If Rest Is So Good For Me, Why Is It So Hard To Do?
SHOW NOTES
If resting left you feeling sick with guilt or restless and on edge, you're not broken. You're just avoiding something. In this episode I get honest about why I, too, would rather fill every minute than slow down, because stillness forces us to feel the things we've been outrunning: an aging parent we may lose, the fears we carry for our children, the weight of the world that we'd rather not look at.
I share the specific painful things I've used busyness to avoid, and the day I forced myself onto my yoga mat and found that what felt like nails on a chalkboard slowly turned into something I didn't want to get up from. Because here's the truth: when we finally let ourselves rest, our bodies recognize it as safety, and what pours out isn't despair. It's peace, creativity, connection, and hope. That's the real reward of the soft life, and it's available to you too.
Warmly,
Linda
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Meet Your Host!
Linda Sanderville, LCSW, RYT-200 is the founder of Satya Counseling & Yoga LLC. She specializes in concierge therapy for female founders and public figures, helping high-profile women navigate public scandal, executive burnout, and the values that will define the second half of life. Based in Albuquerque and serving clients virtually in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and beyond, Linda combines clinical expertise with somatic wisdom to help leaders reclaim their truth.
Read below for full transcript.
[00:00] Intro: Breaking You Out of the Hustle
Hi, I'm Linda, emotion coach and hypnotherapist, who also loves a good sunrise yoga class, listening to the belly laughs of my baby boys, and hunting down the best vegan donuts. This podcast is for ambitious and high-performing women who want to feel fulfilled in all areas of their life. I'm here to give you practical tips and mindset shifts that will help you put your self-love skills into action. Welcome.
In my most recent conversation with you, I talked about the addiction to busyness and how it's going to get us all sick, lonely, broke, and losing our minds. Look below for the link to that show if you haven't watched it yet or listened to it yet, because it'll be foundational for what we're about to talk about here. We are looking to break you out of the chaotic hustle and grind, so that you can move through your one precious life with more ease and having more recognition of the abundance that's available for you. So if it's so good for us, why is resting so hard to do? Why is addiction to busyness so easy?
You could think, if there are so many good things on the other side of resting, then why are we still allowing ourselves to live in this overwhelmed, high-cortisol state? If it really were that great, wouldn't we already be doing it, essentially? Well, look, if it were that easy, yes, you would already be doing it. And I wouldn't need to make this video. I would already be doing it easily and without thinking, right? But staying busy allows us to temporarily avoid some pretty painful things that we may not feel like we are ready to deal with.
[02:00] Why I Avoid Rest Too: The Painful Things We Run From
Linda: And I'll get vulnerable for a minute and just share with you some examples from my own life. These are some examples of why I prefer to avoid rest, just like you. So one, I have an aging parent who struggles with some health conditions. They're not even like clear health conditions. They're very fuzzy, but they are chronic and relatively debilitating.
So while we don't see eye to eye on a lot of things and never really have, my relationship with my mom isn't the most harmonious. And yet it's still really stressful, and honestly creates a bit of an existential crisis when I stop to think about all that will be lost when she's gone. She provides a link to my identity, my history, my cultural heritage, all in a way that will be irreplaceable when she's no longer here. And it sucks to think about. So why would I?
On the other hand, I also have two young, beautiful Black boys who are not yet in school. And my husband and I worry about what it'll be like for them to be in a public school setting and, frankly, just to exist out in the world, based on what the world is like, right? Like, there's nothing wrong with them. They're amazing. I'm not biased at all. But the environments that we live in are what they are. And so it pains us physically to think that we can't just hold them close and protect them forever and just guard them from all the nastiness and all the nasty people that exist. So why would I think about that?
I'm also a classic millennial who feels the loss of every tree that's cut down. Do you know how awful that is? I feel it on a visceral level, because I have raging climate anxiety. How about you? It's the reason I cloth-diapered both of my boys and a lot of other things that I drive my family crazy with. Because I'm deeply aware that when we throw trash away, it doesn't really go away, because there is no away. It just goes somewhere else on our beautiful suffering planet. And I aspire to a zero-waste lifestyle for these reasons. But also, it's overwhelming, and I don't want to think about that.
And then, as a psychotherapist who's mainly been trained in and treated those with trauma, whether it's single-episode or complex trauma, all kinds of things, I am compelled always to find new and better ways to address the suffering of people on this planet, whether I do it directly or indirectly. So I do that directly through my business. And I also donate to causes that try to address similar problems, like sex trafficking, things like that, because it tears me up inside. I think no human should have to experience any of these things. But also, frankly, I don't want to think about it.
[05:23] The Busy Schedule as Armor
Linda: So guess what? Just like you, I love a busy schedule. I love feeling like I am so important that I barely have time to breathe, let alone take a rest or a vacation day. And if everything is high priority, well, that just guarantees that I don't have to let go of anything. I don't have to delegate anything. I don't have to slow down. I don't have to stop, ever. Because the sky would fall if I didn't do all these things. Well, except that's not exactly true. The only guarantee of something that's going to fail or fall or break if I don't slow down is me.
So that's why, even though it takes a lot of mental strength to rein myself in, I really make an effort to slow myself down. Partly because I also teach this to people that I serve. And I want to make sure that I'm not just getting lip service, that I'm living it, so I can be a model of the things that I'm saying that they need to be doing too. Because the research is there. We know, you're watching this, you already know that you need to slow down and take it easier on yourself. It's not like that's mysterious or brand-new information. But I have to make a decision first in order for this to happen.
So I made myself pause yesterday. At the end of my day, I was looking around like, what do I do next? I need to do something else, right? And I just made myself pause at the end of the day and I did some slow, ungraceful, messy, just spontaneous, self-led yoga on my mat. I made myself stop and pay attention to my body and to my racing mind, and to give it what it needed, which was a pause. Not more stuff, not checking off more boxes. It was really hard to do at first.
So if you think that this is something that may just come easy to me, that's why I'm talking about it. Absolutely not. It was like nails on a chalkboard hard. And I've been knowing this and practicing this stuff for years. And yet, as hard as it was to start, gradually, inch by inch, minute by minute, it got easier. In the end, I wasn't fighting to keep myself on my mat. I was actually trying to convince myself to get back up, because I needed to actually move on to the next thing. But it felt that good. Eventually, it felt that good.
[07:53] What Happens When You Finally Let Yourself Rest
Linda: When we give our bodies and our minds a chance to rest, they will slowly wind back down. And they will thank us for giving them what they needed. Our bodies recognize a good thing, because they're wired to recognize it. They're wired to recognize what gives us true health, what protects us, what keeps us safe, what ensures our longevity, our long life. And so once we give our bodies the message that we are safe enough to slow down, and that's a whole other process, a whole other conversation, but once we give our bodies that message, they will activate all those wonderful pleasure centers in our brain that reward us for good behavior. Thank goodness. Thank goodness we get that little hit.
And I want to reassure you that when you slow down, whether you do it on your own or you do it with your girlfriend, whether you do it in a group setting to keep you further accountable, it's not going to be all sadness and anger and despair that just comes pouring out of you. At least not forever, even if that's how it may feel like it's starting.
When I slow down through a spiritual practice, or yoga, or meditation, or a long walk outdoors, or anything else, there's lots of ways to do this. It actually brings me greater peace, not less. I don't become more despairing. I end up actually coming away with more hope, not less hope. I tap into all kinds of creativity and a sense of connection with all beings, and an energy that flows from inside out. After a time of slowing down, I can't get those things without it. It's not possible. I can only sort of fabricate and pretend if I'm trying to get to that level without slowing down. It's all fake at that point.
So friends, that is the true reward of the soft life: the creativity, the ease, the connection, the awareness, the empowerment, the connection back to your own power. So go and get you some, okay?
[10:12] The Reward of the Soft Life & Where to Go Next
Linda: Now, I would be holding back if I didn't tell you that I have a program called Self-Love Skills. And it will help you to address all the most common barriers to the soft life, so that you can handle your business and rest like the walking miracle that you truly are. So head to the link in the description and grab it up for yourself. And I'll be back to talk with you soon.
You hung with me to the end, my shero. If you benefited from this episode, please say thanks by leaving a wonderful review. It helps me know what's helping you the most and allows more like-minded women to find and learn from this podcast. We don't want to keep all the good stuff for ourselves. See you next time.
[Editing Note: The Love Yourself Liberated! group program is not currently available. If you are interested in this content and guidance, it is now exclusively provided through my concierge psychotherapy practice, Satya Counseling & Yoga.]
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