The Erotic Intelligence of Rest: Unlearning the Rush of Capitalism is Liberating in these Chaotic Times
January is My Intentional Rest Month
As I shared in my newsletter, Embodied Liberation:
“The Nap Bishop Tricia Hersey of the Nap Ministry so fervently reminds us:
Rest is Resistance
As I navigated my own mental health distress and burnout challenges from a “failing” group practice, I created my own decolonial calendar because the neo-colonial calendar of the Gregorian Year was no longer spiritually aligned with me. While I am aware of the 12 months we are told we have, personally, I honor the 13 months we are divinely given. January is my Intentional Rest Month.”
The rush of capitalism requires the perpetual exhaustion of Black women and queer folks emotional, somatic, and erotic labor. Recovery is never about excess but about enough to “get this last little bit done” or “bounce back” from hurt, harm, and betrayal.
You know the algorithms messaging: “Get back to [insert paid 3rd space here as proof of git]”, or “Start that side hustle”, and of course, the spiritual bypassing- “Manifest your best year yet”.
The cultural pressure to produce -even the performance of success or being unbothered is relentless—and it’s killing our erotic vitality.
But what if I told you that rest itself is an erotic practice? And understanding the difference between rest and leisure is foundational to thriving in these chaotic times.
What if knowing this difference is one of the most liberating acts of erotic intelligence you can practice this January?
What I also shared in my newsletter is:
According to Dictionary.com, several definitions of rest mean to
relief or freedom, especially from anything that wearies, troubles, or disturbs, and
refreshing ease or inactivity after exertion or labor and
the refreshing quiet or repose of sleep and
cessation or absence of motion.
Also, according to Dictionary.com, leisure means to:
freedom from the demands of work or duty and
time free from the demands of work or duty, when one can rest, enjoy hobbies or sports, etc., and
unhurried ease.
When you know the difference between rest and leisure then you are on your way to Erotic Living.
Resting does not mean without work, it means integrating an ease with which one works.
Leisure means “time free from demands of work...when one can rest and enjoy”.
Neither rest nor leisure means material wealth.
They do, however, require the cultivation of inner wealth- embodied intelligence.
The Erotic Cost of Rushing Through Life as Taught by Capitalism
For over 20 years, I’ve worked with healing professionals, trauma survivors, and folks from the Global Majority who come to me exhausted. Not just tired—depleted. Their nervous systems are fried. Their capacity for pleasure centers is gone. Their erotic selves are in hibernation. They simply do not have the capacity to experience leisure, let alone allow themselves to rest.
And when I ask them about rest, they look at me like I’ve suggested they grow wings and fly.
“I don’t have time to rest.”
“Rest is for people feel accomplished.”
“If I stop, everything will fall apart.”
These aren’t just thoughts—they’re survival strategies inherited from a white supremacist capitalist culture that profits from our exhaustion. For queer and queer-affirming Black women and non-binary folks, especially, rest has been stolen from us for generations. We are socialized to devalue rest as our bodies were never meant to be our own and our pleasure was never a priority. The result…
Our exhaustion was the point.
So, when I talk about rest as an erotic practice, I’m not talking about bubble baths and face masks (though those are lovely). I’m talking about nervous system regulation as a pathway to erotic liberation. An erotic pathway to more.
Rest and the Erotic Self: The Connection You’ve Been Missing
Allow me to affirm:
Your erotic self cannot thrive in a dysregulated nervous system. Period.
When your body is stuck in fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn mode—cortisol elevated, breath shallow, muscles tense, self-doubt intensifies—your emotional, somatic, spiritual, and sexual capacity for pleasure, desire, and connection shuts down. This is the impact of harm and oppression, not a personal failing.
Your erotic intelligence as a critical component to your embodied intelligence, also depends on your ability to access the parasympathetic nervous system—the “rest and digest” state where pleasure, arousal, and intimacy become possible. The other EQ, erotic intelligence, is the connection you have been missing.
Without rest, your erotic self goes dormant.
Most healing arts of the Global Majority understand this connection. Winter asks us to conserve, restore, and nourish our deepest reserves. When we ignore this ancestral seasonal wisdom and keep pushing, we deplete the very energy that fuels our erotic vitality. What the sex-regressive, spiritually-corrupted system of capitalism intentionally ignores.
Rest isn’t laziness. Rest is erotic intelligence in action.
What Intentional Rest Unlocks
When you practice intentional rest, here’s what becomes possible:
· Increased desire: Your body remembers it’s safe to want.
· Deeper pleasure: Your nervous system has bandwidth for sensation.
· Embodied presence: You can stay in your body during intimacy instead of dissociating.
· Erotic confidence: You trust your body’s wisdom and rhythms.
· Sustainable vitality (i.e. erotic expansion): You build increased capacity for the intentional work of meaningful relationships, not just the sprint of capitalism’s erotic standards of its defaults.
. Erotic curiosity: You can imagine a world beyond the limited imagination of white capitalistic cannibalism. Whether rooted in Afrofuturism, Afropessimism, or cultural imagining that is ancestrally yours, intentional rest unlocks the erotic energy of imagination.
Rest isn’t the absence of erotic energy—it’s the foundation for it.
Your Invitation: The Erotic Living Course
If you’re ready to integrate rest as a daily erotic practice, I invite you to explore the Erotic Living Course—a self-paced digital program designed to help you reconnect with your body, your pleasure, and your erotic intelligence.
Inside, you’ll find:
- A 7-module program delivered daily using the erotic as healing intentions and your body's energy centers as a healing map with guided somatic and erosomatic practices for mind-body regulation
- Erotic affirmations to rewire shame into sovereignty
- Breathwork and movement practices for embodied rest
- Tools to cultivate pleasure as a daily practice supporting your erotic and spiritual awakening.
As an integrative somatic sex therapist, erotic intelligence coach, and continuing education provider for therapists and healthcare professionals, I offer several pathways to prepare for the intentional and playful work of erotic expansion of 2026
Learn more: erospirituality.com/store