when slowing down feels uncomfortable but necessary

Ever feel uncomfortable slowing down? Like, you just can’t let yourself come fully out of your productivity mode and rest?

This is a common dilemma in my world and something I have been working on for years!

For so many of us (especially high-achieving women, especially those holding families, businesses, and the emotional labor of everyone around us) our systems are wired for output.

We’re praised for our productivity.
We’re validated for our hustle.
We’re told that forward motion equals value.

So it makes perfect sense that slowing down doesn’t always feel... good.

In fact, many of my clients say it feels wrong.
Unfamiliar.
Agitating.
Like they’re doing something bad by doing less.

Our systems have become adapted to urgency.

We’ve been trained to override what’s being communicated by the body in order to survive in our families, our culture, our jobs.

To keep pushing.
AND…as a culture we equate “doing nothing” with being lazy, behind, or unsafe.

When I quit my job as a guidance counselor years ago to focus on my healing I had to repattern my whole system to orient to slowing down and resting in a completely different way. 

To help my body understand that:

The pause is actually productive.

A healthy nervous system needs time to recalibrate.

The stillness gets to be a reset AND is in service to my productivity.

Rest IS actually doing something important.

When I first started this process, it was not easy..

It was SUPER uncomfortable.

When we finally step out of constant doing, the backlog of what’s been suppressed starts to rise:

The hum of our activated nervous system in a body trying to be still.

Emotions that haven’t had space.

Insights that have been ignored.

Desires that got buried under all the to-do lists.

A generalized churn making us feel like we need to be doing.

Inside my Somatic Coaching practice and my 1-1 retreats helping our body build new patterns around slowing down and rest is a part of the work:

Creating a new foundational baseline for our nervous system.

Space to slow down without shame. 

Space to allow the system to unfurl.

Space to remember (and FEEL) that worth isn’t dependent on output.

When we create space for this something profound shifts:
Energy starts to return.
Creativity reawakens.
Ideas come without being forced.
The body stops bracing and starts listening.

The body comes out of urgency and starts receiving.

It’s not always easy to slow down.

It can feel edgy, uncomfortable, even unbearable at first.

AND…it is required for our ability to move into new ways of being. To reclaim our aliveness.

Something that will ripple through everything else.

Reach out if you’re craving space but struggle to give it to yourself. We can explore what offering might be a good fit for you at this time. 

The Spacious CEO Retreat is designed to meet you in this exact place. Or, take a pause with a Somatic Integration Session in person or virtual.

Let’s create a new relationship to rest, one that honors your full humanity, not just your productivity. 💙