You Don't Have to Earn Rest: A Founder's Honest Story

You Don't Have to Earn Rest

I just got back from a long weekend in Seattle.

It was my second retreat this year. Four days, fully disconnected: no email, no work, no computer. And I want to tell you something honest: until very recently, I didn't believe I was allowed to do that.

In the six years since I started The Qi, I don't remember ever taking a real break where I didn't work while traveling before this year. Not one. I told myself stories about my why "that's lazy. That's irresponsible."  Honestly, it was just really hard to shut it off... period... matter of fact, I couldn't, my brain had a mind of its own and it was consistently thinking about what I needed to do, should do, could've done. I made rest into something I had to earn, and somehow the bar kept moving higher. And I was never enough to deserve it. 

Here's the part that's even harder to admit: I'm the founder of a wellness brand. I built The Qi around the idea that we deserve to slow down, drink flowers, feel alive. I took a lot of pride in my own self-care rituals. From the outside, I looked like someone who got it.

But if I'm being completely straight with you, I was burying my own burnout. I didn't allow myself to feel it, because feeling it would have made me a fraud. And a failure. So I kept going. And kept going. And kept going.

Something shifted this year. Maybe it finally caught up to me, where I couldn't turn away from myself anymore. 

I started learning how to have compassion for myself. Not the performative kind, the real kind. The kind where I let myself notice that I was tired without immediately bargaining with the tiredness. I let myself take a 15 - 20 min power nap after lunch. The kind where I stopped trying to earn the rest I needed and just… gave it to myself.

That sentence still feels strange to write. So simple yet so foreign. I gave it to myself. 

I am only human. Even with the best intentions, with the most beautiful rituals and the cleanest teas and the slowest mornings, I still get burned out. The mental and emotional load. I still get exhausted. And it's not a moral failure. It's a signal, and the only person who can answer that signal is me.

I don't have to earn rest. I can just give it to myself. I can allow myself to have what I want, without guilt.

The practice that's helped me so much

Somewhere along the way, I started doing something small that has shifted me.

Every morning, while I sip my tea, I close my eyes. I place both hands on my heart center. And I quietly say:

May I be kind to myself. May I be loving to myself. May I be at peace. May I be strong and healthy.

These are loving-kindness affirmations, a tradition with roots that go back thousands of years. I send them to myself first. Then to a loved one who might be going through a hard time. Then to a stranger I met recently, someone whose name I don't know, whose story I'll never hear, and I send them the same wishes.

It takes five minutes. Sometimes ten. It is the most powerful time of my day.

Why I made this set

For the times that many of us feel like we can't or are not allowed to take a break or have to earn it. This set is for that person in all of us. 

The bloom + balance is a daily cup of bloom ritual And the whole flowers I let my body tell me which one is being called for when and I make sure I give mybody and spirt of that flower.  The Dewdrop teapot, clear glass, hand-made so I can actually watch the flowers open.

5-10 minutes. A cup of tea. A little bit of permission.

Small daily rituals that create atomic changes and results when done consistently. I'm learning not to abandon myself. And be there for my own mind, body, and spirit. 

If you're reading this and you're tired

You don't have to earn it.

You don't have to be more productive first. You don't have to finish the list. You don't have to wait for a holiday, a milestone, a permission slip from someone else.

You can just give it to yourself.

Make a cup of tea. Hands on your heart. Close your eyes. Try the words:

May I be kind to myself. May I be loving to myself. May I be at peace. May I be strong and healthy.

If they help, send them to someone you love. Send to a stranger. The wish gets bigger every time.

I'm sending them to you right now.

With love, Lisa Founder, The Qi

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The set I made because I needed it. Maybe you do too.