Why Rest Comes First

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back, listeners to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. I am Sana, and as you all know, this is the space where mental health gets practical, real, and human. Not theory, not pressure, just tools that actually work in everyday life. And listen, you know, I believe, um, I think most of us were never taught how to rest. We were taught how to push through, how to keep going, how to be useful, how to earn our place by how much we produce. But we were actually never taught how to rest. But rest and real rest isn't laziness. You know, it might be the most courageous thing we ever do. And to take us through that and to help us understand the importance of that, today I'm joined by a guest who has spent her career walking with women through emotional restoration, especially within the context of their families. Let me tell you, listeners, she is the author of The Loud Whispers, A Journey to Living and Loving Loudly. And she's developed a framework which is called The Four Hours of Emotional Restoration. So we are going to spend today sitting with the very first R, the one most people skip rest. Because in a hustle culture that treats stopping as a failure, rest is not just helpful. It's foundational. And without it, no real healing can begin. So, listeners, let's begin and let's welcome Hissa Fort Matonus. Hissa, welcome to the show, and I'm really honored having you here.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Thank you so much, Sina. Yes, I'm uh thrilled to be here and to really be able to have an opportunity to speak to your listeners about, as you said, this the key element in restoring ourselves from any kind of life transition. And it's it's something that is very close to my heart after kind of really stumbling upon it almost after 30 years of working with women and their families.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Absolutely, absolutely.

Rest And Self Worth

SPEAKER_00 2:36

No, that's really, really impressive, Hilsa. And I I want to start with something, especially the part of this, which I think it trips most women up before they even begin healing. You know, the way I started, I opened up the intro that we kind of have been taught that if you take rest, it's it's laziness, especially for women. Or maybe that stopping is a sign that we are not coping, that if we slow down, everything will fall apart. So, Hessa, from everything that you have seen in your work, what do you think is the biggest, biggest misconception that we are carrying about what actually rest is?

SPEAKER_02 3:24

I think it's at the at the foundation, seeing that's exactly what you're saying, that we live in this culture, particularly in the US, but I think in in many of the industrialized countries, that resting means that we're lazy, that we're being unproductive. It becomes almost, you know, a personal failure. And so that the idea of even pausing isn't something that we are taught, encouraged, anything like that. So that to me is the fundamental. Then you add to that, like as you were mentioning, the cultural components of, you know, for for many of us women, uh, we are often the caretakers of, you know, the families, whether it's our our current families, certainly our extended families. My my background is Hispanic Latino. And so the idea of taking care of the generations is very engraved in us as women. So it all becomes kind of convoluted in if we're stopping, it means we're not doing something, taking care of a duty, an obligation, a responsibility. And what I have found in working with so many women and their families over the years is that that idea of being lazy, unproductive, really transfers into our self-worth. So we don't do 24-7 at 150 miles an hour, then we are not good, not good as and worthy. And very often I have found Sina that that is at the bottom or at the at the core of many women's symptoms of depression, of anxiety, of of just having this a lack of or feeling that loss in in their life and in their life satisfaction. So it it's really kind of layered this idea of rest not being a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Yeah. Yeah. No, I really appreciate for because this is such an important reframe. Uh we look at you know, rest it's as as a reward for being productive, but it isn't. Um it's it's a foundation under underneath everything that you know we want to build and healing or Hilsa, but I also want to bring in your your relationship with rest, your own relationship with rest, because so much of the way we relate to it, it gets shaped early.

Family Culture And Achievement

SPEAKER_00 6:29

It gets actually mentioned by family culture, work, and the women who came before us. What was it like for you know the younger Hilsa before this work, before the framework, before the book?

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Well, it this the struggle is real, Sina, you know, and it and and what I've noticed is that it definitely this idea cuts across culture and and and religions and ethnicities. This idea, particularly for us as as women, that the need to have that reframe is is really important. The younger me was, you know, part of a well, I'm a child of immigrants. You know, my parents were political refugees um after the Cuban Revolution, so they came to the US and started over. So I come from a family in which resting of that kind definitely meant we were not going to be able to uh survive and definitely not be able to thrive. My father was an attorney in Cuba, he became an attorney again in the United States, he got two other degrees because my father always said he wasn't the type of person, he wasn't a laborer, he didn't know how to do things with his hands. My father was a scholar, that's what he knew how to do. So it was very ingrained in me as a child that you know more is better, and that we had to be able to stay on top of things, we had to be able to stay active and going. It was very much a part. Achievement was an important piece also. Again, as a child of immigrants, you know, all the pieces of paper that you can put on your wall, so to speak, the degrees or the certifications became very important as they were trying to reset their lives here in the US. So the the younger Hilsa came from that core um belief system that they already had some in in Cuba, in their country, but definitely when they landed here and had to start over. At the same time, it very much shaped my thinking and my perspective. The one piece I will share with you, Zina, is that my parents also had this philosophy of you work hard, but then you play hard. So my parents were dancers, and my parents entertained, and my parents enjoyed their the theirselves and you know, with and they had a large group of friends. So early on, I also saw the value in that, in the ability to play and to give yourself permission to play. So that was a that's a great question that you asked me because that's really kind of the foundation of as I started to work in my practice uh with women and their families, I I wanted to be able to encourage various aspects of rest. Because,

Passive Rest Versus Active Rest

SPEAKER_02 10:01

you know, there's the passive resting like sleeping or napping, but there could also be an active form of resting, which is enjoying a hobby or an interest that you like, doing something that the idea of resting is creating an intentional separation between life stressors and life's celebrations. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Absolutely also, absolutely. And and there's definitely a a uniqueness and something that I'm very sure many of our listeners they will connect with. And I think it's mostly determined by the culture, by our family as well. You know, both of these things, you know, because right from the childhood as as kids, for us, these two pillars or aspects, they are the ones, you know, where we probably spend our time the most. And for me as well, if I look back at my the you know memories and experiences back in childhood, um, that relentless keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing forward because you want to achieve something and it has to come at any cost. Arrest was looked down upon something as you know, something to earn.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yes. That's a good summary. Cena, really good summary. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

And as you're saying, it goes across cultures, religion, ethnicities, the that idea of moving forward and achievement has all to do with the concept of production. There there is this reframe of that there is productivity as defined in, you know, you rest, you recharge, you're able to reset, and therefore, when you re-engage, you come with a a lot more to to be able to offer.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

You know, step in your framework, and especially in the context of healing, you know, because most healing approaches just jump straight into doing the work. You know, for example, begin with a journal or begin with saying the affirmations, taking the action. Right. You start before all of that. Why? I mean, what is actually happening inside a woman and body and mind when she finally allows herself to rest after trauma or a major transition?

Rest After Trauma Hits

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Well, I think Cena, what happens in really any human being when they've been hit by some kind of an intense situation, whether it they it, you know, some kind of trauma, we typically are it's like a tidal wave, is the is the is the metaphor that I use a lot of times with my clients. It's like a tidal wave of emotions that hit us all at once. And it tends to knock us over, literally. If you've if you've ever been in the ocean and been hit by a wave when you weren't paying attention, right, it it knocks you down, it can knock you out. And so that the idea of really a allowing yourself to take in all the feelings that have happened. Because for me, the starting point of of any part of healing is really acknowledging, you know, and honoring what's happened. And I make a big distinction, Sina, between acknowledging, right, taking a look at, wow, look at this situation, whatever that is, betrayal, you know, a huge loss, whether it's death, divorce, whatever it is, I encourage people to really just take it in for a minute. And that taking it in is about honoring. And I make a distinction between that and dwelling. I'm not asking anybody to dwell or to ruminate on what's happened, you know, that. However, without looking at where you've been and how all of that has happened, it's very difficult to clearly see and be able to pivot into where you would like to go and who you would like to be as you are moving in a in a different direction. So resting for me is all about that. We're allowing ourselves to just kind of pause, take in what's happened, uh, you know, soothe ourselves in whatever way that that that, you know, hopefully healthier ways, right? Because we we know that there are unhealthy ways to to soothe ourselves and numb ourselves, but there's a there there can be a a balance and a counterbalance in there. And so to me, that allows us the preparation then to go into the next one of my R's, the second R, which is reflection. And that's what you were talking about, where maybe I start to encourage the use of some tools like journaling, like you know, whether it's reading or or listening to podcasts. So it's it's where you start to ask yourself some of the hard questions. How did I get here? What happened? Uh, what was my part in all of this mess that I find myself? Those are what I call the the hard questions that that we look at. And when you ask yourself, you know, see some of those hard questions, at some point it's it's tiring, you know, it's uh exhausting, right? So then we have to go back to, in in my mind, in my framework, I encourage then, well, whenever something has really hit us again, the tidal wave has hit you, then we have to rest again. So the process of going back and forth between reflecting and resting to me is critical. Like you said, we don't want, I don't, I want to encourage people to go through the process of healing at their pace, you know, in in their in their way. And and sometimes we're on a journey and we get tired, right? We have to rest, we have to, you know, take a, you know, right? They do rest stops on the side of the highways and those kind of things. It's kind of like that for me. So the the first two R's between resting and reflecting is something that I encourage people to go back and forth from and to.

The Four Rs Of Restoration

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Because each piece, right? Each piece of healing requires energy, requires motivation, requires just just the perseverance and all of that kind of emotional work can be physically as well as emotionally exhausting.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

No, I I I mean it's it's beautiful and uh it's not as a single breakthrough. And and the women who walk this path discover that they're not building something new, uh someone new. They are coming home to who they always, you know, have been, they were underneath all of all of that weight.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yes, that's what I hope to inspire is that people reconnect with their self, you know, the the one Cena, the self with the capital S. That you reconnect with that. And many times that part, that self has been dimmed, has been a you know, uh pushed aside a for a variety of different reasons uh that that we life experiences and so forth. And so I I really I see my part in someone's journey as trying to help them kind of rediscover that sense of self, which includes most most prominently includes finding your voice, rediscovering your voice. What who is it that you are, who were you, where did your dreams go? What what would you like to do now? And so my my four Rs are about walking through whatever the traumatic situation or event was, instead of kind of as you were saying before, avoiding them. You know, we want to go, if it's been a betrayal, we want to jump right back into dating and let's keep looking for the the one. If it's been a disappointment with a friend or with a job situation, again, we want quick movement. More is better, and quicker is better. And I really, you know, my process is about slowing things down and taking a moment, you know, to honor all the parts of it so that when you go into my other two steps of resetting and then re-engaging, you're going in more intentionally, Cena. You're going in with the potential of having drawn lessons, right? Because many of us learn lessons in pain, right? Or through pain. We don't see that at first. We don't, we don't see the lessons, we don't see the potential gifts as as I call them. Whenever I mention that to a client, that you're gonna see some gifts at the end of this. They're usually horrified when I tell them that there's gonna be anything good that could come from their current state. And yet you draw the lessons, you intentionally make different choices so that when you're pivoting, you now have a fuller idea of who you are and you know what these situations are are, how they're gonna be part of your wisdom, let's say, instead of instead of defining you in in negativity, they can be part of your wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

That's my goal.

Where To Find Hilsa

SPEAKER_00 21:24

So, Hazat, for our listeners uh who want to stay close to your work, explore the four hours framework in details, and even your book as well, the loud whispers, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Sina, you can find me on Instagram. I am uh my handle is at tough love healer, and that has its own stories of how my clients helped me to come up with that name because my perspective is one to lovingly help you through the journey, but I'm also gonna give you a little push here and there. So it's Tough Love Healer. I'm on Facebook as Hilsafort uh Martinez, I'm on LinkedIn. My website, hilsafort.com, definitely gives you a little bit broader perspective of who I am. The book, the my my book, The Loud Whispers, was really uh a work of of kind of a culmination of my uh 30 plus years of of, like I said, working with women and their families and really wanting to have another format, another way that that people can really understand and reconnect with their voice because we walk around feeling misunderstood and and and muted and and we overfunction to just kind of keep up. But they can find my book through my website as well as I'm on Amazon. I am honored that I'm a best seller on Amazon, and so I I would love any feedback that any of you or your listeners would love to offer me.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Amazing, amazing. And listeners, I'll have all the links mentioned in the show notes. So yeah, I encourage all of you to check out Hilsa's four hours framework and also access and uh check out her book, The Loud Whispers, and connect with her on Instagram. And yes, if something in this conversation it gave you permission to rest, even a little, please take it. Don't wait until you have earned it because you don't have to. And do share this episode with especially another woman who has been carrying too much for too long, because sometimes the most loving thing we can hand someone is a reminder that rest is allowed. And Hilsa, thank you so much for this such a real and warm conversation.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Thank you, Sina, so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. Anytime I can chat with people who are like-minded and and just want to be able to offer resources, I am honored. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

And listeners, thank you so much for being here. And yes, this is Sana, and you have been listening to Healthy Mind, Healthy Life. Take good care of yourself today, and I will be back soon with another episode. Thank you so much.