June 23, 2025 • 35 mins
Nicola Jane Hobbs is a relaxed woman…or at least aspiring to be one. She is a psychologist, therapist, yoga teacher, and the author of the upcoming book The Relaxed Woman. In today’s episode of The Bright Side, Nicola breaks down how her body told her that she was burning out and how she reframed and reclaimed rest. Nicola gives us all the practical secrets, strategies, mindsets, and exercises on how to release compulsive busyness, slow down, and enjoy the moment.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Today on the bright side, If you're exhausted from trying
to do it all, be it all, and keep it
all together. What if the answer isn't pushing harder, but
softening instead. Psychologist and author Nikola Jane Hobbs joins us
Today to explore how letting go apostle culture can lead
to more peace, more joy, and a fuller life. Her book,
The Relaxed Woman is a gentle rebellion and an invitation
(00:26):
to finally exhale.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So I think the culture is a huge factor. And
if as children we never see our mothers or our
grandmothers or the women in our life rest, it becomes
normalized that rest is something that women just don't do.
We work and we care. That's how we are worthy.
So when we stop doing these things, who are we?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I'm simone voice and this is the bright side from
Hello sunshine. Let's be honest. Most of us don't need
another productivity hack or morning routine. My algorithm is filled
with that stuff. We need a nap. We need a
break from the pressure to hustle harder, to optimize everything,
(01:11):
and to always be on. We need permission to be soft,
to move slower, to stop tying our worth to how
much we get done in a day. That's why we're
so excited to introduce you to Nikola Jane Hobbs, because
she's reminding us of what really matters as we pursue
a full, successful life, and she's doing it with radical gentleness.
(01:32):
Nikola is a psychologist, yoga teacher, and the author of
several books on healing and mental wellness. She's the creator
of The Relaxed Woman, a guidebook for women who are
ready to let go of the grind and reconnect with
the life rooted in joy, presence, and rest. That last
one is a big one. Her book blends evidence based
psychology with ancient wisdom and a whole lot of self compassion,
(01:55):
and her message is clear, you don't have to burn
out to matter gets a medal for that. I have
to be honest with you, guys. When I first saw
the title of this book, The Relaxed Woman, I kind
of giggled to myself like it kind of made me
laugh because I was like, oh, wow, hah, the relaxed Woman.
What a concept. It was so foreign to me and
(02:17):
so abstract to me at the time that it really
caused me to get introspective and think about am I
a relaxed woman? Was my mother a relaxed woman? Do
I even know any relaxed women? And if I don't, why?
This conversation with Nikola gave me the language for something
that I've been feeling for a long time, that slowing
(02:38):
down isn't giving up, it's actually a strength. So let's
get into it with Nikola. Jane Hobbs. Nikola Hobbs, Welcome
to the bright Side.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Ah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to talk all about rest and relaxation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Let's start here. So you write the beginning of your
book that you spent much of your adult life working
as a psychologist and therapist and living as the opposite
of a relaxed woman. What are the signs of an
unrelaxed woman?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So probably that is something that a lot of women
can relate to. And I think some of the key
signs are living with this sense of inurgency. There was
too much to do in never enough time. And I
think we fit that in our bodies and our minds racing,
and the tightness of our muscles and the quickness of
our breath. And I think there's also a fear of
(03:33):
rest that emerges when we are on relaxed women because
we spent so much of our life in survival mode
that our nervous systems no longer know how to switch
into that parasympathetic state of ease and peace and slowness.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
What was the turning point for you? When did you
realize that you not only needed to learn more about
how to relax, but also embody the principle of it
as well.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I think it was a combination of things. I knew
for a long time that I needed to rest and
relax more, and as a psychologist and the therapist, I'd
read the research and I knew that stress was the
cause of a lot of my personal health issues. And
it got to a point where I hit burnout, and
(04:20):
I think for many women, that's the turning point. And
I started having conversations with more and more women who
I work with in therapy. Once I kind of been
through my own what I now call relax with a
journey and return to work and started to hit echoes
of my own experiences in what they were experiencing as well,
(04:42):
so whether they came to me for support with relationship
with food or thinking about whether they wanted to, had
children or issues at work. There was the same underlying
guilt that was associated with resting, and that was keeping
them on this cycle of compulsive busyness followed by burnout
(05:05):
and followed by them returning to that same pace of life.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You mentioned that you started to see these symptoms of
being unrelaxed manifest in actual physiological and health symptoms. What
did that look like for you?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So for me, a big one was insomnia and sleeplessness
and just finding it completely impossible to I suppose settle
is the word that comes to mind, this sense of
not being able to even after doing a hard day's
work and feeling exhausted. My brain wasn't able to slow down,
my muscles weren't able to soften, and it felt almost
(05:43):
impossible to fall asleep. That's a key factor for a
lot of women, is that we have worked really hard
and we lie in bed at night and still our
mind is wearing with to do lists of all the
things we haven't done, of all the things we feel
like we should be getting done or need to get
done tomorrow. So that sleeplessness was a big one, and
(06:05):
then also it affected my hormones my partner and I
were trying for a baby at the time, and it
affected my fertility. So I think even though we kind
of see rest as something that is indulgent in a way,
and I think that's what we've internalized from society, it
has this huge knock on effect on every area of
(06:29):
our life and every aspect of our health or well being.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That is so real. That part that you mentioned about
internalizing these messages about what a good girl looks like
or what a successful woman looks like, and how much
rest women who fit into those archetypes actually are allowed
to enjoy. So can you unpack for us where do
these stories come from? How do we learn them as women?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The top stories and these internalized narratives that we have
our rest is lazy, rest is selfish, and I'm not
allowed to rest unless everything is done. And these come
from the patriarchal norms of our society, whereas women, we've
(07:15):
been conditioned to believe that we need to be selfless
in order to be worthy. And then also the other
pressure that I think a lot of women go through
is we live in a very capitalist, individualistic, productivity obsessed society.
So there is also not only you need to be selfless,
(07:36):
but you need to be constantly doing, and you need
to be constantly achieving and breaking glass ceilings. And between
those two narratives, there's very little time for rest. So
I think the culture is a huge factor. And then
I think also it's around the way we've been brought up.
And if as children we never see our mothers or
(07:57):
our grandmothers or the women in our life rest, it
becomes normalized that rest is something that women just don't do.
We work and we care. That's how we are worthy.
So when we stop doing those things, who are we
and are we worthy?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I actually had this moment when I first held the
physical copy of your book, The Relaxed Woman, and the
title kind of stopped me in my tracks because it's
not language that I use or really recognize in other women.
We also have to talk about the connection between relaxation
(08:35):
and safety, which is something that you explore a lot
in your book. Why are these two themes connected?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So the way I see relaxation is it's really when
we are relaxed, it's a sign that our nervous systems
feel safe, even if there are chronic stresses going when
in our lives, which The reality is for most of us,
whether it's our personal lives or more collectively, we have
these stresses and responsibilities and expectations that we're juggling and
(09:06):
we're experiencing not just in the present, but also that
live within us from the past and from traumatic experiences
that we might have been through. And so relaxation is
a sign that even with all of that, right now,
in this moment, our nervous system sense that we are safe.
Because when we are save, our stress response, which is
(09:29):
off our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and
digest or rest and restore part of our nervous system,
becomes dominant and our bodies, our cells, our psyches start
to heal. And that only happens when we feel safe.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's this phenomenon that can happen where stress feels so
familiar that it starts to feel like home. That is
a phrase that you use in your book. How do
we unravel that?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And I think that that is the default for many
of us is we have spent so many years feeling
stressed that now that feels like hone, rather than after
we've done a hard day's work or a hard day's mothering,
we return to a place of ease and a piece
of restoration and understanding some of the psychology and the
(10:22):
neuroscience can be really empowering and really helpful because once
we begin to see how our brains are basically prediction
machines and they love familiarity, that familiarity isn't always what's
best for us, and so it's beginning to untangle for ourselves. Okay,
(10:44):
what am I feeling right now? And is it unfamiliar
or is it actually unsafe?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
How does our body and our mind give us signs
that we need to slow down.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I love this idea of stress languages, and I think
a bit like love languages that we all have own
that are slightly different. And it's really whenever our natural
traits and quirks and temperaments that can't amplified or they
can't much more extreme, that is a sign that we're stressed.
(11:17):
We've been in survival mode, and we need to prioritize
rest and start to slow down. So, for example, if
we are very thoughtful, that can then shift into overthinking
and that paralysis by analysis, or if we have a
deep sense of responsibility for it may be our families
(11:38):
or our communities or for the world that can shift
into martyrdom, so becoming more extreme and more intense, or
if we're really passionate about things, that can shift into obsession,
so being really aware when anything becomes compulsive or impulsive
or that reactivity. We kind of feel it our bodies
(12:01):
and it can come out across as emotional outputs for
some people, and for other people we can turn it
inwards into ourselves. So it can be really helpful to
begin to just think about what our stress languages are
in the way that our bodies and our behaviors and
the emotions and sensations we experience begin to communicate with us. Okay,
(12:24):
we're kind of our limit right now.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
And the thing about stress languages is that they don't
just impact us. They impact our relationships and they impact
the way that we interact with the people that we love.
I know that you interviewed a lot of women through
your research for this book and also women in your
practice as a therapist and psychologist. What are the ways
in which you've witnessed chronic stress and signs of unrelaxation
(12:54):
come out sideways relationally.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, I mean, well, just as we're talking about that
it's interesting. I had a conversation with my partner recently
and we were talking about the book coming out, and
I said to him, how do you perceive me when
I am unrelaxed and I'm stressed? And the word that
came to mind for him was unforgiving, And I thought, oh,
(13:19):
you know, that's not something that I would think of
myself as necessarily or want to be. But when we
are stressed, that's what happens. We don't have the same
capacity for compassion and for forgiveness. And it can be
a really powerful conversation to have with the people in
our lives to help us look at us, you know,
(13:41):
take a look at ourselves and think, maybe prioritizing rest
isn't just for me, it's for the people around me
as well, because I think when we sow in that
state of stress and overwhelm and exhaustion, we become a
bit blind to the impact that that's having when the
people around us. That's what I found in the conversations
(14:02):
with a lot of women is when we are stressed
in our relationships, we become people that we don't necessarily
want to be.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back. It almost feels like we're witnessing this reckoning
of these ideas right now. And I don't know that
that reckoning is leading to the kind of action that
we really need to see, but just conversationally anecdotally, I
(14:33):
know I'm having conversations with my female friends about how
we clung to this idea of these strong independent women
for so long, and how it's just exhausting, like we
just want to relax, we just want to live that
soft life. What are you observing in terms of the
cultural conversation around these narratives right now? In this cultural moment.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
There is definitely is shift happening, like you say, and
it's beautiful, And I also think sometimes it is missing
the point because either rest is seen as a productivity tool,
we just wear rested and then we can go back
and work even harder, or rest is seen as a
kind of esthetic, you know, it has to look beautiful,
(15:21):
which is actually more exhausting. Like I know, when I rest,
it's usually I've got a twelve months old, so it's
with like raisins and crams all over the floor and
it's just lying down for a minute with toys everywhere.
Or looking out the window, or just you know, like
I'm teaching him to peel us that summer really slowly
at the moment. And I find that so RESTful because
(15:44):
it is just forcing everything to slow down. That is
the reality for most of us in our lives. And
yet you see it on social media. I mean, it
looks beautiful, but it isn't realistic, and it just places
even more pressure on ourselves that rest has to look
a certain way.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It also feels like so much of that is for
this external, performative version of rest and relaxation as opposed
to really tending to the inner garden.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yes, and I think that's the thing is when we
rest and we relax, it's unseen, it's invisible, and so
I think in a way that's why it's difficult to
show and to share authentically, especially online, but in our
personal relationships and in our communities. I actually think that's
(16:33):
one of the most important things is letting other people
see us rest and resting together, So letting our children
see us rest, letting our partners see us rest, letting
our mothers see us rest, because that helps to desolve
some of the guilt and some of the shame. Around
it and it helps to normalize it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So how can we normalize rest in our own lives?
Like you talk about there being the kind of small, quiet,
invisible way is that we can implement rest. What does
that look like? Give me three steps.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
What I was finding as I began talking about the
book a bit more is that women would often say
to me, I just want to relax quickly. I want
a method to relax quickly, and which kind of goes
against some of the ethers of the book, which is
slowing down that The reality is most of us only
have micro moments to relax. So I came up with
the acronym rest, so remember and find a really easy
(17:32):
practice they can begins to wead into their lives. So
our stands for recognize, So just recognizing that we're stress,
that we're rushing, that we're feeling frustrated, and that gives
us a sense of emotional validation for what we're going through,
which can already start to sue us. The E stands
for exhal so excel with intention. If we think about
(17:56):
blowing through a straw again, that sends a signal of
safeness to our assistant. And then S is for soften
so just softening one area of your body. It could
be your jaw, it could be your shoulders, it could
be softening your belly. And then tea is for tend.
So tending to ourselves and the situation with compassion, and
(18:18):
that compassionate act could be just some words of self compassion,
like for me, just saying to myself, take your time,
there's no rush is really soothing. Or the compassionate act
could be just a hand on your heart or something
like that. So seeing drawing on rest, so recognize what
we're going through. Exhaling with intention, softening one area of
(18:41):
our body, and then tending to ourselves with compassion is
one way that we can begin to just weave these
micro moments of rest into our lives.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You are also right about some rituals that we can do
in order to awaken our safeness system. Tell us about
grounding and yielding and reaching and pushing and releasing.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Both stress and safeness are embodied experiences. So the way
our nervous system moves into that state of rest and
relaxation is through the body. So grounding is where we
sense the earth beneath our feet, or if you're sitting down,
sensing this sensation of the chair or whatever it is
you are sitting on, just holding you. And that's really
(19:26):
what yielding is is if we lie down on the floor,
whether it's for thirty seconds or ten minutes at the
end of a yoga class, just that sense of letting
the earth come up to meet us, so letting our
body know that we're held, and then we've got releasing.
So we can do that by releasing the tension in
(19:48):
an area of our body like could be draw could
be shoulders, or it could be if we're practicing, for example,
holding onto a cushion and then letting it go. It
gives us that embodied experience of what it is like
to release.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I'm going to start weaving these into my day and
seeing how I can incorporate these exercises. There is a
thought in the back of my mind, though, as a mom,
as a wife, the house is a mess. I've got
a pack day, I don't feel like I've got things
under control, and in those moments of heightened stress, it
feels nearly impossible to kind of bring yourself back down
(20:25):
to earth. What do you do in those moments? Because
I know you're a mom, you're an author, you are
a therapist. I know you have those moments still, So
what do you do when that happens?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
A little phrase keeps coming to mind, and I think
sometimes these mattress can be really powerful. And one phrase
that keeps coming to mind at the moment is it'll
have to do. Like whatever is going on around me,
it'll have to do. And it helps lower the expectations
of myself. And then another phrase I'll use is let
there be crumbs, And it almost just gives me permission
(20:57):
for life to be as it is right now, rather
than waiting for everything to be finished and the emails
to be sent and the dishes to be washed, and
then I can relax. It helps almost send that signal
of safeness to my nervous system that it's okay if
things are messy right now. Things don't have to be perfect.
(21:20):
And in fact, a lot of those rules that the
house should be clean all the time, we've internalized those.
I mean, who taught us that our kitchen surfaces should
be come free all the time? That voice came from somewhere.
We witnessed it, And I think I'm not saying we
should all live in a mess the whole time, but
(21:40):
I think there are moments of our lives where if
we let there be mess, it makes our lives so
much easier. Yeah, because there's always going to be something
else that needs doing well.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
The idea of letting there be mess feels so pertinent
for the women in my life or single parents, because
oftentimes they don't have the resources to have someone clean
their house all the time, and all the workfalls on them.
And I think there is this assumption that relaxation is
a privilege or a luxury. Again, this comes back to
(22:13):
some of the messaging and conditioning that we're unpacking here.
Why do you rebuke that?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So I don't necessarily rebuke it, because in the society
we live in, it is a privilege for lots of people.
And if we do have more money, more resources, whether
that's social support or material resources, it's far easier to
get the rest we need. Yeah, as saying that as
(22:40):
a mom who has I'm with my child twenty four seven,
it's really difficult to find those spaces. But also I
think it's more helpful to look at rest as a birthright,
as something we all need. It's a biological necessity that
is harder for some people to expeliseperience. They're necessarily seeing
(23:02):
rest as a privilege or a luxury, because as human beings,
we do need rest. And it's about saying, how can we,
even if we're single parents, even if we're experiencing all
the chaos of the world and we've got chaos in
our personal lives, how can we send signals of safeness
to our nervous system right now? And that can be
(23:25):
hand on the heart, looking at the window. I've got
some really nice smelling soap that I use in the
bathroom when I wash my hands, and it's all those
sensory signals that can begin to send signals to our
nervous system that say you are safe in this moment.
And sometimes what I ask the women I work with
to do is when they get to the end of
(23:47):
the day, just pause and take a moment and think, Okay,
whenever I felt safe today, what moments have It's almost
that experience where your nervous system goes ah and they
can just be my macrow moments. And then it's almost
how can we make those experiences into conscious practices that
(24:07):
are accessible for us?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
So almost keeping a log.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, like ah, yeah, this is this is what makes
me feel safe wearing you know, like snugly fabrics and
you know, cozy codes or nice socks, all those little
things that we can start to consciously practice until those
things but just become part of our normal, everyday life.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
What I'm hearing you say throughout this conversation is that
becoming a relax doesn't have to manifest in big, showy ways.
It's really in the smaller moments.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Because so few of us have. You know, it would
be lovely if we all had two weeks to go
on a yoga retreat, right, It's kind of easy to
relax in those places, But to relax amongst the demands
and responsibilities of everyday life. That is the practice. And
as we find these micro moments of rest and in
(25:04):
a way create those moments of rest because they are
always there. I think it's just that we're in so
much of a rush that we don't notice them. So
for example, one of my favorite things to do is
when I'm walking with my little one is looking at
the flowers growing through the cracks and the pavement, and
that is just a way to slow down. And sometimes
(25:25):
he'll reach out front the carrier and grab a leaf
and it's just that little micro moment of being present
and coming back into the safeness of this moment. But
I think that is the beauty of being a relaxed
woman is that it doesn't have to be huge shifts.
It happens one deep breath, one kind of lying on
(25:48):
the floor, one looking at the moment of looking out
the window. It happens in these tiny moments of shifts
at a time.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's interesting that that example of relaxation and rest that
you just provide it involved your child, because I find
that children have a way of simultaneously making us feel
more present, and my kids helped me to slow down
and appreciate life more. And then at the same time,
(26:15):
motherhood in and of itself, and the constant mental load
and the constant work and the fact that you never
have any breaks that makes me feel less relaxed. There's
definitely nuance in motherhood when it comes to relaxation. And
you mentioned that you wrote this book before you had
your baby, and then you edited it after you gave birth.
(26:38):
I'm so curious how motherhood changed the way you saw
your writing research and relationship with relaxation.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I think I mean what you touched on there
to forgive me. Is It's just the paradox, isn't it
of motherhood? Is it's so exhausted and yet exhausting, and
yet it's so giving, and so you know, it reminds
us of what is. But yeah, So I wrote it
when I was pregnant and then edited it when my
little boy was very young, and I think it allowed
(27:10):
me to embody it, to embody the principles, and to
experience just how difficult it is to rest. And I
think a lot for me personally, the barriers to rest
pre motherhood were internalized and psychological. There was a lot
of guilt around resting, a lot of just not knowing
(27:32):
how to rest or what it really was. And then
I became a mother and it became there were very practical,
logistical barriers to getting the rest that I needed. And
I don't know whether I would have written the book
differently necessarily, but it really felt like this book matters.
(27:56):
It made me realize this book matters absolutely does.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Where are you on your relaxed journey?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I think it changes every day. I think that's the thing.
I It's one of those things that for me, rest
and relaxation comes so much more easily now, and I
think I've untangled a lot of my self worth from
my productivity. I mean, I think motherhood does that anyway,
because it's just a very different way of existing. But
(28:27):
there is still there are still moments when I find
myself slipping back into patterns, or if there's a there's
a difficult emotion or something that I'm dealing with, diving
back into work or busyness is something that happens that
then I catch myself a lot quicker and I step
out of it. And I also think it's really difficult
(28:47):
when we care so much about our work that something
that really helps me is and that always brings me
back to being a relax woman and how I can embody.
That is what am I role modeling, Like what am
I role modeling to my son in terms of how
(29:07):
women live? And what am I role modeling to the
other women in my life because I think, like we
touched them earlier, we need to We need to see
other women rest so that we feel permission that we
can do that for ourselves.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
It's time for another short break. We'll be right back,
and we're back with Nicola Jane Hopps. Well, you've inspired
me to be more RESTful and you have about you,
so role model check. And since you are a relaxation
expert and role model in this space, Nicola, I wanted
(29:46):
to quiz you on a few social media trends and
terms related to rest and relaxation. You know, as we've
been talking about how societal conditioning impacts our definition of relaxation,
social media is a platform that comes to mind for me.
So here are a few new trends and terms that
(30:07):
are a bit more specific than you know, the classic
couch potato reference. So I'll give you a term and
then you can define it. Okay, bed rotting. Do you
know what this one is?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh no, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Okay, So bed rotting is a term that describes a
person who stays in bed for an entire day without
basically doing anything substantial. You see.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That feels lovely where I think if you'd said that
to me five years ago, I would have been so
judgmental about it, But now I might. I could do
its some bed ritting.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Wait, that's so interesting. This journey has allowed you to
be more accepting of like kind of just being lazy.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's not this terrible thing that We've been taught it
is like to lay in beddle day that you know.
That sounds you know as a sleeproprive mom, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, no, I totally agree. Okay. This next one is
herkle durkle.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I don't know what that means either. Okay, this is
funny because I'm I'm not on trend. This is a
Scottish term. So this means to lie in bed or
lounge about when one should be up and about. Oh
I just learned about this one.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's lovely. Yeah, so I thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
How about forest bathing? Are you familiar with this one?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Oh? Yes? Okay, so that is being in a nature
in woodlands, in forest with the sunlight coming through the trees,
usually barefoot, and being there like bathing, savoring in in
the sunlight in the forest air.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yes. Our friends in Japan they know how to do
this one right. Okay, next one goblin mode.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I have not heard of that. I like it already.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So I feel like goblin mode is adjacent to bed riding.
It's basically just being unapologetically self indulgent and having all
your favorite snacks. This is what I do when I'm
in goblin mode. It's like absolutely no makeup. My hair
probably looks insane. It's like super big and frizzy and messy,
and I probably have a bunch of gummy candy on
(32:08):
my bed and I'm just living my best life.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
What about rewilding, Yeah, so I have heard of this.
I think sometimes this is more of a spiritual experience
in the sense of we are becoming untamed and we
are becoming more of our animal.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Sell I like this term rewilding. Now I'm going to
challenge myself to use it in my vernacular. It's so good.
I'm curious. In your research, did you learn anything about
social media contributing to this need to constantly seem busy?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, I think there was definitely an echo of social
media contributing to the comparative side of busyness. Like's if
we're looking at social media and it seems like everyone
else is doing and achieving, and they're getting up at
four am and exercising before work and they've got a
side hustle, then it always feels like we're falling behind.
(33:06):
And sometimes I do wonder if we take a step
back from social media, how that will begin to impact
our relationship with rest. So just checking in before we
pick up our phone, or if we catch ourselves on
social media and asking ourselves, does this feel restorative or
is this keeping my stress response switch on? Can be
enough to just just open a little bit of curiosity
(33:28):
into what might be a bit more of a RESTful
experience for us. Well.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The fact that these silly terms are trending on social
media speaks to the fact that there are a lot
of young people out there who have this desire for
rest and relaxation. But what's fascinating to me about this
is that it almost seems like we have to come
up with these silly little terms to describe it instead
of just calling it what it is. It feels like
(33:55):
there is this like latent guilt present like I can't
I can't just say rest, I have to come up
with a term like goblin mode or bed robbing to
describe it.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And yeah, I feel if that is the entry point,
then let's embrace it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Nicola, one last question for you. We open this conversation
by talking about how we can recognize the signs of
an unrelaxed woman. So to send us off on a
bright side note, what are the signs of a relaxed woman.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I think the top one is feeling safe and free
in our bodies and in the world.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Nicola, thank you so much, Thank you for having me.
Nikola Jane Hobbs is a psychologist and the author of
The Relaxed Woman, Reclaim Rest and Live an empowered, joy
filled life. It comes out July first, and it's available
for pre order now. The bright Side is a production
(34:51):
of Hello Sunshine and iHeart podcast and as executive produced
by Reese Witherspoon and me Simone Boyce. Production is by
Acast Creatives Studios. Our producers are Taylor Williamson, Adrian Bain,
and Darby Masters. Our production assistant is Joya putnoy A.
Cast executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen
Polo and Rhese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
(35:15):
Ali Perry and Christina Everett are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts. Tim Palazola is our showrunner. Our theme song
is by Anna Stump and Hamilton Lakehauser.
Today on the bright side, If you're exhausted from trying
to do it all, be it all, and keep it
all together. What if the answer isn't pushing harder, but
softening instead. Psychologist and author Nikola Jane Hobbs joins us
Today to explore how letting go apostle culture can lead
to more peace, more joy, and a fuller life. Her book,
The Relaxed Woman is a gentle rebellion and an invitation
(00:26):
to finally exhale.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
So I think the culture is a huge factor. And
if as children we never see our mothers or our
grandmothers or the women in our life rest, it becomes
normalized that rest is something that women just don't do.
We work and we care. That's how we are worthy.
So when we stop doing these things, who are we?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
I'm simone voice and this is the bright side from
Hello sunshine. Let's be honest. Most of us don't need
another productivity hack or morning routine. My algorithm is filled
with that stuff. We need a nap. We need a
break from the pressure to hustle harder, to optimize everything,
(01:11):
and to always be on. We need permission to be soft,
to move slower, to stop tying our worth to how
much we get done in a day. That's why we're
so excited to introduce you to Nikola Jane Hobbs, because
she's reminding us of what really matters as we pursue
a full, successful life, and she's doing it with radical gentleness.
(01:32):
Nikola is a psychologist, yoga teacher, and the author of
several books on healing and mental wellness. She's the creator
of The Relaxed Woman, a guidebook for women who are
ready to let go of the grind and reconnect with
the life rooted in joy, presence, and rest. That last
one is a big one. Her book blends evidence based
psychology with ancient wisdom and a whole lot of self compassion,
(01:55):
and her message is clear, you don't have to burn
out to matter gets a medal for that. I have
to be honest with you, guys. When I first saw
the title of this book, The Relaxed Woman, I kind
of giggled to myself like it kind of made me
laugh because I was like, oh, wow, hah, the relaxed Woman.
What a concept. It was so foreign to me and
(02:17):
so abstract to me at the time that it really
caused me to get introspective and think about am I
a relaxed woman? Was my mother a relaxed woman? Do
I even know any relaxed women? And if I don't, why?
This conversation with Nikola gave me the language for something
that I've been feeling for a long time, that slowing
(02:38):
down isn't giving up, it's actually a strength. So let's
get into it with Nikola. Jane Hobbs. Nikola Hobbs, Welcome
to the bright Side.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Ah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to talk all about rest and relaxation with you.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Let's start here. So you write the beginning of your
book that you spent much of your adult life working
as a psychologist and therapist and living as the opposite
of a relaxed woman. What are the signs of an
unrelaxed woman?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
So probably that is something that a lot of women
can relate to. And I think some of the key
signs are living with this sense of inurgency. There was
too much to do in never enough time. And I
think we fit that in our bodies and our minds racing,
and the tightness of our muscles and the quickness of
our breath. And I think there's also a fear of
(03:33):
rest that emerges when we are on relaxed women because
we spent so much of our life in survival mode
that our nervous systems no longer know how to switch
into that parasympathetic state of ease and peace and slowness.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
What was the turning point for you? When did you
realize that you not only needed to learn more about
how to relax, but also embody the principle of it
as well.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
I think it was a combination of things. I knew
for a long time that I needed to rest and
relax more, and as a psychologist and the therapist, I'd
read the research and I knew that stress was the
cause of a lot of my personal health issues. And
it got to a point where I hit burnout, and
(04:20):
I think for many women, that's the turning point. And
I started having conversations with more and more women who
I work with in therapy. Once I kind of been
through my own what I now call relax with a
journey and return to work and started to hit echoes
of my own experiences in what they were experiencing as well,
(04:42):
so whether they came to me for support with relationship
with food or thinking about whether they wanted to, had
children or issues at work. There was the same underlying
guilt that was associated with resting, and that was keeping
them on this cycle of compulsive busyness followed by burnout
(05:05):
and followed by them returning to that same pace of life.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
You mentioned that you started to see these symptoms of
being unrelaxed manifest in actual physiological and health symptoms. What
did that look like for you?
Speaker 2 (05:19):
So for me, a big one was insomnia and sleeplessness
and just finding it completely impossible to I suppose settle
is the word that comes to mind, this sense of
not being able to even after doing a hard day's
work and feeling exhausted. My brain wasn't able to slow down,
my muscles weren't able to soften, and it felt almost
(05:43):
impossible to fall asleep. That's a key factor for a
lot of women, is that we have worked really hard
and we lie in bed at night and still our
mind is wearing with to do lists of all the
things we haven't done, of all the things we feel
like we should be getting done or need to get
done tomorrow. So that sleeplessness was a big one, and
(06:05):
then also it affected my hormones my partner and I
were trying for a baby at the time, and it
affected my fertility. So I think even though we kind
of see rest as something that is indulgent in a way,
and I think that's what we've internalized from society, it
has this huge knock on effect on every area of
(06:29):
our life and every aspect of our health or well being.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That is so real. That part that you mentioned about
internalizing these messages about what a good girl looks like
or what a successful woman looks like, and how much
rest women who fit into those archetypes actually are allowed
to enjoy. So can you unpack for us where do
these stories come from? How do we learn them as women?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
The top stories and these internalized narratives that we have
our rest is lazy, rest is selfish, and I'm not
allowed to rest unless everything is done. And these come
from the patriarchal norms of our society, whereas women, we've
(07:15):
been conditioned to believe that we need to be selfless
in order to be worthy. And then also the other
pressure that I think a lot of women go through
is we live in a very capitalist, individualistic, productivity obsessed society.
So there is also not only you need to be selfless,
(07:36):
but you need to be constantly doing, and you need
to be constantly achieving and breaking glass ceilings. And between
those two narratives, there's very little time for rest. So
I think the culture is a huge factor. And then
I think also it's around the way we've been brought up.
And if as children we never see our mothers or
(07:57):
our grandmothers or the women in our life rest, it
becomes normalized that rest is something that women just don't do.
We work and we care. That's how we are worthy.
So when we stop doing those things, who are we
and are we worthy?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
I actually had this moment when I first held the
physical copy of your book, The Relaxed Woman, and the
title kind of stopped me in my tracks because it's
not language that I use or really recognize in other women.
We also have to talk about the connection between relaxation
(08:35):
and safety, which is something that you explore a lot
in your book. Why are these two themes connected?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
So the way I see relaxation is it's really when
we are relaxed, it's a sign that our nervous systems
feel safe, even if there are chronic stresses going when
in our lives, which The reality is for most of us,
whether it's our personal lives or more collectively, we have
these stresses and responsibilities and expectations that we're juggling and
(09:06):
we're experiencing not just in the present, but also that
live within us from the past and from traumatic experiences
that we might have been through. And so relaxation is
a sign that even with all of that, right now,
in this moment, our nervous system sense that we are safe.
Because when we are save, our stress response, which is
(09:29):
off our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and
digest or rest and restore part of our nervous system,
becomes dominant and our bodies, our cells, our psyches start
to heal. And that only happens when we feel safe.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's this phenomenon that can happen where stress feels so
familiar that it starts to feel like home. That is
a phrase that you use in your book. How do
we unravel that?
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And I think that that is the default for many
of us is we have spent so many years feeling
stressed that now that feels like hone, rather than after
we've done a hard day's work or a hard day's mothering,
we return to a place of ease and a piece
of restoration and understanding some of the psychology and the
(10:22):
neuroscience can be really empowering and really helpful because once
we begin to see how our brains are basically prediction
machines and they love familiarity, that familiarity isn't always what's
best for us, and so it's beginning to untangle for ourselves. Okay,
(10:44):
what am I feeling right now? And is it unfamiliar
or is it actually unsafe?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
How does our body and our mind give us signs
that we need to slow down.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
I love this idea of stress languages, and I think
a bit like love languages that we all have own
that are slightly different. And it's really whenever our natural
traits and quirks and temperaments that can't amplified or they
can't much more extreme, that is a sign that we're stressed.
(11:17):
We've been in survival mode, and we need to prioritize
rest and start to slow down. So, for example, if
we are very thoughtful, that can then shift into overthinking
and that paralysis by analysis, or if we have a
deep sense of responsibility for it may be our families
(11:38):
or our communities or for the world that can shift
into martyrdom, so becoming more extreme and more intense, or
if we're really passionate about things, that can shift into obsession,
so being really aware when anything becomes compulsive or impulsive
or that reactivity. We kind of feel it our bodies
(12:01):
and it can come out across as emotional outputs for
some people, and for other people we can turn it
inwards into ourselves. So it can be really helpful to
begin to just think about what our stress languages are
in the way that our bodies and our behaviors and
the emotions and sensations we experience begin to communicate with us. Okay,
(12:24):
we're kind of our limit right now.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
And the thing about stress languages is that they don't
just impact us. They impact our relationships and they impact
the way that we interact with the people that we love.
I know that you interviewed a lot of women through
your research for this book and also women in your
practice as a therapist and psychologist. What are the ways
in which you've witnessed chronic stress and signs of unrelaxation
(12:54):
come out sideways relationally.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, I mean, well, just as we're talking about that
it's interesting. I had a conversation with my partner recently
and we were talking about the book coming out, and
I said to him, how do you perceive me when
I am unrelaxed and I'm stressed? And the word that
came to mind for him was unforgiving, And I thought, oh,
(13:19):
you know, that's not something that I would think of
myself as necessarily or want to be. But when we
are stressed, that's what happens. We don't have the same
capacity for compassion and for forgiveness. And it can be
a really powerful conversation to have with the people in
our lives to help us look at us, you know,
(13:41):
take a look at ourselves and think, maybe prioritizing rest
isn't just for me, it's for the people around me
as well, because I think when we sow in that
state of stress and overwhelm and exhaustion, we become a
bit blind to the impact that that's having when the
people around us. That's what I found in the conversations
(14:02):
with a lot of women is when we are stressed
in our relationships, we become people that we don't necessarily
want to be.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back. It almost feels like we're witnessing this reckoning
of these ideas right now. And I don't know that
that reckoning is leading to the kind of action that
we really need to see, but just conversationally anecdotally, I
(14:33):
know I'm having conversations with my female friends about how
we clung to this idea of these strong independent women
for so long, and how it's just exhausting, like we
just want to relax, we just want to live that
soft life. What are you observing in terms of the
cultural conversation around these narratives right now? In this cultural moment.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
There is definitely is shift happening, like you say, and
it's beautiful, And I also think sometimes it is missing
the point because either rest is seen as a productivity tool,
we just wear rested and then we can go back
and work even harder, or rest is seen as a
kind of esthetic, you know, it has to look beautiful,
(15:21):
which is actually more exhausting. Like I know, when I rest,
it's usually I've got a twelve months old, so it's
with like raisins and crams all over the floor and
it's just lying down for a minute with toys everywhere.
Or looking out the window, or just you know, like
I'm teaching him to peel us that summer really slowly
at the moment. And I find that so RESTful because
(15:44):
it is just forcing everything to slow down. That is
the reality for most of us in our lives. And
yet you see it on social media. I mean, it
looks beautiful, but it isn't realistic, and it just places
even more pressure on ourselves that rest has to look
a certain way.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
It also feels like so much of that is for
this external, performative version of rest and relaxation as opposed
to really tending to the inner garden.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Yes, and I think that's the thing is when we
rest and we relax, it's unseen, it's invisible, and so
I think in a way that's why it's difficult to
show and to share authentically, especially online, but in our
personal relationships and in our communities. I actually think that's
(16:33):
one of the most important things is letting other people
see us rest and resting together, So letting our children
see us rest, letting our partners see us rest, letting
our mothers see us rest, because that helps to desolve
some of the guilt and some of the shame. Around
it and it helps to normalize it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
So how can we normalize rest in our own lives?
Like you talk about there being the kind of small, quiet,
invisible way is that we can implement rest. What does
that look like? Give me three steps.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
What I was finding as I began talking about the
book a bit more is that women would often say
to me, I just want to relax quickly. I want
a method to relax quickly, and which kind of goes
against some of the ethers of the book, which is
slowing down that The reality is most of us only
have micro moments to relax. So I came up with
the acronym rest, so remember and find a really easy
(17:32):
practice they can begins to wead into their lives. So
our stands for recognize, So just recognizing that we're stress,
that we're rushing, that we're feeling frustrated, and that gives
us a sense of emotional validation for what we're going through,
which can already start to sue us. The E stands
for exhal so excel with intention. If we think about
(17:56):
blowing through a straw again, that sends a signal of
safeness to our assistant. And then S is for soften
so just softening one area of your body. It could
be your jaw, it could be your shoulders, it could
be softening your belly. And then tea is for tend.
So tending to ourselves and the situation with compassion, and
(18:18):
that compassionate act could be just some words of self compassion,
like for me, just saying to myself, take your time,
there's no rush is really soothing. Or the compassionate act
could be just a hand on your heart or something
like that. So seeing drawing on rest, so recognize what
we're going through. Exhaling with intention, softening one area of
(18:41):
our body, and then tending to ourselves with compassion is
one way that we can begin to just weave these
micro moments of rest into our lives.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You are also right about some rituals that we can do
in order to awaken our safeness system. Tell us about
grounding and yielding and reaching and pushing and releasing.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Both stress and safeness are embodied experiences. So the way
our nervous system moves into that state of rest and
relaxation is through the body. So grounding is where we
sense the earth beneath our feet, or if you're sitting down,
sensing this sensation of the chair or whatever it is
you are sitting on, just holding you. And that's really
(19:26):
what yielding is is if we lie down on the floor,
whether it's for thirty seconds or ten minutes at the
end of a yoga class, just that sense of letting
the earth come up to meet us, so letting our
body know that we're held, and then we've got releasing.
So we can do that by releasing the tension in
(19:48):
an area of our body like could be draw could
be shoulders, or it could be if we're practicing, for example,
holding onto a cushion and then letting it go. It
gives us that embodied experience of what it is like
to release.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
I'm going to start weaving these into my day and
seeing how I can incorporate these exercises. There is a
thought in the back of my mind, though, as a mom,
as a wife, the house is a mess. I've got
a pack day, I don't feel like I've got things
under control, and in those moments of heightened stress, it
feels nearly impossible to kind of bring yourself back down
(20:25):
to earth. What do you do in those moments? Because
I know you're a mom, you're an author, you are
a therapist. I know you have those moments still, So
what do you do when that happens?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
A little phrase keeps coming to mind, and I think
sometimes these mattress can be really powerful. And one phrase
that keeps coming to mind at the moment is it'll
have to do. Like whatever is going on around me,
it'll have to do. And it helps lower the expectations
of myself. And then another phrase I'll use is let
there be crumbs, And it almost just gives me permission
(20:57):
for life to be as it is right now, rather
than waiting for everything to be finished and the emails
to be sent and the dishes to be washed, and
then I can relax. It helps almost send that signal
of safeness to my nervous system that it's okay if
things are messy right now. Things don't have to be perfect.
(21:20):
And in fact, a lot of those rules that the
house should be clean all the time, we've internalized those.
I mean, who taught us that our kitchen surfaces should
be come free all the time? That voice came from somewhere.
We witnessed it, And I think I'm not saying we
should all live in a mess the whole time, but
(21:40):
I think there are moments of our lives where if
we let there be mess, it makes our lives so
much easier. Yeah, because there's always going to be something
else that needs doing well.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
The idea of letting there be mess feels so pertinent
for the women in my life or single parents, because
oftentimes they don't have the resources to have someone clean
their house all the time, and all the workfalls on them.
And I think there is this assumption that relaxation is
a privilege or a luxury. Again, this comes back to
(22:13):
some of the messaging and conditioning that we're unpacking here.
Why do you rebuke that?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
So I don't necessarily rebuke it, because in the society
we live in, it is a privilege for lots of people.
And if we do have more money, more resources, whether
that's social support or material resources, it's far easier to
get the rest we need. Yeah, as saying that as
(22:40):
a mom who has I'm with my child twenty four seven,
it's really difficult to find those spaces. But also I
think it's more helpful to look at rest as a birthright,
as something we all need. It's a biological necessity that
is harder for some people to expeliseperience. They're necessarily seeing
(23:02):
rest as a privilege or a luxury, because as human beings,
we do need rest. And it's about saying, how can we,
even if we're single parents, even if we're experiencing all
the chaos of the world and we've got chaos in
our personal lives, how can we send signals of safeness
to our nervous system right now? And that can be
(23:25):
hand on the heart, looking at the window. I've got
some really nice smelling soap that I use in the
bathroom when I wash my hands, and it's all those
sensory signals that can begin to send signals to our
nervous system that say you are safe in this moment.
And sometimes what I ask the women I work with
to do is when they get to the end of
(23:47):
the day, just pause and take a moment and think, Okay,
whenever I felt safe today, what moments have It's almost
that experience where your nervous system goes ah and they
can just be my macrow moments. And then it's almost
how can we make those experiences into conscious practices that
(24:07):
are accessible for us?
Speaker 1 (24:08):
So almost keeping a log.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, like ah, yeah, this is this is what makes
me feel safe wearing you know, like snugly fabrics and
you know, cozy codes or nice socks, all those little
things that we can start to consciously practice until those
things but just become part of our normal, everyday life.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
What I'm hearing you say throughout this conversation is that
becoming a relax doesn't have to manifest in big, showy ways.
It's really in the smaller moments.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Because so few of us have. You know, it would
be lovely if we all had two weeks to go
on a yoga retreat, right, It's kind of easy to
relax in those places, But to relax amongst the demands
and responsibilities of everyday life. That is the practice. And
as we find these micro moments of rest and in
(25:04):
a way create those moments of rest because they are
always there. I think it's just that we're in so
much of a rush that we don't notice them. So
for example, one of my favorite things to do is
when I'm walking with my little one is looking at
the flowers growing through the cracks and the pavement, and
that is just a way to slow down. And sometimes
(25:25):
he'll reach out front the carrier and grab a leaf
and it's just that little micro moment of being present
and coming back into the safeness of this moment. But
I think that is the beauty of being a relaxed
woman is that it doesn't have to be huge shifts.
It happens one deep breath, one kind of lying on
(25:48):
the floor, one looking at the moment of looking out
the window. It happens in these tiny moments of shifts
at a time.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
It's interesting that that example of relaxation and rest that
you just provide it involved your child, because I find
that children have a way of simultaneously making us feel
more present, and my kids helped me to slow down
and appreciate life more. And then at the same time,
(26:15):
motherhood in and of itself, and the constant mental load
and the constant work and the fact that you never
have any breaks that makes me feel less relaxed. There's
definitely nuance in motherhood when it comes to relaxation. And
you mentioned that you wrote this book before you had
your baby, and then you edited it after you gave birth.
(26:38):
I'm so curious how motherhood changed the way you saw
your writing research and relationship with relaxation.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I think I mean what you touched on there
to forgive me. Is It's just the paradox, isn't it
of motherhood? Is it's so exhausted and yet exhausting, and
yet it's so giving, and so you know, it reminds
us of what is. But yeah, So I wrote it
when I was pregnant and then edited it when my
little boy was very young, and I think it allowed
(27:10):
me to embody it, to embody the principles, and to
experience just how difficult it is to rest. And I
think a lot for me personally, the barriers to rest
pre motherhood were internalized and psychological. There was a lot
of guilt around resting, a lot of just not knowing
(27:32):
how to rest or what it really was. And then
I became a mother and it became there were very practical,
logistical barriers to getting the rest that I needed. And
I don't know whether I would have written the book
differently necessarily, but it really felt like this book matters.
(27:56):
It made me realize this book matters absolutely does.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Where are you on your relaxed journey?
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I think it changes every day. I think that's the thing.
I It's one of those things that for me, rest
and relaxation comes so much more easily now, and I
think I've untangled a lot of my self worth from
my productivity. I mean, I think motherhood does that anyway,
because it's just a very different way of existing. But
(28:27):
there is still there are still moments when I find
myself slipping back into patterns, or if there's a there's
a difficult emotion or something that I'm dealing with, diving
back into work or busyness is something that happens that
then I catch myself a lot quicker and I step
out of it. And I also think it's really difficult
(28:47):
when we care so much about our work that something
that really helps me is and that always brings me
back to being a relax woman and how I can embody.
That is what am I role modeling, Like what am
I role modeling to my son in terms of how
(29:07):
women live? And what am I role modeling to the
other women in my life because I think, like we
touched them earlier, we need to We need to see
other women rest so that we feel permission that we
can do that for ourselves.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
It's time for another short break. We'll be right back,
and we're back with Nicola Jane Hopps. Well, you've inspired
me to be more RESTful and you have about you,
so role model check. And since you are a relaxation
expert and role model in this space, Nicola, I wanted
(29:46):
to quiz you on a few social media trends and
terms related to rest and relaxation. You know, as we've
been talking about how societal conditioning impacts our definition of relaxation,
social media is a platform that comes to mind for me.
So here are a few new trends and terms that
(30:07):
are a bit more specific than you know, the classic
couch potato reference. So I'll give you a term and
then you can define it. Okay, bed rotting. Do you
know what this one is?
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Oh no, I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Okay, So bed rotting is a term that describes a
person who stays in bed for an entire day without
basically doing anything substantial. You see.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
That feels lovely where I think if you'd said that
to me five years ago, I would have been so
judgmental about it, But now I might. I could do
its some bed ritting.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Wait, that's so interesting. This journey has allowed you to
be more accepting of like kind of just being lazy.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
It's not this terrible thing that We've been taught it
is like to lay in beddle day that you know.
That sounds you know as a sleeproprive mom, that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Yeah, no, I totally agree. Okay. This next one is
herkle durkle.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
No.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
I don't know what that means either. Okay, this is
funny because I'm I'm not on trend. This is a
Scottish term. So this means to lie in bed or
lounge about when one should be up and about. Oh
I just learned about this one.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
That's lovely. Yeah, so I thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
How about forest bathing? Are you familiar with this one?
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Oh? Yes? Okay, so that is being in a nature
in woodlands, in forest with the sunlight coming through the trees,
usually barefoot, and being there like bathing, savoring in in
the sunlight in the forest air.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yes. Our friends in Japan they know how to do
this one right. Okay, next one goblin mode.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I have not heard of that. I like it already.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So I feel like goblin mode is adjacent to bed riding.
It's basically just being unapologetically self indulgent and having all
your favorite snacks. This is what I do when I'm
in goblin mode. It's like absolutely no makeup. My hair
probably looks insane. It's like super big and frizzy and messy,
and I probably have a bunch of gummy candy on
(32:08):
my bed and I'm just living my best life.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
What about rewilding, Yeah, so I have heard of this.
I think sometimes this is more of a spiritual experience
in the sense of we are becoming untamed and we
are becoming more of our animal.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
Sell I like this term rewilding. Now I'm going to
challenge myself to use it in my vernacular. It's so good.
I'm curious. In your research, did you learn anything about
social media contributing to this need to constantly seem busy?
Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, I think there was definitely an echo of social
media contributing to the comparative side of busyness. Like's if
we're looking at social media and it seems like everyone
else is doing and achieving, and they're getting up at
four am and exercising before work and they've got a
side hustle, then it always feels like we're falling behind.
(33:06):
And sometimes I do wonder if we take a step
back from social media, how that will begin to impact
our relationship with rest. So just checking in before we
pick up our phone, or if we catch ourselves on
social media and asking ourselves, does this feel restorative or
is this keeping my stress response switch on? Can be
enough to just just open a little bit of curiosity
(33:28):
into what might be a bit more of a RESTful
experience for us. Well.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
The fact that these silly terms are trending on social
media speaks to the fact that there are a lot
of young people out there who have this desire for
rest and relaxation. But what's fascinating to me about this
is that it almost seems like we have to come
up with these silly little terms to describe it instead
of just calling it what it is. It feels like
(33:55):
there is this like latent guilt present like I can't
I can't just say rest, I have to come up
with a term like goblin mode or bed robbing to
describe it.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
And yeah, I feel if that is the entry point,
then let's embrace it.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Nicola, one last question for you. We open this conversation
by talking about how we can recognize the signs of
an unrelaxed woman. So to send us off on a
bright side note, what are the signs of a relaxed woman.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I think the top one is feeling safe and free
in our bodies and in the world.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Nicola, thank you so much, Thank you for having me.
Nikola Jane Hobbs is a psychologist and the author of
The Relaxed Woman, Reclaim Rest and Live an empowered, joy
filled life. It comes out July first, and it's available
for pre order now. The bright Side is a production
(34:51):
of Hello Sunshine and iHeart podcast and as executive produced
by Reese Witherspoon and me Simone Boyce. Production is by
Acast Creatives Studios. Our producers are Taylor Williamson, Adrian Bain,
and Darby Masters. Our production assistant is Joya putnoy A.
Cast executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen
Polo and Rhese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
(35:15):
Ali Perry and Christina Everett are the executive producers for
iHeart Podcasts. Tim Palazola is our showrunner. Our theme song
is by Anna Stump and Hamilton Lakehauser.
Host
Simone Boyce
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