Guilt Can Keep Us Busy

Have you ever finally given yourself permission to stop—and then immediately felt guilty about it?

You sit down to relax, but instead of enjoying yourself, your mind starts running through everything you could or should be doing.

I should answer that email.

I really need to do the laundry.

I could get a head start on tomorrow.

I'm being so lazy right now.

And sometimes it's more than just thoughts.

You can actually feel the guilt.

Maybe it's a heaviness in your chest, a knot in your stomach, a feeling of restlessness, or an uncomfortable sense that you shouldn't be sitting there.

So you get up and do something.

And the moment you do, the feeling goes away.

That can teach us something important.

Guilt can keep us busy.

When we feel guilty for resting, getting up and being productive gives us relief.

We feel like we're doing what we're supposed to be doing again.

The problem is that we can start responding to that feeling without ever questioning it.

We assume:

If I feel guilty, I must be doing something wrong.

But guilt isn't always evidence that we've done something wrong.

Sometimes guilt is simply a reaction to doing something we're not accustomed to doing.

If you've spent years believing that you should always be productive, slowing down can feel uncomfortable—even when there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking a break.

What if you didn't act on the guilt?

The next time you sit down and that familiar feeling shows up, try something different.

Instead of immediately getting up, notice it.

I'm feeling guilty for sitting here.

Then ask yourself:

Have I actually done something wrong?

Or am I simply uncomfortable because I'm not being productive right now?

You don't have to make the feeling disappear.

You don't have to convince yourself that you deserve to rest.

You can simply allow the feeling to be there without letting it make the decision for you.

Because sometimes slowing down means learning to tolerate the discomfort of not doing.

And over time, we can begin to discover that resting doesn't make us lazy, an empty afternoon isn't wasted time, and we don't have to be productive every moment in order to feel good about ourselves.

We can stop. We can rest. And we can let the guilt be there without busying ourselves to make it go away.