“The most wonderful time of the year.”

That phrase can feel painfully out of sync when your calendar is overflowing, your nervous system is already stretched thin, and the unspoken expectation is that everything should feel joyful, meaningful, and perfect—all at once. For many of us, the holidays are not just busy. They are emotionally layered. They carry gratitude alongside grief, connection alongside exhaustion, joy alongside obligation. They stir memories of traditions that no longer fit, of family dynamics that are complicated, of people who should be at the table but aren’t.

This year, for me, that grief is personal and tender. I lost my brother this year, and this is the first holiday season where his place at the table will be empty. I know many of you are experiencing a similar sort of grief – mourning those who are no longer with us. Firsts have a particular intensity to them. In trauma work, we are particularly sensitive to those “firsts” – the first holiday, the one-year anniversary of the event. Even when we anticipate them being hard, they often arrive in unexpected ways, such as through a familiar song, a shared joke, or a chair that no one quite knows how to acknowledge.

At the same time, the holidays keep coming. The to-do lists grow longer. The pressure to show up and to make things meaningful, beautiful, and seamless, doesn’t pause for grief, exhaustion, or overwhelm. So many of us respond the way we’ve been taught to: we push through. We keep going. We tell ourselves we’ll rest after—after the gifts are wrapped, after the meals are cooked, after everyone else is taken care of.

But what if rest isn’t something we earn once everything is done? What if rest, especially this time of year, is not indulgent or avoidant, but essential? What if rest itself is a form of resistance?

From Emotional Awareness to Rested Presence

Last week, in “Embracing Emotions with the Brain and Body,” we explored what it means to stop pushing emotions away and instead meet them through the body—through breath, movement, sensation, and presence. We talked about how emotions don’t just live in our thoughts; they live in our nervous system, our muscles, and our breath. Rest is a natural continuation of that work.

If emotions move through the body, then rest is one of the primary ways the body integrates what it’s holding. Without rest, emotional awareness can turn into overload. We notice more, but we don’t give ourselves the conditions needed to metabolize what we’re feeling. Rest is not avoidance. It’s integration. And during the holidays—when stimulation is high and emotions sit close to the surface—rest becomes even more important.

Why Rest Feels So Hard—Especially During the Holidays

I have to admit that this is hard for me. Today, I’m tired. Maybe it’s because it’s been a busy week, maybe because it’s raining outside and the couch and a good book are calling me. I’m not sure what it is, but I know that I’m resisting it so that I can feel productive and get things done (with the idea that I’ll rest “later”, but of course “later” doesn’t really come). Rest is often the first thing to disappear when life becomes demanding. Not because we don’t need it, but because many of us have internalized powerful messages about rest being:

• Something you earn
• Something you justify
• Something that comes after productivity
• Something that signals weakness or lack of commitment

During the holidays, these messages get louder.

There’s pressure to be generous.
To be present.
To uphold traditions.
To create magic.
To keep things positive.

When grief is involved, especially in a first year of loss, rest can feel even harder to allow. Slowing down may bring emotions closer to the surface. Staying busy can feel safer than sitting with what hurts. But grief is not the only reason rest feels necessary right now.

Even without loss, this season asks a lot of us emotionally, relationally, cognitively, and physically. Add work demands, caregiving, global uncertainty, and a culture that glorifies urgency, and it becomes clear why so many people enter the holidays already depleted.

The Nervous System Case for Rest

From a nervous-system perspective, rest is not passive. It is active regulation. When we are constantly doing, planning, and responding, we remain in a state of sympathetic activation—the “go” mode of the nervous system. While helpful in short bursts, prolonged activation can lead to emotional reactivity, sleep disruption, mental fog, anxiety, shutdown, and chronic tension.

Rest activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the branch responsible for digestion, repair, and restoration. It allows the body to complete stress cycles and return, even briefly, to a sense of safety. This is why rest supports not only recovery, but clarity. It helps us respond rather than react. It creates the internal conditions for presence, connection, and meaning. Choosing rest during the holidays—when everything pushes toward urgency—is not passive. It is intentional.

Rest as Resistance—and as Peace Practice

Within the MyPeacein50 framework, peace is not something we wait for once life settles down. It is something we practice in small, imperfect ways, right in the middle of our lives as they actually are. Rest is one of those practices.

Not rest as escape, but rest as orientation. A way of choosing presence over pressure. A way of signaling to the nervous system that we are not under constant threat, even when the world feels loud and demanding. Grief is one doorway into rest—but it is not the only one. Overwhelm, burnout, transition, and longing can all be invitations to slow down and reorient toward peace. In this sense, rest becomes a peace-building practice.

It creates micro-moments of regulation.
It interrupts urgency.
It helps us move out of reactivity and back into choice.

When we choose rest, we are practicing peace in real time, and teaching our bodies that calm is possible, that safety can be felt, that we don’t have to push ourselves past our limits to be worthy or effective. This is what makes rest both an act of resistance and a pathway to peace.

What Rest Can Look Like in Everyday Life

Rest doesn’t have to mean long naps or empty days (although if either of those are available to you – take them!). Rest can be woven into daily life in small, intentional ways.

• Sensory rest: lowering lights, reducing noise, stepping into quiet
• Emotional rest: allowing feelings without fixing or explaining
• Cognitive rest: writing things down, reducing information intake, releasing perfection
• Relational rest: choosing presence over performance, shortening gatherings, building in decompression time
• Body-based rest: gentle movement, breath, warmth, stillness

Each of these sends the same message to the nervous system: You are allowed to slow down.

A Gentle Practice for This Week

The Pause That Protects

Once a day—especially during moments of intensity:

1. Pause.
2. Place one hand on your chest or belly.
3. Take three slow breaths, extending the exhale.
4. Ask yourself: What would support my peace right now?

Let that answer guide your next small choice.

Practicing Peace in Real Time

One of the quiet myths many of us carry is that peace will arrive once things slow down—after the holidays, after the to-do list is complete, after life becomes more manageable. But in MyPeacein50, peace is not something we postpone. It’s something we practice, moment by moment, in the middle of complexity. Rest helps us do that.

Each time we pause instead of pushing, soften instead of forcing, or choose enough over more, we are practicing peace in real time. These choices may seem small, even insignificant, but they add up. They change how the nervous system responds. They shift how we relate to ourselves and to others.

Peace isn’t the absence of emotion, responsibility, or effort. It’s the presence of choice, regulation, and compassion, especially when life is demanding. When rest becomes part of how we move through our days, peace stops being an abstract idea and becomes a lived experience. Not perfect. Not constant. But accessible. And that is enough to begin.

What I’m Loving This Week

Sound:
The quiet hum of the house in the early morning—before emails, before news, before the world wakes up. That in-between stillness that reminds me my nervous system doesn’t have to brace the moment I open my eyes.

Practice:
Intentional pauses between tasks. Instead of moving straight from one thing to the next, I’m placing a hand on my chest, taking one slow breath, and letting my body catch up before I continue.

Tool:
A warm mug ritual—coffee, tea, peppermint hot chocolate, or simply hot water. Holding something warm in my hands has become a cue for slowing down and remembering that comfort counts.

Quote:
“You don’t have to do everything. You just have to do the next kind thing.”

Song:
“River” – Joni Mitchell
A non-traditional holiday song that makes room for grief, longing, and complexity—without trying to resolve them. A reminder that not every holiday soundtrack needs to be cheerful to be meaningful.

Looking Ahead: Cleaning as Ceremony

Next week—the final blog of the calendar year—we’ll explore “Cleaning as Ceremony.” Not as a push toward productivity or perfection, but as a gentle, intentional way of closing the year. A way of releasing what no longer serves and making space—slowly, respectfully—for what’s next. Because rest and ritual belong together.

A Closing Reflection

The holidays do not need you at your most productive.
They do not need you at your most polished.
They do not need perfection.

They need you regulated.
They need you resourced.
They need you to be human.

Rest is not what gets in the way of peace.

Rest is how we begin to cultivate it.