Balance & Beyond

The Scary Question: If I’m Not Useful, Who Am I?

• Jo Stone • Season 3 • Episode 106

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Ever noticed how your entire body tenses when asked to play or make a mess? Our recent Joy Challenge at the Balance Institute revealed a fascinating pattern: ambitious women often experience massive resistance to activities without tangible outcomes. The pushback was palpable - "Play? I don't have time!" or "Make a mess? I spend my life cleaning up messes!"

This resistance stems from a deep-rooted identity where our worth has become inextricably linked to productivity and achievement. From childhood, we've learned that value comes from doing, producing, and maintaining order. We've been conditioned to believe the narrative that if we're not being useful, we're not worthy of belonging. This creates a fascinating contrast between control and curiosity, where our white-knuckling grip on schedules and outcomes leaves no room for spontaneity, connection, or creative flow.

What's really happening underneath this resistance is fear - the primal fear that if we're not useful, we'll be excluded from the tribe, threatening our very survival. This podcast challenges you to intentionally do something without purpose - to make a mess, to play without outcome, to follow your intuition rather than your to-do list. As you begin stepping into this space of purposeless joy, watch what unlocks in your brain and life. Your nervous system will resist, but in that resistance lies the opportunity for true freedom and balance. What might happen if you put down control, even for just a moment, and embraced the beautiful mess of being human?

To view the Transcript from this week's episode, visit our Balance & Beyond Podcast webpage: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast/2025/106

Thank you for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself!

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Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast!

Jo:

Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here we're committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive and where you have the power to define success on your terms. I honor the space you've created for yourself today, so let's take a breath and dive right in. You know how to get things done, but ask you to play, create or rest, and your whole nervous system tenses. Why? Because you've been taught that only output makes you valuable and that mess and the mystery and the magic that is a threat to your identity.

Jo:

We recently finished a joy challenge here at the Balance Institute and it revealed something really unexpected. The days where we had no tangible outcome, where we asked people to simply play or to make a mess, triggered huge amounts of resistance almost entire collective nervous system. What you want me to play? I don't have time to play. Have you seen my to-do list? Have you seen the laundry pile and make a mess? I feel like I spend my entire life cleaning up mess. Why on earth would I make any more?

Jo:

It highlighted a really interesting pattern, and this is that those types of activities actually don't have a purpose. We don't have a direct purpose, let's say their purpose is to activate creativity, their purpose is to have fun. But when we do something that goes outside the lines or has no reason, all these parts of our identity that are deeply rooted come home to roost. Let's talk about what is the identity that stops you stepping into these parts of yourself that you know are incredibly valuable. And if you're someone who has ever said I'm happy for my kids to be bored, I want them to be bored, but aren't prepared to take your medicine, then today is going to be a really interesting exercise for you, because I know you say you don't have time to be bored. I know you say that you wish to be bored and then an opportunity comes up and your nervous system literally will not let you engage. You've heard me talk in the past about this good girl identity and our get shit done-ness.

Jo:

What happens is so much of our sense of worth gets tied to achievement, to accomplishment and to output, when we are then also overlay that with being the helpful one, being the contained one, and we are very much taught that the worth that we have is earned. You do X, you will get Y, you will get a hug if you do this, or you will get praise. If you get great marks or if you keep your room clean, then this will happen. If you get your room dirty and you make a mess, then you're going to be punished, or then there's going to be consequences, and sometimes as a child, those consequences weren't often overt, but they may have perhaps been the withdrawal of love or the perception of withdrawal of something. So even if your parents didn't say you're a naughty girl for having a messy room, you have interpreted some level of disproval with mess, with things not being in order.

Jo:

A very, very common trend we see in our community that stems from all of this is the desire for control, the desire to have everything ordered. When you live your life on such a knife's edge, it can feel impossible to let go of the reins a little bit, because if you don't have everything under control, then what does that mean about you? Then you're going to drop a ball, and some of those balls might be glass. What we need to do is begin to unpack the identity frames that we have put around things like play, around creativity and around mess, so that we can really step into our fullness as human beings and let loose, let the reins drop and actually live fully as a human. Stepping into the mess is a theme that has been emerging for many clients lately, and it's also something that I've been intentionally stepping into, something that I've been intentionally stepping into. The reason we avoid the mess is also because you have to step into the mess to have the next step revealed to you and when you would like a color-coded project plan of okay, I will step into the mess, I will be creative, I will play, but tell me when, for how long, what's going to happen next, what's the cleanup look like? And then I will make a return on investment decision as to whether or not I'm going to do that activity.

Jo:

So everything is brain-based, everything is logical, and there's never this opportunity for us to just do something that feels good, because that in itself is, is not enough to our brains. We've trained our nervous system that if there's no return, if there's no output, if it's not efficient, then we shouldn't be doing it. But that is denying an entire side of your flow, of your creativity, of your body, of your senses, and it constricts you and forces you to live in your head so much more than you would otherwise. There's a couple of contrasts that are also a play here that I want to call out. When we are hyper productive or hyper focused on productivity and outcomes, we tend to suffocate any of our desires or anything that's fun or anything that's pleasurable, because our brains and our nervous systems say no, no, no, no productive at all costs. And if you've ever had a child try to do something silly, or when you're like, come on, we've got to get out the door, we've got to go, then that's a beautiful example of where you actually end up squashing a moment of pleasure, of joy, of connection, because you're so focused on the time or where you need to be or what you need to do. By the same token, when this productivity tips over into our obsession with output how much we can get done ticking off the list we suffocate our intuition Because the thing that we maybe need to do isn't at the top of our list, maybe it's number seven but your logical brain goes no, no, no. I spent so much time last night putting this list together. There's no way that, even though there's a little voice inside me that's nudging me saying what about item number seven? That's the thing that you really want. No, no, no, no, no, no. Ignore that thing, shut it down. That doesn't know what it needs. I know what I need.

Jo:

When we disconnect from our intuition, I have seen again and again that it starts to whisper. Then our intuition can get a little bit louder and then sometimes, when you ignore it, it's going to whack you on your butt. Whether that's through illness, whether that is through relationship breakdown or whatever, changes have to happen. Pretty likely that you've received some nudges before you received the smack. So this is an invitation to put down the obsession over output and lists and ticking things off and decide hmm, if I actually listen to my intuition right now, what might it be telling me? And as someone who has spent a lot of time on this subject, on deepening my intuition, on having it become more accessible and not ad hoc where it's not in my control, I can say that it's never wrong. It's never wrong and that was the piece that I used to be really afraid of. If I'm not efficient and I'm not productive and listen to my intuition and that leads me down the garden path and I do something that I didn't need to do what's going to happen. Well, you always learn something, or you meet someone, or it's the thing that you had to do, because it gives you the insight into this next thing.

Jo:

The final contrast that I want to bring to your attention that happens when we spend a lot of our life afraid of mess, afraid of play, afraid of creativity. Is this really interesting contrast of control versus curiosity? I mentioned earlier our tendency and desire to have everything under our control. We can call this hyper control, where you want to control everything. We're not just talking about the kitchen bench, meal plans or schedules. We're talking about everybody else's moods, what everybody else is doing, what everybody else is feeling, not to mention things, shoes, everything lines up.

Jo:

And the challenge becomes when nobody else aligns with the schedule that you've got on your head for how the day's going to go, but you never communicate the schedule. And then you blow up at someone because they do not know that you're now missing items six, seven and eight on your schedule, that they didn't abide by. What that suffocates is any room for curiosity or even creativity that goes with that. Huh, this thing's happened. It's thrown us off course. Wonder why. It's almost like the control is the white knuckling. It's the gripping. Really, really hard to make everything force and shove your way. Not only is it exhausting, but when something else comes up, you're like no time for that, no time for that, no time for a hug, no time for that connection. And then you wonder oh, not spending as much time with the kids as I used to. Well, the kids aren't coming to me with these types of challenges. Yeah, that's because you brushed them away.

Jo:

I had one of these moments a couple of years ago where my daughter wanted a hug before school. I was like no time for a hug, get in the car. And I literally stopped and pulled over and went I'm really sorry, you want a hug, let's actually stop. And I got out of the car and went over to her side and gave her a hug. Because what the hell is it all for If I'm just come on, come on, come on.

Jo:

There's a difference when they're stalling and they're being kids, and I forgot this and I forgot that there's a difference, right, there's a request for genuine connection and, instead of being curious, when you are so far down the rabbit hole of hyper control, you miss all those moments. So, when you're able to release your focus on productivity and start opening up to more pleasure and you make the space to tap into your intuition. You can get curious as to what that is that produces this beautiful environment of flow and nudges and synchronicities and coincidences call them whatever you will that actually speed up what you're looking for in life. It's almost the ultimate productivity. It's the ultimate way to collapse time and get what it is that you want. It's always via different means than we are prepared to get. When we peel back all of these layers, we have the identity piece. We have these crazy contrasts with these words I just described.

Jo:

But what sits under all of this is one emotion that drives so much of us, and this is, once again, fear. But it's the fear of if I'm not being useful, who am I? Will I actually be seen? Will I be valued? Will I be needed? Will I be wanted if I'm not useful? This usually comes from deep childhood conditioning circumstances, so it's not something that you can just flick off and go. Well, if I'm not useful, that's okay. So your nervous system has been wired to be useful.

Jo:

But a really interesting opportunity for you to ask yourself this question and to sit with it. If I'm not being useful? Who am I question, and to sit with it? If I'm not being useful, who am I Understanding how we attach as humans and how we've evolved in time through tribes and through groups? What tends to happen is this fear we have of well, if I'm not useful, then I don't belong in the tribe anymore, I don't belong in my family, nobody's going to want me, I'm not going to be seen. And then, if I'm not useful and I'm not seen and I'm not wanted, I'm going to be kicked out of the tribe because I'm not pulling my weight and I add no value. And if I'm kicked out of the tribe, our deep survival roots and psychology becomes well, I can't survive, because then I'm on. It's me and the savannah and the saber-toothed tiger, and my chances of survival have dramatically reduced. I have to now find all my own food at all my own shelter. Our brain literally says I'm going to die if I'm kicked out of the tribe. That's why these fears are so, so deep rooted and so almost polluting and damaging if we don't unwind them and we aren't able to see what sits below them.

Jo:

This is my challenge to you today. Can you intentionally do something that's not useful just for the sake of it. Of course there's plenty of science on play and how it's actually how we learn. Let's put that down. Go and do something fun, do something for the sake of it. Make a mess just because it feels good. Go jump in muddy puddles, stuff the mess, stuff the cleanup.

Jo:

As you begin to step into this space of doing something for no outcome, you will be amazed at what is going to unlock in your brain. Of course your nervous system is going to resist. Your nervous system is going to go. Don't make me do it. That feels horrible. I can't draw outside the lines. I can't scribble on a page. I can't just get some random colors and leave them there.

Jo:

Recognize that request for order, recognize that need for order, that need for control, and wonder what might happen if you can put it down, even for just a teeny tiny moment. Thanks for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world to us If you're keen to dive deeper into our world, visit balanceinstitutecom to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll see you next time on the Balance and Beyond podcast.

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Jo Stone

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