When Rest Feels Wrong

n this episode, we’re talking about something that seems to be an epidemic among women—and honestly, a lot of men too: Why is it so damn hard to sit still?

Why do so many of us feel guilty when we rest? Why do we tie our worth to productivity? And why does doing absolutely nothing for 15 minutes feel harder than running around all day doing ALL the things?

Spoiler: If you’re constantly in motion, there’s a good chance you’re running from something - and for most of us, it's big emotions we don't want to feel.

💥 Key Takeaways
- Why so many of us tie our self-worth to productivity and achievement
How constant motion can become a socially acceptable form of emotional avoidance
- The connection between busyness, control, and unresolved feelings
- Why women are often rewarded for overfunctioning—and the cost of that pattern
- How resentment builds when you give everyone else what you never give yourself
- Why self-care has nothing to do with bubble baths and everything to do with self-awareness
- The surprising ways your inability to slow down impacts your communication and relationships
- How learning to sit still can completely change the way you experience your life

🔥 In This Episode, I Talk About:
- How a Lainey Wilson song unexpectedly became the inspiration for this episode 
- Why I spent years feeling worthless anytime I wasn’t being productive
- The cultural conditioning many of us received growing up that linked achievement to worthiness
- How staying busy helped me avoid difficult emotions and uncomfortable truths
- The role control plays in perpetual motion and overfunctioning
- Why so many women become trapped in cycles of doing, giving and resentment
- How a lack of boundaries with yourself creates chaos everywhere else
- What self-care actually means (hint: it’s not face masks and spa days)
- The people who may resist your growth when you start prioritizing yourself
- The unexpected freedom that comes from finally being okay spending time alone.

And if this episode hit home, share it with someone who struggles to relax without feeling guilty.

Because your worth isn't determined by how much you accomplish. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do...is sit still.

Transcript

The Struggle of Sitting Still

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Real question: why in the actual hell is it so hard to sit still and do nothing? I know I'm not the only one that struggles with this. Feeling like a complete and total worthless piece of shit when I'm not productive. I've posted about it on social and I've gotten a lot of feedback on it, so I figure we should talk about it. When rest feels wrong in three, two, one. Let's go. Welcome back to the Karen Confidential Real Talk about real life and better communication. I'm your host, Karen Campbell Smith. We are on episode eight already. What? That's too cool. You keep joining me for these. It's awesome. So I have like a backstory, and I promise this has something to do with this episode, but I was watching a documentary on Netflix about Lainey Wilson, which, like interest of full disclosure, I'm not the biggest fan of hers. When her songs came on the radio or like Sirius XM, I usually like skip them. Just like she has a very distinct sound. It's kind of twanging. It wasn't really my thing, but I saw the trailer for the um documentary. Um, I saw the trailer and it looked interesting. I'm like intrigued by stories about people and learning about people and like the whole element of I was a completely normal person today. And then tomorrow I became this like famous superstar, and now you're inside the like secret world of being famous. So it was all of those things. And once I watched it, like I'm definitely a fan of hers now. All of that to say, she has a new song out. And so I actually didn't skip it when I saw that it was Lainey Wilson and I listened to it, and the name of it is Can't Sit Still. And it is one of the most relatable songs that you'll ever hear, whether you like country music or not. I like all genres. Country is one of them. It's basically, I don't know if she's realized it. She's written the anthem for pretty much any woman age 30 and app. Like, none of us know how to sit still. What is sitting still and not thinking about your to-do list and getting up and dealing with it? What is being able to relax and not feel guilty about it? Like, we don't, we don't know what that feels like. We we don't. And why is that? I've struggled with this my whole life. And I think I've dug into it a little bit. I think I've figured some stuff out. But really, what I believe it comes down to is we tie our self-worth to our productivity. And it starts very young, especially depending on when you were raised. It's also being in constant motion is a really easy way and popular way to not sit with feelings when they come up. So a lot of us do it. I would say the majority of us do it. It's a way that I lived my life

Cultural Conditioning and Productivity

SPEAKER_00 2:51

until like recently. I mean, it's still something I have to battle, like giving myself permission to rest and not feeling like less of a human being when I do. I still am guilty of like, if I'm watching a Netflix documentary, like getting on my phone, multitasking, like not just being able to sit still and just pay attention to one thing. It's like my brain constantly needing to go in a million different directions. It happens like even when I lay down to go to sleep, like the stillness of trying to go to sleep. That's when my brain's like, you know, like thinking about the conversation I just had, or thinking about, oh, this might happen next week and I should be prepared for this. And oh, did I do the laundry for my son for his uniform? And oh crap, like I gotta go get dog food tomorrow. Like it's it's just like all of a sudden somebody put a spotlight on my brain and it's like, oh, it's go time. We're on stage. Let's just think of all the things. That is really bad at like two or three in the morning, too. Again, perimenopause. B49, it's super fun. But I did post about it on social, and I got a bunch of DMs and a bunch of comments, and people like, oh my God, girl, yes, that's me. Like, it's just really common for people our age because I know I'll all I could say was how I was raised and the era that I was raised in. I did a whole podcast episode on this. It was episode number number two. To get validation and attention from adults, a lot of the time it was being productive or achieving something. Like there wasn't a lot of attention paid to us otherwise. In the words of Ricky Bobby, if you're not first, you're last. So, like, we weren't getting participation trophies. Like we had to, well, at least I felt like like I had to get straight A's and be acknowledged for that. I had to audition for this school play and get a lead. I had to make the goal on the soccer team, not just be a member of the soccer team, but like do something that mattered. Um so how could I not become an adult that thinks I'm only worthy when I'm achieving or being productive? It was ingrained in me from a very young age. And I'm not trying to sit here and point fingers at my parents or people that age. It's just, it's how we were raised. It's just what it was. Um, I think that culture has shifted, and that's why we have participation trophies. And that's why you hear so many people my age and older going, this is bullshit. Why we have participation trophies? We didn't get that. I mean, yeah, they're mad that we didn't get that. We're a little bitter. But like, I would argue somewhere in between is probably a healthy medium because, you know, yeah, you should feel some sense of accomplishment when you actually do something worthy of being acknowledged, right? Being on a team isn't necessarily worthy of being acknowledged. I don't know. But this is this is how we were raised. And as humans, we don't like to sit with discomfort in any situation. And when feelings are involved,

The Emotional Toll of Constant Motion

SPEAKER_00 5:51

99% of the time it's very uncomfortable. So being in perpetual motion allows us to escape that. It's a really popular and common way to dodge big feelings. I know for me that was absolutely the case. There's also an element of control to it. So if you are running from big emotions, you've got, I know, I mean, I've talked about being in a dysfunctional, chaotic, toxic marriage. I didn't want to sit down and think about that. So if I was constantly in motion, I was in control of that. If I sat down with those emotions, I had no control over that. It was very unpredictable, it was very uncomfortable. So why would I choose sitting still and facing all of that as opposed to never sitting down? Because if I'm accomplishing something, even if it's just folding a load of laundry or, you know, going and getting my car with whatever the task is at hand that I'm doing, cleaning out the pantry, like whatever, I'm feeling that temporary sense of control. I feel like I've done something. So I'm I've got that little tiny bit of sense of pride. Like, and it feeds that, okay, I'm worthy because I've proven it. Look at what I've done. Look at all the stuff I'm doing. The other element of that, and I think this is really common with women, is by nature, we are the doer of all the things. It's just what's expected, and we're rewarded for that. Oh, look how busy she is. Look, she's a hustler, she's a boss bitch, she does all of it. She makes it look so easy. So it's the expectation. So we we hold all the balls in the air, we cup all the balls. I have a house full of those. We do all the things, and it feels nice to be acknowledged for being productive, but really where it lands you is you're doing for everyone else. You're never sitting still to get connected with yourself. So you're not in touch with what you need. And so at the end of the day, over time, you how do you not get resentful? How do you not get lost? You don't, you aren't giving yourself what you need because you don't even have any idea what you need. You haven't stopped long enough to check in and go, how do I really feel right now? What am I missing? What what what could I give to myself? If you never sit still, you don't know that. But it's uncomfortable to do that. But when you don't slow down and you don't check in with yourself and you don't have that relationship with yourself to know what your needs are and to give yourself what you need, that shows up in every conversation that you have, in every situation that you're in, and how you're showing up, whether you realize it or not, and you probably don't realize it. So I'll give you an example of some of the ways that it could show up that I've seen and that have happened in my life. You're at work and you're super pissed off at that young girl who's taken her third vacation, even though she has the time, she's not doing anything wrong. You're pissed at her. How dare she? God, she's never at work. You know what that really is? You never give yourself permission to slow down and take time off. So you're projecting that onto her. But you don't even realize that.

The Importance of Self-Care and Boundaries

SPEAKER_00 9:03

You're in a parking lot and you're waiting for this old guy to pull out of his spot, and he's taking forever, and you're just infuriated. Like, oh my God, just hurry up. That probably points to an issue you have with yourself that you just can't slow down. He's moving too slow. You don't move slow. I can't move slow, move faster. That's you projecting that on to that person, but you're completely unaware of it. You're creating a life that you can't enjoy because you're giving and doing all these things, but then getting resentful that those are the rules that you're living by, if that makes sense. So you're setting yourself up to be dependent on, to be the one that does everything, to be the giver, the doer, and all the things. And then you're mad at everybody for being that person when those are the rules you set for yourself. And you don't give yourself the same courtesy and care that you're giving everyone else. It's like it's not even allowed. I lived in that mindset. I totally get that. Oh, it's selfish. I can't. I, you know, I can't I can't take this time for myself. I can't do this thing that I want to do because I have to do these 15 other things for everybody else. Getting to a place where oh, I just that was cool. Um, getting to a place where you can balance that, where doing only for yourself all the time is obviously selfish. But never doing for yourself is doing yourself the biggest disservice because you're not showing up well. You're not communicating well, you're not reacting well in situations, you're just not being the best version of yourself. So really it's we talk about self-care, self-love, and it's become like bubble baths and face masks and shit. That's not what it is. Literally, self-care and self-love is having a relationship with yourself, being in touch with the feelings that come up, knowing where they come from, knowing what your triggers are, knowing that, okay, this is gonna make me not show up too well in this conversation. Let me think that through and maybe let me not let this person in front of me be the doormat for all these feelings that I'm holding in because I never sit with them. Is that really fair? No. That is self-care. Self-care is I'm feeling really overwhelmed. I'm gonna take a couple of hours. I know a couple of hours. Oh my God, we could start smaller than that. I'm gonna take a half an hour, 15 minutes, and I'm just gonna sit in silence. Or I'm just gonna read my book, or I'm gonna go get a magazine that I used to love to read. I'm gonna go get it and I'm gonna spend 15 minutes reading it. But it's like there's so many of us that are like, but I can't. I'm not allowed. I can't. I don't have permission to do that. Says who? Who set those rules? There's no magic book or commandments that say you're not allowed to do that for

Building a Relationship with Yourself

SPEAKER_00 12:04

yourself, but we believe it. So step one is calling that out for what it is, and it's bullshit. And there are people in your life who, when you start to make these changes and you start to show up for yourself and get to know yourself and start saying, This is what I need, and I'm going to give it to myself. And if you have people in your life that need to kind of conform to that and give you the space to be able to do that, you may lose some people because there are people in your life right now who benefit greatly from your lack of boundaries with yourself. So if you all of a sudden start making time for yourself, you're taking time away from them and then they stop benefiting. It is very selfish of them. I've experienced this. They will make you feel like you're doing something wrong. They will make you question what you're doing because they like you the way that you are. They don't want you to change, they don't want you to show up for yourself because then that means they'll stop benefiting. So part of having that relationship with yourself is being able to get through those situations that are inevitable when you start showing up for yourself, is clearing the clutter. And there are people that are human clutter that are clogging up your ability to have a healthy relationship with yourself, or at least have boundaries with them. Start with the boundaries, see how they respond, and then proceed accordingly. And a boundary looks like hey, I know I'm supposed to do these 10 things for you today, I only have time to do five. Five's gotta be enough. And then it's standing by it and reassuring yourself. Five is enough. It's enough. It's okay. And this half an hour that I'm taking for myself, I'm allowed. It's consistent, like you have to keep doing that. This is where I am in this journey is I've gotten to the place where I can do that for myself. I am allowed to give myself what I need. That is something I say pretty much on a daily basis. As somebody who had crippling people pleasing and worried so much about what people thought about me. It's not that I don't still have those feelings. It's just I have to fight them. So when I make a decision that I know somebody's not going to be happy with, it's reassuring myself, I am allowed to do what is best for me. And loving myself enough to do it. That's the change. That's choosing yourself. Because if you're constantly outsourcing all of your validation and all of your self-worth on doing for other people and hoping that they acknowledge you and make you feel worthy, you will always be let down.

Learning to Sit Still

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Because they're never gonna show up in the way that you hope they do. They are their own person, you are your own person. But being that you're your own person, you are the best person to give yourself what you need because you know yourself. It's just getting out of the mindset that you're not allowed to. This is a pattern that you have to break. And breaking patterns is difficult. It's not impossible, it's absolutely doable, but it's repetition. And understand it's gonna be uncomfortable when you start. So, how do you start learning how to sit still? This is gonna sound really dumb. You start sitting still. Not like I'm gonna meditate for an hour. No, we're gonna start small. Like, even if it's five minutes, like sit, don't be on your phone, don't have any distractions, just sit still and notice what comes up. That's the first step toward getting to know yourself and checking in with yourself. And if a whole lot of stuff comes up and it's kind of scary and you don't know what to do with it, that's where I say that therapy can be a really good tool. Or AI, depending if you know how to use it as a thinking partner. And if you don't, I have a class on that online. You should go check it out. But it's start, it's starting small. It's a skill. You're building a skill, you're breaking a pattern. So it's repetition, it's consistency and repetition. It's just like trying to get better at running or building muscle in the gym and lifting weights. It's small ads that stack to you changing. So start with five minutes. Okay, that was uncomfortable. What came up? Awareness. Like being aware of what does come up in that short time and practicing it, doing it consistently, figuring out what to do with those emotions when they come up. The other important thing about this is when emotions come up, you gotta get them out. First of all, you gotta feel them. In this process that I've been in, personally, I have been quiet more often. I have spent a lot more time, I've called it hermit mode, but I've just been feeling the urge to spend time in my space, feeling whatever I need to feel, whether it's joy or grief or anger or resentment or whatever the feeling is, when it comes up, feel it. If I need to cry, cry, if I need to rage, rage, whatever it is, honor it, feel it. Because that's the first step toward getting it the hell out. So once you feel it, I like to try to make sense of it. Like, where is this coming from? Why would I feel this way? But you can get stuck there. So that's where I do use AI to kind of like get past that step. The next step after that is movement, physical movement, even a walk, like getting it out, metabolizing the bullshit. The more times you do that, the more of that shit gets out. And the healthier you feel.

The Impact of Self-Worth on Relationships

SPEAKER_00 17:46

And the better you're able to show up in conversations because you don't have all that stuff that you're squashing down that's showing up every time you feel emotional or somebody comes at you, or you have to talk to somebody. Because it does. It's it's not going anywhere. When you squash it down because you never stop moving, it's not going anywhere. And it's going to come back up when you least expect it and at really inopportune times. So it's a skill to build. And it's a really important one because there are so freaking many people, especially now that I've realized that I was one of them for a really long time. It's like once you know, you know, and once you see it, you can't unsee it. There are so many people that are functioning miserably because of the life they've created for themselves, because of their lack of boundaries. One of which being not being able to sit still. It's a common one. And they're just putting it out on everybody else. It's everybody else's fault because they're so disconnected from themselves to realize these are all of my feelings that I haven't dealt with. And so every situation that happens and every conversation that happens, I'm a victim because you made me feel these feelings that I don't want to feel. I know you've encountered people like this. I've been that person. It's a lot easier to project that shit out and blame somebody else than sit still with it and go, damn, that was me. And what do I do with that? But I can tell you that it's possible to do that, and it's so much better on the other side of that. Finding peace, like not being in this constant state of running from emotions and numbing yourself and never feeling fulfilled. That's the other part of it. It's like when you tie your self-worth to productivity, you can never do enough to feel worthy. You're just a hamster in a wheel, just running constantly. You never get enough validation, you never have enough acknowledgement. Like it's never enough. You're just constantly chasing that dragon. But when you make the shift to showing up for yourself, it hits different. It really does. It's you being able to fill your own cup so that you can then fill somebody else's cup. And again, it's like until you know, you don't know. But I have lived this and I am living this. It's not easy. I'm not gonna tell you that it's been easy. It's not. It's been one of the hardest things that I've done, but it's been one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done. I've never felt this comfortable in my own skin. I've never felt this confident. I've never, I've never in my life been okay spending time by myself. I was very much the person that had to have plans, had to have friends, had to have, okay, I'm going and doing this and I'm doing that and doing that. I never was able to sit still. And now I am. And I don't panic if it's a weekend and I don't have a single plan on the books. That's okay. I'm good sitting with myself. That feeling, like I wish every person could understand how amazing that feels. I didn't feel it for like 48 years of my 49. And I feel it now. It's it's it's indescribable. And I'm somebody who likes writes and speaks words for a living. I can't even put words to it. So this work is really important and it's really rewarding. If

Transforming Your Life Through Awareness

SPEAKER_00 21:09

you are somebody that struggles with not being able to sit still and this hits, I would encourage you to start practicing that skill. It is scary at first. And if you do need to start considering therapy for those big emotions that come up, there's no shame in that. I think everybody should do therapy, honestly. Everybody's got shit in there. Everybody's got a pass. Everybody's got something in there that's making them show up in a way that's not great, that they're probably blind to. But at a minimum, being able to sit with yourself and be in touch with yourself. I'm good. I'm okay. I don't know what that was. It's so important and it changes your life. It really does. I don't say that lightly. So once you work on your relationship with yourself, which that's what this all comes down to, is having a better relationship with yourself, not running from yourself, which is what you're doing when you're in perpetual motion. When you're able to build a better relationship with yourself, you're able to have better relationships with everyone else. And that is conscious communication. We are interacting in a way that is present. We are completely in touch with what's happening on the inside. We're not trying to be perfect in every interaction that is not possible. That's not the goal. It's awareness. That's the goal. Awareness and doing a little better each time. But from lived experience, I can tell you that your relationships will improve when your relationship with yourself improves. So that's why I'm so passionate about teaching this concept and sharing about it, sharing it on social and talking about it wherever and whenever, because it really has changed my life and my relationships and my outlook and my demeanor. I mean, I've completely changed. So it is possible. And I'm so much happier in my own skin and in my own life now that I've done that. So I want to help as many people as possible figure that out for themselves. So with that, that is all for this episode of the Karen Confidential. Again, I'm so glad that you come and join me for these episodes every week, every other week. And I hope to see you next time. Okay, bye. Hey, thanks for watching. Can't get enough Karen? Well, share, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for new episodes. You can also follow me on social or visit my website. And if you want to connect, send me an email. Okay, bye. Let's go. One, two, three. It's my favorite.