Busy Moms Can Learn to Really Relax

But Not the Way You Think

She asked me to relax my arm.

I obliged immediately — let it go limp, breathed deeply, focused on releasing every bit of tension. I was cooperative, intentional, present. I was relaxed.

And then my chiropractor walked around the table, positioned herself for the other arm, and said almost in passing:

“You weren’t really relaxed.”

I questioned her assessment. I had felt relaxed. I had been breathing. My arm had gone limp. What more was there?

She said, “You think you have relaxed it — but you really haven’t. You are not fighting me. But you are still helping me.You weren’t really relaxed.”

We laughed. And then she left the room.

And in the quiet that followed, a nagging feeling settled in the pit of my stomach — because I knew, with the particular knowing that bypasses logic entirely, that my Heavenly Father had just used an innocent chiropractic adjustment to get my full attention.

I heard that still, small whisper:

“Misty, you think you are really relaxing. But you are still trying to help Me.”

The First Responsibility of Humanity Was Rest

From the very beginning, the kind intention of the Father has been for us to become like children and relax into His rest.

Think about the order of creation:

God made mankind on the sixth day. Then God rested — and welcomed mankind into that rest.

The very first responsibility of Adam and Eve was not to work, not to produce, not to accomplish anything. It was to enter into what God had already finished, relax, and enjoy it.

We have had this backwards for a very long time.

Culturally, we have been conditioned to work first and somehow earn rest afterward. Relaxation becomes the reward at the end of the to-do list — which means, for most of us, it never fully arrives. The list never ends. And neither does the striving.

Doing All the Things — But Not Really Relaxing

I want to be honest with you about something.

Over the years, my attempts at rest involved massages, dinners with friends, hot bubble baths, and even a yearly retreat built into my busy working-mom life. These were genuinely good things — beautiful opportunities for rest and refreshment.

But did I really relax?

I filled my weekend retreats with planning, reading, listening, and learning. I arrived with objectives. I left having accomplished something. Even in silence and solitude, I was producing.

You see, I learned early in life that I needed to be my own protector, provider, and parent. I believed my value was based on what I could achieve, accomplish, and attain. So even in the spaces designed for rest, I was still helping God move me into the right place — not fighting Him, but not really letting go either.

Perhaps you recognize yourself in this.

You are doing all the right things to relax. And somewhere underneath, God is quietly saying: you are not fighting Me — but you are still helping Me.

If this resonates, come share what rest actually feels like for you in the Christian Moms in Business and Ministry Facebook Group — a community of women who are learning together what it means to really let go.

Discover: What Does Really Relaxing Actually Mean?

The 1828 Webster’s Dictionary defines relax this way: to slacken, to loosen, to make less severe or rigorous, to unbend, to open.

Relaxation is not the activity. It is the outcome.

Pause for a moment and imagine what being really relaxed would feel like, look like, sound like for you. Not what you think it should look like — what it would actually feel like in your body, your mind, your spirit.

That vision is worth sitting with. Because most of us have never fully arrived there — and we cannot move toward something we cannot picture.

Define: What Gets in the Way

The hurry and hustle culture we swim in every day values speed and hard work while quietly treating rest as a weakness or a luxury for the less ambitious.

As author Ken Wytsma writes: by resisting the urge to prioritize urgent tasks over everything else, we can open ourselves up to better hearing and understanding God’s will for us.

As a certified overachiever — influenced by a grandmother who was always producing, even while sitting — I struggle deeply with believing there is real value in resting. The truth is, as busy mothers, we often get in our own way. We have absorbed the values of the world around us so thoroughly that our own beliefs become the biggest obstacle between us and the rest God is offering.

If you are ready to start untangling the web that has been holding you back from real rest, I recommend the Fight Hurry; End Hustle podcast series — just eleven short episodes that can genuinely reframe the way you think about rest and help you take real steps toward a more balanced life.

Develop: A Plan for Building a Lifestyle of Really Relaxing

Learn to let go — and give yourself grace while you learn.

The key word is learn. Learning takes time, energy, and patience with yourself. This is not a one-weekend fix. You may need to let your family and close friends know that you are intentionally practicing a new rhythm — so they understand what you are doing and why.

If you would like support in the actual practice of letting go, download the Pause App to begin the process of learning to give Jesus everything — one breath, one moment at a time.

Schedule it — because it will not just happen.

Learning to really relax requires putting time on your calendar. Call it Sabbath. Call it solitude. Call it a season of silence. Whatever language fits your life — protect the time, or it will fill with everything else.

During a period of deliberate solitude, I had an epiphany that changed how I understood rest entirely. I realized that I experience real rest when I become still, silent, or enter into solitude. Not when I accomplish something in the quiet — when I simply stop.

My grip loosens. Life falls into place. The voices in my head cease. My soul goes quiet.

That is what it feels like to really relax.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

When the Father invites us to trust Him and not lean on our own understanding, He is inviting us into a full posture of dependency. That posture — open hands, loosened grip, unhurried soul — is the posture of real rest.

Perhaps you also hear the smiling whisper of the Lord:

“You are not really relaxed yet. But trust Me. Relax into Me.”

You Do Not Have to Figure This Out Alone

If you are ready to build a real rhythm of rest into your life — not just the idea of it, but an actual, sustainable practice — I would love to help.

The https://mistyhughes.myflodesk.com/discoverrhythms is a free resource that walks through the three rhythms of Rest, Restoration, and Relationship — and gives you a simple framework for building them into your actual life, not a perfect imaginary one.

And if you want to go even deeper into what solitude and sacred space can look like for a busy mom, the Gift of Solitude Post is worth reading alongside this one.

Come find your people in the Christian Moms in Business and Ministry Facebook Group — women who are learning, together, what it means to stop helping God and start trusting Him.

Where are you on the journey of really relaxing — and what would it mean to finally loosen your grip?