Hello dear one,

When was the last time your needs collided with someone you love? Not a fight, exactly. Just two people who care about each other who want two different things at the same time.

I had one of those moments on a seaside in Greece.

Several years ago for my 50th birthday, my husband and I flew to Greece, then took a boat to a quiet island that looked out over the Aegean. I had chosen the place we were staying on purpose. I wanted to sit on the deck and watch the water and the olive trees, maybe read a book, and let the travel and the stress of the previous few years drain out of me. I was worn thin in so many ways, and what I needed was sensory rest. Quiet. Stillness. Nothing asked of my eyes or my ears or my body.

My husband, in contrast, arrived on the island like the energizer bunny. He was ready to get in the rental car and drive to the highest point on the island to see a village. And here is the thing: I love that kind of adventure. On another day, I would have been the one with the keys.

But not on that day. That day I needed to stop.

It was one of the rare times in our marriage where our needs clashed so completely. I told him to go without me. He didn't want to go without me. Neither of us was wrong. We were just two people with two true and different needs, standing in the same beautiful spot, unable to be in both places at once.

I've thought about that seaside moment in the years since, because it's not really about Greece. It's about something that happens in every close relationship probably every single day.

It looks like a child who needs to roughhouse and a parent who needs no one touching them. It looks like one person who processes a hard day by talking it through and another who needs alone time. It looks like the toddler who wants you on the floor to play trains meeting the part of you that is running on empty and just needs silence.

We tend to treat these moments as your needs vs the other person’s needs. Someone’s needs end up being more important, even if that’s not really true. The shift is learning to hold two people’s needs at once: My needs are important and so are yours. I matter and you matter. That’s a secure attachment in a nutshell.

Here's the tender spot, especially for those of us who spend our days caring for others. Somewhere along the way, a lot of us learned that the caregiver's needs come last. That the loving thing is to always be the one who gives in, who gets in the car anyway, who stays on the floor. That to have a need of your own, and to honor it, is somehow selfish.

It isn't. And this is the part I most want you to hear.

You are allowed to have needs. You are allowed to know what you need and to say it out loud, even when it's inconvenient, even when someone you love needs something different. That's not a failure of love. That's actually what makes love sustainable.

And this is exactly where boundaries come in, which is why I keep circling back to them. A boundary isn't a wall you put up against the people you love. It's the thing that lets everyone's needs stay on the table. It's how you protect your own well so that there's still water in it to share. When I said I needed to stay and rest, that was a boundary. It wasn't a rejection of my husband or his needs. It was me telling the truth about what my body needed, so that I didn't spend my birthday trip depleted and resentful, pretending to enjoy a drive I didn't have the reserves for.

The harder, more beautiful work is what comes next: finding the strategy that honors everyone. Not "I win, you lose." But "what's the way through that respects both of us and each of our needs?" Sometimes that's taking turns. Sometimes it's me resting this afternoon so I have something to give this evening. Sometimes it's naming the need out loud and discovering it wasn't as all-or-nothing as it first seemed.

This is the conversation Meredith and I get into on the newest episode of the podcast, all about boundaries. If competing needs is a tender spot for you, the way it is for so many of us, I think you'll find it worth a listen.

And it's the heart of what we're doing this weekend.

The Radical Rest Retreat is three days, June 19 to 21, live and online. It's time set aside to actually stop, in good company, where we help you discover what your own nervous system most needs. Registration for the live weekend closes Thursday evening. It's $150 to join, and you're welcome to bring a friend with you at no extra cost, because rest, like most things, is easier in good company. If the timing isn't right, there's a self-paced version for $50 you can move through whenever you're ready.

And whether or not you join us, I have one small invitation for the weekend ahead.

If you haven't yet, download the free Radical Rest Kit, and just keep it in your pocket this weekend.

Get the rest kit download here -> Radical Rest Kit.pdf​

You don't have to do anything formal with it. Simply let the idea of rest travel with you, so that when a moment of competing needs shows up, your own or someone else's, you might catch it. You might notice the seaside moment as it's happening, and remember that you're allowed to be in the equation too.

That noticing is where everything begins.

I'll be practicing rest myself this weekend, for real, not as the one leading but as the one resting. I've been working on what real rest looks like in my life for months now, and I'll be honest with you: what I used to call rest was better than nothing, but it wasn't the kind that actually fills you back up. I'm still learning. We're in this together.

So this weekend, wherever you are: notice what you need. Say it kindly. And let there be room for it.

Be curious. Be kind. Start with yourself.

Warmly,

Rebecca