80. How We Rest: Questioning Enough, Doing Less, and Emotions with Omari Richins
I’m back with another episode of How We Rest, the series where I have conversations with different folks in public health about their experience with rest. This week, I’m joined by friend and colleague Omari Richins and he is sharing his experiences with doing less, reflecting on emotions, and getting more rest in his life.
Omari Richins is the host of the Public Health Careers Podcast and Founder of The Public Health Millennial, an online platform focused on helping public health students and professionals navigate their public health journeys by sharing helpful insights, tips, and tricks. He has some helpful perspectives and insights into how we can think about rest differently and integrate it into our lives more and is here to share these with us this week.
Join us this week and hear more about Omari’s journey with rest and some of the mindsets that have been helpful in helping him harness his emotions to access rest. Omari shares some of the ways he is creating more mental and emotional rest for himself, why the way rest looks to you now is likely to change depending on the context of your life, and his advice for creating more rest in your life.
If you want to take this work deeper and learn the tools and skills to feel better, all while having my support and guidance each step of the way, I invite you to set up a time to chat with me. Click here to grab a spot on my calendar and I can’t wait to speak to you!
Coming soon! New Course: How the Patriarchy Robs You of Your Rest (And how to get it back!). Join the waitlist to be the first to know when this course is out!
What You Will Discover:
The importance of knowing when to take a step back and acknowledge if something is actually serving you.
Some reasons that trying to create change and implement boundaries for ourselves can feel so uncomfortable.
How rest can be both disconnection and reconnection.
The importance of giving ourselves time to reflect on our circumstances and how this can contribute to rest.
Some of the biggest challenges Omari has faced around rest.
One of the reasons we tend to chase productivity and goals.
How rest has changed for Omari since the pandemic.
Resources:
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Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for public health professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Well, hello everyone, welcome back to the special How We Rest series where I sit down and have conversations with different folks in public health to talk about their experience with rest so you all can see that rest is unique and personal to you. And it’s not static or confined, it’s fluid, and unlimited, and abundant. So today I’m sitting down with a friend and colleague of mine, Omari Richins to talk about his experience with rest. He is the founder of the Public Health Millennial which he’ll share more about and share more about some of the changes happening over there.
And today we talk about rest in so many capacities, from disconnecting, to reconnecting, talking about consistency and inconsistency, asking the question what is enough. And really thinking about harnessing emotions to access rest especially for men who are socialized to resist and avoid emotions and think they are weak. So, no matter who you are, no matter what part of public health you work in you are going to get something out of this episode, I promise. So, with that, no further ado, let’s go.
Marissa: Hi everyone, I am so, so glad you’re tuning in because I’m finally, and I say finally because I’ve been on his podcast twice. So, it’s only time that I invite him over here to our community, have Omari on the show to talk about who he is and what he does. But also, his experience with rest which I know will be an amazing conversation. So, Omari, do you want to tell folks who you are, what you do and maybe a tiny bit about your public health background?
Omari: Absolutely. Well, firstly, thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to come on your podcast, your show to share my story and my insights with your audience. I definitely listen to your podcast, I listened to the last two news episodes, I kind of like binged them, but I appreciate that. But my name is Omari Richins, Omari Richins MPH if you want to be more formal. I am the founder of the Public Health Millennial which is an online platform focused on helping people navigate the public health journeys.
Some of the notable parts of the platform is my Instagram account @thephmillennial and The Public Health Careers Podcast which has changed name. So, it’s not going to be called the Public Health Careers Podcast.
Marissa: Wait, what, this is news to me. Breaking news, everyone. You heard it first here.
Omari: Absolutely. And I know this is actually a great time to interview me about rest because currently I am taking a rest from my podcast while I’m rebranding and refocusing which I think we’ll get more into what I define rest as, as we get into this interview. So, I also work as a health improvement program officer for the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, and that’s in North Carolina. In that work I work deeply in community to improve health and wellbeing, focusing on groups that have been marginalized, using an equity and population health lens.
Through the Trust, Healthy Places North Carolina Initiative I am engaging with the residents in some of North Carolina’s most vibrant, yet underserved communities to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table in improving their community’s health and wellbeing. And to give you a little backstory about my public health journey, I kind of fell into public health. And just to backtrack on that, I think I began public health, and reflecting on my story I think I began public health a lot earlier than going into my master’s of public health.
Being someone who’s a third culture kid, which is someone that lived outside of their parents’ predominant culture during their childhood, I have learned a lot of cultural competence, cultural humility. And that has allowed me to really have a real world focus on public health and a broad, and expansive, and understanding lens that I take on the work regardless. I fell into public health after my bachelor’s degree, planning to go to medical school, applied to master’s in medical sciences programs, got rejected from three of the four of them.
Didn’t want to take a gap year which in hindsight I would recommend you take a gap year if you need to. But thankfully I was able to find a degree in public health, decided to pursue my master’s in public health at the University of Florida. I got a concentration in health management and policy which is now called population health management. During my time at UF I worked for the council doing a lot of different parts of community health needs assessments.
I worked for Florida World Health Association and the Suwannee River AHEC in the creation of documents, contrasting role and urban health in Florida. I was also the president of the Public Health Student Association at the University of Florida. And when I graduated from my MPH I was lucky and fortunate to get a community health fellowship at the Mat-Su Health Foundation in Wasilla, Alaska where I was 14 months before I came across North Carolina where I currently reside. So that’s just a little bit about me and my public health journey.
Marissa: Alright. And actually, you have an episode on your podcast where you talk more in detail which I think would be great for folks to hear, particularly folks who maybe are interested in working for a trust or a foundation and what that looks like. I was on that episode with you, and we talk a lot about that. So, we’ll link that. So, if anyone’s interested in hearing more about Omari’s journey specifically around that work we’ll link that in the show notes.
But you alluded to it a little bit that you’re in a period of rest right now. You just shared some of your journey which sounds jampacked, you’ve done a lot. So, where you are right now what does rest mean to you and if you could share a little bit about how you’re practicing that right now?
Omari: Yeah. So broadly speaking rest is my way of disconnecting. It’s my way, I recharge, and I reconnect with myself. Rest is how I reconnect with my purpose and focus on what are the important few to make me most effective. Rest is disconnecting from my work phone and laptop after 5:00pm unless I expect something important which a lot of the times you can respond the next day. It’s really not that urgent. Rest is play, rest is joy, rest is growth. So, my thought of rest are expansive. And I can talk a little bit about what rest means for me and my platform, the Public Health Millennial.
As I alluded to earlier, my podcasts are on hold right now while I’m rebranding. And I took this time to rest because typically I would, even if I don’t have episodes in the queue for a week, I would force myself to try to get an episode out that week. And that is very stressful not only on the recording side, the editing side and putting up things onto the website and whatnot. But just very tasking and emotionally tasking and draining. So, I said, “I’ve been doing this podcast for over 100 episodes, so I don’t know how long it’s been.”
It started sometime during the pandemic to the beginning part of the pandemic. And I just know that yes, I’ve done a lot of work but a lot of the times I’m just head down in it. And I think in order to really be most effective and most impactful in what I’m doing, it’s important for me to take some time to rest, to refocus, to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on, and how I can really approach this in a more restful way, in a more efficient way.
And even to that point, while I’m taking this restful period, I’m building out all the systems, all the infrastructure that I didn’t build while I was doing this for the last two years as well as getting other people who can help me do the task, that I don’t find restful but is necessary for everything that I do. And I think that is one big thing that I’m trying to learn a lot in my life right now is not everything has to be a yes for myself, especially on my platform which at first it was. I built everything, website, podcast, everything.
But now I’m in a space where I don’t need to do everything. There are a lot of students and other public health people who are out there who would like this experience, who would like to support this platform and help it grow. So, rest has played an important part in me reflecting on that and taking a step back to say, “Okay, how do I want to show up on this podcast? How do I want to be most effective in this work that I’m doing?”
Marissa: Yeah, oh my gosh. I was taking so many notes because so many things you said just stick out to me that I think a lot of people can relate to is feeling like what you’re doing is so forced. And even though you have a mission, when we’re in public health we have a mission, we care. But we are forcing ourselves to just go, go, go, and have our head down and we don’t even get to be present and enjoy. And I love what you said at the beginning about rest can be both disconnection and reconnection. Rest can be disconnecting from something, and rest can be reconnecting to something.
And that is so, so powerful. And I think what comes along with that is the last thing you said around realizing that you don’t always have to be the yes person. I think many of us in public health who want to help people have a really hard time saying no, or delegating, or asking for help. It comes from a good place often, but it really gets us in ‘trouble’ because then we put ourselves last. And that can be a hard realization to come to and it can be uncomfortable to start changing that. But that can really create rest for yourself.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And I think back to the time when I was in Alaska and to the point, I didn’t have an episode for my podcast, but I wanted to release one. I wanted to be consistent. And I recorded an episode at 4:00am Alaska time and worked right after that to edit it and get it uploaded and do all the other things. But in hindsight if I took a week to do that and just took that period to rest I think I’d have been more effective in not only getting that episode out and feeling great about it, but in everything else that went going forward with the platform.
Marissa: There’s lots of things I’m consistent about but there’s so many things in my life I am inconsistent as fuck about. And I think this whole narrative that you always have to be consistent to be successful can be so toxic. Yeah, being consistent can be great and it can help you but being inconsistent isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be a problem. And I think striving to always be consistent, I see that a lot with people I work with around routines, morning routines, nighttime routines, hobbies.
And the amount of stress that we can cause ourselves by trying to force ourselves to be ‘consistent’ which I think sometimes is masking as trying to be perfect. It’s just perfectionistic tendencies. And letting go of that can be so freeing.
Omari: Yeah, and I agree with that because I think back to the beginning of this year when I was setting goals for myself and one of the things that I wanted to do was journal every day, meditate every day and that became more of a task than something that was actually helping and benefitting me. So now I have the mantra that I will journal daily. I don’t meditate daily but I meditate, and I journal often. And I think that mindset has been helpful for me.
If I miss a day, if I miss two days, which I try not to miss but it’s okay because I know that I’m still making progress towards who I want to be and do the things that I need to do right now to put me in that position, to be best. So, I think a lot of times as you said, we want to be consistent with everything, but consistency can be draining sometimes. And I think knowing when to take that step back and say, “Is this actually benefitting me or is this more of something that’s going to lead me into this consistent burnout?”
Marissa: Yes, I love what you said about shifting just the language from daily or always too often. What a shift just doing that does for our mindset and how we set intention. And I also think, yeah, when something turns into a task, we’re losing the presence of it. We’re losing the enjoyment of it. We’re losing some of the benefit of it when we force it so much that it just becomes this tedious task rather than something we’re choosing to do for ourselves because of whatever reasons. You want to reconnect with yourself. You want to slow down. You want to be present, whatever the reasons are.
Omari: Absolutely, agree with that.
Marissa: So, for you and this changes over time, we all have our journeys with rest but for you what have been some of the challenges for prioritizing rest and giving yourself permission to rest that you’ve faced and how have you navigated that?
Omari: The biggest challenge I would say is knowing what is enough.
Marissa: My gosh, don’t we all struggle with that?
Omari: Yes. And I’ll allude to a book that I’ve read that I think really shifted my perspective on rest, albeit later on. But going back to the question, knowing what is enough and disconnecting from that daily grind to focus on the greater goals and greater alignment. Which gives you direction and allows you to say, “Hell yes, or fuck yes to this.” As opposed to saying, “I don’t really want to do it, but I’ve got to do it.” And I think that also highlights the point of knowing what to say, “Fuck no,” to and which is a hard task to do. It takes practice but I think that is important.
And I believe as someone who’s a high achiever like many of the high achievers out there, knowing the importance of small actions and how they add up is important. And it can be hard to see past those small actions and knowing when to take time to be restful because I didn’t have to build 100 episodes in my podcast and all of this from just being stressed and doing this daily but really knowing that the small actions, whether they are small actions with rest in there. Well, there should be rest in your small actions.
But focusing on those small actions to know that you’re moving the ball forward and you don’t have to be doing these grand gestures or grand projects, or finishing big things to know that you’re moving forward. And that’s hard to see a lot of the times especially as a high achiever, someone that wants to do a lot with their lives, you really have to sit down and reflect, and give yourself time to think about things outside of all those small actions, or routines, or habits that you’re doing to say, “Are these the things that I want to say fuck yes to?”
And are these the things that are going to make me be the person that I want to become?
Marissa: Yeah. I also think we don’t even celebrate the small actions we do take. We are so socialized to only focus on the big accomplishments, or the end goals. And so, we’re in such a hurry and rush to get there. And as someone like an entrepreneur and new business owner I’m seeing this show up as I grow my business too where I’m noticing, I’m in such a rush to get to that big end goal because I’ve been told that’s all that matters. And I’m missing celebrating all of these other wins along the way from the smaller tasks that do matter, and I could have more enjoyment if I did that.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And I think going back to that point of focusing on the big goals. When I started off my Instagram platform, it was like, okay, let’s get to 1,000 followers, let’s get to 5,000 followers. And I’ve gotten there but it doesn’t materially change anything in my life. So, it’s like was that really the goal or is it just to be impactful? And I think as I’ve learned just to be more impactful that is more important than these big things that we put on like, okay, let me get to this number or this metric, or whatever the case might be.
And yes, sometimes it’s good to use as gauges of our impact. But there’s so many other things that we can use for gauges in our impact that don’t require specific metrics and things like that.
Marissa: Yeah. I think we’re also sold this idea that once we achieve x goal whether it’s a certain amount of following, or a degree, or a certain job title then magically everything will be better in our life, we’ll magically feel better. Everything will magically be easier and so we do chase that, and we get there and it’s like not much is different. And it’s like part of the work is detaching from that idea and seeing that what changes our experiences is what we choose to change within ourselves.
And oftentimes doing the work towards a big goal forces you to change and do the work on yourself, so it happens through that process anyway. But I think we’ve just got to be careful with believing that once we get x, y, and z we’ll just magically be better, magically be fixed, magically be perfect, everything will be easier, and I think it’s just a fallacy.
Omari: Yeah. And I think the important part there is focusing on the present, being present, understanding that what you’re doing now means something. And you’re always going to be chasing something if you’re thinking that I’m not happy right now, but this thing is going to make me happy. Because when you get to that thing your goalpost is going to change or something is going to change.
And it leaves you in a space where you’re just continually unhappy because you’re not meeting the new expectation that you’re setting for yourself as opposed to reflecting and saying, “I’ve done all these great things, where I am right now, I am happy. I enjoy he process to get here and continue to enjoy the process to move forward.” But not really focusing so much on the goal but focusing on the actions that get you moving forward.
Marissa: Yeah. I mean I think that goes back to what you were saying at the beginning of this question of what is enough. Because I think part of the reason we chase productivity and chase goals is because once we get where we want to go we just move the marker. And then it’s never enough.
Omari: Yeah. I’m on the cusp of getting 30,000 downloads on my podcast on podcast players. And I feel no different than I was when I got a 1,000 downloads on my podcast. So, I’m just putting that out there to say really, really appreciate where you are in life and what you have accomplished right now. And you will be happy and that’s all [inaudible] and that you don’t have to chase those other things because they’re just illusions. And happiness and rest, present things, you have to actively practice to become better. And I think that’s the perspective you should have.
Marissa: Totally. I mean no one on their deathbed’s like, “I wish I would have gotten more Instagram followers.” They’re like, “I wish I would have taken more time for myself. I wish I would have been present with my family.” It’s just hard to remember that. When we live in this world that is focused on hustle, hustle, hustle, do, do, do, compete with everyone, all of that stuff. So, where you are right now, taking a break and where you are in your career, what does rest look like for you? What are some ways you’re getting rest, and specifically creating more mental and emotional rest for yourself?
Omari: Yeah. And going back to how I think life is stressful just generally speaking. I think habits and routines are important but there’s a boundary to using this habit and routine that it’s helpful and beneficial. And filling your cup up as opposed to using it as something that you just do it because you do it. But one of the things that I try to strive to do is have some sort of routine or habit, things like being active often which is typically five days a week, that can be hiking, walking, running, going to the gym etc., etc.
I try to do some morning walks I think without my phone of course. And I think just being able to reflect on the time and be appreciative for everything that is happening right now. Being able to breathe, and walk, because I think we take a lot of things for granted. And then going back to the things I mentioned earlier, meditating often, journaling often, aiming to get seven hours of sleep often. Sometimes I drive to work with no music on or just drive with no music on generally. And I think that is very good to just reflect and let your thoughts go.
Because we are bombarded by so many different stimuli in our life, I think it’s important for us to have space for restful thoughts and going back to the play part. I think having play in your life, whatever that looks like for you. For me I like to watch podcasts, and financial educational videos. And that’s my rest there which is very interesting in itself. But that’s how I feel rejuvenated. And I also watch a lot of soccer or football, depending on where you’re from, not American football, European football.
I also play a lot of football. So those are different ways that I get rest currently. And one other thing that I’d like to just share here, so currently I just went to the doctor, osteopathic doctor with my feet, because my shins have been hurting. I potentially have a stress fracture in my shin, so I’m getting an MRI in the next two weeks or so. So, I think rest is going to be defined a lot differently for me potentially if the MRI shows what they think is there. Because then that changes my whole outlook on what is happening in my life, how I could be active and these different kinds of things.
So, it’ll be interesting to see what rest is classified for me in the next coming weeks, hopefully my MRI doesn’t come back as bad as I think it would. But just preparing for the worst and realizing that though this seems bad, it’s an opportunity for me to do other things that I was not able to do because I was focusing so much on wellness and things like that. Granted, it is very important focusing on your wellness and that plays a huge part in life.
But knowing that this gives me the opportunity to stay home and actually literally rest more and focus on other things like writing and other things like that that I think are also very good for just your health and overall wellbeing.
Marissa: I think that’s a good example and a good reminder that rest is a journey and it’s fluid. What rest looks like is going to change over time when you maybe have kids for the first time, your rest is going to change. If you’re in school your rest is going to change. If you move across the country, if you get a certain type of job where you’re more out in the field, it is fluid, it changes depending on the context of your life and what you’re going through and the stages of life.
So being open to that and being flexible it can be just really helpful in making sure you can continue to get rest. The other thing you said around financial learning and literacy being a form of rest. I think is such a good example that rest is unique and specific to each person. It doesn’t fit in the box, we’ve been sold that it has to be a sport, and it has to be a vacation. It can be unique to you. And some things you find restful other people aren’t going to find restful and vice versa. And that’s totally okay.
Omari: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I know there’s a question that you’re probably going to ask like how has rest changed for me? And I guess I could dive into that.
Marissa: Yeah, dive into that.
Omari: Yeah, because I think rest has drastically changed for me especially during the pandemic. The pandemic, it made it very hard, but it also created a lot of opportunities for that self-reflection and for me to figure out what’s important, what to say fuck yes to and different things like that. So, rest for me during my MPH program and I would say prior to that, undergrad into my MPH program was alcohol and happy hours, boardgames, intramural sports, videogames, watching soccer games, running.
And then the pandemic came, well, I graduated when the pandemic came and really shifted things for me. And one book that I think was really influential in shaping how I think about rest and doing rest, the actions of rest has been Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I think is a book that everyone should read. And just to give a quick summary. So essentially he talks about the balancing act of everything you say yes to. That means that the other things you’re going to have to say no to.
And therefore, it’s important that what you say yes to should be a hell yes to because you want to have a discipline pursuit of less. And the less is going to be better because it’s going to be less, that’s focused on the essential few that are really going to make you happy, drive forward your life and things like that. So, he breaks the book into three different parts, explore, eliminate, and execute.
So, the explore phase is just reflecting, understanding that play is important, understanding that sleep is important because those are all things that allow us, and our bodies, and our psychological needs to really reset and us to really understand, okay, what are the things that are important to us? And he talks about the eliminate which is clarifying what is a hell yes in your life and what is a hell no? Say and understanding that saying no is hard, it takes effort and practice.
And I mean practice is a thing there because a lot of us, we want to say no to things but it’s just hard because we’re just used to saying yes. So, you really have to practice on it. And this book also talks about the focus on uncommitting. So, you might have been doing things that you think were helpful to you but then when you reflect you’re like, “This isn’t really what is important in my life right now to get me where I need to be.” So, creating boundaries, creating limits, and knowing what your freedom is.
And then the last part of the book really talks about execution on the things that you want to say yes to. So, making essential decisions and subtracting things in life that aren’t important. So, creating a system for small wins to take you far. And really focusing on what are the essential few that are really going to guide me to whatever big impacts, or whatever focus in your life is. So, for example for me, when I left Alaska during the pandemic I left my video games.
I sold my Xbox. I was like, “I don’t need this. This takes up too much time in my life.” That isn’t important for the goals that I want to achieve. So, I said no to that. And I said yes to financial education videos and stuff like that. That really not only just helps me to just – I don’t want to feed back to what my finances is. But just, I don’t know, what about financial education is just so restful for me. And I just can sit down and just watch it for days. And not to say I’m getting tangible things from a lot of the information because I think a lot of the times it is more educational than informational.
But just reflecting on that and just how much joy that brings me in my life right now. And that could change but I think those are important. So, rest for me right now as I mentioned earlier is focusing more on introspective stuff, getting some movement, whether hiking, soccer, gym, doing meditation often, doing journal often. And one thing I like to focus on when I’m journaling is we are all in places in our lives, what is some advice that you would give to someone in your position?
And that’s usually my journal prompt. So, whatever I’m challenged with is like, if Marissa was in my position, what advice would I give her? And I just write that down and that is able to really help me to reflect and understand, is this what I want to use my time for? Are these things important? And another part of the journaling that I think is really important for my rest is journaling about my feelings and my thoughts. And really understanding where these feelings and thoughts are coming from, understanding, are they reasonable?
Is this a fixed mindset that is stopping me from understanding things in a more progressive way? So really just understanding that life has socialized us in one way, and it doesn’t always have to be that way. So really challenging beliefs and everything like that I think is important. And has taught me just how important it is to reflect because in life we’re just go, go, go. And we need to just take time to sit back and relax and say, “Okay, I had this thought, and this made me feel this way. Why is that? Does this serve me?” And going from there.
And one other thing that I really like to do as restful as reading as I mentioned the book earlier which I definitely think everyone should read Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It is a great, great book.
Marissa: Yeah, we’ll definitely link that in the show notes. Actually, as you were talking about it I was like. “This is exactly what we do in my coaching program with folks, working on exactly what you described.” So, folks listening, get that, it sounds very familiar to what I work with on my clients. And one thing I just want to highlight is around creating more rest and especially if it means doing less or saying no. You cannot do that without examining your emotions and your feelings and allowing them and learning how to engage with them.
And I think all of us are socialized to disconnect from our emotions and socialized to believe different things about the emotions we have. But I also think in particular and Omari, you can share if you have a different view on this, that men have an additional socialization around emotions are weak, or you shouldn’t express emotions, or seek help.
And if you want to create a rested life and a more balanced life no matter who you are, you really have to work on undoing those unhelpful beliefs about emotions so you can spend more time engaging with them and learning which ones are helpful and which ones are serving you. It’s just a part of human life that with resisting and avoiding you’re going to create so much more stress for yourself.
Omari: Yeah. And to that point of men not being able to show emotions and things like that. I think is also very important that we surround ourself, both men and women, but surround ourselves with people that allow us the opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable and give us that space without using it as an attack. Because I had relationships in the past where I would try to share my emotions and would kind of be not taken seriously or they wouldn’t listen to it.
And now I find myself in a lot of relationships especially with my current partner, Wynne where she gives me that space whether it’s uncomfortable for her or myself, she would allow me that space to share my emotions. And we mightn’t talk about it right away, but it’s important for me to share that because I’ve been socialized not to share that. And that has bene very hard for me to do. And over these last two years I’ve learned a lot more about my emotions and how to work with them, how to rationalize and reflect on it to say, “Are these things valid?
Is this a feeling that I should be feeling? Why is it that I feel like this? Is it because of societal norms or is it actually something that is rooted in my beliefs and my values as a system?” And then another part that you were talking about is the feeling of fear. And that kind of goes back to me and my podcast, and taking this three week break from releasing episodes of my podcast, granted, they’re going to be live sessions, so check those out. Well, this is going to be released afterwards but you can go back and check it out on YouTube.
But there was that feeling of fear, of people have seen me be consistent on putting up an episode every week for a very consistent amount of time. How are they going to feel? And am I scared that I might lose some followers or lose people that listen because I’m not showing up in that space? And I think it was more important for me to take time to reflect and understand, okay, how do I show up? What do I want to get from this, not what other people want to get from me, but what’s important to me.
And this period of rest is important. I’m learning a lot about how I want to move forward. The change of name for the podcast and different things like that would not have been possible unless I created the space for rest and where I can really reflect on what I have done in the last two years or however long I’ve had my podcast. And see, what do I want to do moving forward? And what serves me best? And what helps my audience?
Marissa: Yeah. And I think we often think that rest prevents us from growing but it’s the exact opposite. And when you think about nature and plants or animals, we can see. We can watch a documentary and see how rest is essential for them and for those organisms. And how that makes plants grow, and animals to be able to continue living their life and all of that. But we don’t give ourselves that grace and don’t see how for us to grow and live into our purpose, and evolve, and develop, and create the life we want, rest is essential.
It's not just something on the side, it’s like ingredients, you’re baking the cake in your life and it’s an essential ingredient that you’re missing.
Omari: I couldn’t agree more. And I think life or society has conditioned us in a way to not focus on that rest. And there’s been a lot of hustle culture out there that says, grind it out now, do it overnight.
Marissa: Sleep when you’re dead.
Omari: Yeah, do it all night and sleep when you’re dead, all these things that a lot of the time don’t serve us as people, don’t allow us to be as impactful as we can, don’t allow us to reach our heights of wellbeing and impact because we aren’t taking that time to really reset and reflect and say, “How am I showing up? Is this how I want to show up? What are the things that I can do differently in my life and my actions to really show up as the person that I want to be?”
And that’s why I think, your podcast and a lot of the information you’re doing, especially in public health where everyone – where most people in public health just want to serve, and serve, and serve. And they don’t think about well, my cup is getting low, how do I rest? How do I get refilled? And it comes a point where they just quit, or they have these breakdowns, or there’s a lot of anxiety. Because we have not been taught methods and techniques to really rest and really rejuvenate ourselves.
And to reflect and say, “Yes, what I’m doing is important. And yes, taking rest is important so that I can do that great work at the best level without burning out myself or stressing myself unnecessarily.”
Marissa: Yeah. Well, I think you have dropped some major insights and helpful perspective and experience for everyone listening on how you can start integrating more rest and thinking about rest. So, I really appreciate that. Can you let folks know how they can connect with you, where they can find you? And of course, we’ll put all the links in the show notes. But go ahead and share where folks can come hang out with you.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And before I get to that I just want to say, if you’re thinking about rest and incorporating rest into your journey, and into your routine and habit, take it slow. Don’t rush to try to do everything because then you’re going to be burnt out on the rest side of things.
Marissa: Yeah, you’re just going to mirror the burnout you’ve created, yeah, totally.
Omari: Yeah, so take it slowly. Do five minute meditations every other day or whatever you want to do, journal often, journal weekly and then go from there. So don’t overwhelm yourself in this rest space as well because I know it might be new for a lot of people. So just take it easy, one step at a time, one day at a time, one rest at a time and you can go from there. But you can connect with me on Instagram @thephmillennial. You can connect on my Discord, Community Health and Wellness, thephmillennial.com/join.
And you can check out my newly rebranded podcast, The Public Health Careers Podcast on all podcast platforms and on YouTube. And be sure to subscribe to me on YouTube. I’m trying to get to that 1,000 subscribers, so thank you.
Marissa: Awesome. We’ll link all that in the show notes. Omari, thank you so much for coming on, that was such an amazing insightful conversation. I know everyone took so much away from it. I really appreciate your time. And thanks everyone for tuning in. We’ll chat next week.
Omari: Bye everyone.
Marissa: Bye.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Well, hello everyone, welcome back to the special How We Rest series where I sit down and have conversations with different folks in public health to talk about their experience with rest so you all can see that rest is unique and personal to you. And it’s not static or confined, it’s fluid, and unlimited, and abundant. So today I’m sitting down with a friend and colleague of mine, Omari Richins to talk about his experience with rest. He is the founder of the Public Health Millennial which he’ll share more about and share more about some of the changes happening over there.
And today we talk about rest in so many capacities, from disconnecting, to reconnecting, talking about consistency and inconsistency, asking the question what is enough. And really thinking about harnessing emotions to access rest especially for men who are socialized to resist and avoid emotions and think they are weak. So, no matter who you are, no matter what part of public health you work in you are going to get something out of this episode, I promise. So, with that, no further ado, let’s go.
Marissa: Hi everyone, I am so, so glad you’re tuning in because I’m finally, and I say finally because I’ve been on his podcast twice. So, it’s only time that I invite him over here to our community, have Omari on the show to talk about who he is and what he does. But also, his experience with rest which I know will be an amazing conversation. So, Omari, do you want to tell folks who you are, what you do and maybe a tiny bit about your public health background?
Omari: Absolutely. Well, firstly, thank you so much for allowing me the opportunity to come on your podcast, your show to share my story and my insights with your audience. I definitely listen to your podcast, I listened to the last two news episodes, I kind of like binged them, but I appreciate that. But my name is Omari Richins, Omari Richins MPH if you want to be more formal. I am the founder of the Public Health Millennial which is an online platform focused on helping people navigate the public health journeys.
Some of the notable parts of the platform is my Instagram account @thephmillennial and The Public Health Careers Podcast which has changed name. So, it’s not going to be called the Public Health Careers Podcast.
Marissa: Wait, what, this is news to me. Breaking news, everyone. You heard it first here.
Omari: Absolutely. And I know this is actually a great time to interview me about rest because currently I am taking a rest from my podcast while I’m rebranding and refocusing which I think we’ll get more into what I define rest as, as we get into this interview. So, I also work as a health improvement program officer for the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, and that’s in North Carolina. In that work I work deeply in community to improve health and wellbeing, focusing on groups that have been marginalized, using an equity and population health lens.
Through the Trust, Healthy Places North Carolina Initiative I am engaging with the residents in some of North Carolina’s most vibrant, yet underserved communities to ensure that everyone has a seat at the table in improving their community’s health and wellbeing. And to give you a little backstory about my public health journey, I kind of fell into public health. And just to backtrack on that, I think I began public health, and reflecting on my story I think I began public health a lot earlier than going into my master’s of public health.
Being someone who’s a third culture kid, which is someone that lived outside of their parents’ predominant culture during their childhood, I have learned a lot of cultural competence, cultural humility. And that has allowed me to really have a real world focus on public health and a broad, and expansive, and understanding lens that I take on the work regardless. I fell into public health after my bachelor’s degree, planning to go to medical school, applied to master’s in medical sciences programs, got rejected from three of the four of them.
Didn’t want to take a gap year which in hindsight I would recommend you take a gap year if you need to. But thankfully I was able to find a degree in public health, decided to pursue my master’s in public health at the University of Florida. I got a concentration in health management and policy which is now called population health management. During my time at UF I worked for the council doing a lot of different parts of community health needs assessments.
I worked for Florida World Health Association and the Suwannee River AHEC in the creation of documents, contrasting role and urban health in Florida. I was also the president of the Public Health Student Association at the University of Florida. And when I graduated from my MPH I was lucky and fortunate to get a community health fellowship at the Mat-Su Health Foundation in Wasilla, Alaska where I was 14 months before I came across North Carolina where I currently reside. So that’s just a little bit about me and my public health journey.
Marissa: Alright. And actually, you have an episode on your podcast where you talk more in detail which I think would be great for folks to hear, particularly folks who maybe are interested in working for a trust or a foundation and what that looks like. I was on that episode with you, and we talk a lot about that. So, we’ll link that. So, if anyone’s interested in hearing more about Omari’s journey specifically around that work we’ll link that in the show notes.
But you alluded to it a little bit that you’re in a period of rest right now. You just shared some of your journey which sounds jampacked, you’ve done a lot. So, where you are right now what does rest mean to you and if you could share a little bit about how you’re practicing that right now?
Omari: Yeah. So broadly speaking rest is my way of disconnecting. It’s my way, I recharge, and I reconnect with myself. Rest is how I reconnect with my purpose and focus on what are the important few to make me most effective. Rest is disconnecting from my work phone and laptop after 5:00pm unless I expect something important which a lot of the times you can respond the next day. It’s really not that urgent. Rest is play, rest is joy, rest is growth. So, my thought of rest are expansive. And I can talk a little bit about what rest means for me and my platform, the Public Health Millennial.
As I alluded to earlier, my podcasts are on hold right now while I’m rebranding. And I took this time to rest because typically I would, even if I don’t have episodes in the queue for a week, I would force myself to try to get an episode out that week. And that is very stressful not only on the recording side, the editing side and putting up things onto the website and whatnot. But just very tasking and emotionally tasking and draining. So, I said, “I’ve been doing this podcast for over 100 episodes, so I don’t know how long it’s been.”
It started sometime during the pandemic to the beginning part of the pandemic. And I just know that yes, I’ve done a lot of work but a lot of the times I’m just head down in it. And I think in order to really be most effective and most impactful in what I’m doing, it’s important for me to take some time to rest, to refocus, to get a bird’s eye view of what’s going on, and how I can really approach this in a more restful way, in a more efficient way.
And even to that point, while I’m taking this restful period, I’m building out all the systems, all the infrastructure that I didn’t build while I was doing this for the last two years as well as getting other people who can help me do the task, that I don’t find restful but is necessary for everything that I do. And I think that is one big thing that I’m trying to learn a lot in my life right now is not everything has to be a yes for myself, especially on my platform which at first it was. I built everything, website, podcast, everything.
But now I’m in a space where I don’t need to do everything. There are a lot of students and other public health people who are out there who would like this experience, who would like to support this platform and help it grow. So, rest has played an important part in me reflecting on that and taking a step back to say, “Okay, how do I want to show up on this podcast? How do I want to be most effective in this work that I’m doing?”
Marissa: Yeah, oh my gosh. I was taking so many notes because so many things you said just stick out to me that I think a lot of people can relate to is feeling like what you’re doing is so forced. And even though you have a mission, when we’re in public health we have a mission, we care. But we are forcing ourselves to just go, go, go, and have our head down and we don’t even get to be present and enjoy. And I love what you said at the beginning about rest can be both disconnection and reconnection. Rest can be disconnecting from something, and rest can be reconnecting to something.
And that is so, so powerful. And I think what comes along with that is the last thing you said around realizing that you don’t always have to be the yes person. I think many of us in public health who want to help people have a really hard time saying no, or delegating, or asking for help. It comes from a good place often, but it really gets us in ‘trouble’ because then we put ourselves last. And that can be a hard realization to come to and it can be uncomfortable to start changing that. But that can really create rest for yourself.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And I think back to the time when I was in Alaska and to the point, I didn’t have an episode for my podcast, but I wanted to release one. I wanted to be consistent. And I recorded an episode at 4:00am Alaska time and worked right after that to edit it and get it uploaded and do all the other things. But in hindsight if I took a week to do that and just took that period to rest I think I’d have been more effective in not only getting that episode out and feeling great about it, but in everything else that went going forward with the platform.
Marissa: There’s lots of things I’m consistent about but there’s so many things in my life I am inconsistent as fuck about. And I think this whole narrative that you always have to be consistent to be successful can be so toxic. Yeah, being consistent can be great and it can help you but being inconsistent isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It doesn’t have to be a problem. And I think striving to always be consistent, I see that a lot with people I work with around routines, morning routines, nighttime routines, hobbies.
And the amount of stress that we can cause ourselves by trying to force ourselves to be ‘consistent’ which I think sometimes is masking as trying to be perfect. It’s just perfectionistic tendencies. And letting go of that can be so freeing.
Omari: Yeah, and I agree with that because I think back to the beginning of this year when I was setting goals for myself and one of the things that I wanted to do was journal every day, meditate every day and that became more of a task than something that was actually helping and benefitting me. So now I have the mantra that I will journal daily. I don’t meditate daily but I meditate, and I journal often. And I think that mindset has been helpful for me.
If I miss a day, if I miss two days, which I try not to miss but it’s okay because I know that I’m still making progress towards who I want to be and do the things that I need to do right now to put me in that position, to be best. So, I think a lot of times as you said, we want to be consistent with everything, but consistency can be draining sometimes. And I think knowing when to take that step back and say, “Is this actually benefitting me or is this more of something that’s going to lead me into this consistent burnout?”
Marissa: Yes, I love what you said about shifting just the language from daily or always too often. What a shift just doing that does for our mindset and how we set intention. And I also think, yeah, when something turns into a task, we’re losing the presence of it. We’re losing the enjoyment of it. We’re losing some of the benefit of it when we force it so much that it just becomes this tedious task rather than something we’re choosing to do for ourselves because of whatever reasons. You want to reconnect with yourself. You want to slow down. You want to be present, whatever the reasons are.
Omari: Absolutely, agree with that.
Marissa: So, for you and this changes over time, we all have our journeys with rest but for you what have been some of the challenges for prioritizing rest and giving yourself permission to rest that you’ve faced and how have you navigated that?
Omari: The biggest challenge I would say is knowing what is enough.
Marissa: My gosh, don’t we all struggle with that?
Omari: Yes. And I’ll allude to a book that I’ve read that I think really shifted my perspective on rest, albeit later on. But going back to the question, knowing what is enough and disconnecting from that daily grind to focus on the greater goals and greater alignment. Which gives you direction and allows you to say, “Hell yes, or fuck yes to this.” As opposed to saying, “I don’t really want to do it, but I’ve got to do it.” And I think that also highlights the point of knowing what to say, “Fuck no,” to and which is a hard task to do. It takes practice but I think that is important.
And I believe as someone who’s a high achiever like many of the high achievers out there, knowing the importance of small actions and how they add up is important. And it can be hard to see past those small actions and knowing when to take time to be restful because I didn’t have to build 100 episodes in my podcast and all of this from just being stressed and doing this daily but really knowing that the small actions, whether they are small actions with rest in there. Well, there should be rest in your small actions.
But focusing on those small actions to know that you’re moving the ball forward and you don’t have to be doing these grand gestures or grand projects, or finishing big things to know that you’re moving forward. And that’s hard to see a lot of the times especially as a high achiever, someone that wants to do a lot with their lives, you really have to sit down and reflect, and give yourself time to think about things outside of all those small actions, or routines, or habits that you’re doing to say, “Are these the things that I want to say fuck yes to?”
And are these the things that are going to make me be the person that I want to become?
Marissa: Yeah. I also think we don’t even celebrate the small actions we do take. We are so socialized to only focus on the big accomplishments, or the end goals. And so, we’re in such a hurry and rush to get there. And as someone like an entrepreneur and new business owner I’m seeing this show up as I grow my business too where I’m noticing, I’m in such a rush to get to that big end goal because I’ve been told that’s all that matters. And I’m missing celebrating all of these other wins along the way from the smaller tasks that do matter, and I could have more enjoyment if I did that.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And I think going back to that point of focusing on the big goals. When I started off my Instagram platform, it was like, okay, let’s get to 1,000 followers, let’s get to 5,000 followers. And I’ve gotten there but it doesn’t materially change anything in my life. So, it’s like was that really the goal or is it just to be impactful? And I think as I’ve learned just to be more impactful that is more important than these big things that we put on like, okay, let me get to this number or this metric, or whatever the case might be.
And yes, sometimes it’s good to use as gauges of our impact. But there’s so many other things that we can use for gauges in our impact that don’t require specific metrics and things like that.
Marissa: Yeah. I think we’re also sold this idea that once we achieve x goal whether it’s a certain amount of following, or a degree, or a certain job title then magically everything will be better in our life, we’ll magically feel better. Everything will magically be easier and so we do chase that, and we get there and it’s like not much is different. And it’s like part of the work is detaching from that idea and seeing that what changes our experiences is what we choose to change within ourselves.
And oftentimes doing the work towards a big goal forces you to change and do the work on yourself, so it happens through that process anyway. But I think we’ve just got to be careful with believing that once we get x, y, and z we’ll just magically be better, magically be fixed, magically be perfect, everything will be easier, and I think it’s just a fallacy.
Omari: Yeah. And I think the important part there is focusing on the present, being present, understanding that what you’re doing now means something. And you’re always going to be chasing something if you’re thinking that I’m not happy right now, but this thing is going to make me happy. Because when you get to that thing your goalpost is going to change or something is going to change.
And it leaves you in a space where you’re just continually unhappy because you’re not meeting the new expectation that you’re setting for yourself as opposed to reflecting and saying, “I’ve done all these great things, where I am right now, I am happy. I enjoy he process to get here and continue to enjoy the process to move forward.” But not really focusing so much on the goal but focusing on the actions that get you moving forward.
Marissa: Yeah. I mean I think that goes back to what you were saying at the beginning of this question of what is enough. Because I think part of the reason we chase productivity and chase goals is because once we get where we want to go we just move the marker. And then it’s never enough.
Omari: Yeah. I’m on the cusp of getting 30,000 downloads on my podcast on podcast players. And I feel no different than I was when I got a 1,000 downloads on my podcast. So, I’m just putting that out there to say really, really appreciate where you are in life and what you have accomplished right now. And you will be happy and that’s all [inaudible] and that you don’t have to chase those other things because they’re just illusions. And happiness and rest, present things, you have to actively practice to become better. And I think that’s the perspective you should have.
Marissa: Totally. I mean no one on their deathbed’s like, “I wish I would have gotten more Instagram followers.” They’re like, “I wish I would have taken more time for myself. I wish I would have been present with my family.” It’s just hard to remember that. When we live in this world that is focused on hustle, hustle, hustle, do, do, do, compete with everyone, all of that stuff. So, where you are right now, taking a break and where you are in your career, what does rest look like for you? What are some ways you’re getting rest, and specifically creating more mental and emotional rest for yourself?
Omari: Yeah. And going back to how I think life is stressful just generally speaking. I think habits and routines are important but there’s a boundary to using this habit and routine that it’s helpful and beneficial. And filling your cup up as opposed to using it as something that you just do it because you do it. But one of the things that I try to strive to do is have some sort of routine or habit, things like being active often which is typically five days a week, that can be hiking, walking, running, going to the gym etc., etc.
I try to do some morning walks I think without my phone of course. And I think just being able to reflect on the time and be appreciative for everything that is happening right now. Being able to breathe, and walk, because I think we take a lot of things for granted. And then going back to the things I mentioned earlier, meditating often, journaling often, aiming to get seven hours of sleep often. Sometimes I drive to work with no music on or just drive with no music on generally. And I think that is very good to just reflect and let your thoughts go.
Because we are bombarded by so many different stimuli in our life, I think it’s important for us to have space for restful thoughts and going back to the play part. I think having play in your life, whatever that looks like for you. For me I like to watch podcasts, and financial educational videos. And that’s my rest there which is very interesting in itself. But that’s how I feel rejuvenated. And I also watch a lot of soccer or football, depending on where you’re from, not American football, European football.
I also play a lot of football. So those are different ways that I get rest currently. And one other thing that I’d like to just share here, so currently I just went to the doctor, osteopathic doctor with my feet, because my shins have been hurting. I potentially have a stress fracture in my shin, so I’m getting an MRI in the next two weeks or so. So, I think rest is going to be defined a lot differently for me potentially if the MRI shows what they think is there. Because then that changes my whole outlook on what is happening in my life, how I could be active and these different kinds of things.
So, it’ll be interesting to see what rest is classified for me in the next coming weeks, hopefully my MRI doesn’t come back as bad as I think it would. But just preparing for the worst and realizing that though this seems bad, it’s an opportunity for me to do other things that I was not able to do because I was focusing so much on wellness and things like that. Granted, it is very important focusing on your wellness and that plays a huge part in life.
But knowing that this gives me the opportunity to stay home and actually literally rest more and focus on other things like writing and other things like that that I think are also very good for just your health and overall wellbeing.
Marissa: I think that’s a good example and a good reminder that rest is a journey and it’s fluid. What rest looks like is going to change over time when you maybe have kids for the first time, your rest is going to change. If you’re in school your rest is going to change. If you move across the country, if you get a certain type of job where you’re more out in the field, it is fluid, it changes depending on the context of your life and what you’re going through and the stages of life.
So being open to that and being flexible it can be just really helpful in making sure you can continue to get rest. The other thing you said around financial learning and literacy being a form of rest. I think is such a good example that rest is unique and specific to each person. It doesn’t fit in the box, we’ve been sold that it has to be a sport, and it has to be a vacation. It can be unique to you. And some things you find restful other people aren’t going to find restful and vice versa. And that’s totally okay.
Omari: Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I know there’s a question that you’re probably going to ask like how has rest changed for me? And I guess I could dive into that.
Marissa: Yeah, dive into that.
Omari: Yeah, because I think rest has drastically changed for me especially during the pandemic. The pandemic, it made it very hard, but it also created a lot of opportunities for that self-reflection and for me to figure out what’s important, what to say fuck yes to and different things like that. So, rest for me during my MPH program and I would say prior to that, undergrad into my MPH program was alcohol and happy hours, boardgames, intramural sports, videogames, watching soccer games, running.
And then the pandemic came, well, I graduated when the pandemic came and really shifted things for me. And one book that I think was really influential in shaping how I think about rest and doing rest, the actions of rest has been Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I think is a book that everyone should read. And just to give a quick summary. So essentially he talks about the balancing act of everything you say yes to. That means that the other things you’re going to have to say no to.
And therefore, it’s important that what you say yes to should be a hell yes to because you want to have a discipline pursuit of less. And the less is going to be better because it’s going to be less, that’s focused on the essential few that are really going to make you happy, drive forward your life and things like that. So, he breaks the book into three different parts, explore, eliminate, and execute.
So, the explore phase is just reflecting, understanding that play is important, understanding that sleep is important because those are all things that allow us, and our bodies, and our psychological needs to really reset and us to really understand, okay, what are the things that are important to us? And he talks about the eliminate which is clarifying what is a hell yes in your life and what is a hell no? Say and understanding that saying no is hard, it takes effort and practice.
And I mean practice is a thing there because a lot of us, we want to say no to things but it’s just hard because we’re just used to saying yes. So, you really have to practice on it. And this book also talks about the focus on uncommitting. So, you might have been doing things that you think were helpful to you but then when you reflect you’re like, “This isn’t really what is important in my life right now to get me where I need to be.” So, creating boundaries, creating limits, and knowing what your freedom is.
And then the last part of the book really talks about execution on the things that you want to say yes to. So, making essential decisions and subtracting things in life that aren’t important. So, creating a system for small wins to take you far. And really focusing on what are the essential few that are really going to guide me to whatever big impacts, or whatever focus in your life is. So, for example for me, when I left Alaska during the pandemic I left my video games.
I sold my Xbox. I was like, “I don’t need this. This takes up too much time in my life.” That isn’t important for the goals that I want to achieve. So, I said no to that. And I said yes to financial education videos and stuff like that. That really not only just helps me to just – I don’t want to feed back to what my finances is. But just, I don’t know, what about financial education is just so restful for me. And I just can sit down and just watch it for days. And not to say I’m getting tangible things from a lot of the information because I think a lot of the times it is more educational than informational.
But just reflecting on that and just how much joy that brings me in my life right now. And that could change but I think those are important. So, rest for me right now as I mentioned earlier is focusing more on introspective stuff, getting some movement, whether hiking, soccer, gym, doing meditation often, doing journal often. And one thing I like to focus on when I’m journaling is we are all in places in our lives, what is some advice that you would give to someone in your position?
And that’s usually my journal prompt. So, whatever I’m challenged with is like, if Marissa was in my position, what advice would I give her? And I just write that down and that is able to really help me to reflect and understand, is this what I want to use my time for? Are these things important? And another part of the journaling that I think is really important for my rest is journaling about my feelings and my thoughts. And really understanding where these feelings and thoughts are coming from, understanding, are they reasonable?
Is this a fixed mindset that is stopping me from understanding things in a more progressive way? So really just understanding that life has socialized us in one way, and it doesn’t always have to be that way. So really challenging beliefs and everything like that I think is important. And has taught me just how important it is to reflect because in life we’re just go, go, go. And we need to just take time to sit back and relax and say, “Okay, I had this thought, and this made me feel this way. Why is that? Does this serve me?” And going from there.
And one other thing that I really like to do as restful as reading as I mentioned the book earlier which I definitely think everyone should read Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It is a great, great book.
Marissa: Yeah, we’ll definitely link that in the show notes. Actually, as you were talking about it I was like. “This is exactly what we do in my coaching program with folks, working on exactly what you described.” So, folks listening, get that, it sounds very familiar to what I work with on my clients. And one thing I just want to highlight is around creating more rest and especially if it means doing less or saying no. You cannot do that without examining your emotions and your feelings and allowing them and learning how to engage with them.
And I think all of us are socialized to disconnect from our emotions and socialized to believe different things about the emotions we have. But I also think in particular and Omari, you can share if you have a different view on this, that men have an additional socialization around emotions are weak, or you shouldn’t express emotions, or seek help.
And if you want to create a rested life and a more balanced life no matter who you are, you really have to work on undoing those unhelpful beliefs about emotions so you can spend more time engaging with them and learning which ones are helpful and which ones are serving you. It’s just a part of human life that with resisting and avoiding you’re going to create so much more stress for yourself.
Omari: Yeah. And to that point of men not being able to show emotions and things like that. I think is also very important that we surround ourself, both men and women, but surround ourselves with people that allow us the opportunity to be emotionally vulnerable and give us that space without using it as an attack. Because I had relationships in the past where I would try to share my emotions and would kind of be not taken seriously or they wouldn’t listen to it.
And now I find myself in a lot of relationships especially with my current partner, Wynne where she gives me that space whether it’s uncomfortable for her or myself, she would allow me that space to share my emotions. And we mightn’t talk about it right away, but it’s important for me to share that because I’ve been socialized not to share that. And that has bene very hard for me to do. And over these last two years I’ve learned a lot more about my emotions and how to work with them, how to rationalize and reflect on it to say, “Are these things valid?
Is this a feeling that I should be feeling? Why is it that I feel like this? Is it because of societal norms or is it actually something that is rooted in my beliefs and my values as a system?” And then another part that you were talking about is the feeling of fear. And that kind of goes back to me and my podcast, and taking this three week break from releasing episodes of my podcast, granted, they’re going to be live sessions, so check those out. Well, this is going to be released afterwards but you can go back and check it out on YouTube.
But there was that feeling of fear, of people have seen me be consistent on putting up an episode every week for a very consistent amount of time. How are they going to feel? And am I scared that I might lose some followers or lose people that listen because I’m not showing up in that space? And I think it was more important for me to take time to reflect and understand, okay, how do I show up? What do I want to get from this, not what other people want to get from me, but what’s important to me.
And this period of rest is important. I’m learning a lot about how I want to move forward. The change of name for the podcast and different things like that would not have been possible unless I created the space for rest and where I can really reflect on what I have done in the last two years or however long I’ve had my podcast. And see, what do I want to do moving forward? And what serves me best? And what helps my audience?
Marissa: Yeah. And I think we often think that rest prevents us from growing but it’s the exact opposite. And when you think about nature and plants or animals, we can see. We can watch a documentary and see how rest is essential for them and for those organisms. And how that makes plants grow, and animals to be able to continue living their life and all of that. But we don’t give ourselves that grace and don’t see how for us to grow and live into our purpose, and evolve, and develop, and create the life we want, rest is essential.
It's not just something on the side, it’s like ingredients, you’re baking the cake in your life and it’s an essential ingredient that you’re missing.
Omari: I couldn’t agree more. And I think life or society has conditioned us in a way to not focus on that rest. And there’s been a lot of hustle culture out there that says, grind it out now, do it overnight.
Marissa: Sleep when you’re dead.
Omari: Yeah, do it all night and sleep when you’re dead, all these things that a lot of the time don’t serve us as people, don’t allow us to be as impactful as we can, don’t allow us to reach our heights of wellbeing and impact because we aren’t taking that time to really reset and reflect and say, “How am I showing up? Is this how I want to show up? What are the things that I can do differently in my life and my actions to really show up as the person that I want to be?”
And that’s why I think, your podcast and a lot of the information you’re doing, especially in public health where everyone – where most people in public health just want to serve, and serve, and serve. And they don’t think about well, my cup is getting low, how do I rest? How do I get refilled? And it comes a point where they just quit, or they have these breakdowns, or there’s a lot of anxiety. Because we have not been taught methods and techniques to really rest and really rejuvenate ourselves.
And to reflect and say, “Yes, what I’m doing is important. And yes, taking rest is important so that I can do that great work at the best level without burning out myself or stressing myself unnecessarily.”
Marissa: Yeah. Well, I think you have dropped some major insights and helpful perspective and experience for everyone listening on how you can start integrating more rest and thinking about rest. So, I really appreciate that. Can you let folks know how they can connect with you, where they can find you? And of course, we’ll put all the links in the show notes. But go ahead and share where folks can come hang out with you.
Omari: Yeah, absolutely. And before I get to that I just want to say, if you’re thinking about rest and incorporating rest into your journey, and into your routine and habit, take it slow. Don’t rush to try to do everything because then you’re going to be burnt out on the rest side of things.
Marissa: Yeah, you’re just going to mirror the burnout you’ve created, yeah, totally.
Omari: Yeah, so take it slowly. Do five minute meditations every other day or whatever you want to do, journal often, journal weekly and then go from there. So don’t overwhelm yourself in this rest space as well because I know it might be new for a lot of people. So just take it easy, one step at a time, one day at a time, one rest at a time and you can go from there. But you can connect with me on Instagram @thephmillennial. You can connect on my Discord, Community Health and Wellness, thephmillennial.com/join.
And you can check out my newly rebranded podcast, The Public Health Careers Podcast on all podcast platforms and on YouTube. And be sure to subscribe to me on YouTube. I’m trying to get to that 1,000 subscribers, so thank you.
Marissa: Awesome. We’ll link all that in the show notes. Omari, thank you so much for coming on, that was such an amazing insightful conversation. I know everyone took so much away from it. I really appreciate your time. And thanks everyone for tuning in. We’ll chat next week.
Omari: Bye everyone.
Marissa: Bye.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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