In Romeo And Juliet, Romeo begins to swear his love to Juliet by swearing upon the moon.  But she protests, “O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon/That monthly changes in her circled orb,/Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” 

All subtext and literary criticism aside (and ignoring that Juliet, of course, is a fictional character) her distaste for the variability of the moon always irked me.  Let me tell you why.

Is Doggedness Going Around

Earlier this week, I attended a group led by one of my mentors, Rick Jarow.  The group was comprised of more women than men, with an age range of about 30 to 80.  As we passed a talking stick around the room, more than half of the attendees complained of feeling excessively tired this week.

I knew just how they felt. Just a few days prior, I had felt the same pull of lethargy and fatigue.  In fact, for about 2-3 days I felt like staying in bed, watching mindless television, and ignoring as much responsibility as possible.

Can you relate to this?

The Honor of Fatigue

In our society, being tired is nearly a badge of honor.  We work crazy hours, stay out late, spend nights watching television as hours pass by.  We wake up with coffee and drink more as the day goes on. We eat sugary stuff to keep us going, and spend millions of dollars on things like 5 Hour Energy in the hopes that we’ll get two. 

We are left with burnt out adrenal glands and a nagging fatigue that dogs us throughout our day.

I’m not writing this to blame anyone.  Not at all.  A lot of us are pressed with an array of commitments that seem to constantly grow and expand.

But what if we were to take a moment - just a short moment - to listen to our tiredness?  What if we asked our tiredness what it was trying to tell us?  What if we got into step with our tiredness, our very right to be tired, and kind of went with it?

Listening to the Exhaustion

Last week, after fighting a losing battle with my tiredness for about a day, I decided to listen to my exhaustion.  And, you know what? My tiredness was telling me a few things. 

It told me that I had had a few ups and downs that I needed to process and that my immune system was fighting something that could get worse if I didn’t chill out a bit.  I checked my Witches’ Datebook and saw that the moon was in its 4th quarter - a waning moon - which traditionally is a time for letting go, reflecting within, and having more quiet time.

So, I decided to listen to what my fatigue was telling me.  I rescheduled one or two things.  I took an extra day to get back to emails.  I basically did the work I really had to do and set aside anything that didn’t feel nourishing or relaxing.  I even watched some silly television shows.  I spent some time relaxing with creative visualization.  I wrote in my journal.

The Value of Respecting the Tiredness

And within about a day and a half, I felt like myself again.  I trusted my body, heard its message, and revived myself by acting upon it.

The moon changes each night, but does so in an understandable and predictable rhythm.  And just as the moon waxes and wanes and the tides ebb and flow, so too do our bodies’ hormones ebb and flow and our energies wax and wane. 

Our bodies are more like the rivers than like the rocks, more like the oceans than like machines.  The more we can respect the cycles and changes and needs of our bodies, the more we can move with the flow of our lives.

In other words, even though Juliet opposed it, swear by the moon. Or, trust your body.

This week, ask your tiredness what it is asking of you, and act upon it.  As always, please share your experiences in the comment section below.

For more about learning to answer what your body wants, check out what else we have in store for you this week here at More of Me to Love.

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For more tips on how to increase your energy, join me for Re-Energize Your Body Simply & Naturally this Tuesday, March 16th!  Click here for more info.

 

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness. She counsels women and men throughout the country on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's counseling and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline and Time Out New York. For more support with healing your relationship with food and your body, get your free copy of Golda's Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining by clicking here.