Episode 41: When Rest Feels Like a Risk: Overcoming the Guilt of Doing "Nothing" (solo)
Navigating the "Itch" of Toxic Productivity and Learning to Choose Recovery
Have you ever sat down to rest, only to find your brain spinning with a mile-long to-do list and a heavy dose of guilt? You aren’t alone. In this episode, Ellen dives deep into the "insidious inability to rest" and why our brains view healthy changes—like setting boundaries or recovering from surgery—as a threat to our comfort zones. Even as a coach who teaches burnout prevention, Ellen reveals her recent struggle with the "itch" of productivity and why choosing yourself can often feel countercultural.
It’s time to unlearn the belief that rest is a reward you have to earn. Ellen shares a practical, three-step process to navigate uncomfortable feelings: naming the emotion, locating it in the body, and using Susan David’s "what the func?" method to understand what your brain is trying to tell you. Whether you’re recovering from a setback or just trying to survive a Tuesday without a meltdown, this episode offers a compassionate roadmap for unravelling yourself from toxic productivity—one color-by-number page at a time.
Key Takeaways & Links
The Science of Naming: Why labeling your emotions makes them easier to manage.
What the func? Understanding the function and purpose behind your emotions.
Practical Mindfulness: How simple acts (like coloring) can quiet a spinning mind.
Show Notes
Tricia Hersey's Rest is Resistance and The Nap Ministry
Tricia Hersey's Rest Deck
Listen to Episode 13 of Hard at Work, "When Rest Feels Wrong"
Susan David's book Emotional Agility (creator of "what the func?")
Transcript
Ellen: Hey everyone and welcome back to the Hard at Work Podcast. I'm not sure if anyone has been tracking how often I put out episodes and clamoring for more, but in case you haven't noticed, I've taken a few weeks off from posting new episodes. And I actually have quite a few incredible episodes recorded and just waiting for me to edit them and lots of ideas for solo episodes, but it's been really busy in a great way and I haven't had as much time to dedicate to the podcast and I totally miss it. But I thought this also might be a good opportunity to talk about what it feels like to keep your boundaries because it's not as easy as all the books make it out to be.
One of the things I told myself as I was recovering from burnout and building this business was that I wouldn't let myself get to burnout again. And it's so incredibly easy to fall back into the patterns I've participated in for years because A, it's comfortable and B, those patterns are constantly reinforced by the outside world.
And when I say it's comfortable, I mean that continuing to follow the patterns of working and living that caused me to burn out in the first place is comfortable in the sense that it's what I know. And it doesn't cause me to have to make any changes, which is uncomfortable. The changing is uncomfortable, even if it's for the better. That's the weird thing about change. Even if we're trying to make a change that's healthier for us, that will make us feel better, our brain still resists it because it will always view change as scary. So it can be really frustrating, can't it? Like, I know that I need to do this thing that will make my life healthier, but it seems impossible to do. So I've been grappling with setting and keeping boundaries around when I'm working and when I'm not working for the last year and a half.
And some of it is going really well. Like, I take rest days now, or I'll just have a slow morning on a Tuesday if I don't have any meetings or coaching sessions, or I'm just feeling tired, or I worked over the weekend, or just my book is good and I want to read it. I go on walks in the middle of the day if I want to, much to my coworker Kaiju's delight. I definitely work where and when I want, which is something I've always wanted to be able to do.
So all of that is great and definitely healthier than what I was doing before. And I still struggle with guilt when I'm resting or when I'm not getting to something like the podcast these last few weeks. And it's really frustrating. Like, I teach this stuff and I'm still struggling with it, which is why I wanted to share that struggle with you just to show you how deep our bias towards productivity goes. Most of us have been taught that it's best to hustle, to grind, to work extra hard, and rest feels like it should only happen sometimes and only after we've earned it. It's a reward, not a given. And this, as we know, is total BS. It's not that working hard is bad. It's not. Working hard is great. But working hard to the point where we slowly or quickly are burning ourselves out is actually not sustainable. So what do you do when you try to rest and you feel guilty? Like have you ever been in that cycle where you're trying to relax, let's say in a warm sunny spot with a book and you can't stop your brain from spinning about all the things that you could or should be doing and how if you were a better worker, mother, father, auntie, daughter, et cetera, you'd be doing all these other things instead of taking time for yourself. I have definitely been there. Recently, in fact. And remember, I teach this. I had surgery recently and I had to take about a week of recovery time without working too much. And I was so guilty and like itchy. Like I felt like I should be doing this, that or the other thing, but I wasn't able to.
I couldn't lift anything. I couldn't bend down too far. All the fun things you can't do when you just had surgery and you're on the really good pain meds. And PS, I'm totally fine and recovered now. It was just that first week that was a little rough. But y'all after day two, I was crawling out of my skin. Not because I was bored. I was still pretty tired and napping a lot and not in the greatest place to be making business decisions or having business conversations.
But it was so frustrating because I knew it was okay and actually necessary to give my body time to heal. And y'all, I'm my own boss. Like no one was mad at me or pressuring me to work more except myself. But it's insidious, this inability to rest. And if you want to take a deep dive on why we resist rest, check out episode 13, where I talk about the amazing Trisha Hersey and her work with the NAP Ministry.
Her resource, the Rest Deck is super useful here and I'll link to her work and the deck in the show notes. Because we are taught that rest is a reward and not a necessity and that is reinforced by the way our workplaces work, the way we were taught how to navigate life and like even the pop music and water bottle stickers we see every day, like “work harder,” you know, or “never give up”, right?
We have a hard time resting and openly allowing ourselves to rest without guilt can feel super counterculture, like you're doing something you shouldn't. And this brings us back to this little podcast break I've taken. I've been feeling so guilty about it, much like I'm not working hard enough, but I've been also resting as necessary. And since I've recovered from surgery, I've been working on a lot of other things. And they're these new and exciting things that are taking a lot of time because they're bigger projects and opportunities, which is wonderful and exactly what I've been working towards. So the fact that I haven't gotten an episode out for a few weeks is absolutely not a big deal at all. I'm not letting anyone down. I'm just pausing while I work on other things that have come up.
And yet I still feel guilty. So I've been following my own advice, which I'll share with you here, which has absolutely helped. First, I've been observing what I'm feeling and naming my emotions. And by observe, I just mean observe, not judge, not try to explain, just name it. And side note here, there's a ton of research on feelings versus emotions and which is what.
I like the basic definition that emotions are physically experienced in your body while feelings are the meanings your brain gives emotions. But it can really over complicate the process to parse these out and like try to get them right. Like, is this an emotion or is this a feeling? I don't know. So I'm just kind of combining the two here. So we're just really focusing on the simple act of understanding what is happening in your body versus overthinking how to name it perfectly.
So you can do this exercise in a journal or just in your mind, but it's as simple as naming your emotions. I feel guilty. I feel frustrated. I feel useless sitting here and not doing anything. But notice I'm not saying I feel guilty and that's because blah, blah, blah, or I feel guilty, but I really shouldn't. And I feel bad that I feel guilty and blah, blah. Like that is too much. And that's what keeps your mind spinning. But the simple act of just naming what you're feeling is great. Then the next step after I name my feelings or emotions, however you'd like to describe them, I figure out where I'm experiencing that feeling or emotion in my body. Is it like an itchy feeling all over? Do I feel like everything is spinning too fast? Do I feel it in my gut, in my throat? So there's a ton of data that shows that naming and recognizing emotions actually makes them less strong so you can manage them. Notice I said manage, not get rid of, because we try to get rid of feelings all the time because they're uncomfortable sometimes. And it's not about getting rid of them. It's about naming them so that you can understand them.
So name what you're feeling, then explore how that feeling is showing up in your body. And honestly, just working on doing that can help a ton. You're just observing. It's really hard not to judge yourself or try to explain it all away, but that's our brain working on keeping us in the comfort zone, which is not the growth zone. So keep going with that. Do your feelings change? Does the place where they show up in your body change? Just keep observing.
You're scientist running an experiment. Then, and only then, once you've done this for a while, once you're able to recognize what you're feeling and where you're feeling it, then we turn to making meaning of the feelings and the emotions. And we do this by figuring out what the emotion is trying to tell you. I really like the model that Susan David uses in her book, Emotional Agility. I just looked over there because I have it. She says to ask “what the func?” when you're trying to learn from your emotions. And yes, that was func spelled F-U-N-C, which stands for what's the function of this emotion, AKA what's the purpose? What's it telling you? What does it get you? What's buried underneath it? So for me, I was feeling guilty as I was recovering and I was feeling it as this sort of like itchy, I can't sit still feeling.
So that's what I was feeling. I named it and where I was feeling it in my body. Then I asked what the func and the func I discovered of that emotion, the function of that emotion was that it was reminding me that this behavior was different than what I'm used to, this resting. It also tells me that I care a lot about my work and it's really important to me, but I'm still learning how to live a life without burnout. It's telling me, okay, you're still learning how to get comfortable with this. So then, now that I know what the func is about this emotion or these feelings, then I can take this learning, which is that I'm still learning how to live a life without burnout. Sometimes the learning is just that you're still learning. And think about how I can continue to help myself with that. How do I help myself continue to learn how to live this life without burnout?
Do I read another book? Do I listen to a new podcast? Do I get a new perspective? Do I talk to a friend? Do I journal to continue to name my feelings and emotions? Or do I need some help just being mindful and in the moment so I can actually take my rest? In this case, it was the latter. So I just needed help feeling mindful. And when you're in that state of like, I feel guilty, I'm spinning, blah, blah, it's really hard to get to a mindful place without a little bit of help unless you're a super master at like meditation or getting mindful. So because I wasn't allowed to like go outside and walk or do anything like that, I picked up one of my daughter's color by number coloring books, which are the hard ones, like with all the little tiny pieces to color by number, not like, you know, four colors and it's a banana.
But I colored while I watched TV or listened to audiobooks or whatever as I was recovering. And it helped a ton to quiet my mind and let me focus on healing and resting. So much so that I've actually ordered some more coloring books and I've been coloring at night when I'm sort of feeling that itch that I'm not doing enough. Is this perfect? Of course not. I will always be working on unlearning that I have to be productive to be valuable.
But the process of naming my emotions, discovering where and how I'm feeling them in my body, and asking them what they're trying to tell me has been really helpful as I'm trying to navigate this burnout free or at least burnout less life. So there you go. That's why it's been a little quiet on this front. And now you probably know more than you ever wanted to know about why and how I've been struggling with not getting the podcast published every week.
I hope this is helpful to you as you unravel yourself from toxic productivity. It is hard. And also, we've got this. So please like, share, subscribe if you're enjoying the show. And I am not kidding when I tell you that I have some amazing interviews to share with you that I am so excited about. I just need to edit them. And as a basically one person show, except for my sound editor, Christian, yay, Christian, thanks for you.
It can be hard to get to all of that. So I'm ready. I'm going to edit a few episodes this weekend and I'm excited to share them with you along with this one. I'm going to make them a little shorter so they're easier to listen to in one fell swoop and would love to hear from you anytime with thoughts, feedbacks, topics you'd like to hear discussed. You can reach me at ellen at ewbcoaching.com. Find me on LinkedIn, send me a DM, however you want to get in touch with me. So wherever you are,
I hope you're having a good day and I hope that you are taking care of yourself, even if it brings up some feelings of guilt. Now you know some methods for how to manage that guilty feeling and I hope that you are well and I will see you on the next episode of the Hard at Work podcast.