{"product_id":"the-relaxed-woman-isbn-9780593719305","title":"The Relaxed Woman","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHave you ever met a relaxed woman? Would you like to become one? \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003ePsychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs draws on the latest science and extensive therapeutic experience to dispel the myth that relaxing is lazy and show women how to reclaim rest as a path to healing, freedom, and joy.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe have become a society of rushing women, overburdened women, exhausted women. Women whose lives are plagued with stress, guilt, and burnout. We try so hard to do it all—to be the perfect partners, mothers, daughters, colleagues, friends—only to end up feeling not good enough, unappreciated, and lonely. But it doesn’t have to be this way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman, \u003c\/i\u003epsychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs explores how stress negatively impacts our minds, bodies and relationships, and illuminates a path towards reclaiming relaxation as a form of liberation. Weaving together neuroscience and psychology with inspirational stories from women who are discovering the transformational power of rest for themselves, Nicola guides us on a journey to becoming relaxed women: women who have untangled their sense of worth from their productivity, who can rest without guilt and anxiety, who trust their intuitions, honor their needs, and live by their deepest values.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFilled with simple rest rituals we can weave into our busy lives, healing practices to help regulate our nervous systems, and practical strategies to support us in navigating the unavoidable stressors of life, \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman \u003c\/i\u003eis an empowering, restful guide for all of us who long to live more joyful, authentic lives. Because we deserve more than being constantly exhausted. We deserve to be relaxed women, women who know our worth and our power­—women who, together, can change the world.\"\u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is not just a book; it's a manifesto. It's a wake-up call. It's a rallying cry not to do more, be more, or have more, but to actually relax into yourself and your life. Nicola’s words are a balm. Every woman needs to read this book!\" \u003cb\u003e—Jamie Varon, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eRadically Content:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBeing Satisfied in an Endlessly Dissatisfied World\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"As a distinctly not-relaxed woman, this book was a great reminder of what we must consider on our journey to becoming calm and content. Hobbs calls into question philosophies and cultural expectations that keep women from being relaxed, and provides helpful questions for personal reflection along the way. If you are unfamiliar with factors keeping women from a calm life, this book is a great place to build your understanding.\"\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Emily Ballesteros, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eThe Cure for Burnout: How to Find Balance and Reclaim Your Life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“From the first page of Nicola Jane Hobbs’ \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e, I felt my shoulders soften, my breathing slow, and my mind expand. Revelatory, genuinely empowering, and deeply compassionate, this book is sure to help any woman who has felt stretched thin, burned out, or disconnected from feelings of awe and joy. I walked away convinced that relaxation can indeed be a feminist act—a hidden source of liberation that, until now, has been largely untapped. Let the relaxed woman revolution begin!” \u003cb\u003e—Danielle Friedman, author of \u003ci\u003eLet's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"In a world that glorifies hustle and overwhelm, \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is a refreshing invitation to embrace softness, self-compassion, and ease in your daily routine. It is a thought-provoking read for any woman navigating the tightrope of modern femininity, and struggling to balancing ambition with well-being, who desires to move through life with confidence and calm, free from the pressures of constant striving.\" \u003cb\u003e—Melissa Petro, author of \u003ci\u003eShame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“[An] uplifting guide…Drawing from her own therapeutic work and neuroscientific models…psychologist Hobbs (\u003ci\u003eDaily Awakening\u003c\/i\u003e) outlines how readers can recover a relaxation impulse stamped out by “stress, trauma, and cultural conditioning.”…Interspersing the account with frequent reminders to take brief moments to relax, Hobbs provides readers with practical strategies for self-care while clarifying that resting need not mean ignoring obligations but rather doing away with unproductive stress to preserve energy for one’s priorities. Those in need of a vacation will find this the next best thing.”\u003cb\u003e —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This book is an exhalation—a permission slip to slow down, soften, and relax into who you truly are. \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is an invitation to release the grip of over-efforting, untangle from the myth of constant productivity, and return to a state of deep trust and ease. Through rich insights and gentle reminders, this book guides you back to yourself—the version of you that moves through life with joy, freedom, and an unshakable sense of peace.” \u003cb\u003e—Amber Rae, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eLoveable: One Woman's Path from Good to Free\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e“\u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e is a profound act of resistance against a world that measures women by their productivity and sacrifice. With wisdom and compassion, Nicola Jane Hobbs revives the forgotten archetype of the relaxed woman—one who trusts her body, honors her needs, and reclaims rest as a source of power, freedom, and deep belonging.” \u003cb\u003e—Brittany Piper, author of \u003ci\u003eBody-First Healing: Get Unstuck and Recover from Trauma with Somatic Healing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"This is the book I've needed but didn't know I needed—from the very first line, I felt seen and understood on the deepest of levels. If you, like me, have spent most of your life doing, striving, achieving, rushing, and pushing forward despite deep exhaustion and overwhelm, this book is for you. Through her warm, understanding, inspiring words (and research!), Nicola gives tired women everywhere the permission we've been waiting for: \u003ci\u003eyou deserve to relax\u003c\/i\u003e. I can't wait to gift this book to all of my friends and work through it together!” \u003cb\u003e—Mary Catherine Starr, author of \u003ci\u003eMama Needs a Minute! \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eNicola Jane Hobbs\u003c\/b\u003e is a chartered psychologist specializing in the psychology of rest. She holds a master’s degree in sport and exercise psychology and has over a decade of experience supporting women’s health and wellbeing through yoga, meditation and therapeutic practice. Nicola is the founder of \u003ci\u003eThe Relaxed Woman\u003c\/i\u003e, a community devoted to supporting women to recover from stress and burnout through coaching and workshops. She lives in Brighton UK with her partner Justin and their son Huxley.Chapter 1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHave You Ever Met a Relaxed Woman?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe're not designed to live in survival mode. Our bodies need safeness. Our souls need rest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs women, we are soft, strong, fierce, fragile, vulnerable, resilient, embodied, intuitive, and deeply interconnected with one another. We are also stressed, overwhelmed, and exhausted. Our desire to care and nurture has been exploited by our culture. Our capacity for kindness and compassion has been abused. Our hope for empowerment and equality has been manipulated into exhausting obligations and unrealistic expectations, leaving us feeling like there is never enough time and always too much to do. We have become a society of rushing women. Overburdened women. Exhausted women. Without seeing other women role-model what it means to be relaxed, to be at ease, to be free, many of us have felt anxious, apologetic, afraid, and ashamed all our lives. When the women who love us are unable to rest, relax, and honor their needs, it can be very difficult for us to do so ourselves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn a society dominated by patriarchy, full of inequality, and obsessed with productivity, the relaxed woman is a rare being. Most of us have never met one, and becoming one can feel like an impossibility. We may have absorbed the manipulative cultural messaging that \"relaxation\" signifies laziness, a lack of ambition, indulgence, selfishness, resignation, and complacency. When we are scared of judgment and criticism, it can feel safer to conform to expectations of perfectionism, self-sacrifice, people-pleasing, and toxic productivity than to explore a more relaxed way of living.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd yet, even though we may never have met a relaxed woman, when we hear the words relaxed and woman together, they often resonate deep within us, reawakening a way of being that we know intuitively. Like a magic spell, they open a secret door, revealing to us a new hope, a new paradigm, a new possibility.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Pain of Being\u003cbr\u003ean Unrelaxed Woman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOften, we begin becoming relaxed women by becoming aware of where we are unrelaxed. Where we are not at rest. Where we are not at ease. Where we are not free.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe is so rare that it can be easier to get to know the relaxed woman through what she is not rather than what she is. We could call her opposite the stressed woman, the exhausted woman, or the burned-out woman; the rushing woman, the overcontrolled woman, or the disempowered woman; the hyper-independent woman, the self-silencing woman, or the overburdened woman. Maybe the best way to describe her opposite is simply as unrelaxed-defined as \"tense, stressed, not at rest or at ease\".   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat are some of the signs of being an unrelaxed woman? In the words of the women I have worked with and interviewed:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeeling chronically unsafe, being stuck in survival mode, judging our worth by our productivity, and living with a constant sense of inner urgency and impending doom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeeling anxious, ashamed, guilty, exhausted, lost, trapped, powerless, depleted, overwhelmed, unworthy, and unseen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExperiencing insomnia, dizziness, migraines, gut issues, and chronic fatigue.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlways looking for permission from someone outside of ourselves, doubting our strengths and abilities, and treating every mistake like a catastrophe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeing afraid of disappointing anyone, being a burden, rocking the boat, or appearing lazy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStriving ruthlessly for perfection, overriding our inner rhythms, ignoring our intuitions, and treating ourselves like machines.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuppressing our emotions, hiding our vulnerabilities, and bypassing our needs.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOverworking, overthinking, overplanning, and overachieving.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSilencing our voices, hiding our truths, masking, performing, and people-pleasing.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFinding it impossible to relax after a hard day working, caregiving, and mothering.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeeling both overcontrolled and out of control, and yearning to rest yet being compulsively busy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBeing easily influenced by other people's opinions, feeling the need to do what is expected, and spending energy pursuing goals that don't truly matter to conform to society.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeeling alienated from our bodies, our emotions, our hopes, and our dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWanting to hide and yet longing to be seen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe costs of being stressed, exhausted, unrelaxed women-to ourselves, our families, and our societies-are vast. Emma, a therapist and mother of two, captures the pain of being an unrelaxed woman powerfully:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI woke up one morning and just collapsed. My body was debilitated. I didn't know what was wrong with me. My kids were really little and it was terrifying. I'm a therapist, so I knew the impact stress has on your body, but I just didn't see this coming. I was trying to give 100 percent to my kids and 100 percent to my clients and do everything else 100 percent, and it was too much. I was in denial that I had any limits. I thought I was superwoman. I didn't realize how exhausted I was. My body had been whispering to me through headaches and anxiety and difficulties sleeping, but I was too busy to listen. And then, one day, it shouted, \"STOP.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are many reasons why so many of us are unrelaxed, why so many of us feel unsafe and unfree. And we are all going to experience seasons of our lives when we feel tired and anxious, moments when we lose ourselves in busyness and urgency. We just don't want to get stuck there. If you identify with the signs of being an unrelaxed woman, there's nothing wrong with you. It makes complete sense that you're stressed and exhausted given what you've been through. Our minds are tricky, and we can so easily turn \"not being a relaxed woman\" into another stick to beat ourselves with, another judgment or criticism. The last thing I want is for any part of this book to leave you feeling guilty for not being \"relaxed enough\" or \"regulated enough\" or \"good enough\" in any way. Instead, my hope is that this book will awaken hope and possibility while giving you the tools to nurture a more relaxed way of being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs you read, see if you can release any shame and any \"shoulds\"-\"I should be more present,\" \"I should people-please less,\" \"I should find it easier to rest\"-and approach this journey as an invitation, not even as \"inner work\" but as \"inner play\"-an opportunity to play with a new way of seeing, a new way of living, a new way of being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAwakening the Relaxed Woman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe relaxed woman is free and wild and difficult to define. She manifests differently for each of us and at different times in our lives as we get to know her and to become her gently over time. She doesn't require us to be a certain age or race or class, and she doesn't depend on us being able to do a certain amount of self-care each day. She cannot be identified by external achievements or privileges, because what looks like freedom and success on the outside often feels like unsafety and unworthiness deep down. We can't force ourselves to become her by \"hacking\" our nervous systems or copying someone else's morning routine. Rather, we become her by integrating and embodying what feels true and matters deeply to us. Becoming a relaxed woman is less about what we do and more about how we attend to the world-carefully, lovingly, vulnerably. The relaxed woman is who we are when we live by our values, take off our masks, and relax into our most authentic selves.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAs I am getting to know her in my own life, I am discovering that the relaxed woman is the self we have been taught to hide and despise-the sensual, wild, passionate, playful self that knows her worth, embraces her power, and trusts her intuitive voice. Below is a list of qualities of the relaxed woman that have unfolded over the years as I have listened to women's experiences and witnessed them begin to embody her. This list doesn't prescribe how a relaxed woman should be; rather, we can use it to awaken ourselves to the possibility of another way of being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eQualities relaxed women share:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe feel safe and free in our bodies and in the world\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe believe we are worthy, regardless of our productivity\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe honor our needs for rest and silence, for intimacy and support, for peace and ease\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe live with an increasing inner stillness\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe prioritize authenticity and intimacy over performing and people-pleasing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe have the capacity to care deeply for ourselves, one another, and the earth on which we live\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe know when to work hard and when to rest deeply, when to be fierce and when to be gentle, when to give and when to receive\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe trust our intuitions, live by our values, and feel connected to our emotions, hopes, fears, and dreams\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe accept our limitations, imperfections, and vulnerabilities\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe feel an openness to all of life-pain and joy, hope and fear, grief and love\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe luxuriate in the simple joys and glorious ordinary moments\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe value ourselves enough to set loving boundaries that support our well-being\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe respect other women's choices even if they are different from our own\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe accept stress, change, and uncertainty as unavoidable parts of life and trust that we can cope with adversity when it\u003cbr\u003earises \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe recognize when the pain of the past has been touched and awakened and, rather than letting it hijack us, welcome it and work with it in loving and compassionate ways\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe keep our hearts open to the suffering in the world without feeling as though it's our responsibility alone to fix it\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe know the difference between nonnegotiable responsibilities and unrealistic expectations\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe embrace our childlike qualities-joyful, playful, curious, and carefree-and have fun and be silly\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ewe know that we are worthy of rest, respect, compassion, love, and joy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecoming a relaxed woman doesn't diminish the unavoidable stressors and pressures in our lives. Rather, it allows us to rise up to meet them; to navigate them with more grace, trust, and ease; and to recover from them so that we have the capacity to face whatever comes next.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecoming a relaxed woman doesn't mean giving up on our ambitions and neglecting our responsibilities. We can be relaxed women and work hard toward our dreams. We can be relaxed women and passionately pursue personal growth. We can be relaxed women and do meaningful work, take care of our families, and show up for our communities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBecoming a relaxed woman doesn't mean that we'll never experience anxiety or fatigue or that we'll live in a constant state of unwavering peace. Rather, it means that we can relax with whatever is present. We can relax with the chaos and mess and uncertainty. We can relax with our imperfections and failures. We can relax with our feelings of guilt and shame and anxiety. And as we relax and stop resisting reality, we free up a huge amount of energy. We discover our freedom-to accept and feel and grieve for those experiences that are beyond our control and to make changes and take action in those areas of life where our power lies.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRest and reflect\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLet's take a couple of minutes to connect with the relaxed woman within you. Close your eyes, deepen your breath, and invite a sense of your most relaxed, loving self to emerge. She may take a couple of minutes to awaken. Be patient, creating a safe space for her to unfold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter you've got a sense of her (which may be very subtle at the moment), use the following questions to reflect on your experience of meeting the relaxed woman within you. If you embodied the relaxed woman . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat values would you live by?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat would you prioritize in your life?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow would you speak to yourself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow would you eat, exercise, and take care of yourself?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow would you nurture your relationships?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat would you do for work?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow would you spend your free time?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSometimes, when we do this practice, we can confuse our \"relaxed self\" for our idea of the \"perfect self.\" Be mindful if your responses drift toward perfectionism, and see if you can sense how your body responds differently as you connect with this internalized version of perfection compared to the relaxed woman who lives within you.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRight now, the relaxed woman may still feel like a stranger, but as we begin this journey together, there will be increasing moments when you experience an overwhelming sense of \"Oh, so this is how it feels to be a relaxed woman\"-and it feels beautiful!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMy Journey to Embodying\u003cbr\u003ethe Relaxed Woman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe more intimate I become with the relaxed woman, the more I sense her in different ways and on different levels. She is an archetype and a practice, a skill and a nervous system state, a paradigm and a possibility, a way of being and a process of becoming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the words that came up again and again in my research was journey. And in many ways, the relaxed woman is just that. A healing journey. A heroine's journey. A journey of learning to take care of ourselves, to speak up for ourselves, to value ourselves as women. A journey of awareness and courage and hope.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe relaxed woman journey is the one I found myself on in 2020 after over two decades of embracing the stereotypical hero's journey, seeking validation in patriarchal systems, overworking, overachieving, people-pleasing, measuring my worth by my productivity, and juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet, only to end up burned out, in chronic pain, hormonally imbalanced, and spiritually empty. Continuing to live the way I had been living was no longer an option. From this exhausted and tender place, the relaxed woman journey began to unfold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePart intuition, part psychology, part science, and part spirituality, this journey was a gentle process of exploring and integrating everything I'd learned since beginning my training as a psychologist in 2008 with the spiritual wisdom I discovered through teaching yoga for over a decade and by listening to the quiet whispers of my body and calling of my soul. For years, I'd known I needed to live a more restful life. I'd read the research, studied the science, and knew deep down that stress was the cause of a lot of my health struggles. But despite what I knew intellectually, I continued to overwork, overcommit, and neglect my body's needs-partly because of financial necessity, partly out of a deep sense of responsibility, and partly because I didn't know any other way of being.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI'm not sure what sparked the shift from awareness to practice-from knowing I needed to rest to actually resting-but I remember one morning in the early days of the first Covid-19 lockdown, my partner and I were sitting on the back step in our garden. Like many of us, I was feeling scared-for our health, our families, our freedom, our society-when, in an attempt to ease my ever-escalating anxiety, my partner gently said to me, \"There's nothing you can do right now, so you might as well relax.\" In that moment, I realized I didn't know how to relax. Nor were there any women in my life I could turn to for guidance. And so, I began experimenting.","brand":"G.P. 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