"Good Tired" or "Dangerous Tired"?

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This is an insightful excerpt from Ruth Haley Barton's book "Invitation to Solitude and Silence".   It is about tiredness.  She very wisely creates a distinction between "good tired" and "bad tired".  I think it is so important to recognize which characterizes your insides so that you know how to proceed with wellbeing. You are going to love it. Take a second and scroll down to read.  

Those of you who spend time with me know I refer to my own inner space as having a "climate" often as I take my temperature and pay attention to what I am in need of.  As you read the below, you will notice her weather metaphor and will connect the metaphors I have used in the past. I think it is a rich building block on that foundation.

I would also like to note that there are different kinds of rest required for different kinds of tired.  Sometimes exhaustion feels deep. We take a nap or a vacation, and when resuming our lives, we find that tired feeling waiting for us when we return. I think this is because physical rest is extremely essential to our spiritual health.

But, sometimes physical rest doesn't restore like we are longing for.

Have you ever felt that "incomplete" rest experience?  I think we need to intentionally pursue emotional rest, relational rest, and spiritual rest for ourselves. We'll explore this practically in later discussions. For now, enjoy this excerpt and take note of what characterizes you now or typically in your routine places of being:

"As I have paid more attention to my tiredness and fatigue, I have learned that there are at least two kinds of tired.  One is what I call "good tired". This is the kind of tiredness that we experience after a job well done, a task accomplished out of the best of who we are.  If we are living in healthy rhythms of work and rest, this tiredness is a temporary condition, and when it comes, we know that after we take appropriate time for rest and recuperation, we will soon be back in the swing of things.

But another kind of tiredness is more ominous, and this is what I call "dangerous tired".  It is a deeper and more serious than the temporary exhaustion that follows periods of intensity of schedule and work load.   The difference between "good tired" and "dangerous tired" is like the difference between the atmospheric conditions that produce harmless spring rain clouds and those that bring an eerie green-tinted sky and the possibility of a tornado.  When the sky is green like that, you're not quite sure what's going on, but something doesn't' feel right, and you know you had better pay attention.  One atmospheric condition is normal and predictable; the other is risky and volatile.

Dangerous tired is an atmospheric condition of the soul that is volatile and portends the risk of great destruction.  It is a chronic inner fatigue accumulating over months and months, and it does not always manifest itself in physical exhaustion.  In fact, it can be masked by excessive activity and compulsive overworking.  When we are dangerously tired we feel out of control, compelled to constant activity by inner impulses at we may not be aware of.  For some reason we can't quite name, we're not able to linger and relax over a cup of coffee. ...

When we do have discretionary  time we indulge in escapist behaviors--such as compulsive eating, drinking, spending, watching television--because we are too tired to choose activities that are truly life-giving....When we are dangerously tires we may be numb to the full range of emotion...we suspect that if we did stop long enough to experience our emotions, we might be overcome by feelings we'd rather not feel...


One of the most sobering things I learned as I listened to my exhaustion and allowed God to minister to me is that when I am dangerously tired I...may be unable to hear the quiet, sure voice of the One who calls me beloved.  When that happens, I lose touch with that place in the center of my being where I know who I am in God, where I know what I am called to do, and where I am responsive to his voice above all others.  When that happens I am at the mercy of all manner of external forces, tossed and turned by others; expectations and my own compulsions. These inner lacks then become the source of my frenetic activity, keeping me forever spiraling into deeper levels of exhaustion."


Barton, R.H. 2010. Invitation to Solitude and Silence. InterVarsity Press.  Downers Grove, IL.  

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