I don’t want to feel rested, I want to feel ALIVE.

How we got so focused on feeling better that we forgot how to feel vital, present, sensational.

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I've been so tired lately. We all have, right? The kind of tired that a solid night of sleep keeps at bay but doesn’t wash away.

But here's the weird thing I’ve noticed during our Art of Rejuvenation retreat this week:

No one has been talking about rest.

• They’re talking about letting go of jobs that ask too much and give too little.

• They’re swapping sneaky ways to trick their minds into letting go so they can drop into their bodies.

• One person said the best day they’ve had recently was running through the mountains, letting out wild screams from the depth of their being.

• And a few confessed how hard it is to feel fully free during embodiment practice. Like they are afraid their uninhibited expression will cause a wrinkle of disturbance to their neighbor.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m obsessed with sleep. If I don’t get enough, I’m a monster. I will preach the power of sleep to anyone who will listen. But our bodies don’t lie, and they seem to be asking for something more…

So I ran a mental experiment: If I got all the rest in the world — nine blissful hours every night for a month while also meeting all my deadlines — how would I feel? I think I'd still wake up feeling... Hollow. Empty. Like something essential was missing.

That's when it hit me:

We might be tired from doing too much. But we’re also undernourished from not enough of what makes us feel alive.

Our minds are buzzing — but our bodies are starving.

We scroll for hours but forget to breathe. We’re always on the move, but never connecting with where we are. We consume so much, but hardly taste anything.

Simultaneously, we've been taught that every feeling, every sensation, every divergence from "normal" is a problem to solve. Fix your anxiety. Heal your trauma. Optimize your morning routine. Here's a supplement for your burnout. Download this app to remind you to drink water because we can’t even trust ourselves to notice when we’re thirsty.

When in doubt, turn towards numbing behaviors (which can include rest). Because, god, feeling anything deeply is unacceptable.

We’ve taken the “solve, fix, accomplish” mindset that built capitalism and applied it to our inner world. Now even our nervous systems are on a performance plan. Meanwhile, we've completely forgotten the whole damn point of all this personal development, success, and yes, even rest: to actually enjoy being alive.

The synaptic groove of "what's wrong and how do I fix it?" is carved in granite. But "what's real and how do I feel it?" — that path is just a dusty legend of the good old days.

We don’t need another self-care hack.

We need to taste the damn moment so deeply we forget to measure it.

Years ago, I worked the early shift at a cafe in the Colorado mountains. I'd finish work at 2p, take a shower, and crawl into bed for a nap, thinking that was the healthiest thing I could do after walking 10k behind a deli counter. But I'd wake up in the evening groggy, dazed, and weirdly resentful. Like my body had curled inward instead of unfolding into rest.

So one day, I tried something different.

I walked across the street to the creek — a 30-inch-deep strip of crystal-clear, deceivingly inviting liquid ice. Even though it was summer, the water had been snow just hours before.

Before I could think, I jumped in. I emerged gasping. It was so cold I didn’t even have the awareness to properly curse. I lost my breath and my thoughts all at once.

I scrambled out again, trying to remind my body I wasn’t running from a bear. As my heart rate slowed, I looked around, mostly to check if anyone had seen my spastic exit. But the sky caught my attention. It was pure blue, not a cloud up there, just like before. But now it looked less like a ceiling, more like a deep expanse. My ears cocked to the magpie squawks; they had always been there, but were finally not drowned out by my thoughts. The aspens were doing their shimmery, fluttery thing. The wind made the hairs on my legs stand up. (No, I don’t shave my legs. Because I’m trying to be a wild animal, remember?)

And suddenly I was awake, alive, jazzed, PUMPED. Every inch of me was online. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to melt into the sun or get back in or go on a hike or give away everything I owned and hitch hike to the Himalaya.

But it didn’t really matter what I did, because I had found it. The feeling that none of my afternoon naps had given me.

I was rejuvenated and ready to live again.

Ok, Wim Hoff bros — I love you, but no. This is not just about the miraculous effects of cold exposure. Because I’ve had similar experiences in yoga, in breathwork, on hikes, while dancing on stage, getting ready for a costume party with my friends, trying very very hard to throw a clay mug, watching a giant bear trundle by my little house one Colorado night, cooking a slightly-burnt feast over a fire and under the stars. It’s not about intensity (though I will grudgingly admit intensity can be an express lane).

It’s about presence — the kind that drops you into sensation so sharp, so sweet, so real, your thoughts don’t stand a chance.

This is the skill we’ve forgotten. How to not just be here, but to savor here. To let this moment melt on your tongue. To grab reality with your teeth and not let it go. To receive the moment like a creature, not a computer.

So let’s go straight to the source.

Let’s stop trying to optimize every second of our existence and relearn how to participate in it instead.

Because sometimes it’s not rest we need. It’s realness, it’s raw sensation, it’s the reminder that we’re still alive in here.

… breathing break…

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