, only doing hikes and runs when I felt like it. I gave up my spot on the national ski mountaineering team. I made a lot of big, sweeping changes to how my daily life looked. It was really, really scary at the time, and really, really difficult. But also extremely obvious - resting more at that stage of my experiment primarily meant doing a whole lot less physical exercise. 

Making Peace with Doing Less

In the years that have followed since those wild times of change in 2019, that pattern has continued. Resting more in 2020, 2021, and 2022 also meant doing less and less physical activity each year. I realize this won’t be the case for every Projector (or undefined Sacral being) who finds this system, but for me the area of life where I was really overdoing it as a Projector was physical activity. For many Projectors I’ve spoke to in sessions over the years, that area has been work. I’ve spoken to Projectors who work 12+ hours days, who think they are “super doers” because they are picking up on and amplifying the energy of those around them. Whichever area you’re overdoing it in as a Projector, the signs are often similar: Health problems, injuries, burnout, and/or the body shutting down. This is your Projector body whispering (or, most often, screaming) that you’re not here for this. You’re here for amazing, brilliant things… but you’re not here for this.

In 2023, the fifth year of my Human Design experiment, I started to notice something interesting. The greater pattern of overdoing it through physical activity had largely been rectified. While I of course have moments of old conditioning and patterns popping up in new ways with familiar lessons in this arena, in general I would say that I’m currently doing a healthy amount of physical activity as a Projector. So, what was interesting this year was beginning to experiment more with the nuances of true rest. What is rest, anyways, aside from not exercising? Taking a “rest day” as an athlete always meant not engaging in training activities. However, life and my experiment were asking me to get much more nuanced than that. 

I was given the opportunity to do so this spring. May 2023, for a myriad of reasons, was a much busier than normal month. I found myself working two part-time, fairly physical jobs, while also maintaining my business and client sessions and moving into a new home. When the end of May rolled around, I knew I needed rest. But I was unsure of what that actually meant. One of the part-time jobs ended and I took a step back from my business, which took care of the obvious things that were too much on my plate. I also decided at the end of May to purchase a subscription to something called The Daily Rest Studio. I didn’t really know exactly what the Studio was all about, only that I really resonated with everything Emmie was posting on Instagram. I also knew that I needed more rest and needed some help learning how to rest. I knew that even the act of paying for someone to help me rest, and valuing my energy/vitality enough to do that, was a transformative experience for me. Pre-Human-Design-, or even 2-years-ago-Courtney would have thought that decision was insane and a total waste of money. Making this investment, which was without a doubt my best investment of 2023, was life-changing in terms of honouring and valuing myself and who I came here to be as a Projector. 

What Exactly is Rest?

So what exactly is rest to me today? Well, contrary to my athlete days, I now understand that rest is not just the absence of physical training! A day spent running around doing errands, seeing clients, or working 8 hours is often more energetically taxing for a Projector than a day where you do a short workout and relax for the rest of the time. Today, I define rest as the act of giving yourself a true break, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Rest is an activity that fills your cup back up, rather than depletes it. Rest restores, soothes, and renews. Rest regulates the nervous systems, and feels like an inner smile lighting up your whole body. 

Ok, that’s great Courtney… but can you please use more practical terms? Well, the truth of it is that rest is going to look different for everyone. For the last six months, I’ve been enjoying and benefiting from the structured “rest practices” in The Daily Rest Studio, which combine restorative yoga postures with breath work and meditation. As I mentioned, I’ve really enjoyed and benefited from Emmie’s teachings on rest, and her gentle guidance in this area. I believe it’s true that most of us have no idea how to rest as adults, and many of us can benefit from being taught! While the Daily Rest Studio and the practices within it are an essential part of my daily life and intention to refine my resting, they are not the only practices I use for rest.

I think there is a real connection between rest and inner child healing. I think most of us, as children, had a pretty good idea of how to rest. As a child, one of my favourite restful activities was reading fiction. This is something I’ve returned to in a bigger way in 2023 (And yes, I did re-read the entire Harry Potter series this summer on a lawn chair in our backyard… that was definitely restful! I’ve read many other great books this year too). Other practices on my “rest list” include: Cuddling with my dog, watching TV shows or movies, sitting in the backyard (or anywhere in nature), and journalling. 

Your “rest list” could look very different from mine. Maybe going to have tea at your favourite coffee shop really fills your cup back up. Maybe it’s listening to or playing music. Maybe it’s lying on the couch for 10 minutes with no distractions, just staring into space. Maybe it’s having a bath, getting body work done, going to the spa, or looking at art. Maybe it’s doing sudokus or knitting - sitting in your garden or napping in a hammock. Everyone’s idea of rest is different, so it might take some time and exploration to establish your own “rest list.” 

Daily Units of Energy

I want to finish by sharing something I learned in a Daily Rest Studio workshop that really changed the way I look at rest and energy expenditure as a Projector (this will apply to Manifestors and Reflectors as well). With an undefined Sacral centre, you can imagine that you start every day with a certain amount of energy (say 10 units), and no matter what you do during the day - whether it’s something you love or something you don’t love - that energy meter is going to decrease. This is a contrast to Generators and Manifesting Generators, whose energy fluctuates during the day depending on whether they are doing something they love (which lights them up from the inside-out) or something they don’t love (which zaps them of their energy and vitality). A Generator or MG who is lit up, and therefore generating their own life force energy from their Sacral Centre, can keep going (“doing”) for long periods of time in a healthy and sustainable way, until they reach a point where they are done and it’s time to rest, recharge, and prepare for another day. When a Generator or MG is lit up like that, perhaps they have 40+ units of energy to work with! Projectors, Manifestors, and Reflectors, however, function quite differently. We start our day with a limited amount of energy (call it 10 units), and every activity we do uses up that energy. What’s been transformative for me is becoming really honest about these “units of energy” and how many units of energy each of my daily activities takes from me. 

As an example, working under the assumption that I’m waking up with 10 units of energy every day, I would say that one client session and all of the admin work that goes along with it uses up about 2-2.5 units of energy. Knowing this, I can determine that my max number of client sessions per day is three. If I have a day with three client sessions, I know that I’ll be using up 6-7.5 units of my 10 daily units of energy just on work. That only leaves 2.5-4 units for other things, like walking the dog, preparing meals, cleaning, exercising, seeing friends, spending time with my partner, etc. Now 2.5-4 units isn’t very many, so I know that on days where I have three client sessions I don’t want to schedule anything else too demanding in my life. I’ll maybe want to have lunch and/or dinner prepared ahead of time. I might ask my partner to prepare a meal, or I might grab lunch at a local cafe to save myself some energy. I might take the dog for a shorter walk than usual. I probably won’t do laundry or other household tasks on that day. My day will be centred on my client work, and on getting outside and moving my body between sessions to clear my head and counteract the sitting. 

As another example (I personally love examples, because it brings this stuff to life!), as I’m writing this it is a Tuesday and I don’t usually schedule any client sessions on Tuesdays. Writing this blog post (which takes hours!) probably used up about 4 units of energy. I did some admin work and planning which used up 1 unit of energy. I did a pilates class that used up 1.5 units, and took the dog to the dog park which used up 1.5 units. Preparing food, running an errand, and spending time with my partner will use up the remaining energy I have for the day. 

Of course, this is not a perfect science. It’s simply a guideline that may be helpful. Also, sometimes life may require that we push through as undefined Sacral beings, and use more units of energy than we really have. In May of this year, for example, I was probably using an average of 12-15 units of energy per day. This was ok (not great, but ok) for a few weeks, but any more than that would lead to burnout. In the examples I used previously, of myself as an endurance athlete or Projectors who work 12+ hours per day, you are continually putting yourself in that “danger zone” of overdrawing your energy. In my pre-Human Design life, I was probably using 15-20 units of energy every day, until my body inevitably gave out through sickness or injury, which would mean I only had access to 0-2 units of energy per day for awhile until I was fully restored. Your body will whisper at you, then it will scream, and then it will shut down or become injured or sick. Many undefined Sacral beings go through this cycle many times in their lives: Overdoing it and then crashing, overdoing it again and then crashing again. That’s why, with many of my undefined Sacral clients, I say that the most profound thing they can do in terms of their health, well-being, vitality, and purpose, is rest more. Your mind may not like it (mine certainly did not!), and you may not even know what that means at first, but it’s ok. Setting the intention to rest more is powerful. Putting the effort in (yes, rest does require effort!), and creating the space in your life for rest to happen are steps in the right direction. Change may not happen all at once, but with intentions and small steps change will happen gradually, over time. 

***I also want to hit home that there are so many nuances with this “units of energy” idea that are impossible to address in a single blog post. Energy fluctuations happen seasonally, or with hormonal fluctuations, or with moods, or with sleep, etc. Maybe some days you sleep poorly and wake up with only 6 units of energy instead of 10. Maybe in the winter you have more like 8 units and in the summer you have 12. Maybe an emotional Projector on the high of their wave has 14 units of energy and at the low of their wave they have 6. Maybe your life is set up in a way that you use 12 units of energy five days per week, and then use far less energy on the other two days of the week. It’s not an exact science by any means… it’s more of a thought experiment and an invitation to be honest about how much energy something actually takes from you, instead of shaming and guilting yourself into always doing more because you’re telling yourself that you “really aren’t doing that much.” This is unfortunately something us undefined Sacral beings can be a little too good at when we’re in the “not-self” 🙃.

I sincerely hope that these words were supportive for you at this time. If you have any questions for me, please don’t hesitate to ask. 

May you feel rested, vital, well, and ready to meet all of the beautiful things life is bringing your way.

***Special thank you to Rocky the dog for being my personal rest guru and for agreeing to have his images displayed in this post 🐾