Your inner voice keeps a running inventory. You constantly feel stuck in restless anticipation — I should probably take care of something while I have the time. Rest feels like borrowed time; it’s too emotionally complicated to enjoy.
Opportunities for rest are small anyway. Lunch. Ten minutes before school pickup. A waiting room. An hour after everyone's finally gone to bed. When one of those moments comes along you’re already calculating: what's not getting done, who might need something, whether rest is really the best use of the time you have.
So you pick up your phone. Maybe to scroll, maybe to find something useful to do with the next few minutes. There's always an email. Always something to look up. Always a way to stay just productive enough that the discomfort quiets down a little.
Underneath the constant drive for productivity, there's a nagging feeling you haven’t said out loud: even when you do try to stop, you're not sure you know how anymore. The restlessness you feel isn't just about the list. Stillness itself feels impossible to enjoy, even when you technically have some time for it.
You were taught that rest has to be earned
At some point growing up you internalized a rule: rest is something you earn. You probably never chose it, but it became the backdrop to everything else.
The bar is something like: once everything is taken care of. Once the list is done, the people are okay, the loose ends are tied. Then you can stop.
But, in case you haven’t noticed, the list doesn't end. It never will, and not because you're not doing enough. That's just how life is. The demands of every day always expand to fill whatever space you clear. And in the rare moments when things actually do go quiet of their own accord, the discomfort of stillness is enough to send you searching for one more task.
It's not just in your head
The demands are real. They’re not just a voice in your head, and it's not just your body feeling the discomfort.
Others in your life have built expectations around what you deliver. Your job knows they can count on you to go the extra mile. Your kids know you'll handle the extra ask. Your partner knows you'll step up. And they know it because you've been handling so many things reliably for so long that it just became the assumption you would.
Contemplating changing anything, even something small, sets off a chain of consequences you can already see playing out before you've even tried. Disappointment, frustration, complaints, criticism, and conversations you don't have the bandwidth for. Some of those consequences probably are real, and many of them would never actually materialize. From this vantage point it's hard to tell the difference.
Last, underneath all the feelings of obligation is guilt for even wanting to rest. About whether it's even valid to want less on your plate when people really need you. After all, nobody forced you into this. You love your family and you care a lot about your work. So what does it say about you that your exhausted?
Your body is stuck in the same pattern
Alongside the mental loop, your body has been running its own version of constant activity to keep up with the demands. Stress hormones intended for short bursts have been circulating so long they’ve become the new baseline. There’s a constant low-grade hum of vigilance: tracking, anticipating, bracing, has become the default.
When you do notice the discomfort of always being “on” long enough to try and break through the tension, to actually sit down, actually stop, the feeling that comes isn't relief. It's more anxiety. More restlessness. Your body has been braced for so long it feels stillness itself is a threat.
Experiencing more anxiety when you try to rest, rather than less, is a known response to chronic stress. When your nervous system has been running on high alert long enough, it loses the ability to shift gears easily. Stillness starts feeling wrong because your nervous system has adapted to constant demand and doesn't yet know it's okay to slow down.
Where change actually starts
The exhaustion of not being able to rest won't be fixed by scheduling, willpower, or things finally slowing down.
Regaining the ability to rest starts with understanding your own rules. Where did "rest has to be earned" come from? Most of the women I work with can tell you exactly how overwhelming their lives are, everything they are handling and how impossible it is to meet every demand. The stress and shame they feel when they can't keep up. The doubling down and the self-blame.
What's harder to see is where those expectations came from in the first place. The rules underneath the to-do list usually have deep roots, in families, religion, and a culture that has long depended on women making themselves endlessly available. The message that your value is tied to what you produce, what you provide, how little you ask for in return. Most women have received that message so many times, in so many forms, that it just feels true.
Once a client starts listing everything they're carrying, they can go and go and go. The daily errands and chores, the job, the kids, their partnership, the mental load. And then, usually, the other things start surfacing too. The miscarriage they never really processed. Their divorce, theirs or their parents'. A tragedy that happened two years ago that they haven't had space to sit with because life didn't pause to let them. By the end of it, I tell them: I'm exhausted just listening to it. That's often the first time they laugh.
And then I tell them: any one of these things is something people come to therapy for. No wonder you’re completely worn out.
If you're a high-functioning woman in Utah who's ready to reclaim your ability to actually rest, you can learn more about working with me here.
