Vacation Broke My Body

(And not in the way you’re probably expecting)

I am a firm believer that rest is productive.
I also fully admit that lately, I haven’t been great at practicing what I teach (doing what I think)

And wow… did my body make that clear.

After months of go-go-going, I finally made it to Mexico. A trip I had been planning all year. One I was so deeply looking forward to. We arrived, settled into a beautiful resort, and then…

I shut down.

My body couldn’t move. I stared into the void.
That was it.

My partner was genuinely concerned — and honestly, so was I. It had been so long since I’d felt that level of exhaustion that I forgot what a full system crash even felt like.

But here’s the important part.

My body didn’t actually break.
It did exactly what it was supposed to do.

My nervous system finally took a breath.
It just needed a reboot because I hadn’t given myself time to recover in days… weeks… okay, months.

Bodies know best.

After my initial fear response, I made a different choice. Instead of fighting it or forcing myself to “snap out of it,” I leaned in. I stayed in bed. I stared. I waited until I was ready to talk.

Then I talked.
Then I cried.
I processed and released — with my partner, in safety.

And after that… I was ready to go.

I’m sharing this because I know I’m not alone. Many of us experience this from time to time, and we’re often taught to avoid it at all costs.

“Stay busy.”
“Just keep swimming.”
“Go, go, go.”

But what if the lesson isn’t to push harder?

What if the lesson is to find pockets of rest before your nervous system demands a full shutdown?

My hope is that we can all learn to weave small moments of rest and regulation into our day-to-day lives — so we don’t need an entire day (or two) of vacation just to reset.

Rest doesn’t mean you failed.
It means your body finally felt safe enough to pause.

With care,
Candice 💛