Podcast Episode #46 - Why Do Women Feel Guilty Resting?
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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to yet another inspirational podcast episode brought to you by yours truly, Carina. I'm your truth speaker, truth seeker, truth keeper, and I am so glad that you're here with me today
A lot of women think they're bad at resting. I don't think that's true. I think many women are terrified of slowing down because slowing down means feeling, and feeling means there's nowhere left to hide. So instead, they stay busy, they clean, organize, [00:01:00] research, scroll, listen to podcasts, watch Netflix while simultaneously folding washing, replying to messages, and mentally planning tomorrow.
They tell themselves they're relaxing, but their nervous system is still running a full-time shift. And honestly, I don't think the problem is that women don't know how to rest. I think the problem is that many women have spent so long using busyness to survive that stillness now feels uncomfortable, sometimes even threatening.
So they stay moving, stay productive, stay distracted, stay occupied because if life ever gets quiet enough, they might finally hear what they've been trying not to feel I'm Carina Bull, [00:02:00] trauma-aware facilitator, intuitive mentor, and apparently a professional pattern interrupter these days. I help women recognize and interrupt the patterns behind hypervigilance, over-functioning, emotional exhaustion, and self-abandonment so you can reconnect with who you are before survival taught you who you had to be.
And around here, we do emotional truth, nervous system awareness, and the occasional lovingly delivered truth bomb. So let's talk about rest, or more specifically, why so many women struggle to do it. Because I want you to think about this honestly, not who you wish you were, not the version of you who has her life together, the actual version, the woman who exists on a random Tuesday.[00:03:00]
You finally get five minutes to yourself. What happens? Do you sit quietly or do you immediately reach for your phone? Do you check Facebook, Instagram, emails, the news? Do you start researching something, a holiday, a diet, a business idea, a parenting issue, a health symptom, anything? Just something.
Something to keep your mind occupied. Because a lot of women don't realize how uncomfortable silence has become. You wake up at two AM, you can't get back to sleep, and instead of lying there quietly, you start scrolling for forty minutes, an hour, maybe longer. Not because you're interested in what's on your screen, but because your [00:04:00] nervous system is desperately looking for somewhere to put its attention, anywhere except inside yourself.
Or maybe you tell yourself you're resting But you've got a true crime podcast in your ears while folding the washing, cleaning the kitchen, packing school lunches, replying to messages, thinking about tomorrow, thinking about next week, thinking about that conversation you had three days ago. Your body is technically at home, but your mind is running a marathon.
Or maybe you finally sit down and within ten minutes you start feeling guilty. You should probably be doing something, cleaning something, organizing something, helping someone, fixing something, being [00:05:00] useful somehow. And if any of this feels familiar, I want you to hear this. This isn't laziness, this isn't lack of discipline, this isn't a character flaw.
This might be survival Because many women learned very early that being useful was safe. Being productive was safe. Being needed was safe. Being busy was safe. Maybe achievement got you praise. Maybe helping everyone else got you approval. Maybe staying busy helped you avoid conflict, avoid grief, avoid loneliness.
Maybe staying busy helped you avoid yourself. And if we're really honest, sometimes busyness becomes one of the [00:06:00] most socially acceptable ways to abandon yourself. No one questions it. In fact, they applaud it. "Look how much she gets done. Look how capable she is. Look how productive she is." Meanwhile, she's exhausted, disconnected, running on fumes, and nobody notices because productivity wears a very convincing disguise.
This is one of the reasons I say survival patterns become identity because eventually women stop questioning them. They simply assume, "I'm just a busy person. I'm just someone who can't switch off. I'm just bad at resting." Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe your nervous system learned that stillness wasn't safe.[00:07:00]
Maybe the moment you stop doing, the emotions you've been carrying finally catch up And this is where it becomes important because there is a cost, a huge one. When you stay busy all the time, you lose access to yourself. You stop noticing what you feel. You stop noticing what you need. You stop noticing what no longer is working.
You stop noticing how exhausted you actually are, how resentful you are, how lonely you are, how disconnected you've become because distraction delays awareness, but it doesn't remove it. The truth waits, resentment waits, grief waits, exhaustion waits, [00:08:00] and eventually the body starts speaking. Anxiety, burnout, overwhelm, emotional numbness, irritability, chronic exhaustion because your body eventually tells the truth your mouth won't.
And here's the part that got me Some women become so good at coping they don't realize they're coping anymore. They call it being productive, being organized, being capable, being the woman who gets things done. But underneath, they're running from themselves, not consciously, not deliberately, but every spare moment is filled.
Every silence gets interrupted. Every uncomfortable feeling gets managed, [00:09:00] distracted, organized, researched, scrolled, cleaned, planned, or consumed. And one day, you look up and realize you've spent years managing your life without actually being present for it You know everyone else's needs but your own.
You know everyone else's emotion- emotional state, but not your own. You know exactly what everyone else requires from you. But if I ask, "What do you need right now?" You wouldn't know because survival has kept you busy enough that you've never had to answer. And honestly, I think that's one of the greatest losses of all.
Not burnout, [00:10:00] not exhaustion, not overwhelm but losing your relationship with yourself. Because once survival becomes identity, you can spend your whole life managing everyone and everything while quietly becoming a stranger to yourself. You survive, but you never really arrive
But here's the beautiful part. Awareness changes everything because once you recognize the pattern, you stop making it mean something is wrong with you. You stop calling yourself lazy. You stop calling yourself unmotivated. You stop calling yourself broken, and you start getting curious instead. What am I avoiding?
What happens when life gets quiet? [00:11:00] What feelings show up when there's no distractions left? What am I afraid I might hear? Because healing isn't forcing yourself to sit cross-legged in silence for two hours Healing isn't about becoming some perfectly regulated zen goddess floating through life with a herbal tea and a gratitude journal.
No. Honestly, that version annoys the crap out of me too. Healing starts with noticing. Noticing what you reach for, noticing what you avoid, noticing where survival is running the show, and slowly creating enough safety that you don't need the distraction quite so much anymore. Not perfectly, but differently.
So this week, I want you to become curious. Notice what happens when life gets [00:12:00] quiet. Notice what you, what you reach for. Notice what your nervous system does when there is nothing left to organize, fix, carry, solve, clean, scroll, or distract yourself with. Because awareness is where change begins, and if you're recognizing yourself in these patterns but aren't quite sure what to do next, this is exactly the kind of work we explore inside my Survival to Self session.
Together, we'll uncover the survival patterns shaping your life beneath the surface, reconnect you with the parts of yourself that may have been buried beneath years of coping, and help you understand what needs to change next. You'll find a link in the show notes if you'd like to learn more. And as always, just because it was doesn't mean it will be.
This isn't your personality. This is survival. And when you're ready to create [00:13:00] real and lasting change in your life, I'll be here ready and waiting. With love, Carina.