Rest as a Form of Healing: Healing Series Part II

Healing Series: A Note from one SisterFriend to Another

Healing is not something we’re meant to figure out alone. This three-part series, “On Healing in Community,” is a gentle invitation to remember that connection, rest, and being held are all part of our healing story.

These reflections are written especially with Black, Brown, and Indigenous women in mind—women who carry so much, love so deeply, and are often asked to be strong before they are allowed to be human. My hope is that as you read, you feel seen, and reminded that you are worthy of care, not because you’ve earned it, but because you exist.

Settle in with your journal, take a breath, and move through each post at your own pace. May you feel your healing supported by community, by rest, and by the love that surrounds you.

SisterFriend Reflection: Rest is not laziness; it is a sacred part of healing.

So many of us were taught to push through. To keep going. To prove that we are strong, capable, unbothered. We measure our worth by how much we can carry and how little we seem to need.

But our bodies know the truth long before our minds are willing to admit it. The headaches, the tight shoulders, the restless sleep, the sudden tears that appear out of nowhere—these are not weaknesses. They are messages. They are invitations to slow down.

For Black, Brown, and Indigenous women, rest can feel especially risky. We have been told, directly and indirectly, that we must work twice as hard, be twice as prepared, stay twice as alert. Choosing rest can feel like betrayal. It can feel like we are falling behind.

Yet rest has always been part of our survival. Think of the aunties on the porch at dusk, the cousins napping together after a big meal, the way laughter lets the body loosen for a moment. Rest is not an escape from our lives; it is what helps us return to our lives with a softer heart and a clearer mind.

Healing asks us to honor our limits instead of ignoring them. To trust that the world will not fall apart if we lay something down for a while. To believe that we are worthy of care even when we are not producing, fixing, or helping anyone else.

When you allow yourself to rest, you are not failing. You are practicing a different kind of strength—the kind that says, “My body is not a machine. My spirit deserves gentleness. I am allowed to stop.”