July 11, 2025

INTELLECTUAL INK

A MAGAZINE FOR AVID READERS AND PROLIFIC WRITERS

Self-Care Sundays: You Don’t Have to Earn Your Rest

1 min read

We talk a lot about self-care, but not enough about how guilty we feel when we actually try to practice it. Especially as creatives, as caregivers, as Black people moving through a world that never seems to stop demanding more… more work, more resilience, more output, more hustle.

We’re told to grind until we’re great. But what if the greatness is in the quiet?
What if the nap, the silence, the “do nothing” is not an act of laziness, but resistance?

This week at Intellectual Ink, we’re reminding you:
🛑 You don’t have to earn your rest.
🛑 You don’t have to check off every item on your to-do list to be worthy of peace.
🛑 You don’t have to prove your exhaustion for your humanity to be valid.

Self-care is not just bubble baths and skincare. It’s:

  • Logging off the group chat because your spirit is tired
  • Letting go of the deadlines you set during your over-functioning era
  • Drinking water and saying “no” without a novel of an explanation
  • Unplugging to write for you, not for metrics or followers

Maybe today you write.
Maybe you don’t.
Maybe you light a candle and cry.
Maybe you go for a walk and laugh.
Whatever you do: make space for your soft parts.

Restoration is revolutionary especially when the world tells you to be steel and sharp edges all the time.

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