Mollard: Switch off to become comfortable with relaxation

I have no New Year’s Eve resolutions or intentions other than becoming comfortable with relaxation, writes Angela Mollard.

On Boxing Day I did something really weird. It was so odd and unfamiliar that I tried it again on Wednesday, and then again on Thursday.

It was something I’ve rarely done before and certainly not three days in a row but, as we prepare to usher in a New Year, I’m thinking this novel thing might be quite useful.

Actually, forget useful because that’s not the point of it.

The thing I did was relax. I lay down on the snuggliest sofa at my parents’ home and shut my eyes.

I didn’t read a book or sleep or meditate, and nor did I think about the evening ahead or next week.

I just lay there, like a chick in a nest, listening to the sounds of family and the breeze and the neighbours’ kids playing in the pool, and revelled in what I can only describe as the antechamber of consciousness.

Revel in the antechamber of consciousness. Picture: iStock

It’s not a room I tend to visit. As a sufferer of Busy Woman Syndrome, where every minute represents a task not yet done, relaxation is not in my repertoire.

I have chairs in my home I’ve never sat in, I look at sunlounges as if they are foreign artefacts, and the only reference point I have for deep shoulder-unfurling ease is aged 11 on Sunday mornings listening to children’s stories on my transistor radio.

Which is why this New Year’s Eve I have no resolutions or intentions. There is no habit I want to adopt or skill I want to improve. There is no 30-day program or 5-step intervention on my horizon and there is no well-meaning word I’ve chosen to encapsulate my goals. Instead, the only thing I want is to become comfortable with relaxation.

This inability to properly switch off is the unexpected consequence of the “be anything/do anything” doctrine of feminism that 50 years ago sounded so promising.

This inability to properly switch off is the unexpected consequence of the “be anything/do anything” doctrine of feminism that 50 years ago sounded so promising. Fitting squarely between the bra burning of our mothers and the “I’d like to work only 3-4 days a week” attitude of gen Z, this epoch bequeathed my generation ambition and a phenomenal work ethic, but it also left us frazzled. Always on is our default.

Like so many women of my era, I have a complicated relationship with the word “relax”.

At best it’s unfamiliar, a state largely beyond my experience. At worst, it’s something to sneer at.

Half a century of conditioning has told women like me that if we are to gain equality and the freedom, agency and choices that come with it, then we must be hard working and vigilant.

We must be purposeful and tenacious and diligent. We must put up our hand and believe in ourselves and lean in. Especially lean in.

Of course, there are plenty of men who find it difficult to relax but they’ve had centuries at the coalface.

They’ve learned to bring a healthy swagger and self-belief to their day jobs while women, as relative newbies and with a legacy of caregiving, are conditioned to achieve through effort.

It’s why so many of us were confronted by a recent viral Instagram post by psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs. “Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman,” it read. “Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty.”

Hobbs went on to observe that she’d not seen women at ease or any woman who prioritised rest, pleasure and play, particularly without feeling like they need to earn it.

“I’ve never met a woman like that,” she concluded. “But I would like to become one.”

Industriousness – measured throughout our lives from school reports to KPIs – is necessary to keep the nation afloat and the Productivity Commission happy, but it comes at a cost if not paired with necessary downtime.

Asher Keddie as Evelyn in Strife. Watching her, you appreciate the cost ambition has had on our generation of women. Picture: Binge

You only have to watch Asher Keddie’s character, Evelyn, in Strife (Binge) to appreciate the cost ambition has had on our generation of women.

Particularly when that performative mode is what we revert to not just at work but with relationships, offspring, friendships, and fitness. What’s more, on top of paid, domestic and emotional labour, we moonlight as the Tooth Fairy, Santa and Easter Bunny.

There are scenes in Strife that make me flinch because there is always a cost in not being able to relax.

For me, it’s a constantly fragmented mind which means sometimes I don’t listen well and that upsets the people I love.

I can ask the same question three times in a row or I skip to another topic while someone is deep in conversation.

Other times I’ll stop mid-sentence because I’ve only got half a thought out of my head before my brain is hijacked by something else.

People naturally feel exasperated, or they shut down. I feel the disappointment even before I see it.

Worse, I always think there will be a time in the future to fix it, that some imagined tomorrow will gift me the time and inclination to relax. How arrogant to presume I’ll be granted that opportunity.

Instead of resolving to relax, I’ll continue doing it today as if my life and loves depend on it. Because they do.

ANGELA LOVES

TV

The final season of The Crown, post Diana’s death, not only introduces Ed McVey as a brilliant Prince William but delivers a fitting conclusion to this masterpiece of modern television.

GAME

I’ve never played Rummikub but three generations have been playing it this holiday and loving the challenge.

SMALL KINDNESSES

Each morning I wake to find my stepfather has cut up grapefruit and left the cubes chilled for me in the fridge. Give me thoughtfulness over a grand gesture any day.