Rest that Leads to Radical Joy

Valerie Friedlander 0:00
Hello, my friends and welcome to another episode of Mindset, unlimited. Mindset tips, tools and inspiration for women in a time of change. I’m your host. Valerie Friedlander, ICF, certified coach, sociologist, intersectional feminist artist, mom and nerd. Today we are talking about rest that leads to radical joy. And first and foremost, I want to apologize for the audio quality of the intro. I am currently traveling unexpectedly, and this is where we’re at. So some of what we’re talking about in this episode have to do with meeting yourself where you’re at, with rest, performing self care versus authentic and connective rest, acts of resistance and finding a way forward in uncertainty, connecting to yourself as a starting point for community. And I can’t tell you how appropriate this episode is for me right now, and also how much joy it brought me to have this conversation with my friend Jordan Manny. Jordan is the radical Joy coach and creator of the rest lab. Through her facilitation and coaching, she helps people who give a damn, aka bleeding hearts, learn the radical practice of rest so they can reclaim their joy and sustain their advocacy. She’s been featured in New York Magazine, Yahoo attention, Oprah Magazine and Martha Stewart Living. You can find her resting with her friends family and her sassy pup, Duchess in San Antonio, Texas. I know you’re going to love this episode, and the audio quality is way better than what I have right now. So without further ado, let’s get started.

Valerie Friedlander 2:00
Welcome Jordan. I’m so excited to have you on Mindset Unlimited.

Jordan Maney 2:09
This is I’m so ready for this conversation.

Valerie Friedlander 2:13
Yay me too. I feel like I super need it so. So let’s start off. Just give you an opportunity to introduce yourself a little bit to the audience.

Jordan Maney 2:25
Well, hey, y’all, if you can’t tell I’m from Texas, and I call myself the radical Joy coach. I help what I call bleeding hearts and people who give a damn rest and prioritize their joy and care so we can sustain our advocacy. And man, do I have a lot to talk about today.

Valerie Friedlander 2:42
Oh, yeah, yeah, I feel like so much, so much. It might even need to be more than one part, because this is such an important topic. So let’s kick it off with my standard question, which is, what is a limit that you took for granted that you have since unlearned.

Jordan Maney 3:02
Ooooh, I hope this applies. I hope I’m I want to make sure that I’m answering this properly.

Valerie Friedlander 3:08
I’m sure it applies. There’s no right or wrong answer, and I think that there’s probably, like, a ton of them, pick one.

Jordan Maney 3:14
Okay, so the conversation that we’re having prior to this that, like, led into this, and I was like, oh, there it is. That’s the word I like, itched something in my brain. Was a limit that I have practiced, polished and perfected, is the ability to mask and like, emotionally, mask and mentally, mask how I’m feeling, like, suppress my feelings. Like, down to the ground floor, so that I can perform and perform perfection, perform happiness, perform joy, perform rest, like, Oh yeah, I’m good. Everything is okay, blah, blah. But I feel like who I don’t know if I have like a dark night of the soul or what, but I feel like the past six months or so, all of those, those those those means of coping, those coping mechanisms, those like, that limit that I thought was like, this is a thing that I have to maintain. I’m talking particularly to creatives, artists, business owners. This is a limit I have to maintain so that people take me seriously, so that people see me and my work as legitimate. Is this idea that I have to, like mask and create some level of almost Mystique, like I said this in my newsletter the rest stop, like, I don’t want to be the sage on the mountaintop. I want to be among people. I want to be an example that, like you can reach out to. I don’t want to be this inaccessible version of myself where it’s like rest, joy and care become aspirational, and I feel like what’s held me back in my work? Work that now I’m really excited to see. What happens is I feel like I’ve had to play a part and be like, cutesy about it, or be like, I don’t know, but just not feel like settled into myself, and now it just feels like, I’ll give an example. You know how social media, like, let’s say social media. Five or so years ago, pre covid, we talked about like, social media channels as if, like, you had to have a different personality on each one. Like LinkedIn, you need to be super professional. But the way that you were on LinkedIn, you can’t be on Instagram, and the way that you’re on Instagram, you can’t be on YouTube and Pinterest and so on and so forth. And I’ve just gotten to a place where I’m like, I’m exhausted by that pretense, like that limit that I feel I didn’t even realize was a limit. I feel like I didn’t even recognize I was so practiced at it until I realized how tired I was from like, holding it up. Yeah. I just like, don’t want to do it anymore. I just like, don’t I? The world is changing. It’s always changing, but I feel like it’s been changing rapidly and very uncertain and uncomfortable ways. And I guess if you look at human history, it’s always been like that. But right now it feels like it’s so rapid, yeah, and I don’t have the wherewithal, especially right now, with things being so uncertain, I’m not going to use the covid word unprecedented.

Valerie Friedlander 6:45
Yeah, right.

Jordan Maney 6:46
We’re so tired of that. Take it out of the dictionary.

Valerie Friedlander 6:49
That meme. It’s like, When can I live in precedented time? Yeah? But I don’t, I don’t know that we want those either, right? Like, I think what’s been precedented hasn’t been great either, just as a note. So, like, maybe that’s not actually the thing to be focused on

Jordan Maney 7:07
Exactly. So yeah, I feel like for the time that we’re in, if we want new, it requires new within us, first, individually and like, a lot of this was brought on by the chaos of the outer world, and I felt like I had to get absolute friggin clarity on my inner world, or otherwise my nervous system was always going to be like, like, screaming every day. And then how am I supposed to help you rest? Yeah, if I’m like, like, you know, so like, how do, how do you make peace with what is? And I just feel like that limit, that limiting belief, also that fear around like, I have to present a certain way to be listened to. I have to be, you know, especially as a business owner, it has to look this way. It has to be this blueprint. It has to be this system. And I don’t know what the term is. You haven’t really felt like a business owner this past year. I felt more like an artist. I felt more like someone who, like is creating conversations, is creating opportunities and spaces for people to rest. I don’t know if that applies, but that feels better than saying like I’m a business owner, because it doesn’t feel like strict anymore. It doesn’t feel rigid. It feels more playful and experimental and like fun. But anyways, that’s a very long winded answer.

Valerie Friedlander 8:39
Well, no, I love it. I love it because it well. One we spoke a while back, it might have even been last year. I don’t remember. Time is just a weird thing. And you’re like, your energy is different, like you mentioned, having gone through this shift, and I feel it talking to you like I almost just feel calmer talking to you I mentioned beforehand, like there’s just a lot going on in my life right now, on so many different levels and so many different areas, and I can just feel that settledness Coming, like emanating from you. So yeah, it’s, it’s fabulous. And I also really resonate with that idea of of performance, of what’s expected, and it’s like, I come from this background of of I was bullied as a kid, like I learned to be a chameleon. How do I fit in? How do I how to make people comfortable so I can be comfortable, right? How do I or so that I can feel safe even Yeah, and really trying to push out of that of like, having a voice showing up, doing uncomfortable things, so that I can help seed the change that I believe is needed in the world. And. End, it feels like, as a business owner, that there are certain things that you’re supposed to do, like you were saying, like, how you show up in certain places. Because I feel like, while I’m not really interested in being some sort of guru or whatever, there seems like, especially in these spaces that we occupy, there’s this expectation that that is what you’re supposed to look for. And I don’t know if that’s just me and like, what I’m getting fed by algorithms, right, or if it’s what what is out there, but like, I feel like the wellness industry that is like, oh my god, billions of dollars and gross. So gross makes this space like you do have to look a certain way, show up a certain way, in order to be taken seriously in your ability to be of service, which I actually think is antithetical to your actual ability to be of service, just like what you were saying, of like, and what I feel from you, that groundedness, that presence, to be able to show up in that…. just, yeah,

Jordan Maney 11:15
So okay, I’m taking notes. That’s why I’m looking down like you’re saying things like, I guess I wanna, I wanna talk about this. So when you were talking about learning to be a chameleon, having come from a traumatic experience of being like, bullied and like sane, it made me think of a seesaw and people who do physics and know physics stuff. Please forgive me if I’m getting the terminology wrong here, but like, the thing that the board itself is balanced on is a fulcrum, right? Yes, yes, yeah. I remember that one. I know. Thanks, Mr. Wyckoff, if you’re used to being the thing that other people balance on, yeah. Do you see where?

Valerie Friedlander 12:00
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jordan Maney 12:03
And, and you’re used to being the the metric that kind of, like, Okay, I’m the one who keeps the energy, or I’m the one who makes entertains people, or I’m the one who, like, is constantly checking levels of everyone else. Like, you’re so, like, attuned to what everybody else is doing? Like, how are you ever doing that for yourself? Yeah, and I think a lot of a lot of learning how to rest, and a lot of learning how to, like, make peace in your inner world, is taking that board off and, like, without the weight of or the pressure of other people’s emotional needs and regulation, like, where am I? Yeah, what am I feeling?

Valerie Friedlander 12:47
And that’s so hard. We were talking before about being real, like you mentioned, rest and joy and care, being these aspirational things. And so often we think, Oh, I have to just extract myself from the world, from reality, to be able to know myself, to be able to understand myself. And that feels impossible, yes, and it is like we don’t exist in a bubble. We’re not going to suddenly become in a bubble, yeah. What does it look like to access that space while still existing in the world?

Jordan Maney 13:35
For me, it’s like I have to be in a way that I wasn’t before. I have to be so regimented about the reserves I give myself in terms of, if that’s quiet time, if that’s, you know, I really need to be sleeping better, whatever that looks like. I’d be really regimented about those because I know what happens when I get out of whack, so to speak. But the other part of that is where the experimentation and the playfulness comes into is like it doesn’t, I said regimented, but it doesn’t have to be rigid. There are simply going to be days situations that we’re life is nothing but a constant flux of transitions. Right? Like your needs that you had in 2024 may be different in 2025 the thing your family life that you had in 2023 may be different in 2025 like things are constantly changing around you. And going back to the balance model, I think mentally, a lot of us think of balance as this very static, 50% over here, 50% over there at all times. And it’s more like, I think of water, it’s more fluid, yeah, and it’s balancing. Sometimes you have more, sometimes you have less, but, like,

Valerie Friedlander 14:57
I’ve used the term lava lava lamp. It’s like a lava lamp, very gloopy.

Jordan Maney 15:02
Very gloopy. Like, it’s not going to be perfect. Rest is not meant to be precise. And a huge part of like, learning that skill is also giving yourself a tremendous amount of grace, yeah. Like, it’s one of the reasons why I don’t even like using the term wellness industry, because it’s like, again, rest and joy and care should not be aspirational. They are necessities. Like, they’re just things that we all need in our life. And coming to that realization can be really difficult, but you don’t need to make yourself feel worse because, like, Oh, I really wanted to rest this weekend. I didn’t get, I didn’t get a chance to and I had one on one clients that would be something that I would constantly be like, okay, and why didn’t what happened this weekend? Well, I had to take a family member to the ER, or I realized that there was, like, this big project, and I got called in for work and like, so there are reasons. So why are you making yourself the culprit, as if you stole rest from yourself when you’re just, like, trying to survive?

Valerie Friedlander 16:13
Yeah, yeah, that’s so important, because then we just drain ourselves even more when we beat ourselves up. I also see a lot of clients who like, have enough self awareness to like, I shouldn’t be beating myself up, so I’m beating myself up for beating myself up, and it’s like, girl.

Jordan Maney 16:32
Guilt. Guilt is like the cousin of shame, and both of them are not sustainable motivators. Like, I feel like, I think about, oh, my God. I think about tales of growing up chubby. I think about, like, all the like, and I was looking at my old, old, old Winnie the Pooh journal I had when I was like, 10, and I just like, I didn’t cry, but I just, like, hugged myself, because there is an entry where I was just like, I’m finally gonna, like, get my life together and really start, like, losing weight and, like, well, and it was 10, might have been nine at the time. It was a child, but like, just this idea that, like, I had a moment of shame, or, like, it’s like, this guilt and like, Okay, I’m gonna, like, step into action. Did that help me have less disordered eating? No, did that give me a positive relationship to my body? No, did those moments make me, like, find a physical movement that I enjoyed? No, it just produced more shame. That’s all shame knows how to do, yeah, and so that’s all shame knows how to do is produce more shame. And so when we say, like, Oh God, I really should have like rested. Is that going to give you a positive reason to want to rest? Is that going to make you feel good when it is time to rest? Or is it going to make you feel anxious or hesitant to try it because you know you’re probably going to beat yourself up for not doing it the right way?

Valerie Friedlander 18:00
Yeah, it’s like another tool of the system to keep us from resting is creating a negative association with doing the thing that we need.

Jordan Maney 18:10
Yeah, and like, trying to pretend it’s even calling it recreation or leisure makes it seem like a really fun option, versus like, no, it’s just a necessity. Everybody needs to sleep every day. Everybody needs time, quality time with themselves, with them, with their loved ones. We need moments where we’re not like in a building, but we’re outside and smelling fresh air and feeling the sun on our skin. We need opportunities to like, remind ourselves of those things that we really liked or wanted when we were kids. We need opportunities to explore our neighborhoods and our communities, to try new things, make an absolute fool of ourselves, to create memories like everything should not only be about production, and in fact, we produce better when we’ve rested, but we then create narratives around like, oh, only the tortured artist can really create, like, masterful work. And that’s also not true, yeah, this like, negative association is so like, uh, it frustrates me because I have to check myself when I internalize it too. But it just can’t stand it

Valerie Friedlander 19:26
Well, it’s so hard not to internalize because we’re so surrounded it’s like the waters that we swim in, yeah, and so just knowing, I mean, that’s when you were talking about the unmasking, or the recognizing these different layers of oh, I didn’t even realize that I was wearing a mask. It’s just become so part like performing these things has just become so natural that I was deluded in thinking that it was just the way I was, that I am doing these things, even though. I’m not actually, I feel like it’s like The Truman Show, right? Like

Jordan Maney 20:03
100%

Valerie Friedlander 20:05
like I think that I’m living in real life, and then suddenly it’s like, wait a second, but I’m, I’m, who am I? What is this other? And I feel like I, at least, I found that there are so many layers to it that, like I uncover one piece, I’m like, oh, there’s a piece of myself, and that means, what does that need? And showing up to that, but then that leads to another uncovery That’s like, oh, well, that doesn’t actually work, because there’s this other piece of myself that I didn’t even realize until I did this thing, and then this opened up, and I went, Oh, okay, so this looks different, like you were saying about different, like I’m different this year than I was, like two years ago. I the only constant in life is change, and that’s true for me and those mask. It’s not that I’m doing anything wrong. It’s just that I’m learning, oh, I’m capable of growing. Oh, cool,

Jordan Maney 21:04
Fun! This is great, and you’re right. Like it. I’m going to try and say this, because it’s not like fully realized in my head, but when the only constant is change, is a current of change, right? You need to learn how to swim, yeah. And sometimes that means floating. Sometimes that means swimming on your side. Sometimes, I mean, I really love swimming. Sometimes that means doing a backstroke, right? Like the water is always going to find a way to move. It’s dynamic, such as life, we have to find a way within it. And sometimes you’re in a season where the best thing that you can do is float, and that’s fine, too. And think that’s kind of where for me in this work, where I got stuck, was trying to make rest this static thing. But it’s not, it’s an intuitive thing. It’s a I need to be able to have a system of like, how do I check in with myself? How am I feeling right now? And not only just like a system of checking in with myself, but also just kind of like recognizing patterns, like, what’s a pattern recognition in yourself? I know when I am closest to burnout is I get this thing in my head where I’m like, hit the gas. It’s time. We got to go in even harder on something. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. No, no, I know I need to rest after this, but I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine until I’m not and then I’m like, Damn, I should have listened to myself. Yeah. And so a lot of this work, a lot of resting is really just learning to listen to yourself.

Valerie Friedlander 22:44
Well. And I’m hearing like it’s not even it’s listening to yourself, listening to the patterns, not necessarily the exact words that your brain may be generating or the impulses that your body is sending might be saying, do the opposite of what you actually need to do, and recognizing like and that’s one of the things, like I can do that way better for my husband as an example that I can for myself. And one of the things I’ve noticed is that when he’s starting to get hangry, he notices every little pile in the house and everything that hasn’t been taken care of. And he starts nitpicking about everything, and he’s like, and there’s this, and we got to do this. And he is doing I’m like, Hey, I think maybe do we need to eat? And he’s like, No, we’ve got to take care of these other things, and we’ve got to deal with this first, and I’ll eat later, because I’ve got to do this. I’m like, Could we do maybe food now? And he started to notice because I was able to notice it and call it out. So now he’s a little bit more aware of it. But yeah, yeah, giving ourselves that space, or even if we have someone that we live with, like, what do you notice? And being open to receiving those awareness pieces,

Jordan Maney 24:04
Yeah, because our perception of ourself is not complete. People notice that. And oftentimes we think we’re a lot better about, like, hiding things than we are. We think, Oh, no way. No one clocked that. And everybody’s like, Yeah, we could tell, could tell. So, yeah, I think it’s like the pattern recognition. I think it’s the ability to listen to yourself, but then I think it’s also like one of my dear friends, we’ve been having a conversation about, essentially, like, when you’re so good at spinning plates, who are you when you stop. And I think that applies for a lot of moms, parents in general, but a lot of moms who have kids who are either at that age where they’re just getting to that place of like adulthood, or they’re more like self sufficient, or empty nesters of just kind of like, okay. You don’t need me to manage that anymore, or do that thing like, who am I when I don’t have to keep spinning plates? Who am I when I get quiet? I think that’s a huge part of why a lot of people subconsciously avoid rest is because who wants to answer those big questions? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to answer those big questions. Nobody wants to be like, oh boy. Like, this relationship isn’t working out. I don’t feel rested. I don’t feel restful when I’m with this partner or this friendship, or I don’t feel maybe you don’t feel restful where you live, like, when it gets quiet and rest allows for a lot of, like, internal quiet. The whole world could be screaming at you, but like, if you’re trying to, like, find that level, so to speak, in yourself, things get real quiet. And those things that you like try and like outrun or out busy, or however you try to, like, keep it at a distance. When they pop up, it’s like you can’t avoid them anymore.

Valerie Friedlander 26:07
Yeah, that’s when you have to face uncomfortable truths, yeah, about yourself and your situation and things that exactly is stuff that you might have been trying to avoid without even realizing you were using busyness to avoid it.

Jordan Maney 26:24
Yeah, I can give, I want to give an example of myself. I wasn’t just using busyness. I was using my business as an example to, like, push things off constantly coming up with something new to, like, launch or, like, some new like concept that was gonna, like, take it to the next level, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I’ll be just like this online coach, or this person has this like system that I haven’t seen before, and like I need. And I think it was, I think it was our mutual friend who adore Becky. We were doing some like exercise, and it was something just clicked in my head. And it was something that another person that we don’t know, but like a famous coach in like Australia or something, came up with a system, but it was basically like a chat GPT model, and we’re going through it, and something like clicked in my head where it was like, we’re just making shit. We’re just making all of us are just making things up and so like, you might have found something that works for you and your audience, and that’s incredible. But does that mean it’s going to work for me? Does it mean it’s going to work for my audience? No, but blueprints are comforting. Someone telling you, like, this is the way. Is like, lovely. It’s like, Oh God, I don’t have to brave the wilderness. Cool. But I think if you’re doing, if you’re doing work that helps people, like, look at their life, you’re out in the sticks with a machete, like, trying to make a way. And that can be uncomfortable,

Valerie Friedlander 27:59
Yeah, the unknown is scary.

Jordan Maney 28:01
It’s scary as hell. Nobody wants to be out there. Nobody wants to be out there. And yet, sometimes that’s just the position that you’re playing that might have been something that you just decided you wanted to do like. And I think if you’re someone who’s entrepreneurial or artistic or just like trying to do something that’s like different. That is the trade off of, like, you might get a lot of flexibility in your schedule and all these other like, perks, I won’t air quote them. They are perks, right? But then you also have to figure out, like, what the hell to do every day. There’s no like boss telling you what to do. You have to figure out what you want to do. Every day. You have to figure out how you want to create something if there’s a framework you make that like you are blazing that trail. And so trying to do that without resting is almost always going to lead you to a place where you’re just like, stuck in the middle of the woods, like, how the hell did I get here?

Valerie Friedlander 29:09
Yeah, yeah, the capacity to do that, and you said a word that actually hit me in a in a particular way, when you mentioned the audience and and, I think, you know, we have these particular words about, you know, obviously the podcast has an audience, right? Like that is a thing. And the question that I keep coming up with is like this, how do I have an audience and not perform?

Jordan Maney 29:39
Yeah, oh, that’s a good one. Honestly, I don’t that’s something that I think I’ve been wrestling with too. It’s not something I have a definitive answer for. Yet, in my mind, visually, what I see for myself is like the same way the stage comes off of the mountaintop, like the actor coming off of the stage break the third wall. Yeah, if I’m breaking that and I’m with you, is it still performing, or is it something like lateral

Valerie Friedlander 30:09
Yeah. Well, I guess it’s a question of like, when is performing problematic? When is it helpful? Right? Like an actor on stage. So I think about like, we’re talking about masks and stuff. And my, my older son, just did a program at a theater here in Chicago that their theme. It was a bunch of teenagers, like 14 to 18 year olds, working together, exploring themselves, improvising around the theme, rest and resistance and generating, I mean, it’s, it was so cool, like then they ended up creating these vignettes, essentially exploring and what I really saw in that was this tension of his generation, seeing all of the issues that they’re dealing with, but like recognizing them. Like when I was his age, I was certainly dealing with them, but like, I didn’t know, I didn’t understand at the level that I do now, at the level that he understands about identities and identity politics and these systems of oppression and all of these things that he has a cognition around now, but like, is grappling With, and he helped create this scene around masque ulinity, and it was around the mask of masculine. It’s so cool, even though he was like, it didn’t hit the depths, like he felt like it was a little bit more performative, and calling it out in a nice way, and he’s like, I feel like it wasn’t as true as he wanted it to be, is what he was saying. And that’s the kind of thing that kind of comes to mind is like, I feel like those sorts of explorations, that artistic exploration, it’s performance, and it’s powerful, and it’s representation of how we understand what our experiences are. That’s like, that mirror to ourselves, yeah? And so that’s helpful, that kind of performance is powerful and helpful, so as a human being, as a person speaking to many people, and as someone who wants to show up as authentically and as real as I can, while navigating an industry and A world that says that in order to be listened to, I have to be on a pedestal. What does it look like for me to navigate that? And I think as you were talking about it, it’s like rest is how I stay connected to that, how I don’t go like let my head float off into the world. It’s like staying, staying embodied, yeah, staying connected, yeah, and resting and communing within my own being

Jordan Maney 32:54
Okay, so yes, everything you said just sounds wonderful. I really feel like a performance requires a character, and I think a performance is about providing something for an audience, right, something outside of yourself for an audience, or telling a story. Stories, narrative and performance are not bad things, right? You’re telling a story to evoke or provoke a feeling out of the people who are witnessing it. When you’re in relationship with people you should not need to feel that, like you have to evoke or provoke a feeling, because that then becomes manipulation, like if you’re doing it for 90 minutes to three hours in a black box theater, that’s different. We’ve agreed to those terms as an audience member. I’m coming to hear a story. I’m coming to see something that’s going to make me feel something I want to leave here with something, right? But when you’re in a relationship with a person, you’re asking kind of the not kind of you’re asking for the opposite. I don’t need the polish. I don’t need you to manipulate a feeling for me. I need you to step outside of the character and just show me who’s behind that. Let me witness. It’s like a wit. It’s they’re both witnessing, but it’s like different. It’s like, witness me, and like, I witness you, and we witness each other, and we just be, yeah, it doesn’t have to be like, I’m gonna make you feel a thing and you’re gonna make me feel a thing. There’s no emotional manipulation involved. It’s like, emotional rest, maybe, like, I just I see you and I see your imperfections, and like, Yeah, girl, I’m over here just trying to do my thing, and our friendships and our partnerships and our relationships with like, kids, like all these things. Like, it’s not a story that I’m telling you, it’s a story that you’re seeing. Does that make sense? Like one’s show and one’s tell.

Valerie Friedlander 35:01
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m, I mean, even in all of it with the performance part, there’s a big facet of intentionality and agreement. Yes, agreement, right, either way. You know, when you said that word agreement, it was like, Yeah, as a as a performance. I have a background in theater too, so like, that’s another layer to it, but there is a difference in intentionally saying this is what I’m going to provide for you. I am going to tell you a story. I am going to weave a picture for you to reflect on, to experience, to whatever. And the audience comes in with that agreement, I’m agreeing to you sharing this art with me, versus I am pretending either to myself and or to you. And if I’m pretending to myself, I’m also pretending to you. Well, that’s something that I I really learned as I I’m being authentic. There’s a document that talks about like characteristics of adult children of alcoholics that I saw when I was in college, and one of them was that adult children of alcoholics tend to lie. And I was like, I tell the truth. I tell the truth to the fault. I tell everybody all the things more than I should, and it took me a while to realize that’s not how this hits for me. It might hit that way for other people, but for me, it hits that I struggle to tell myself the truth, and if I struggle to tell myself the truth, I am struggling to tell you the truth. And so really, that unlocked so much to realize, oh, I need to seek the truth for myself like that, as we were talking about earlier, like that, uncovering of truth and knowing that it is always evolving. Truth is ever evolving. So if I can be a seeker of Truth in myself and in others, then I have that intentionality around what I’m doing and how I’m showing up. So if I’m being truthful with myself, then I can say, here’s what I here’s what I’m doing. Do you agree? Are you agreeing to be in this, this honestly, honest relationship, versus me manipulating you, thinking saying one thing and doing another thing. Or it’s that difference between meeting somebody where they’re at and the narrative that so many people sell of tell people what they want to hear and then give them what they need, which assumes that I know what they need exactly, and that might not be the case, and is very manipulative. That creates that hierarchy in my mind.

Jordan Maney 37:45
I think the other part, when you were talking about, like the agreement, it made me think about, like, just going to a theater, all the things that you agree to, and the experience of being in the theater, I’m going to be quiet, I’m going to be attentive, I’m not going to look at my phone. I’m going to suspend disbelief and be with you in this moment. I’m going to be present, right? And then when you tell me this is done, I’m going to get up, I’m going to be like, Oh my god, I felt all the things I might have cried, blah, blah, and then I’m going to go. And that was that moment. And I think for me, it’s like a momentary contract, for me, coming from events and weddings, it was the same thing. We can produce a momentary contract where, like, we’re going to set the scene for you to come into this event, and you’re going to navigate through this event, this milestone moment, going to be perfect, you know? It’s going to be this bubble where you get to experience all the things and all the feels, we’re going to be present together. And then when it’s when I tell you, it’s done, it’s done, and it’s easier to do that, performance is easy. The opposite of that is like when you don’t have the lines memorized and you have to come up with words yourself, or you don’t know that this scene I’m going to have to play to this emotion, it’s just coming up out of you that’s different. And so, like, I know Shakespeare was like, All the world’s a stage, it’s something else. It’s not just a stage, it’s something else. And I think in our relationships and our friendships, all of these things, it’s really two people deciding to, like, live alongside each other and let me see your bad, and you can see my bad, and I’ll see you’re ugly and you’re you’ll see my ugly, but you also see my joy and also see my grief. And I put this in a newsletter, and it’s, I don’t know why, but this scene just like hits for me so hard. Did you see Kate Winslet in mayor of East town on HBO came out a few years ago?

Valerie Friedlander 39:45
No, I didn’t, but I remember going, oh, I should watch this. I haven’t yet.

Jordan Maney 39:49
No spoilers. There’s a scene in which her character is with another character, and Kate’s character just holds out her arms like I know you need a hug. And her friend was just kind of, no, I just, I can’t again. And she just holds her arms out, like, please. Just like, come here. No words are being spoken. And so she just turns. Her friend just turns, doesn’t open up her arms, doesn’t like, reciprocate, and she just kind of falls into it’s such a powerful scene. It’s acted superbly. And I think about that all the time, because I think in a lot of ways, when it comes to individual rest, collective rest, what it looks like to rest in a community. It’s that feeling we all want of knowing that if I fall, because they, I mean, they sink to the floor, like it’s that heavy of a moment, but she still holds her, and we all want that, like, if I fall, if I were really to give you everything, could you hold me? Yeah, and that is some I don’t know what the word is. I really don’t. I’m I’m trying to figure that out for myself. But the opposite of performance and like, I’m not adding a character to me, right? I’m adding an experience. I’m taking stuff off. And can you still witness that? Yeah, and can I? Can I be okay if I, if I’m vulnerable in that way, can I still come from a place of strength to know that, like, even if it’s not what you want, or you just this person decides to leave or go, it’s still okay, it’s still enough, it’s still lovable, it’s still safe, you know? And it’s crazy that something as simple as like, rest can lead us to those types of conversations. Because it seems simple like, yeah, just go, like, Go, rest, sure, but it’s such a the more I dive into the work, the more I realize this is such a skill? Yeah, it is a skill to be able to say, You know what I’ve done enough, I’ve done enough today, and not berate yourself, not make yourself feel bad, not be overcome with, oh my God, there’s so much more I could do tomorrow. Like it’s a skill to be present with yourself, even when you don’t feel good, even when you feel like crying. It’s a skill to be present with other people. To say, I’m going to slow down when any when everything in my brain is like, accelerate, to say, like, actually, we’re going to slow down here and pace ourselves. It’s such a skill, and it touches on every facet of our lives, and it’s really one of the things that I say is rest is a vehicle to our joy. It’s not the only one, but because it’s a skill that you learn, because we have to teach babies, you literally have to teach babies. Babies fight, rest, physical rest all the time, but because it’s a skill that we learn, and joy is this, Joy is this thing that doesn’t have to be produced. Joy is really more about just making space for it. It is always like running parallel to us, if we give ourselves enough time to, like, take a moment and really look at your partner and be like, Oh my god, I love you. Or the joy of being like, I’m gonna get in roller skates. I haven’t been in roller skates since I was, like, 12 years old. I’m gonna fall flat on my ass, and I’m going to laugh my ass off and enjoy this moment and like, memories that I create with either strangers or new people. It’s always parallel, yeah, to what we’ve got going on. But so oftentimes we think we have to, like, fight for it, or do all this stuff, when really it’s just kind of like, Can you slow down and take a moment to just, like, see it for what it is, and realize it’s not something that we can hold on to. It’s in the present moment. It only lives in the present moment. We can look back at memories and be like, Oh my gosh. Maybe not feel it the same way, right? Yeah, doesn’t have the same like intensity, but it’s not meant to we’re supposed to let it visit. And when it goes, it goes, but know that it can come to us at any time. But I think it’s, it’s just very interesting that, like, you know, there are brands who have, like, Joy advocates now, but they’re really just spokespeople selling you products or like this idea that it’s a commodified thing that you can buy. But how many billionaires do we know that seem joyful? Yeah, right. It seems so happy. Like, super Okay, totally normal behavior, right? Like, no, but you can’t get there if you don’t allow that quiet and that rest internally to happen first. And I think that’s where a lot of people get tripped up, where they’re like, I rested, but I don’t feel restful. Oh yeah, I did that thing I was supposed to do. I went on that retreat, but I I still feel really burned out, and it’s like, but did you answer those questions that rest brought to you? Did you look in the mirror and see those parts of yourself where you’re like, Oh, I contributed to the exhaustion I felt because I let myself stay in this relationship, and I didn’t communicate my needs. Oh, I don’t know how to communicate my needs, because I didn’t have an example of that growing up, and I need to come up with one, yeah, oh, I’m not on the path that I want to be in my life right now, like it’s so interconnected to all of these things, and it is really rest is a light that shines on the darkest edges of us and just asks us, like, what do you want to do with this?

Valerie Friedlander 45:47
Yeah, well, it’s truth. You know, seeking those pieces of truth rest gives room for that. And when you’re talking about babies, the thing that comes to mind is how many of us were like the idea that sleep training. And it doesn’t actually teach kids babies to sleep. It teaches an abandonment. And so like, rest, even at that very basic level, I could see how that would get conflated with fear, yeah, and that question of like and when I most need someone will will I be held? Are these parts of myself that need care, that are vulnerable and need someone else to hold them? Are they lovable? Will somebody hold them? And so much of that parenting advice when we were growing up was very counter to that. Yeah, and a lot of us are unlearning it, but we might be unlearning it after we’ve already perpetrated it. I know with my older child, that was like we thought, well, I’ll use Sleep Train. And now, of course, I know differently. But okay, so, so he has a therapist, you know? But, like, I say that jokingly, but I do think that what you were talking about before, of like, it’s the act of seeking rest, even to say, I’m worthy of this, and we run into obstacles like this resistance, I’m going to go the opposite direction and be like, okay, instead of, like, No, you have to rest. It’s, oh, there’s a part of me that’s scared of this. How do I care for that part of me that I know this is important and I have a resistance, and there’s part of me that is scared, yeah. How do I care for that part of me so I can make room for this thing that I know I need instead of, again, you know, shame and beating ourselves up for not doing the thing. It’s like no part of me, or even the world that I live in, like you said a while back in this conversation, I’m just surviving in this world that is designed to keep me from resting and keep us to varying degrees. You know, how much of this is my own creation that I need to care for, and how much of this is other outside of me? And you know, what can I do with the capacity that I have to help others create room for this, especially those who may have social systems that push against rest even more than they push against me. Resting. Yeah, I have to extricate those pieces that I’ve internalized so that I can expand that ability, yeah, that right to rest beyond myself.

Jordan Maney 48:41
Do we have time for me to add on to that?

Valerie Friedlander 48:44
Yeah, why not?

Jordan Maney 48:45
Okay, cool.

Valerie Friedlander 48:46
I did say I’m like, I feel like this is gonna go longer than

Jordan Maney 48:50
So one of the really important pieces of this year for me was when everything in the present and the future looks bleak. I had to look to the past. So I read a ton of Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde. I looked at James Baldwin. I went further. I looked at Zora Neale Hurston, particularly for me, black writers, because it’s like, how do we how have they talked about rest and joy and care and healing, because rest is just a subset underneath that. And then also, like older black people in my life who like one of the family friend and like as a church member at the church my parents go to. She’s like almost 90 years old, sweetest little lady. She’s pocket sized. I could just, like, do this and pick her up. She’s so tiny. But I remember asking her, I think it was like, right after election results like that, that Sunday, like, right after, and I’m just gonna, how do you do How did you do this? And I know for her and I. I’m gonna try and generalize it for her specifically, she was, like, was a big part of, like, her faith, of like, trusting something outside of her that we’re gonna be okay. And it reminded me of a conversation I had with a park ranger at one of the missions and a friend, and we were talking about faith. I was in a place of, like, kind of deconstructing my own of, like, figuring out, like, what’s mine, what’s not mine, type thing. And they’re an atheist, and I was just kind of like doing that very reflexive thing, of, like, you come out of something after the very opposite, and they’re like, hold on. And I was like, Well, what do you mean? Hold on? Like, you get to say, like, Oh no, I don’t think for me there’s anything else. And they were like, Yeah, but like, I grew up upper middle class, like in Connecticut. Why I don’t have, do you know what I mean? Like, I didn’t have the same stuff against me. So, like, it makes sense for people, particularly people of color, people who have been like, demonized, killed, maimed, legally incentivized to not anymore, right that you would need something or look for something outside of yourself to keep going on the like cultural and historical lens, of course, of course. And so when she was sharing with me, it was kind of, I felt that conversation again, of like, of course, you need something outside of yourself to get through the moment that we’re in now. And it was the same thing that resonated when I was like rereading some of Zoran y’all hurston’s work, when I was looking at James’s work, there’s a liberatory lens to joy and rest, especially when it’s done on a collective level, when I think of, you know, neighborhoods that have been bombed or burned, or, you know, Jim Crow south, and not just the South, right, the most vulnerable of us, and still, there’s a sense of like, I have to find that inner rest. I have to find that inner joy. I have to prioritize that, and I have to do that on a collective level with people who I know recognize it as just as precious as theirs, and will help me cultivate more of it, and will help me nurture what I do have of it, and I think a lot of the discomfort that we’re feeling right now is that there’s like, a spectrum of people willing to contend with that inner world when everything in the outer world feels like shit and feels uncertain and feels scary and feels like, Can I trust you? Are you a good person, or do you want me to die like? Are we like When Everything Feels like that level of anxiety and we continue to normalize as this anxiety increases and increases and increases like, with no end in sight, if we don’t learn how to slow down, listen to what our bodies are telling us, listen to what like, what we’re feeling if we don’t learn how to contend with that inner world, how are we ever going to contend with the outer world? Ever Merle, Evers Williams, the wife who survived Medgar Evers, who was assassinated in their driveway in front of their kids. I There’s a really wonderful, very well done interview with her and Gail King for, I think, CBS Morning News. And she asked her, Gail asked her, like, did you ever want revenge? And I think of this quote every freaking day, which is like, revenge, yes, by doing well, by being well, she was able to not only like, champion her husband’s legacy, but do so many incredible things, incredible advocacy through like the NAACP and so many other organizations, because she was able to prioritize, like, no matter how much you’re going To try and steal joy for me, you can’t. And I think people, some people, are waking up to that reality. I need more people to wake up to that reality that like, if the most vulnerable of us are saying that even in my death, that is something that you cannot take from me, wake up. Yeah, there’s a liberatory angle to this. And like people haven’t been saying, rest is resistance, like for kicks.

Valerie Friedlander 54:33
Yeah, well, and I think it’s important, you know, as we have this conversation, also as as a white woman, for me to acknowledge that there’s a lot of co-opting, yeah, of that idea from other white people, especially white women in the wellness industry, co-opting, this idea of, like, you know, I’m in a bathtub, you know, I’m resting, you know, like, look, I’m resisting and stuff. And. I think, you know, I have found that, you know, that idea that, Oh, I don’t need people, like, it’s okay, I don’t need something outside of myself, because I’ve had all these privileges. Well, yes, I have all these privileges, and that’s part of the issue me thinking that I don’t need anybody else, or that I don’t need something bigger than myself to tap into this idea of collective and understanding that I am part of a collective how I move in the world has an impact, and if I’m in denial of that, then I am likely to weaponize how I move in the world without realizing it. And I think there’s a whole like me resting. It is a resistance, because I live in a society that wants me to burn out and not have capacity and autopilot into these destructive behaviors, both for myself and for other people, to be able to be manipulated into the system of oppression, and because I have less of the oppression of the systems, that doesn’t excuse me to, like, bliss out, yeah, like, I just don’t listen to the news. I don’t pay attention to what’s happening so I’m going to be no, I have a responsibility to do my work so that I have room in myself for rest, so that I’m not perpetuating that idea that people shouldn’t rest onto others, because that’s what I would do if I didn’t do that own unpacking Work of myself, and then, like I mentioned, create more room for people and recognize that, well, I do have more capacity there. Like, how do I make room for myself so that I can make room for others, recognizing that how I move matters in terms of everyone else and whether I believe in a higher power or not, yeah, to believe in a collective, and my part in that.

Jordan Maney 57:09
Yes and like, how do we champion humanity when we also don’t want to be a part of humanity? And like that for me, was spirituality as a concept of, like, contributing to something bigger than yourself and not necessarily having to be tied to a specific religion, if it is from a standpoint of, like, you wanting to be a better person and a better person to other people. I don’t have the space nor the authority to put you anywhere, right, you do? You Boo, right, like you do you for me specifically, a lot of that comes from like, how do I be a better human? How do I help other people be human? Yeah, feel like they can be human. And a lot of times like, I would have a lot of executive director from nonprofits do one on one coaching, particularly in 2024 and a big lesson was like, you know how to organize a community. You do not know how to be in community. You know how to again, be the sage of the mountain top. You know how to create that distance. You know how to be on the stage. You know how to be put on a pedestal, but you don’t know how to be amongst people. You don’t know how to let people hold you. You’re used to doing the holding. And what would that gift people for you to say, Yo, I need it too. Like, I know that I’ve done that for you. I’m not saying it from a place of like, it has to be like, 100% reciprocity or whatever. But like, in this moment, I need that too. What would that give people to see, like, leadership like that, like, Hey, I don’t have it all figured out. You know what? I mean, yeah, like, there’s this liberatory aspect to rest and joy and care, and I had to sit with, like, on a personal, ancestral level, and also like in the greater like context of being black and being a black American, what has it looked like for black women who came before me to rest, to take care of themselves and each other, and to still Like, allow space for joy, when all the things, all the bad things are happening around you, possibly to you, someone else that you know, how do you still create a life that’s joyful amongst a lot of grief and despair? How do you still create room within yourself to rest, but also, how do you also create relationships where you feel like you can rest with someone just be and so some of that is like it’s an incomplete picture, because I do think every generation has in terms of human history. Think every generation has a responsibility to like, add to this narrative, improve something, add something, maybe subtract something, but like we’re all trying to to add on to that story. But for me, it was seeing the ways that, like most of the black history I got was not from school, was from, like, after school programs or, like, weekend programs that, like, a lot of black sororities put on the aka the deltas would like have stuff, like printed booklets, all that other stuff. They they’re volunteering their time to teach you about X, Y and Z. Like, a lot of that came through church stuff too, but like, where are we as a community, especially if it’s like, if it’s not church, like it isn’t for most people, where are we as a community, not just making online the third place? Where are we showing up for that education that has nothing to do with whether some let me not cuss too hard, whether some scum nugget from wherever the hell is like I want my babies to learn about how he has to shut up. Where are we? Where are we convening? Where are we coming together? What is what is the internet going to look like? But what is like in person going to look like? Where we rest together, where we learn together, where we grow together, and those things can’t be scaled,

Valerie Friedlander 1:01:30
Yeah, oh my gosh.

Jordan Maney 1:01:32
What was happening at the time? And I know that’s a separate conversation, but like, those things happen with time and intention, and like, space and oxygen, like, those things do not happen overnight. So that’s even more reason why we need to start this process of resting with ourselves, so that we can rest with others, so that we can hold space and like, still be able to tell history and tell stories to this generation and the next generation so that they can continue down the line. You know what I mean? Like, that’s how we keep that resistance going. And it’s not about like, how can we solve every single problem right now? Because, like, for me, and then I’ll wrap it up for me, if every generation who came before me was like, I have to solve every single problem that is fighting my community right now. I have to, like, just go in and give it all we I wouldn’t have gotten here. Yeah, what do I have control over? What can I impact and and what situations and circumstances do I have to make do, make do with what is and not like. Well, it used to be like, That’s not where we are right now. And as lovely as it is to know that and to educate people on that, that’s not where we are right now. And I don’t want, I’m not interested in a rest, joy or care that bypasses reality. Yeah, and we can leave it on. We can leave it there.

Valerie Friedlander 1:03:07
Well, yes, oh, I love this conversation, and there’s so many more pieces. So thank you for this. And where can people find you?

Jordan Maney 1:03:18
You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. I’m starting to add YouTube videos at the Jordan Maney on LinkedIn. It’s just Jordan Maney. You can also find me@jordanmaney.com and sign up for my newsletter the rest stop. And I’m bringing more podcast episodes to the rest lab podcast that are going to be like more fun and experimental, because the rest lab is all about experimenting and having fun with your rest. So.

Valerie Friedlander 1:03:46
I love it. Yay. Okay, so all of those will be in the show notes, so everyone go check them out. And just to wrap up, I asked two questions. The first being, what does it mean to you to be unlimited?

Jordan Maney 1:04:03
Ooh, to let go of the internalized oppressor I have in my head who gate keeps me from the things that I want to do or the ways that I want to be perceived. I feel like cutting that cord and letting them go is where I think of immediately, when I think of being unlimited.

Valerie Friedlander 1:04:23
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And when you want to tap into that unlimited feeling, what song do you listen to?

Jordan Maney 1:04:33
Oh, I think it’s because I said unlimited, which made me think of Wicked, which made me think of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. But there’s also, there’s also a song called Beating Down Yo Block. I don’t know why, but I feel like such a baddie when that song comes on. She’s like, cussing because she’s being so crude. And I love that because, like, I grew up such a goody two shoes, and so it feels like, let me have that edge, let me be that way. Let me why not? Why not me? So Monaleo, m o, n, a, l, e, o, super fun. But, yeah, that’s the song I would say, Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Beating Down Yo Block like it’s a spectrum.

Valerie Friedlander 1:05:12
I love it. I have so. So when people give two songs, that is often something that I noticed is like, very divergent, and I think that I mean that speaks to that unlimitedness, like it just is. It’s expansive. So I will add them to the unlimited podcast playlist. So you can listen to them there. Thank you so much for joining me, Jordan. I have just really enjoyed this conversation.

Jordan Maney 1:05:40
This was so fun. Thank you for your time. Thank you for everyone listening. And yeah, y’all go rest please.

Valerie Friedlander 1:05:46
Yeah, I hope you enjoyed listening to this conversation as much as I did having it. And just a reminder that you too can join the conversation, there is a link in the show notes to send me a short voice message, or you can always email me at Valerie, at Valerie friedlander.com, I love to hear from you. If you have questions, comments, topics you’d like me to engage in this podcast, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I will answer every single message I receive. If you would like support with any of the things that we have spoken about, please reach out to Jordan or myself again, links for all the things are in the show notes, and I will talk to you all next time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai