The Decompression Myth
Summer Retreat Series Part One: Why your nervous system needs a buffer before rest or creativity emerges
Greetings! If you’re new to the Writing Your Resilience Substack, welcome! I’m Lisa Cooper Ellison, a trauma-informed writing coach, author of this Substack, and your resident story alchemist. I’m currently on my July break. You can join me on this adventure by participating in this summer retreat series. See you in August. :)
Every month, my calendar offers a new affirmation.
Here’s this month’s: I commit to building a home for my whole self. No part of me goes without a room of its own.
Currently, I’m nurturing many facets of my inner home by embracing my B.R.E.A.K. acronym (Becoming Rested Enough to Authentically Kick-Ass). This year, like years before, this includes equal parts rest, fun, and dedicated time for my memoir.
Perhaps you’ve decided to do the same, or maybe you’ve planned an all-out July creative sprint to focus on your work-in-progress.
Either way, if you launched your goal last week and now feel a bit antsy—either because you haven’t fully relaxed or your progress feels slower than you’d hoped—there’s a good reason.
We can’t just press a button to activate deep rest or full-throttle creativity. Rest, and the kind of settling needed to truly hear your characters, requires a wind-down period I call decompression.
What makes this moment especially interesting for those who follow Human Design is that we’re currently in the transit of Gate 53, the Gate of Beginnings. Gate 53, located in your root, is designed to generate a felt sense of urgency and a restlessness to start, do, or be somewhere now. It embodies the energy of new cycles, planting seeds, and the desire for expansion to begin.
However, the wisdom of Gate 53 doesn’t come from rushing. It’s about honoring the timing of your new ventures and approaching them with the correct intention and mindset, rather than doing for the sake of doing. The question this transit poses is: Are you beginning from a place of empowerment or fear?
Decompression is how you find out. It’s how you settle enough to respond to the energy correctly by connecting with your inner yes, rather than succumbing to that external pressure.
Truly settling your nervous system requires acceptance, persistence, and patience.
You must accept that you’re in a period of decompression and that little is likely to get done while you’re settling into your groove. The length of your decompression will depend on how wound up your nervous system is, how much effort you put into settling it, and how much you can convince yourself that you are enough.
For example, when I was an inner-city public-school teacher, my stress level was often at fifteen. It took almost a month for my nervous system to believe it was on break. I felt the need to do something to prove that I deserved this break before I could rest. Fortunately, my decompression periods are now much shorter, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get distracted or feel the hustle’s pull.
Once you’ve accepted that decompression is happening, you must persist by staying the course. This means resisting the urge to constantly check in via email, text, or social media. It also means resisting the mind’s habit of mulling over situations to “figure things out.” Your mind will insist that’s not work, but it is. When you catch yourself doing this, just pause, say the word thinking, and then let it go. Remind yourself that you are enough and don’t have to live by the world’s productivity calendar.
As you persist, you must have patience with yourself and the process. Remember, decompression isn’t a sign that you’ll NEVER get things done; it’s just the warm-up before everything gets rolling. In the warm-up, you build the foundation of energy and presence needed for things to flourish.
Here are a few ways to work with your decompression period rather than against it:
Start a morning pages practice.
Go on regular artist’s dates or schedule other activities where you do something for the sake of delight.
Try meditation or deepen your existing meditation practice. The free Insight Timer app offers many meditations to choose from.
Do nothing. Take naps. Stare at the sky. Allow yourself a binge-watch or binge-read day or steep yourself in pure pleasure.
Spend time with people who energize you.
The goal of decompression is to be as unproductive as possible.
Rest is your friend, not your enemy. And right now, the cosmos agrees. Gate 53 doesn’t reward the frantic start—it rewards the right start, the one that emerges when you’ve trusted yourself enough to slow down first. If you want a fun, friendly, and very metal reminder of this, watch this video.
When your decompression is complete, you’ll be ready for the magic of what comes next, which is exactly what I’ll talk about next week.
Happy decompressing! May the stillness you experience become the launchpad that allows you to write on.
With love and blessings,
Lisa
Your Turn: What’s your relationship with rest like? How do you decompress? Share your answers in the comments. You never know who you might inspire or help.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post; your support means so much to me. If this content resonated with you, here are four simple ways to support this Substack:
Subscribe to this Substack if you’re not already a free subscriber
Like this post by clicking the heart
Restack this post (bonus points if you include a note)
Forward this email to a friend or share the link on social media
The Latest Episode of Writing Your Resilience
This week’s rewind episode with Laura Davis, author of The Burning Light of Two Stars, was a season one favorite. It’s also one of the most recommended episodes of the podcast. In it, Laura and I talk about what it really means to tell the truth on the page, why writing for healing and writing for an audience are two very different things, and how a shoebox of old letters after her mother’s death upended the story she thought she’d always known. If you’re sitting with a hard story right now, Laura’s wisdom—and her gorgeous prose—will inspire you to create a vision for what you’re really trying to accomplish.
Craft a Strong Writing Voice
Discover what a writing voice is, the question you should ask BEFORE trying to cultivate yours, and the skills you need to develop to make your work so distinctive that all people need to do is read a few sentences to know it’s you.
Perfect timing. Thank you.
Ironically, I too have to WORK at decompressing. Great article