SUNDAY SEEDS OF THOUGHT: Sunday Sleep Is NOT Your Rest

Dr. Carmela Maxell: I used to have this idea about weekends. I would spend the entire week telling myself, I'll catch up on sleep this weekend. I'll rest this weekend. I'll slow down this weekend. I'll finally have time to myself this weekend. And I think a lot of us do that. We fail ourselves during the week by not setting boundaries, by not winding down at any point. By staying up too late, waking up too early, answering one more email, doing one more thing, taking care of one more person, and then we leave it to Sunday to find respite. I definitely did. I had this whole picture in my head of what rest was supposed to look like. If I could just sketch to Saturday, I was going to sleep in. I was going to wake up, grab a book, sit by the fireplace. Maybe I put my phone on silent. Maybe I'd make some coffee and just exist for a while. And somehow that was going to fix everything. Apparently I thought forty-eight hours was enough time to undo five days of poor boundaries, questionable sleep decisions, stress, work, parenting, and whatever other nonsense I had gotten myself into. It was not. Because what would actually happen? I'd stay up too late Friday because technically I didn't have to get up early Saturday. Then I'd sleep later Saturday because I stayed up too late Friday. And now I've shifted my sleep schedule. Saturday disappears approximately seven minutes after I wake up. Suddenly it's Sunday. Welcome to Rooted in Rising with Dr. Carmela Maxwell. Welcome to Sunday Seeds of Thought. Instead of enjoying Sunday, I'm thinking about Monday. I'm thinking about everything I didn't do over the weekend. I'm thinking about the laundry. I'm thinking about work. I'm thinking about what time I need to go to bed. I'm thinking about the fact that I should have rested more. And now I'm resentful because the weekend was too short. So Sunday night becomes this frantic attempt to fix my entire life before Monday morning. I'm trying to Marie Kondo my house, my calendar, my sleep schedule, and my mind. And then I would tell myself the same thing. Next week, I'll do better. Next week I'll go to bed earlier. Next week I'll have better boundaries. Next week I'll make more time for myself. Next week I'll take care of myself during the week instead of waiting until I'm completely exhausted. But here's what I eventually had to recognize. I wasn't resting on the weekend. I was recovering from the week. And those are not the same thing. There's a lot of responsibility we've placed on the weekend. We've crammed self-care into it. We've crammed sleep into it. We've crammed errands into it. We've crammed our relationships into it. We've crammed fun into it. We've crammed cleaning and grocery shopping and meal prepping and catching up and getting ahead into it. And somewhere in there, we're also supposed to be pretty to ourselves. We're supposed to have our little self-care moment. Take a bath, read a book, go outside, turn our phones off, sleep. And then we're supposed to emerge Monday morning completely reset. But sleep isn't a reset button. And Sunday isn't a recovery program. Because if the other five days of your week require you to repeatedly abandon your own needs, one day of sleeping in isn't going to repair that. That's the part I had to learn. Rest can't only exist at the finish line. It has to exist somewhere inside the life you're actually living. Sometimes rest is sleep. But sometimes rest is saying, I'm not answering that tonight. Sometimes it's leaving something unfinished. Sometimes it's deciding that everything does not have to become an emergency simply because somebody else wants it immediately. Sometimes it's not scheduling every available hour. Sometimes it's going to bed when you're tired. Instead of convincing yourself you need to squeeze another productive hour out of yourself. And sometimes it's recognizing that you're not tired because you need a better Sunday routine. You're tired because you've created a life where Sunday is the only place you've given yourself permission to stop. That's different. I still catch myself doing it. I still have weeks when I tell myself, just get through this week. Just make it to Friday. Just make it through this deadline. Just make it through this project. Just make it through this thing. And sometimes that's life. Sometimes there are hard weeks that we simply have to get through. But I started thinking about something. How many weeks of my life am I planning to just get through? Because eventually those weeks become months. Those months become years. And then that's your life. So maybe the goal isn't to create the perfect Sunday. Maybe it's not figuring out how late you need to sleep or how many hours you need to spend on the couch to finally feel restored. Maybe the question is, what can I change about Tuesday so that Sunday doesn't have so much work to do? Where can I put 10 minutes of rest? Where can I say no? Where can I stop? Where can I put the phone down? Where can I choose to sleep? Where can I give myself something now instead of promising it to some future version of myself who finally makes it to the weekend? Because you deserve more than two days to belong to yourself. And Sunday sleep. Sunday sleep is wonderful. Take the nap. Sleep in. Put your phone on silent. Sit by the fireplace with your book. Please do. But don't ask Sunday to save you from Monday through Saturday. Your rest deserves a place in the rest of your life too. That's the seed for today. Think about one thing you're constantly saving for the weekend. Rest, sleep, joy, quiet, time alone, whatever it is. And ask yourself, is there a small piece of this I can give myself during the week? Not when everything is finished. Not when everyone else has what they need. Not when you've finally earned it. Now. Right now. Because maybe you don't need a better weekend. Maybe you need a week you don't have to spend the weekend recovering from. And as always, remember, stay rooted in who you are and keep rising into who you're becoming. If anything that was said in this episode touches you or you'd like to share it, please do. Please remember to like and follow and comment as it really does help others reach this podcast and reach these words. Until next time, take care.