Changeology
The Changeology podcast explores the art, science, psychology, and philosophy behind making big, bold, badass life changes.
Inspiring. Empowering. A little weird.
Changeology
Rest Isn't a Reward, It's a Strategy for Creating Big Change (with Maegan Megginson)
In this episode of the Changeology podcast, I sit down with Maegan Megginson, a Holistic Business Mentor and Licensed Therapist who helps entrepreneurs create more sustainable and energizing businesses. Maegan is the founder of the Deeply Rested platform and host of the podcast and newsletter of the same name. Her work centers on helping changemakers and creatives resist burnout and embrace deep rest—not just as recovery, but as fuel for transformation.
We dive into Maegan’s personal journey from therapist to burnout to sabbatical to coach, and explore how deep rest isn’t just a luxury—it’s a leadership skill, a recovery practice, and an act of rebellion. From redefining our cultural conditioning around productivity to discovering how rest can actually generate energy and clarity, this conversation is a game-changer for anyone navigating major change.
Whether you're in a season of burnout, transition, or bold creation, Maegan offers both wisdom and practical tools for integrating rest into your everyday life—and using it to power your next leap.
Find Maegan’s work at:
www.deeplyrested.com
www.deeplyrested.com/podcast
www.deeplyrested.com/newsletter
Maegan’s recommended reads:
Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey
Sacred Rest by Saundra Dalton-Smith
Maegan’s Rest Menu: https://maegan-megginson.kit.com/changeology
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
- Why rest is a rebellious act—and how it challenges internalized systems of capitalism, patriarchy, and burnout culture
- What “deep rest” really is (hint: it’s not just naps), and how it supports both nervous system regulation and energy regeneration
- How Maegan’s sabbatical transformed her view of service, success, and sustainability—and why she now coaches others through similar resets
- Why rest is essential during times of change, not just after
- How to identify your personal “rest style” and use it as a strategic tool to fuel change
The REAL Change Kickstart is a 45-day 1:1 coaching intensive designed to help you:
- Identify the behaviors keeping you stuck
- Unlearn what is no longer serving you
- Create new patterns that align with what you truly want
Interested in longer-term support for making a significant change? You can apply to work with Meg here.
Want to learn more about the art, science, philosophy, and psychology of making significant life changes? Sign up HERE for my weekly newsletter and have the Changeology podcast delivered straight into your inbox!
Connect with Meg on--
Maegan Megginson: Changeology
@6:05 - Meg Trucano
Hello, hello! Welcome back to Changeology. My guest today is Megan Megginson and she is a former licensed therapist turned holistic business mentor.
She's also an expert on the concept of deep rest and hosts the Deeply Rested podcast. So I can't wait to dig into all of this with you.
@6:27 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Megan, welcome to the Changeology podcast. Thanks for having me.
@6:30 - Meg Trucano
I'm so honored to be here. I really can't wait to tuck into our conversation. So for our listeners, Megan, you and I were introduced by a mutual friend, Emma Louise Parks.
@6:43 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
She's wonderful.
@6:44 - Meg Trucano
But as soon as I spoke with you on our coffee chat, I knew that we had just so much in common.
Megan, not only do you share the defining experience of being one of at least six other people in any given classroom named Megan.
Megan. But you're also an introvert and you have a professional background in psychology so we definitely nerd out on this psychology bit together.
But can you share with our audience a little bit about your professional background and maybe where you started and what you do today?
@7:17 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yeah, I would be happy to. Well, the long story short of it, because you know how these journeys can become long and winding, I started my career as a therapist, like you said, straight out of college, went into a marriage and family therapy graduate program and created a specialty practice working with couples right away in my career and spent lots and lots of years working with couples.
Along the way, I also became a therapist. So I was a certified couples and therapist and I loved the work.
I loved the work and I could feel that there was something else calling to me professionally. I wasn't quite sure what
So I grabbed the lowest hanging fruit at the time, which was to hire more therapists to create a group practice, an agency, which I did.
And I still run that center today. It's called the Center for Couples and Therapy. And it is a really beautiful business that serves so many couples and individuals in Oregon and Washington.
And I could feel as I got further into the development of that business, that that wasn't really the thing.
It wasn't the thing that I, I, my cult, my soul was asking me to do. So I started experimenting with different ways of being of service, different ways of supporting people.
And I could feel a little intuitive nudge that I was meant to be supporting other entrepreneurs. There's something about that, that really called to me on so many different levels.
I am the daughter of an entrepreneur. I grew up in an entrepreneurial household. I, you know, became. I became an entrepreneur very early in my adult life, and I love entrepreneurs, I love creative changemakers, healers and helpers, they're my people.
So I could feel that I was supposed to be serving them, but I wasn't quite sure how. I started that experiment as a kind of a traditional business coach.
I was like, well, maybe I'm just, know, maybe I'm a business coach, maybe I help people with the entrepreneurial side of things.
So for a while, these were really crazy years, I was wearing three hats. I was a business coach, I was a full time therapist, seeing a caseload of therapy clients, and I was running and growing this new therapy center.
And as I'm sure you know, as a highly sensitive introvert, three hats is too many hats when you are a person with a sensitive nervous system.
So I just started feeling into, like, what needs to go, what needs to be composted on my journey so that I can keep moving forward.
And I decided, this was back in 2021. And That it was time to hang my hat as a therapist and to really lean fully into the work I was doing with entrepreneurs and long story short over the last five years that work has really evolved away from traditional skills and strategy based business coaching into doing healing work with entrepreneurs, the inner work that we have to do as business owners to create sustainable and successful businesses on the outside.
I am here for those conversations for the people who feel like they have tried everything else to quote solve the problems of their business, but it's just not working 99% of the time it's because the real challenge you're facing is an inner challenge and we have to go in inward to do the work to heal ourselves so that we can create thriving businesses in the world.
And that's what I do now. That's how I serve and support small business owners today. That's the.
@11:01 - Meg Trucano
Winding journey, but still related.
@11:04 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
You can definitely see the thread that connects all of your professional choices, I guess.
@11:10 - Meg Trucano
But you also had an experience with burnout as well.
@11:15 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Who hasn't, Meg?
@11:17 - Meg Trucano
I know, right? Yeah. And then your experience with burnout led you to the choice to take a sabbatical. Could you tell us about that, Bernie?
@11:31 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
I would love to. Yes. And it's like joking, not joking about who hasn't, right? Like this is a byproduct of living in late-stage capitalism, as so many of us are at the end of our rope in terms of over-exhausting our bodies, over-extracting our own inner resources to try to do more, be more, make more in the world.
We all have an experience of burnout in some capacity, I really do think. My burnout was the most... Acute in 2018 and it was actually was before I started coaching right before I started coaching it was really the the peak of the group practice journey when that business really started taking off I was hiring employees the business was growing and at the time I hadn't changed the number of therapy clients I was working with I was seeing like 20 to 25 therapy clients a week and growing this business which was just taking off.
You know and the learning curve was huge of course I've never had employees before it's a brand new thing that I'm doing and I just felt my batteries draining rapidly and it got to the point where I could feel in my body like this is getting serious like this is we have surpassed the point of just like I'm tired I'm overextended and I was entering the territory of I don't care anymore.
And I I don't want to. Do this right there was a real apathy a lethargy that was showing up just a sense of I think I'm just gonna burn it all to the ground like why am I doing this I'm just gonna quit and get a job at Starbucks like I don't care and that's that's very common with burnout that you get to the point where you lose any driver motivation that you have for the work that you are here to do in the world and you can get really irritated and angry get really sad burnout can often look a lot like depression.
She's really interesting but it's not it's something different and I could feel that I was stepping over that threshold and I felt the call to do something about it and I decided to take a sabbatical which was so crazy at the time because I had no frame of reference for what this meant you know I mean I had heard about academics taking sabbaticals so the seed was planted in my mind but I had never heard about anyone not in academia taking a sabbatical.
but I was like. Listening to my intuition, was listening to my soul. And she said, Hey, you got to do this thing.
You'll figure out what it is while you're in it. So I worked with my team to take everything off of my plate, pause the growth of the business, really move everything into a maintenance mode so that I could go offline for a while.
And I mean, it really wasn't that long. I think it was like five weeks. Um, felt like an eternity at the time, as it does for many of us, when we're so ingratiated in the busyness of our lives, the thought of like blogging out for five weeks.
It's like, what are you kidding? This is a million years, but I did it. And I'm so glad that I did it.
Cause it was during that time of silence and contemplation that I really felt the reckoning that I was in.
I realized like, Oh, I'm in a reckoning right now. Like I'm, I'm in a crucible moment in my life where I have to make some choices.
About how I am showing up, how I'm living, how I'm doing work in the world as a service oriented person.
And the through line that kept coming up for me in that sabbatical was like, I sound like an infomercial when I say this, but it was like, there has to be a better way, you know, like, there has to be another way to do to do this, because the work that I'm here to do and share, the world needs it, and I'm here to share it.
And there has to be a way to do that, but doesn't also destroy my body and spirit in the process.
And that was really the moment when I named for myself that, like, oh, there's a deeper calling here for me, and I want to explore what that is, and I want to serve other entrepreneurs who are sitting in their own crucibles wondering, is this for me?
Can I do this? Because I just feel with every ounce of my being that, yes, whatever it is you're doing, whatever it is you are here to share, like, the world needs it, we need it.
So how can we change the system of entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship of business owner, ownership so that we can do that work and feel really good in our own lives and bodies at the same time.
@16:08 - Meg Trucano
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. My experience, I took a after I kind of had my little breakdown that facilitated my transition into coaching.
I had had a side hustle for a little while and then things at my day job got so acutely stressful.
I was experiencing burnout and it was very scary because at the time I was supporting some big Department of Education projects that that had wide ranging impact.
Right. So when I started experiencing like I genuinely do not care if this gets done or not, I was like, better, better take that into consideration.
So I moved up my timeline quite a bit to exit the company. But when I took my call it career pause or.
The. But She. I knew I was going to go into coaching but I wanted to just take a kind of a mental health break it was the most excruciating period of my life it was so hard three I took three months at the advice of my my coach at the time and it was just terrible my nervous system was fried I you know I felt itchy every day because I wasn't doing anything productive in air quotes.
@17:31 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Um so my experience with that was necessary to reset everything mm-hmm but it was very very unpleasant um oh can I say something about the unpleasantness yeah sure I have a lot to say about the unpleasantness but I'll keep it short um a big part of the work that I do now is sabbatical coaching so really guiding mentoring people through sabbatical experiences because it is true when you step away away from the grunt.
If you are not well supported in that process with clear intentions and some structure and, you know, other humans who are witnessing you and holding your hand along that journey, it can be really it can be a very negative experience because going from full on to full stop overnight is a huge shift for the nervous system.
And almost always, especially when you're taking a sabbatical for the first time or you're taking it at a moment when life feels really intense, the first two to four weeks of that sabbatical are going to be like detoxing from alcohol, right?
It really truly is an experience where you have to feel all of the pain and discomfort that you've been too busy to notice in your mind and your body.
I imagine, do you remember the Roadrunner cartoon, like the Looney Tunes? And if you can picture like in these cartoons, the Roadrunner is like running really fast.
And then he stops and a few seconds after he stops everything that he was carrying.
@19:00 - Meg Trucano
Being with him smacks into him.
@19:02 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It was like he was running faster than his stuff. And when he stopped running, the stuff smacks into him.
There's a collision that happens. And the same thing happens on sabbatical. When you stop all the stuff you've been out running, it's going to smack into you and your whole nervous system is going to go through a reorientation, disorientation, a reorientation process.
So being well supported emotionally, having a guide walking you through that process is such a gift you can give yourself because we have to go like you were saying that you had to feel that we have to feel the reality of what we've created in our lives and in our businesses before we can source the wisdom from inside of ourselves about what needs to change going forward.
@19:47 - Meg Trucano
Yes. Firstly, I wish that I had had you as a resource during my sabbatical because I think it would have made all the difference.
@19:56 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yeah, I wish I would have had a me during my sabbatical to just like so many.
@20:00 - Meg Trucano
Any of us, think, learn this the hard way, but yeah. then we become coaches to help teach other people to like not have to experience this new thing.
Yeah, but yeah, it was only toward the very, very, very end that I started to really reconnect with myself and the why behind why I was transitioning, right?
Like it wasn't an escape from this very complex, for me, it wasn't an escape from that. It was a movement toward coaching, but at the same time, I still had this very stressful, very just highly intense experience that the Roadrunner imagery is summarizes that experience perfectly, but I'm really happy to hear that this is something that you support people with because I know it's, it's, it shocked me, frankly, how unpleasant it was because I had all these plans for like fun things that I was going to do and I was like staring at the sea.
@21:00 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Delanguishing I was still you know and it's it's like this is true so many I always just like have a little chuckle when people are like oh yeah I'm gonna take a little sabbatical I'm just like go on a vacation and I'm gonna like make a lot of art and I'm gonna you know and I'm like no you're gonna have a small mental breakdown like that's actually what's gonna happen but celebrate that that like we have to go through these initiations and I often think of sabbaticals as these initiations and I love what you're saying.
Meg about it's not that I was escaping something although of course there is always an element of deprogramming from toxic oppressive systems like yes that is happening but at the core it's like what are we moving toward I love the way that you said that what am I moving toward and when we have something that we're moving towards something that we're healing so that we can grow we can start to think about these sabbaticals or these transition experiences as initiations I am being initiated as out of
World A and I am being initiated into World B and all of a sudden this process we're going through isn't this like I hate it when people have this narrative that they're going through a sabbatical because they did something wrong like it's like a punishment almost like I have to do this because I got burnt out and now I have to do this thing so that I can keep grinding and hustling.
And it's like no hold the phone. How about we tell a different story? How about the story is you are choosing to step into this portal that is a sabbatical so that you can be ushered through this initiation from where you were to where you are meant to go next.
And when we let those stories penetrate our bodies, wow, we feel so much better. So many more opportunities reveal themselves to us.
It's just like everything changes when we change the story about the transitions that we're going the big.
@23:00 - Meg Trucano
think it's
@23:00 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Changes that we're going through in our lives, which is why I love that you have this podcast, by the way.
I'm like, yes, more stories about change.
@23:07 - Meg Trucano
Yes, please. Yes. And, you know, a lot of it, too, I love the initiation and the portal and getting from one place to another because not only is that something that can be crafted and created and shaped by stories that we tell ourselves.
And, yes, it's a choice what story you want to tell yourself and what narrative you subscribe to, right? But it's an identity shift.
For me, was a huge identity shift. Oh, yes. And that is some massive psychological stuff.
@23:39 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Sure is.
@23:41 - Meg Trucano
So I'm curious, before your kind of burnout sabbatical experience, how did you perceive rest? Oh, just didn't.
@23:53 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Hmm? It just didn't exist? I just didn't. Yeah, that's pretty, pretty much it. And now that I'm, I'm doing this.
I travel all over doing rest workshops with different groups and we often ask this question of like, what did you learn about rest growing up?
How did you see people resting? How were you allowed to rest? These are some really powerful questions to reflect on around your own childhood and adolescence.
And for so many of us, just like, oh, I didn't see anybody resting and we didn't talk about rest and rest wasn't something that was like encouraged.
So we have no schema for rest. You know, we have no mental construct for like, what is this? How do I do it?
What does it mean? We have a lot of subconscious stories that we carry around a lot of like implicit messages that we internalize about rest.
So I hear a lot of times like people will say, oh, well, my dad was allowed to rest when he came home from work, I guess he would like grab a beer and get in the recliner, but like mom never rested.
She was cooking and cleaning all the time. Or like a story that was really prevalent in my house growing up was like.
@25:00 - Meg Trucano
You can sleep when you're dead. I got that one too.
@25:03 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yep. Yeah. You can sleep. Don't be lazy. And I think it's worth saying that our families are not the perpetrators in these stories.
Like we, all of us, generations since the Industrial Revolution, our families have been internalizing these societal stories about productivity.
So we're all on this boat together. And it's really helpful just to look at like, well, what did I see and experience in my childhood home and how has that translated into what I think now as an adult?
Because once we start tracking the stories, then we can go, oh, actually, so I'll use myself as an example, right?
I grew up in a house with a story of like, you can sleep when you're dead. And it came from a good place, which was like, get out there, live your life, do stuff, create, know, grow your business.
It was, it was like a positive story, but I was a highly sensitive person. And that story landed in my body.
@26:00 - Meg Trucano
As this message that was like, it's not okay to be sensitive, right?
@26:05 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It's not okay to need to slow down. It's not okay to need to recharge. That's a waste of time.
So here now as an adult who can see and track that story clearly, I'm able to go, oh, you know what?
Actually, that's not the right story for me. I'm going to change the story. I am going to disrupt this generational pattern and I'm going to start a new chain of beliefs.
I'm going to start something new. I've like, don't even remember now what your original question was, but that's where I got.
@26:40 - Meg Trucano
Yeah. So connecting with this idea of like what you'll, before you had this kind of pivotal experience of your burnout and your subsequent sabbatical, what rest meant to you or what you thought about it.
But the same pervasive story permeated my household many miles away from yours. Of You know, for me, I remember sitting with my sister after school and we would get a snack and kind of watch Saved by the Bell, I think, after school and the instant we heard the garage door open that my mom was home, we would put away all the food, we would turn off the TV, she would go, my sister would go to the piano and start practicing and I would like open a book and start doing.
Homework, right? Because if she came in and she saw that we were not moving effectively, if we were not engaging in something, then we were being lazy and we were being, not even wasting time as in go get them, more like you should be doing something with your time.
Yeah, yeah. So, for me, I really internalized a message that rest is a, is kind of just like a, a moral.
That's failing. It's like you do all your stuff and then you can rest.
@28:06 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
That's right.
@28:06 - Meg Trucano
I think another way that that is internalized in many of us is that rest is something we have to earn.
@28:13 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It's like a reward that we get if we cross the finish line, but the finish line keeps moving. So we're never able to cross it.
Or another common phrase I hear in our work is like, rest is a luxury I cannot afford. So there are these scarcity underpinnings to especially for families who are in poverty, for example, a people who truly cannot afford to slow down because they have to work three jobs in order to keep a roof over their head.
So there are so many different ways that these messages can wiggle their way into our nervous systems. And I think I just want to throw this in there that as you're doing this reflection on your own history and how did I develop the definitions or.
Non-definitions of rest that I hold today, it can be easy to villainize the people, our parents, our caregivers, our teachers, our community.
It can be easy to point the finger and be like, oh, they're so bad and wrong and look, look what they did to me.
And I just think it's important to expand that lens and to remind everyone that they're victims of this in the same way that we are.
So it's a much more helpful, holistic process when we can look at these past stories and hold compassion for our parents, our caregivers, our teachers to really hold compassion for the ways they themselves have not experienced healthy rest and balance in their lives and also not minimizing the negative impacts that the ways we grew up have harmed us in our lives and our bodies.
So today, we have to hold the non-duality of all of that and the more compassion and love we can bring to this conversation.
The easier it is to heal I think yeah I completely agree and that combination of compassion and choosing something different for yourself and choosing to create a new uh you know conception of rest I think is is a really powerful and really important combination but agreed yeah so this is this is kind of the narrative that many of us grew up with especially in this country um so what is what is the definition of deep rest now for you yeah thanks for asking such a great question something that I've thought a lot about especially as I was first starting to weave rest into the work that I was doing I was like what even what is it actually like what does it mean to rest the first thing that I want to say is this definition can vary person to person so I'm going to tell you how I have learned to define it for myself and then you've got to define it for yourself
And individualizing this word and this process is part of the work, right? It's part of the work of reclaiming rest as a birthright that we have just for being humans, just for being living organisms on this planet.
For me, I think about deep rest. I'm like, I want to go beyond just rest. You know, there's baseline rest, which is that we all need to sleep at night.
Okay, we know that. We know that we need sleep in order to function. That's what we think of as rest.
I wanted to take it a step further and I wanted to, what is deep rest? To be rested, not just rested enough to survive, but what does it mean to be so rested in every part of my body and my experience that I become like a beacon of light on the planet and that I can just like, my good work is amplified.
Like, what is that kind of rest? And I just feel so good. My life feels so pleasurable and delightful and fun.
Like, what is that? That's what I want. And the definition that I've landed on is that... Deep rest, first of all, it's an activity.
It's an action. Deep rest is any activity. The activity itself can be passive or active. We can talk about that in a second.
Deep rest is any activity, passive or active, that helps me do two things. Any activity that helps me recharge my batteries, but also regulate my nervous system.
So deep rest is going to help me do two things, right? We're familiar with the recharging of our batteries, right?
Rest charges us up. But many of us, especially those of us who are in, you know, who are entrepreneurs or in like high pressure, high performance careers, we are so stressed out, right?
Our nervous system is so, it's like tightly strung, right? We are just like in panic. We are in a fight response.
We are in what I would call from a psychology perspective, hyper arousal, where we are just like on high alert all the time.
Okay. So let me give you an example. If my nervous system is in this state of hyperarousal and I'm super highly strung and I'm really stressed and I'm kind of like baseline anxious and panicked all the time and then I do something that recharges my batteries you can become a little bit manic because then you are like recharged but you're freaking out at the same time and we've all been there where it's like I have so much energy what can I do what can I do to make myself feel better what can I do to make myself feel more safe.
And then we're just like doing doing doing like these little energizer buddies who are not grounded to the earth.
That's not healthy. Now, the opposite can also be true. Where for example, you really regulate your nervous system beautifully, you let go of fear and scarcity, really calm yourself down, you feel safe, you feel chill, you just feel so at peace, right.
But if you don't charge your batteries in that place, you can
@34:00 - Meg Trucano
You up feeling really chill and not have a lot of energy at the same time and then you lack motivation to take action and our lives do require us to take action especially those of us who are naturally more ambitious right we want to take action we want to work towards our goals we want to do good work in the world we want to take great care of our families so it's not sustainable or very fulfilling for a long amount of time to be really chilled out and have zero energy.
@34:30 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
So what we are really aiming for with deep rest is a balance of those two things for my nervous system is regulated I feel calm cool and collected also my batteries are charged up so I have energy and motivation to be and do things in the world when we strike that balance that in my body is what I experience as being deeply rested.
@34:53 - Meg Trucano
I love that as you were speaking I was like allowing myself to kind of get into this. Uh. Kind of moving my body place and just really sinking into that definition because you described it so beautifully, but everybody kind of intuitively knows what those experiences are like, right?
You're so highly strong. You've got a ton of energy. It's like, well, what should I clean next, right? Or like how to kind of shed that excess energy, right?
Yeah. And I think everybody also probably has the same experience of being, you know, like, okay, we're chill, but we're also like, I don't know, I just really don't feel like doing anything right now.
Yeah. Right. But not in a restorative way. And I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna really try for anything kind of way.
@35:44 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
That's really well said. Yeah. Cause sometimes that's a really sweet reprieve. Like, Ooh, I feel so chill and I don't have to do a damn thing.
Like, yes, love that. But what we're talking about is an extended period of time where you, you, you lose your.
Motivation to create, you lose your motivation to care for others, to care for yourself because you don't, your battery is just not charged up.
And yeah, that's not healthy for a long, a long term.
@36:12 - Meg Trucano
Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of your personal favorite ways to engage in deep rest?
@36:20 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yes. Okay. So there is an incredible researcher named Sandra Dalton Smith who has researched the different categories of rest.
What are all of the different ways that we rest? She has a book. can check it out. Um, and she created or identified through her research, seven different categories of rest, and we won't go through them all in this podcast, but they range there's, you know, there's physical rest.
Obviously this is also where the passive active distinction comes into play. So sometimes rest is packed passive.
@36:52 - Meg Trucano
It's like taking a nap.
@36:53 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It's rest is like, I am just sitting and not doing passive, but sometimes rest is active. So there are.
A lot of people who need intense cardio exercise in order to be rested, right? Getting on the Peloton is a way that they regulate their nervous system and recharge their batteries.
And if they don't have that intense exercise in the morning, they feel super stressed out and like, hmm, really deflated.
Each of the categories gives you an opportunity to go, oh, what does my body need to find this balanced state where my nervous system is calm and my battery's feel recharged.
And it might not look like you think it's supposed to look. As many people, when they think about rest, they think about not doing anything.
They think about getting more sleep. They think about meditating. Now, these are great ways to rest, but they're just three things on a menu of a thousand different things that look a thousand different ways.
So that's physical rest. Some other of my personal favorite categories, I love sensual rest. sensual And this is definitely
I'm connected to my life as a therapist, right? Being very in the body and being very curious about how we can reclaim pleasure and delight as a people.
And this is where I would add some flavors to sensual rest that the researcher doesn't in her work. So in her work, she's looking at sensual rest as more of where can you give yourself sensory deprivation, right?
Where can you remove like screens as an example and bright light? And loud noises and kind of create a cocoon for yourself to recharge.
So incredibly important. I just want to add into the mix there that I think connecting to pleasure in the body is also a really powerful way to rest.
So connecting to pleasure, weaving pleasure in through any of your five senses can be a beautiful way to rest, right?
I love going to bathhouses. As an example, I live in Portland, Oregon. We have lots of bathhouses here. I love being in a bathhouse.
a bathhouse, where you are... You're in the sauna, you're in the hot tub, right? And you're surrounded by other people, but no one's really talking.
Oh, it's such a restful experience for me. I get the hit of energy from other people, but I'm surrounded in my own solitude.
And I am just, my senses are alive and there's heat and there's cold. And it's like that really recharges my batteries, that those sensory experiences.
Creative rest is another really popular category. Are you connecting to art, to music, right? Are you going to concerts?
Are you checking out museums or putting beautiful art on your walls? How are you filling your system with beauty and creativity?
@39:44 - Meg Trucano
Are you doodling? What are you making with your own two hands?
@39:47 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Like this is a category that most people don't think of as rest because it seems like it's just more tasks to add to the calendar.
But when you're not tending to yourself creatively, you can get deeply depleted.
@40:00 - Meg Trucano
And we,
@40:00 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Humans are naturally creative beings so what type of creative expression both personally and as a receiver what type of art and creativity helps you feel calm and regulated and recharges your batteries.
These are just a few random examples to get the gears turning.
@40:18 - Meg Trucano
Yeah I love that and for me personally I've never really thought about a bathhouse as being I mean I knew know them in a historical context but I genuinely did not know that people in this country still did that so that's amazing.
You're welcome.
@40:36 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yeah.
@40:36 - Meg Trucano
You're gonna love it. Definitely gonna have to check that out. I don't know if they have any around here.
Anyway, my, I have been a creative person my entire life. I would argue that all people are creative people and that only some people let themselves into that identity, right?
But For me, creativity is just a lifeblood type thing. I was actually working with my coach the other day about this because I'm a mom of twins, toddler twins.
I'm an entrepreneur, business owner, I'm coach, so I have kind of like, quote unquote, a caseload. I do research.
I am generating lots of ideas all of the time. I'm also a deeply creative person. I love to paint.
That is kind of my chosen medium. I love these books like Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, weaving this creativity into your life as a way to deeply rest.
I was really wrestling with the fact that I would end up at the end of the day and I'm like, I just don't have the energy.
@41:56 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
I know it gives me energy to engage in this creativity, but I don't have The need to give to it.
@42:01 - Meg Trucano
So we were playing around with like, okay, well, why don't you start your day with this? And then from that place, you can engage in the rest of your kind of workday, quote unquote.
And it has changed the game. It is for sure when I'm the most creative, but it's also got this like almost generating effect of giving energy and giving inspiration and all of that.
So yes to all of those suggestions that you have. And I will definitely be sure to link that researcher and that book in the show notes for the listeners in case they want to kind of get a little bit more deeply into the research here.
@42:46 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
But I'll also give you, um, we have a, a worksheet we created when we do this workshop with people called the rest menu, which goes through each of the seven categories and gives you some examples.
And. Gives you space to like really think and define what do I need in each of these categories. So I'll give you that link to just in case anyone listening wants to like, you know, map it out.
Because I think having this stuff written down is key to actually doing it in the moment. For me, it's sort of like when I'm really hungry and then someone says, where do you want to eat?
@43:21 - Meg Trucano
I'm just like, I got nothing.
@43:23 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
I got nothing.
@43:24 - Meg Trucano
And now I'm cranky. So, so it's like the rest menu is similar.
@43:28 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It's like when you do have those little pockets, those space to practice rest, I want you to have this menu handy so that all you have to do is open the dock and be like, okay, that I'll do that.
And you don't have to think about what it is you're going to do.
@43:43 - Meg Trucano
So we can add that to the mix too. I love that. We'll definitely link that in the show notes.
So, you know, it sounds like, like deep rest is, is really critical to kind of well-being at any point in life.
But I'm thinking that deep rest might also be Bye. a critically important factor when people are making big life changes and so at this point I want to kind of change our conversation to talk a little bit about this about the intersection of deep rest and change and what role deep rest can play in a person's kind of change journey for lack of a better word so I can imagine a world in which someone who is wanting to make a big life change kind of feels that it's counterintuitive to engage in deep rest right so making a big change sounds like a very action driven very energy high energy requirement state right so it's hugely effortful it's something that requires a lot of thought and energy from you and deep rest seems to sort of suggest that we you know actually take the time to rest gasp even during this time of kind of activation so what do you you see as the.
The role deep rest plays in a person's ability to make a big change, but then to sustain that change after they make that transformation because, you know, making the change and the transformation is one thing, but sustaining it is often pretty neglected in conversations about making big changes, but it's the after that's what really where most of the juice is.
@45:26 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
@45:28 - Meg Trucano
And isn't that always true?
@45:29 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Yes. It's what comes after. I sit in a lot of ceremony in my life and my work and my spiritual practices, and I think one of the most powerful reminders is you go into ceremony and ceremony is just a container, a time limited container that you drop into to do some deep transformative work.
And it's so it's like a condensed change process, right? it's so into ceremony and like something is transformed inside of you.
and huge. When you end the ceremony it's this beautiful reminder that now that you're leaving the ceremony the real ceremony begins which is your real life and you know it's our our life our entire life is a ceremony and it's true when we don't approach it that way when we don't approach our lives as the canvas upon which we are painting our masterpiece like change create the going through these change processes.
It's like that's where we gather up all of our supplies and then because you're a painter so now I'm thinking about painting you know it's like these huge change processes it's like you become a palette of you know oil paints through this change this initiation that you go through and then when you're on the other side of that initiation you're like okay I have the palette of paints now what am I gonna do with it and the rest of my life is about painting the masterpiece a little bit every single day.
I think this is a great opportunity to bring our attention down to the earth and to think about nature and to think about the cycles of nature.
Nature is the greatest creation. Nature is constantly evolving, constantly going through huge changes and transformation all of the time.
Nature has built in seasons and cycles for rest. Winter, for example, right? have winter comes every single year, every single year.
@47:38 - Meg Trucano
The earth says, all right, I'm logging off.
@47:42 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Time to hibernate, you know, like time to rest. And I think that we forget often as human beings that we are part of nature.
We are not separate from nature. We are not different than nature. We are just as much a part of nature as the trees.
say it. That where second. and the rivers and the mountains and capitalism again patriarchy colonialism all of these systems that we live inside of us have stripped away our knowing that we are part of nature and we now live in a society that treats us like we are machines and I think that is mirrored when we're going through big change processes right when we're like okay it's like I'm getting a software update I'm getting a software update so that I can then just like immediately start doing the next thing and running the next programs but you're not a computer you're part of nature so when you're going through a big I often think about forest fires and how big seasons of change are like inner forest fires not the man-made kind those are make me really sad but like the kind that happened naturally which the ecosystem needs to thrive right forests they know when there needs to be a fire and the forest burns down and the new life new life emerges and the life
We go through those processes and our own body in seasons of huge change and transformation. And you are so right that during those seasons, we need rest.
And you can see the ways in which nature does this, in which nature goes into deep seasons of rest to prepare and support for big upheavals of transformation in our life.
Does any of that make sense to you?
@49:26 - Meg Trucano
Absolutely every word. And I love this connection with nature because personally, I have very much in the last couple of years, probably more than previously, I have really tried to attune to the seasons in every aspect of my life, from what I eat to what I consume in terms of, you know, outside dating.
I guess, in my business and definitely in my rest. I And I am a napper. I love to take a nap.
I take a nap almost every single day if I can. And in the wintertime, it is just the most natural thing in the world.
It's just so easy to kind of collapse into that same energy, I think, as what's going on around us, right?
And so I love that analogy and visual of the forest fire coming through. And what's interesting about that metaphor is that when the forest fire comes through and everything is kind of knocked back, there are some seeds of trees that only germinate after a fire.
That is the only time they emerge. And so there are so many things that we're When people are going through seasons of change that can only arise from this seemingly tumultuous, you know, you said crucible earlier, I can't get that out of my head, so this crucible of change.
So I love that. I love that metaphor very well. Um, so as a, as a coach, I'm sure you see lots of clients that kind of struggle with this notion that rest is not an indulgence.
Right. And it's just required. Um, and I think this attitude, as you've said, is, is created and supported by hustle culture and capitalism.
And for many people who are socialized as women, it becomes a part of our, our conditioning. So. What do you think is the biggest barrier or antagonistic factor that ambitious women encounter as they begin.
Taking. Taking. leadership of deep rest and begin to practice it regularly.
@52:03 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
What, what keeps coming up for people? I have to choose just one? Or you can do the poopoo platter.
Oh man, there's so, so many things. Let me just see what wants to emerge as the biggest one today.
What's really bubbling to the surface right now is the way in which we are conditioned from truly infancy to be caretakers and caregivers and to self-sacrifice.
That is such a huge part of the patriarchal narrative that is reinforced by capitalism, right? The economic system that we live in.
we have this very gendered system that we are raised within that tells us like your job is to be a caretaker.
Your job is to attune to the Needs of others and then many of us ambitious women we go into careers where we are doing an element of that you know we are doing service of some variety so then the capitalism sneaks in and now we're being like economically rewarded for caretaking and doing this thing that we've been good at our entire lives and I just want you to imagine that at that point in your life you are caught in a very sticky web.
You're caught in a very sticky web which is why we need the power of fire as an element to come in and burn away the web so that we can really reorient ourselves again like that reorientation like we were talking about earlier to like hold on a second who am I how is my life meant to be of service to me yeah first and then how can I from that place this of solidity and nourishment be of.
Service to the world. So we are reorienting the way in which we operate in the world. And we are turning the table so that we are thinking about ourselves and our own well-being first.
So cliche, but it's true. How do we actually put on our own oxygen mask before we help other people put their oxygen masks on?
And I think that that is the stickiest point for so many female identified change makers who are going through these huge change processes in their own lives.
Going through, I mean, I'm curious to hear what your experience has been with this, Meg. But for me and for the people that I work with, when you're going through these initiations, these huge change events in your life, almost always a through line is that you have to start saying no.
To other people, you have to start letting people down. You have to start disappointing people. You have to start creating.
You're space to be with yourself, and you cannot do that without pushing back all of the people who have been siphoning your life force out of you for quite literally your entire life.
So I would say that's probably the stickiest thing we rub up against is that disappointing others, the challenging the narratives of self-sacrifice, and in that space creation process, you know, a big part of what we're creating space for.
It's the practice of deep rest. How do I truly learn how to tend to myself, how to regulate my system, how to recharge my own batteries, and we can only do that when we are pushing other people.
I'm laughing right now because I have this little sticker on my laptop so I can see it as we're talking.
It's just a little reminder to me. I wish I could show it to you, and it looks like a cute, it's like a heart, and it's got like lace around the sides, and it's this cute little font.
And it looks like it would be like just a cute, like little, oh, you know, like. Love the world sticker.
But what it actually says is, please hesitate to reach out to me. That's just like someone gifted it to me.
And I was like, that is such a good reminder to me that it's like, yeah, I'm full of love and I am going to be of service.
And I do want to do such good work in the world. But please hesitate to reach out to me because like, I need space to rest.
I need space to tend to myself. Does that answer your question?
@56:28 - Meg Trucano
It sure does. And it reminds me that you also have one of my favorite parts of your framework for deep rest is that cultivating deep rest is actually a form of resistance.
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
@56:49 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
I can. And the first thing that I want to say is that rest is resistance is an idea and a phrase that belongs to Tricia Hershey, who is an incredible woman doing absolutely amazing work.
She's a black woman. And she is really looking at rest in relationship to the black experience, which I cannot identify with whatsoever as a white woman and the way she's looking at rest is really this radical reclamation for, you know, people who have been oppressed to a much, much, much deeper degree than I have in my life.
So I highly encourage you to read and study and learn from Trisha and her work has been such a source of inspiration for me.
And it has really helped me see and understand in my life and in my own way how it is true that choosing to rest is a radical act, it's a revolutionary act, it's an act of resistance, any choice that we make that rubs up against the conditioning of these systems we've been talking about, capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, any decision you make that is in opposition to the norms of the oppressive systems that we live inside of, is an act of resistance.
And it's really powerful to think about that as an individual, to realize that when I am choosing to rest instead of serve another person, do someone a favor, whatever the case may be, take on another project at work, when I say no to that, I push that away to create the space to rest, that I'm not being selfish.
I'm not being self-indulgent, I'm not being lazy, that like, actually, I am doing a really powerful piece of deconditioning work that is going to benefit me, and by extension, it's going to benefit the collective, it's going to benefit our entire society, and when we start to weave in that knowing into the choices that we make that feel rebellious, that feel like an act of resistance, you start to realize over time, just how freaking powerful you are, and how every choice you make has the ability to contribute to the change.
That you want to see and your society and your culture and your community. So now when I need to take some time to rest, I always first notice the default conditioning of being like, oh, you're being so lazy.
Like, oh, must be nice to be you, that you can make this choice to take a day off, blah, blah, blah.
It always shows up. And my work is to meet it, to first notice that it's happening. Like, oh, how funny.
Look at that. Look at that old story just showing up again uninvited. I'm going to take a breath and then I'm going to like wash it in love and I'm going to put my hand on my heart and I'm going to say to myself, I am not selfish and choosing this choice in this moment is an act of service for my entire community.
So I'm going to do this for myself and I'm going to do it for the collective and I'm going to do it right now.
And then I do it. And then guess what?
@59:53 - Meg Trucano
Nothing bad happens. Isn't that amazing?
@59:56 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
It is amazing.
@59:57 - Meg Trucano
Nothing bad happens. And And You This is a crucial part of my coaching process as well, is this clearing the ground and making that space, right?
Clearing out all the crap, right? You've accumulated a bunch of stories your entire life, but when you begin to say no, it does remind you of your own power.
And furthermore, it also gives other people permission to do the same. Before I left my corporate job, I started declining meetings and it overlapped with the time period where I just didn't care anymore.
But it was such an important revelation to me because when I started to decline meetings, because I wasn't an important presence, I wasn't needed.
It wasn't information that I needed to know. And I had the professional judgment to be able to differentiate between those two things.
It gave other people permission to do the same. Mm-hmm. And- Yeah. I think, as you said, there's a huge power in that, and this resistance and this rebellious nature and energy, you know, I've been really leaning into this lately with my programs, and I have a 45-day intensive that really focuses on this aspect of rebelling against these narratives, these internalized stories from capitalism, from patriarchy, from religion, from different cultures, right?
And it's, there are a lot of the same ones, but there's some, a few fun little flavors of this culture, that culture, this family system, or that family system, right, that create these stories, but one of the tools that I use with my clients is what I call small acts of rebellion, and this is the no, this is quieting those outer voices saying like, no, I'm not going to join you.
No, I'm I don't want to do that. So no. And it quiets those outside voices so that you can reorient your decision making inward so that you can listen and hear your own voice.
And so I just I wanted to point that out. And thank you for the reminder that this is a this is an established idea.
And again, we'll we'll reference all those books down below in the show notes. But OK, rapid fire section now, Megan.
So do you have any quick tips for someone who is interested in starting a deep rest practice, like a couple quick, quick things that they can do to sort of get themselves set up for success?
@1:02:43 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
I would say download the rest menu and skim through it. I think that's a really great way just to quickly orient yourself to what kind of rests exist and is available to you that maybe you've never thought about before.
Maybe you've never thought about this thing that you already do is actually. Actually a restful activity. And when you start to identify that you're already doing things that are restful for you, you can pretty quickly and easily change your frame of reference, change your intention about the activity and have a very different result.
So for painting, for a quick example, you might see like painting on the rest menu and then go, Oh my gosh, I paint all the time.
Like I didn't never thought about that as a restful activity. And the next time you, you know, sit at your easel, to paint, you set that intention.
Oh, for the next 30 minutes while I'm here painting, I'm practicing deep rest. And immediately you are going to have a more restful experience because you've opened up those channels, right?
You've opened up those doorways inside of yourself to allow the rest to trickle through. So I would say that's going to be a good, quick way to really expand your own inner framework for what it means to rest.
@1:03:56 - Meg Trucano
I love that. Okay. Definitely going to get that link from you so that everybody.
@1:04:00 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
You can check that out okay next rapid fire question knowing what you know now about deep rest about change all of it what would you tell your pre-burnout self don't worry about it girl it's gonna be fine I would say don't worry so much like it's you are on the right path every single step that you're taking is the right step and even when you're in the depths of burnout and you start questioning and judging every decision you made that led you to that point just remember that there's no such thing as mistakes mistakes are fake they're illusions that you can trust that every single choice that you made was perfect it was exactly the choice you needed to make on your individual journey so breathe relax you haven't made any mistakes everything is gonna be fine just keep listening to your intuition and putting one foot in front of the other that's so beautiful I love that all right final little that what advice would you have from either your
@1:05:00 - Meg Trucano
Or personal or professional experience to someone listening who wants to make a big, bold, bad- life change.
@1:05:09 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
Find somebody to guide you through the process. Have a guide and have a guide who can help you do the inner work of the transformation.
Because there are a lot of people out there who will help you do the external work, right? They'll help you create a new resume or like, here's a checklist to open your own business.
There's lots of skills and strategy out there, which are great. We need those things. But it's a little bit harder to find spaces where you can really be in the emotional, psychological, spiritual process of going through big transformation.
Like I said at the beginning, I have learned on my journey that the inner work is actually like 80% of the process.
So find somebody to hold your hand, to help shine a light, to guide you through the forest fire that is your internal transformation.
able work. the world. So Bye. And bonus tip, let it be fun, find the joy, find the delight, because it is fiery and it is can be intense, but it doesn't have to hurt, doesn't have to hurt, like it really can be so joyful and so fun and so transformative, but you're not going to find that if you're doing the work in isolation, you need to do this work in community with people who get it.
@1:06:23 - Meg Trucano
Ah, such beautiful advice. So thank you so much, Megan, for this conversation. It's been so powerful and love nerding out about coaching stuff and psychology and, and I know that the audience is going to be inspired to reconceptualize their own relationship with rest and use it as a tool to help themselves become more energized for any change that they want to make in their life.
@1:06:51 - Maegan Megginson (she/her)
So thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. This was such a delight.
@1:06:57 - Meg Trucano
Wonderful. Well, thank you for listening to the Changeology Podcast. And I will see you in the next one.