This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps. This is about more than naps.
This has been my battle cry and mantra since I created the “Rest is Resistance” framework in 2016. I begin experimenting with rest as a tool for my own liberation and healing in 2013. It has always been about more than taking a full nap. My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body. I took to rest and naps and slowing down as a way to save my life, resist the systems telling me to do more and most importantly as a remembrance to my Ancestors who had their DreamSpace stolen from them. This is about more than naps. It is not about fluffy pillows, expensive sheets, silk sleep masks or any other external, frivolous, consumerist gimmick. It is about a deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism. These two systems are violent and evil. History tells us this and our present living shows this. Rest pushes back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as a tool for production and labor. It is a counter narrative. We know that we are not machines. We are divine.
It is not a joke nor anything to make light of. Black people are dying from sleep deprivation and our resistance to rest is a social justice and public health issue. Capitalism was created on plantations during chattel slavery and is the same system that is driving the entire globe to exhaustion and a deep disconnection with our bodies and minds today. We are no longer divine human beings in this system and instead machines. This is metaphysical, spiritual and political work and anyone who uplifts a message of rest as a form of resistance without tapping into the history of Black liberation and the evils of capitalism is nothing but agent of grind culture. Do not listen. You should instead read texts on Black liberation like: bell hooks, James Cone, Toni Morrison, Katie Cannon, Audre Lorde, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. By centering this scholarship you are respecting the work that has influenced and inspired everything about The Nap Ministry. You will begin the process of deprogramming from your brainwashing under grind culture. Go slow. Learn history. Learn your own history. View your body as its own unique technology. Listen.
This work is saving the lives of so many and saved my life. This work should be respected as a balm for all of humanity. Find ways to connect back to your body and mind. Find ways to intentionally slow down. Find ways to re-imagine and snatch rest right now. It is your divine and human right to do so. WE WILL REST!
Your faithful Nap Bishop,
Tricia Hersey
The Nap Ministry 