Why Rest Isn't Laziness- And What Recovery Actually Looks Like

Active Shakti feminine painting by Seema Chopra

I walked into a room of girls recently and something stopped me.

They looked lost. Chins tucked, eyes down, scared to take up the space they had been given. Not because they didn't want to be there. But because nobody had ever taught them how to stand proud in their own wanting.

I held out my hand to welcome them in and I already felt the guilt coming back at me. The not-knowing. The not-belonging-to-themselves.

Standing here now, at 44, having gone through life and its hardships — the hiding from myself, the therapy, the motherhood, the long road home — I can stand strong. I can embrace myself. But does every girl really need to go through all of that first?

I hope not.

One of them looked at me and asked: but how do I rest? What does rest even mean? How do I wind down at the end of the day?

And immediately I thought about the word we reach for when we choose to do this.

Lazy.

I want that word gone. Girls and women are not lazy. They are listening to their bodies. They are responding to a need. But somewhere along the way, society got to them first — and told them something different.

What winding down actually is

Winding down is not mindlessness. It is consciously choosing to be passive. It is selecting something that calms rather than excites the body and mind — and doing it deliberately, not because you've collapsed but because you've chosen to.

In my life that looks like meditation, painting, stretching, the sauna, jets of water on my back. Those are my recovery days. Days where I am not giving. Where I invest solely in me. I get ideas out on paper, I do a low intensity session, I nourish myself with a good meal, and I finish with something that brings me joy — watching dance, making something with my hands.

The other days I am in full action. Coaching, workshops, connections, sharing my work. My spoons have been given out and the rest is for me. I protect at least an hour every day for stillness.

This is not luxury. This is structure. The same principle that governs elite athletic performance — you cannot output at your best without planned recovery — applies to every woman navigating a full life.

What I would tell the younger version of me

The girl who used to go to the nurse's room rather than sit in class. The girl who had heavy periods and wanted to lie flat in a dark room.

I would say: your body needs rest right now. It's going through a lot. How does it feel? Are you tired? Where is the pain, and how bad is it on a scale of one to ten?

I would say: I know you don't want to move, but gentle movement will help more than lying still. Here is a heated pad for your back. Let's breathe together. Let's move slowly and reconnect.

I would say: find a friend today. Write in this journal. What you're feeling is part of being a girl — fluctuating hormones, a body that changes week by week — and it is normal, and it is not wrong.

Imagine going away with that knowledge. That some days will be harder. That you don't have to perform at full capacity all month long. That rest is not a character flaw.

Who is going to give you that permission if not you?

What my training never taught me

My education in strength and conditioning — my MSc, my years of practice — taught me about recovery in the context of athletic periodisation. Mindful movement. The importance of rest in physical development.

What it did not teach me was the application of this to the real world. To the women who are desperately in need of this information. Who carry years of performance in their bodies. Who have learnt to grip, to fight, to push through — and do not yet know how to let that go.

The same theory applies. You cannot perform at your best all of the time. Rest and recovery are not the absence of training. They are part of it.

The deeper layer

There is something beneath the physical that also wants to be named.

If you don't know your darkness, you will not know your shining light. The deep layers of the body — the muscles, the fascia — have been built around things that were never fully processed. Movement patterns formed around old pain. A walking gait shaped by something that happened twenty years ago.

My own left hip and right shoulder have been in battle for as long as I can remember. In Hindu philosophy, the left side is the feminine side. Mine has been calling out for help. My face slants slightly left now. My eyes are no longer quite level. I am working to activate what has been suppressed — and to give the dominant side the rest it has needed all along.

This is not something I was taught. This is my deep learning of myself.

And that is the invitation I am extending. Not a programme. Not a protocol. But a practice of listening — to what your body has been trying to say, long before it had to shout.

If this resonates and you want to explore what this kind of training looks like in practice, get in touch. I work with women in my studio in SE20 and online. hello@activeshakti.com