I’m seeing the signs of it everywhere like smoke and steam escaping the car hood on the side of the highway. The United States reserves are near empty and no one is talking about it much. The band-aids areto try to find adequate and cheap energy in other places. Yet, those places will cheat you and wreak war over your mind and body. They will steal your peace. I am not talking about fossil fuels, oil, or our relationships with countries in the Middle East. I am concerned for the crisis over our biological energy. We’re tired; have you heard? Perhaps, it isn’t obvious but it is the wizard behind the curtain that has been dragging our bodies through the wringer. We think we don’t have enough energy for all that we have to do. Perhaps, that is absolutely right. Because, America, we are doing too much. Our land of opportunity has turned into this iron yoke that has brutalized our lives in quiet and slow ways. We can hardly tell. We are placed in the cool water and it is only years and years later that we realize that we are cooking (cooked!) in a boiling pot. The heat was rising all along, slowly and steadily while we just upped our pace. I love the description that Bilbo Baggins gives in The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring as feeling like “butter spread over too much bread.” I think that perfectly describes what people feel as they enter into their crisis. It is also when they begin to try to find their energy replacements. The first and easiest fixes are sugar and caffeine. Have you seen how many energy supplements include stimulants such as ginkgo biloba and caffeine? We are so tired and worn out after all the work, all after-school activities, and all our church and social functions that we don’t have time to cook. We go through the drive throughs. We pick up the easy food to fix because we are too tired to go through the labor of cooking. Though this particular energy crisis doesn’t get a lot of airplay, the obesity crisis does. We are stressed and tired so we eat non-nutritional convenience foods with all the sugar and caffeine. We use these stimulants to give us a false sense of energy. It lies to our bodies and yells, “WE ARE FINE! KEEP GOING!” Yet, our bodies know better and begin to break down. You know the signs, right? Anxiety, depression, Autoimmune disorders, high blood pressure, weight gain are just the beginning of what our bodies will use to yell back in our faces, “WE ARE NOT FINE!” We are starving our bodies. Our bodies need better treatment to do the work that is necessary for living.

Our culture has discouraged us from rest and quiet just by offering us so many options in so many venues. I may not be inundated with commercials thanks to Netflix and Amazon Prime, but I will be flooded with events, charities, and outings in my social media pages. And even though, I may decide wisely to say ‘no” to most of them, I will have a low level of guilt and FOMO follow me wherever I go. This is more pressure than an overworked mother needs. Our bodies require a quiet in our schedules. Margins. Rest. Time off. We all need to cool our tires and allow our bodies to tell us what they’ve been saying for decades: I’m tired. Let me rest. When we hear it, we will begin to listen. When we start to listen to our bodies and treat them better than slaves, we start to see the resistance we are up against. We can not keep up with the expectations and opportunities afforded so many of us, so let us stay home. Read a book. Listen to music. Take a bath. Go for a walk. Our bodies will thank us, and we will be doing our part in aiding our energy crisis. Conservation is key.

If you need encouragement to rest, join me on instagram at @leanedforrepose. Or just say no. That is fine, too.