Reset: Starting the Second Half Strong

By: Chance Copeland

When Winter Break started for me in the middle of December, I had a stunning realization: it was the first time I’d ever had almost a month off, and the first time I’d had more than seven days off that I didn’t work another job, have classwork to do, or both at the same time. I’m not unique in juggling multiple responsibilities, first because I needed to and then because I discovered I felt uncomfortable with sitting still. I am so used to being busy that I’ve programmed myself to add things to my plate when it seems too empty, viewing rest as laziness instead of a requirement. I’ve caught myself saying things like, “I’m not leaving anything on the table,” or “I’ll relax when [this ridiculously unreasonable and lofty goal] is accomplished,” or “I have to.” And then, suddenly, I had no excuses to make. A faculty member asked what I was planning for my break in the absence of work, and I shrugged, told her I’d probably read a book and catch up on projects I’d been neglecting, and that I was sure I’d find something to keep busy. “I like to be busy,” I said, and she smiled knowingly, in the way that people do when there’s something underneath it.

“You should take time to rest,” she said, and I smiled back, but I felt myself recoil. Rest has always been the space between what I need to do and what actually gets done, usually punctuated by guilt about deadlines, to-do-lists half-completed, and the state of my house. But her words stuck with me, even as I ignored them. I cleaned my whole break away, restrung my holiday lights when they fell (twice), and visited my great-grandma. I worked out every day, read a book (or ten) on my walking pad and wore the rubber off my shoes, studied for, took, and passed the National Counselor Exam, and cleaned the garage. I slept when I felt exhausted and woke up before my alarm. My house looked great! I took my brothers to their doctors’ appointments and finally tackled a pile of rotten leaves in the front yard. We threw a birthday party, went to visit my wife’s grandma in Nebraska, and got back in time to see the rest of our family before the New Year. Then, the break ended, we went back to work, and my to-do list was somehow longer than it was when I left, despite my frantic busyness. When I counted the days I actually rested, there had been three – in almost four weeks. I told another friend and counselor-in-training that I didn’t know where the time went, I needed more of it, and I somehow felt more tired than when the break started. In a text-message, she gave the verbal equivalent of that knowing smile, and reminded me of something I’m sure I’d heard before but had long forgotten and certainly didn’t believe: that I didn’t need to earn my rest.

I needed my rest for everything else: so that I could handle the sewer line collapsing at my house the first week I went back to work, and the blown tire the week after that. So that I could handle the demands of a full caseload and parenting teenagers as someone barely older than them myself. So that I could respond instead of react. Instead, I’d overprepared like a doomsdayer, chasing the falsehood that if I worked too hard, did too much, it might insulate me from bad, unfortunate, or uncomfortable things happening to me. Naturally, this didn’t work, which I suppose is a good thing, because if it had, I’d probably be resting right now instead of writing a cautionary tale about how vital rest is.

As educators, administrators, and lifelong learners, I would wager a guess that this experience is familiar to you. And if you resonate with my version, it probably seems unrealistic and downright utopian to do anything for a month, let alone rest. But then I started thinking: if we can’t do that, what can we do to create quiet moments of meaningful rest? How can we reset our nervous systems and cultivate ease amidst the unrelenting chaos all around us, especially those of us who won’t let ourselves rest? I wagered another guess that somebody probably knew more about this than I did, and I was right. Pras Michel (2021) describes the reset as an opportunity to reinvent ourselves, reflect, and adjust to the world around us. I immediately started looking for holes in the idea, as I do: time, money, disappointing others. But as soon as I dreamed them up, I also thought about the cost of not taking time to be intentionally still, to rest and reset – ourselves. That cost is too high, for me and for you, as helpers with people who depend on us and even separate from our identities as educators, administrators, counselors, and human beings. Even still, I know myself well enough to recognize that I’ll have to trick myself if I hope to change it.

So, here’s an invitation: trick yourself with me, and sneak “resetting” into your life with the same vigor you have in approaching your work and your endless responsibilities at home. You can use the mindfulness techniques I shared in a past blog; you could try taking a five minute walk somewhere in your day, or you could use a stress relief technique (progressive muscle relaxation, journaling, eating lunch without checking your emails or doomscrolling social media). You could spend ten minutes on your couch when you get home and ritualize greeting a pet, imagining setting down the day’s burdens when they climb into your lap. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you do it - and it doesn’t have to be a reinvention, a New Year’s Resolution, or an affirmation that you’re not doing enough. Instead, I see resetting as an opportunity to remind ourselves that the strength we offer others has to come from somewhere, and when we give it, I also think it also has to be returned in order for the cycle to sustain itself. We owe it to ourselves to do that – to find moments in our days that are just ours, where there’s no guilt or shame in putting ourselves first so we have the energy we need to carry the burdens we all have, even if we do convince others that it’s easy.

Strength isn’t always loud. It’s not always working the hardest, pretending like nothing bothers you when life feels heavy, and confident leadership in an achievement-oriented environment. Sometimes, strength is pumping the brakes, giving ourselves a minute, and “pushing the hard reset” – a quiet pause wherever we can find it. The world spins on without us no matter what; if we’re tired, or if we have energy – if we do well, or if the day is a hard one, today will end and tomorrow will begin.  So, what’s the harm in letting it? I know I’m going to, at least for a while, and I hope you’ll join me. Who knows, we just might find that we get further when we carry less, slow down, and reset more often, even if it’s only for a second.