Rest Is Not Passive: It’s a Radical Act of Return with Jordan Maney
In this episode of The Empowered & Embodied Show, hosts Kim Romain and Louise Neil are joined by Jordan Maney—Radical Joy Coach and founder of The Rest Lab—for a conversation that’s as poetic as it is practical.
Together, they explore what it means to float in a world that tells us to grip, to soften when everything screams for tension, and to rest not as luxury—but as resistance.
Floating as a Metaphor for Healing
Dive into a metaphor that threads throughout this conversation with Jordan: water. She shares her journey of relearning how to float—physically and emotionally—and what that taught her about surrender, support, and healing.
Key Takeaways:
Control ≠ Safety: Often, we hold on so tightly to control that we forget how to let ourselves be supported.
Floating Requires Softening: Rest is not something we “achieve.” It’s something we allow.
Your Nervous System Isn’t Lazy—It’s Tapped Out: And that matters.
This episode isn't about bypassing pain. It's about acknowledging it, sitting with it, and learning to float even when we don’t know how to swim.
Resting in Community
One of the most powerful insights of this episode is that healing doesn’t happen in isolation. Jordan, Kim, and Louise reflect on how community—true, present, vulnerable community—is where real rest begins to take root.
“We’re not designed to do this alone.”
Whether it’s a hiking group, a creative stitch circle, or a quiet moment with someone who simply sees you, the conversation reminds us that resting in community requires letting go of perfection and showing up as you are.
Key Themes:
Being in community is different than just building it.
Leaders often know how to hold space—but struggle to be held.
Resting together is how we refill what we can’t pour for ourselves.
🌀 The Myth That Rest Must Be Earned
There’s a quiet but powerful myth that still lives in so many of us: that we must earn our rest. That we must do more, prove more, and fix more before we can stop.
“You don’t have to earn rest. You just have to allow it.”
Rest is not a reward. It’s a right and it’s available even in the midst of chaos—not once it’s all solved.
💡 Redefining Rest: A Return to Self
Toward the end of the episode, Jordan shares her personal definition of rest—one that reclaims it from productivity culture and roots it in embodiment:
“Rest is the energy, attention, and time you return to yourself.”
This reframing shifts rest from something indulgent to something essential. Something that brings us back to who we are beneath the noise, the armor, and the grind.
When we allow ourselves to be still, to be held, to simply be, we reconnect to the self that hustle made us forget.
Key Takeaways
Rest is Active: It’s not checking out—it’s choosing presence over performance.
Floating Is Survival: When striving becomes too much, floating becomes the way forward.
You Can’t Heal Alone: True rest often begins in trusted community.
Control Isn’t Safety: Safety lives in the body, not in hyper-productivity.
Return to Yourself: Rest is how we come home to who we are—not who we’ve been trained to be.
Key Takeaways:
Rest isn’t something you earn—it’s something you return to.
Letting go is not a loss of control; it’s an act of trust.
Floating, like healing, doesn’t require effort, just a willingness to soften.
We're not meant to navigate this life alone; community isn't optional, it's essential.
True support begins when we’re willing to receive, not just give.
Control is not the same as safety.
Allowing is deeply personal. It’s about reclaiming what softening looks like for you.
Key Moments:
00:00 – Welcome
01:45 – Jordan’s intro
04:20 – “We were made for such a time as this…”: Purpose in dark times
06:01 – Sponge vs. flow: Feeling grief without being consumed
07:59 – The difference between drinking the water and swimming in it
09:40 – What happens when we don’t know how to swim?
12:53 – “If you can’t relax, you’ll never learn to trust yourself in the water”
15:58 – Why control is mistaken for safety—and what it actually costs
17:52 – Floating as self-support: Can you let yourself be held?
19:10 – The frenzy of service vs. the practice of settling
21:21 – How community quietly fills the cup when you’re depleted
24:31 – Military childhood, mutual aid, and the longing for connection
29:55 – What holds us back from resting in community?
35:21 – Stitch & Bitch, hiking, AquaZumba: Finding joy in collective care
38:42 – Creating containers where people can peek out and be themselves
41:25 – Jordan’s definition of rest: Returning energy, attention, and time to self
47:09 – “Allowing” as a portal to healing—on your own terms
49:10 – Where to find Jordan and more of her brilliant work
Connect With Jordan:
Website: https://www.jordanmaney.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanmaney/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejordanmaney/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheJordanManey/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/thejordanmaney/
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