What If Rest Is The Real Work?

What If Rest Is The Real Work? Trading Guilt for Grace & Hustle for Health 🛌

After a big win, a brutal virus delivered a hard stop. We explore the messy truth of ambition vs. wellbeing: the guilt over breaking a streak and the radical idea that rest is a discipline, not failure.

This self-help playbook for sustainable excellence teaches you how to stop giving from the empty well and protect your capacity with a kinder standard.

You'll learn to:

• Rest as Discipline: Honor limits and challenge the "grind through pain" script.
• Control the Controllables: Focus on boundary-setting and self-talk over external chaos.
• The Oxygen Mask Rule: Protect your margin before you break down.

If your body is begging for a pause, this gives you permission to pause. Consistency is built on recovery.

Actionable Takeaways for Sustainable Success:

• Discipline = Rest: True discipline is pausing when momentum begs you to sprint.
• Empty Cup Problem: Burnout prevention requires maintaining a margin. Generosity stops being extraction.
• Control the Controllables: Focus on the inside work (boundaries, hydration) and release the rest. (Believe in your circumstances).
• Kinder Consistency: Trade shame for grace. Define success as sustainable excellence.
• Recovery as Task: Treat rest as medicine and a high-priority task. Choose micro-rest to avoid macro-failure.
• The Oxygen Mask Rule: Self-care is non-negotiable for giving to others. (Believe in yourself).

Hit play, breathe, and build a better relationship with rest today!

• How to overcome guilt about resting when sick.
• Why consistency is built on capacity and recovery.
• Strategies for burnout prevention and the empty cup problem.
• How to apply the oxygen mask rule to life and work.
• Defining consistency with a kinder standard.
• "Is rest considered a form of discipline?"
• "What is the empty-cup problem in self-help?"
• "How does the oxygen mask analogy apply to self-care?"
• "How can I set boundaries to protect my energy when I'm sick?"
• "What are the keys to sustainable excellence and consistency?"

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The 4 pillars of Living Lucky
Believe in yourself
Believe in the people around you
Believe in your circumstances and
Believe that God is working through you, for you, and always conspiring in your favor.

*Previously Recorded

Chapters

• 0:00 Turning Negativity Into Momentum
• 0:20 Travel, Illness, And Australia Recap
• 1:52 The Lay-Flat Flight Lifesaver
• 3:45 The Long Trip Home Collapse
• 5:10 Guilt, Goals, And Giving Grace
• 7:30 Empty Cup, Boundaries, And Recovery
• 10:20 Control The Controllables
• 11:40 Rest, Reality, And Moving Forward

Transcript

Jana Shelfer: 0:00

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start Living Lucky®. Good morning. I'm Jana. I'm Jason. And we are Living Lucky®. You are too. We've been sick. We've been so sick. Ah. Can you hear it in my voice? You sound like an angel. Yeah, I just sounded like Tarzan. Yeah, you did sound like Tarzan. We want to apologize. We were forced to take a week off. Here's the kicker. We actually lugged all of our podcasting equipment all the way into the outback of Australia. And the entire time we were there, we managed to get a podcast out. I know. And then as soon as we hop on that last flight from Cairns to Malbourne, we both got deathly sick.

Jason Shelfer: 1:02

Yeah, somebody on that plane was traveling with something nasty.

Jana Shelfer: 1:06

No, it's that. It's that stove cove case virus.

Jason Shelfer: 1:11

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Jana Shelfer: 1:12

Sub sub co subcade K. Something like that. Subclade or sub-clade cake. Something like that. There's like this virus that the news has been talking about.

Jason Shelfer: 1:24

Exciting and new.

Jana Shelfer: 1:25

No, it's not exciting and new. It is anything but. And it has started over in Japan and in the UK. And you even said, oh my gosh, there's a lot of Asian people around.

Jason Shelfer: 1:37

I know. I'm looking for somebody to blame. That's me.

Jana Shelfer: 1:40

We both got sick at the same time. And it came on hard and fast. It came on so fast and severe. I believe it was severe.

Jason Shelfer: 1:50

It got me so hard. In fact, I'm about to, my throat's still itchy right now, and I'm about to start coughing. But I knew Mark that I knew that that morning we got up Friday when we got back to Melbourne. Yes. And we were gonna go on a 15 and a half hour plane ride to LA that I wouldn't make it.

Jana Shelfer: 2:08

I know.

Jason Shelfer: 2:09

Sitting next to anybody or like sitting upright.

Jana Shelfer: 2:13

I know, I know. And luckily, Jason looked to see if maybe there was some upgrades available, and we were able to use all of our sky miles basically to upgrade to those little cubbies where you can lay down.

Jason Shelfer: 2:30

Lay flat on an international flight is a game changer.

Jana Shelfer: 2:33

Which uh first of all, we were like kids in a candy store, even though we were so sick. We were like, oh, look at all these gadgets and gadgets.

Jason Shelfer: 2:39

I kind of imagine what it would be like to experience if I was feeling well. Like that would have been that would have been nice. Now it was a uh kind of a I don't want to use this too lightly, but kind of a lifesaver in the fact that we were so sick or not vomiting well.

Jana Shelfer: 2:57

I was vomiting, and I would hit that little call button, and the lady would come and say, Is there anything I can get for you? And I'm like, damn cracker.

Jason Shelfer: 3:05

And I'm and some more barf back.

Jana Shelfer: 3:07

And then she would come back and she'd be like, Would you like a warm rack? I'm like, Yes, yes, please.

Jason Shelfer: 3:12

Bunch of those. Yeah. Yeah, so it's um just being knowing the experience of how good it was thick, yeah, it would have to be amazing.

Jana Shelfer: 3:22

Well, I'm telling you, if it wasn't for those lay-down seats, I don't know if I think I slept most of the way. I I slept all the way. I didn't turn my TV on once, and I had my own private TV, like a big TV.

Jason Shelfer: 3:36

So it wasn't all miles. So it was a there was a paid for um portion of it. It was worth it. It was so worth it, and we slept through it. It was like a very expensive nap.

Jana Shelfer: 3:49

But I'm telling you, this illness has knocked us both off of our feet. So here's here's my here's my kicker to the whole story. We get home, I mean, after a 15-hour flight to LA, a five-hour layover, and then another five and a half hour flight to Orlando, getting all of our luggage and our skis, and I mean, so many things. We had to take two trips to the car, getting all that stuff, getting, oh, we didn't have the hand controls. Remember that whole debacle?

Jason Shelfer: 4:19

Just getting back home.

Jana Shelfer: 4:21

And so if you don't have hand controls, then you have to pay a certain amount, which we weren't expecting. Yeah, so that was like a whole ordeal. 21 days of airport parking, which is like a thousand dollars, and so that was like a whole ordeal, and then we finally get home and we literally have slept for 10 days. Yeah, 10 days, yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 4:43

And I've uh there's been moments of relief that I'm able to, and there's also been moments of um this disappointment and guilt. Guilt about the things that I'm kind of a stickler about in everyday life.

Jana Shelfer: 5:00

Well, we had already been gone for three weeks, and then to take 10 days and not be able to leave the house, it just feels like, oh my gosh, we've kind of been not even be able to celebrate a huge, huge victory. World champion, I might add. Yes. At any rate, we literally have been in bed. I did not have a voice, I could not speak, and therefore we were not able to do our podcasts for three.

Jason Shelfer: 5:31

Yeah, your voice literally just came back two days ago.

Jana Shelfer: 5:34

So it's so funny though, it's kind of ironic that we lugged our podcast equipment all across the world and we were able to manage to get a podcast out, and then yet we come home, and it was almost like it was just kind of uh uh like my body was like, okay, it's over. I can just release.

Jason Shelfer: 5:54

Oh, you can let go a little bit. Is it release or is it let go? Like I don't have to fight, I don't have to quote unquote work anymore. Like I can stop working for you.

Jana Shelfer: 6:04

I don't know. I mean, I just I literally felt like I had first of all, this virus that's going around, it feels almost like the flu mixed with COVID. I mean, it's it's all of it, it's every symptom that you can think of, and it's severe.

Jason Shelfer: 6:21

Yeah, it's severe.

Jana Shelfer: 6:22

And then I mean, it comes with the coughing and the congestion and the sore throat and the diarrhea and the vomiting. I mean, it comes with it all. And I don't know, it just kind of has felt like once I got home, my body just let go. Yeah. However, we were talking, you have felt extremely guilty that we weren't able to get our podcast out because we that's one thing we have been very, very consistent with our podcast.

Jason Shelfer: 6:51

Yeah, and it's it's one of those things where it's kind of like you've had the you had the goal of winning the water ski championship, and you did it. And we've kind of had this goal since last year of getting a podcast out three times a week.

Jana Shelfer: 7:04

More than just since last year.

Jason Shelfer: 7:06

Well, it's we were very particular last year and maybe the year before. I think it might have been two years that we said, let's do it every every week, three times a week.

Jana Shelfer: 7:14

Yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 7:14

And we've been so good. And then this literally wiped both of us out.

Jana Shelfer: 7:20

So I guess my point of the whole story, um, first of all, to inform you that we've been very, very ill. Secondly, is maybe we just need to give ourselves some grace. Yeah. And because I mean, I'm getting better. You know, it's like the airplane analogy when the oxygen mask falls. You should take care of yourself before you take care of your kid or your husband or your neighbor. And I think for a lot of us that's really hard.

Jason Shelfer: 7:52

Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 7:52

Because when those act when they actually do fall, I don't know if you've ever been on a flight where they actually do fall, the first thing you want to do is help the little kid next to you. Yeah.

Jason Shelfer: 8:03

Even if you don't even know them, right?

Jana Shelfer: 8:06

You're like, oh, let me get this. But we do need to take care of ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually before we can give to others.

Jason Shelfer: 8:15

Yeah. That whole pouring from a full cup thought.

Jana Shelfer: 8:20

Yes.

Jason Shelfer: 8:21

Yeah. Or pouring from the overflow instead of letting your cup get completely empty. There's there's tons of people that right now are going through life and they feel so empty, yet they are still giving, giving, giving. And that I think also is kind of like one of those recipes for in the long run having a kind of a uh physical health, mental health, spiritual, emotional health breakdown. Like because we had a like a physical illness health breakdown. Like I broke down. Like I it's I I'm debating on whether or not to say that I had uh an accident in my pants, but that's something that hasn't happened in since I was a kid, you know? And you cough so hard.

Jana Shelfer: 9:06

It didn't happen on the airplane. No, it happened in in our bed. You should just be very, very grateful that it didn't happen on the airplane. So it was I think everyone can relate to that.

Jason Shelfer: 9:17

Yeah, probably. But I don't think anybody talks about it.

Jana Shelfer: 9:20

Um at least on their podcast.

Jason Shelfer: 9:23

Yeah, the shelvers will talk about it if you get a small group of us together. It'll it'll take us 20 minutes to get into that conversation. But it's a but if you if you if you are pouring from an empty cup, which we weren't pouring from an empty cup, this just happened to be an illness. But it's a but I I love that you said give ourselves grace because I don't need to feel guilty. Yeah.

Jana Shelfer: 9:45

So what are the things?

Jason Shelfer: 9:46

Was it anything that could be controlled in the situation?

Jana Shelfer: 9:49

Control the controllables. I mean, we've talked about that many, many times. And when you when you are physically sick, it it's time. I mean, I actually respect people who stay home from school, stay home from work when they're sick. I think that's uh an admirable quality.

Jason Shelfer: 10:08

Yeah, because you're you're not only looking out for yourself, but you're also protecting the world around you.

Jana Shelfer: 10:14

But for some reason, when I was younger growing up, if you were sick, I mean, you had to be like deathly ill. Like we were like yeah, you had to have the subplave K in order to stay home from school. And I doubt that you would get away with staying home for 10 days, though.

Jason Shelfer: 10:33

Not unless you had mono or something like that.

Jana Shelfer: 10:35

Unless you were in the hospital, maybe two days you could stay home from school. Two days.

Jason Shelfer: 10:40

Don't make me laugh because you get me started. Oh uh, excuse me.

Jana Shelfer: 10:49

Oh, control the controllables, give yourself some grace and take care of yourself. Take care of yourself.

Jason Shelfer: 10:58

So big.

Jana Shelfer: 10:59

That is very, very important. And if you do start to get this virus that's going around, stop everything you're doing, lay down and rest. In fact, start the start the series Homeland and watch 12 seasons.

Jason Shelfer: 11:15

Right.

Jana Shelfer: 11:16

That's what we've been doing.

Jason Shelfer: 11:18

Uh yeah, off on off and on through sleep.

Jana Shelfer: 11:21

In fact, one of us will fall asleep, and so then the other one says, Oh, I have to go back and I have to re-watch that.

Jason Shelfer: 11:26

So we'll catch up.

Jana Shelfer: 11:27

We end up like watching foot every uh episode twice. Thanks for joining us. Keep Living Lucky®. Bye bye. If the idea of Living Lucky® appeals to you, visit us at LivingLucky.com.