Monday Is Not The Enemy

We’ve been taught to hate Mondays. Memes, coffee mugs, and calendars all joke about it:

"Ugh, Monday again."Can the weekend last forever?""

But maybe the problem isn’t Monday. Maybe it’s what Monday represents.

👉 A rhythm that doesn’t match our own.

👉 A world that rarely asks, “What do you actually need to thrive?”

Earlier this week, I got a message from a friend who just retired. She told me, “I still get the Sunday evening blahs.” That hit me.

She’s not rushing off to meetings. No deadlines. No inbox overload waiting on Monday morning. And yet… the feeling is still there.

This is what I’ve started to call the retirement trap.

We’re sold the story that if we just work hard enough, sacrifice long enough, and stay busy enough…we’ll eventually earn rest.

That one day, we’ll ride off into the sunset—finally free, finally at peace.

And we sacrifice our mental and physical health, relationships and peace now, all for a time that we can’t be certain will ever come.

But when the structure disappears, the anxiety doesn’t always go with it.

We may leave the job—but the conditioning remains.

• The rhythm of urgency.

• The pressure to be "useful".

• The discomfort with stillness.

  
  

🧠 That’s part of toxic culture too—the idea that we only matter when we’re producing, achieving, or staying busy.

Even in retirement, we can feel haunted by a culture that trained us to earn our worth.

Because this isn’t just about work.It’s about what we’ve internalized after years—sometimes decades—of tying our worth to our output.

It’s about how we've been trained to brace ourselves at the start of each week.

And when the structure disappears, the anxiety doesn't always go with it. We might start to ask deeper questions:

“What is my purpose now?”

“How do I move through life when I’m not being measured?”

“Who am I if I’m not being productive?”

The system conditions us to perform, not just participate. Even our weekends aren’t truly free.

We work in always-on mode—connected, responding, bracing.

And when the weekend arrives, it’s rarely rest.

🧺 We tend to the house we had to have.

🧰 Catch up on life’s loose ends.

🙋‍♂️ Try to use the dirt bike and four-wheeler or the toys we were told would bring us joy.

📅 Pack the calendar with back-to-back weekend plans—because slowing down feels unfamiliar.

🎉 Say yes to social obligations we don’t have the energy for, afraid of letting people down.

And to be clear—I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of these.They can absolutely add richness to our lives.

But only when they’re chosen with intention—not as a way to escape or prove our worth.

Because often, what we’re really longing for is space.Space to do nothing.

🌬️ To breathe.

❤️ To be with people we love.

🌲 To wander outside without a goal.

But instead of letting ourselves rest in that space, we rush to fill it.

We pack it with screens, chores, upgrades, or distractions—anything to avoid the discomfort of slowing down.

And that, too, feeds the cycle of anxiety.

This isn’t about giving things up.

It’s about getting honest with ourselves:

👉 What truly restores me?

👉 What just feeds the toxic pressure to have more, do more, achieve more, stay busy?

Because here’s the truth:

🌱 Monday is just a day. It’s not your enemy. The real weight comes from misalignment. From being pulled into expectations that don’t reflect your values, your pace, or your truth.

What if we reclaimed Monday—not as a punishment—but as a mirror?

A moment to notice:

🌀 What’s draining me?

🌀 What rhythms am I living by—and do they actually work for me?

🌀 What would it feel like to begin the week with integrity, not just obligation?

✨ Before you explore this week’s beautiful question, try sitting with one or two of these gentle prompts:

1. 🌿 When do I feel most like myself during the week—and how often does that happen on a Monday?

2. 🌿 What parts of my current routine feel like mine… and what parts feel borrowed, imposed, or performative?

3. 🌿 If I could start my week in a way that honored my nervous system, what would the first hour of Monday look and feel like?This isn’t about pretending everything’s fine.It’s about refusing to blame the day for what the culture has distorted.

   
   

This week’s beautiful question:

What would my Monday look like if it honored my real energy, values, and pace?

You don’t have to fix it all.But you can begin to listen.

If this reflection stirred something in you, my book Rewilding Your Soul: A Rebel's Guide to being Human In a World Gone Wild goes even deeper. It explores how toxic cultural rhythms disconnect us from our inner truth—and how we can begin to return to a more aligned, purposeful way of living. You don’t have to wait for permission to start—your reclamation can begin right here.