Deep Rest Is Impossible in the West

Why Deep Relaxation is Biologically Unsafe Under Capitalist Conditions

I'm in the middle of discovering an entirely different way to live—a mode where I let myself be animated by enthusiasm instead of that joyless taskmaster in my head screaming about to-do lists and overdue milestones.

What does my enthusiasm want when it's not being bullied by survival mode?

Apparently, it’s to lay very, very still and do absolutely nothing.

I had a hunch this lifestyle would suit me. I’d tasted its bliss on a 10-day meditation retreat. And I was slightly terrified of tasting it again because something in me knew that if I did without external structures to support me, my life and all my responsibilities would collapse like a house of cards.

It turns out I was 100% correct.

Which is precisely why I spent five years engineering my escape route before attempting this experiment in human-scale living.

Here’s what I’ve discovered so far: We've been systematically gaslit in the West into thinking that our stress and inability to relax are personal failings and character defects requiring individual solutions.

They are not. Here’s why.

My Accidental Meditation Retreat

Since moving to Southeast Asia, my days have naturally settled into a rhythm that would make any efficiency expert weep:

• 10:00am: Wake up blissed out and at peace in my body. Lie in bed savoring that feeling for an hour, maybe drift back to sleep.

• 11:00am: Do 50 minutes of vinyasa yoga in my living room.

• 11:50am: Bask in endorphins for an hour on the couch. Maybe nap some more.

• 12:50pm: Cook and eat my first meal of the day.

• 1:30pm: Rest and digest for another hour. Maybe sleep again.

• 2:30pm: Start working.

• 4:30pm: Eat some fruit.

• 4:45pm: Work some more.

• 6:45pm: Cook and eat my second meal.

• 7:15pm: Rest and digest for 30 minutes. Maybe fall asleep (yes, again).

• 7:45pm: Work, write, play, create, spiral into spiritual inquiry. Dealer’s choice.

• 3:00am: Snack and sleep.

Lighting is warm and dim, social interaction is minimal, caffeine is banned, and the food is fresh, keto, and cooked by human hands.

Sometimes yoga gets swapped for a jog. But that’s it. This is the schedule that emerged when I stopped letting capitalism plan my day.

My day mirrors the routines I've enjoyed on meditation retreats.

Every rest period is spent in silence or listening to peaceful audiobooks from spiritual teachers. My four hours of work feel like "selfless service." Meals are prepared with presence and focus.

I accidentally created this schedule by following what felt good instead of what felt productive. And I'm absolutely loving it.

But I had to engineer a five-year-long escape plan to safely access it, and I shouldn’t have had to.

No one should have to.

The Last Time I Lived Like a Human: The Summer of 2011

There was a brief window—summer holidays between high school and university—when this kind of rhythm felt natural.

I was on the educational conveyor belt and thus mentally at peace, figuring I was on track to accomplishing whatever the hell I was supposed to be accomplishing.

I spent this summer bicycling to my part-time job at a pie shop, coming home, and spending hours playing Elder Scrolls in blissful solitude.

A retiree coworker once asked how I looked so good, and I told her the truth: "I lounge around most of the day," I explained, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

Which it was. Animals live this way, and they are obviously more sane than us.

If I'd known these months were going to be the last I'd experience this peace for about 13 years, perhaps I would have appreciated them more.

How Civilization Slowly Poisoned My Nervous System

By the time my first semester of university rolled around, I was too busy being dizzied by relationship drama to access any of this natural rhythm again. Then came a PhD, followed by a mortgage—each new obligation pulling me further from that summer of peaceful dungeon crawling.

Not only did I have to worry about my academic performance to have a career, I needed that career to work out to pay to keep a roof over my head.

Yes, I can hear myself—what I'm describing is some version of the average person's life. But that’s the point. This is what passes for "normal."

With the piling on of these obligations, I strayed further and further from being able to access the peace of that summer. Before long, natural rest and relaxation were only accessible in artificial form through copious amounts of alcohol and weed.

This worked for a while. But that healthy glow my coworker observed? Long gone.

I became fat, gassy, and was slowly destroying my health. Although none of this bothered me much because my ego quickly became infatuated with my hard work and growing intelligence.

In essence, I traded off vitality for achievement. But I shouldn’t have had to.

I’ll repeat: No one should have to.

The “Soft Girl” Rebellion

I’ve recently begun seeing women on TikTok talking about the battle it takes to earn the "soft girl life,” and they’re not wrong.

You don’t glide into this lifestyle I’m now living. You claw your way into it, bloodied and panting, holding a half-finished vision board and your sixth coffee of the day.

Something wiser in me began plotting my escape in 2020 when an old connection described his freelancing life in Bali—private chefs and beachside views, all for writing online.

I could write. I'd been doing it drunk at 2am for years.

So I took the courses, built the skills, and fused academic prowess into my work. Five clumsy years of business-building later, and here I am—in Vietnam, working online, living exactly that life.

Having quit my stable job, I’ve surrendered to the fact that I'm now priced out of my home country. In exchange, I’ve now crested Soft Girl Mountain—I’m still panting on its ledge (i.e., catching up on sleep).

Was it worth it? Abso-fucking-lutely.

But I'm still furious that this level of upheaval was necessary to access basic human functioning.

This meditation retreat lifestyle I’m living is doubling as a self-imposed rehab, where I’m deprogramming ten years of survival conditioning.

I’m reconditioning survival habits like…

• reaching for stimulants under the guise of productivity instead of pausing to eat something nutritious;

• working at the speed of light when I don't have to; and

• feeling guilty for taking a day off instead of diving headfirst into my to-do list.

My current rehabilitation goal? Slowing down to chew my food properly.

Yes, my need for speed has been so pervasive that I've been eating like a panicked duck my entire adult life, wolfing down whatever was in front of me to "get back to work"—a habit which has contributed to a lifetime of digestive problems.

I’m retraining myself in the extreme. It feels both pathetic—like I'm a domesticated animal learning to be wild again—and revolutionary.

The Gaslighting Industrial Complex

This is the part where I get angry.

Every self-help book, every wellness app, every "five-minute meditation" suggests that our inability to relax is a personal failing requiring individual solutions.

Practice gratitude. Try this breathing technique. Mindfully sip your coffee first thing in the morning (which is ironic, considering caffeine is part of the problem).

These interventions are the equivalent of trying to clean up a tsunami with a mop. They're a gaslight served with a scented candle, shifting blame to individuals trapped in a system that's fundamentally hostile to human life.

We've built a civilization where basic human needs—rest, community, purpose that isn't tied to survival—have become luxury items available only to those who can afford to opt out entirely.

The West has convinced us that if we can't function optimally within this framework, we're the problem. But the truth? The framework itself is insane.¹

Concluding Thoughts From Soft Girl Summit

Not every moment of the last 13 years was bad. I grew. I achieved. I built discipline.

But when I reached the peak of those ventures and realized all that was ahead of me was the promise of more of the same, I had an existential crisis. I'm just lucky I had my freelancing business to catch me.

I'm not advocating that everyone flee to Southeast Asia like I have. But I am suggesting we stop pretending that our collective inability to rest is a character defect.

Young people resigning to be NEETs aren't lazy—they're having a rational response to an irrational system. The American dream isn't inspirational—it's a painful lie wrapped in motivational quotes.

And remember: We used to live in extended families, sharing resources and responsibilities. Now, we isolate ourselves in nuclear units, strangling ourselves with individual mortgages while wondering why community feels impossible.

The West has created a system where rest becomes suspicious, where productivity is virtue, and where basic human rhythms are treated as character defects. We've been sold the idea that if we can't relax within this framework, we need better time management skills.

From this new vantage point—Soft Girl Summit—I can assure you this is all a lie.

I've got much more to say about this, but I'm not in a rush. I'm still trying to get my breath back after playing Sisyphus for the last 13 years.

So if you'll excuse me, I have a very important nap to attend to.

---

Wasn’t that a doozy? That’s what happens when I get mad!

If this post made you a little mad too, then you’re exactly who I write for. Subscribe to The Aussie Mystic for more psycho-spiritual scoldings, soft girl dispatches, and the occasional nap-fueled revelation today.

1. Maté, G. (2022). The myth of normal: Trauma, illness and healing in a toxic culture. Knopf Canada.