The Lawyer Life Podcast

Q/A How to Unlearn the Guilt of Doing Nothing

• Autumn Noble • Season 2 • Episode 63

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In this listener Q&A episode, we explore a deceptively simple but deeply resonant question: Why does rest feel so uncomfortable? If you’ve ever felt guilty for slowing down or worried you were “losing your edge” by doing less, this episode is for you. We unpack the hidden narratives that make rest feel unsafe, offer mindset shifts to reframe your discomfort, and share four tangible coaching tools to help you reclaim rest—not as a reward, but as a right. 


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You are listening to the Lawyer Life Podcast episode number 63, How to Unlearn the Guilt of Doing Nothing.

 

Welcome back to the podcast my friends. Today we are unpacking several listener Q &A's that I've received over the last several weeks that have been prompted by my prior podcast episodes on rest and guilt and slowing down and momentum.

 

So I'm going to address some of the more common questions I've received in various shapes and forms from several listeners. And I'm gonna give you some very practical coaching tips and strategies to help you experience less guilt and less stress when you rest and make space for yourself. So let's go ahead and dive in.

 

This first listener question is one that I hear all of the time in different forms.

 

Why does it feel so uncomfortable for me to rest? I know I need it, I want it, but every time I slow down, I either feel guilty or like I've lost my edge. Let's talk about this one.

 

This is such a powerful and common question, especially for women, high achievers, caregivers, or anyone who's been told that their value really resides in how much they can do.

 

We often think that rest should feel good, but for many of us, the rest actually feels like disconnection, failure, or laziness, and maybe even a little bit of fear.

 

All of this is because rest in our culture, it isn't neutral, it's political, it's personal, and it goes against a lifetime of conditioning that we've been taught. You earn rest by exhausting yourself first. Don't let anyone think that you're slacking. If you have free time, you should be using it productively. All of those things have been ingrained in us over the years, and we've all been told them in some format over the course of our lives. And we've ingrained this idea

 

that resting should trigger a judgment from those around us, but most notably from ourselves. So when you sit down to rest, your body might physically slow down, but your nervous system is still on alert. That kind of buzzing discomfort, that guilt, that is your nervous system saying, this is unfamiliar, this doesn't feel safe. And it often invites those thought patterns

 

that are conditioned in us culturally and societally telling us that something is wrong with us because we need to rest and because we feel like we want to slow down. This is not a moral failing. It's simply a pattern and patterns can be rewired.

 

So this leads me to a follow-up question and something that I have touched on a little bit over the prior podcast episodes. And that question is, okay, so what do I do? How can I actually do less without feeling guilty, without feeling less than all of the time?

 

So here are a few very simple coaching insights to help you reframe and practice this. Number one, redefine what doing less means for you.

 

Doing less doesn't mean that you're lazy or you're checked out or you can't hack it.

 

It means that you're choosing your energy intentionally. You're pausing, you're protecting your capacity and ability to keep going. In fact, you're creating room for vision and creativity and wellbeing. When we reframe it as strength, not a weakness, it can become more accessible. And something I talked about in my prior episode was changing the way we think about rest.

 

and reframing it into an act of rebellion, ⁓ self-care rebellion.

 

Two, understand that guilt is a signal. It's not a stop sign. It doesn't mean that something has gone wrong. It's often just an outdated alarm system trained to go off every time that you deviate from that sort of hustle narrative that we've been told.

 

But guilt doesn't mean that you've done something wrong. It means that you're doing something different or something unfamiliar and that's triggering that survival part of your brain that's like, uh-oh, this is not the norm. This is not what people told us to do. Something bad is going to happen.

 

That is just a normal part and reaction to breaking any type of a cycle or a pattern.

 

So we have to answer those urges with a new pattern. So try telling yourself or practicing the belief, this guilt doesn't mean that I'm failing, it just means that I'm healing. This guilt doesn't mean that I'm doing something wrong, it just means that I'm reworking my patterns and that's why it feels so uncomfortable. And from there, trusting that the more you do that, the less powerful and persuasive that guilt will feel because you will have developed a new pattern of believing.

 

that the rest is essential and necessary and a means to keep you moving forward.

 

Three, practice low stakes rest. Start with small, low pressure pauses. So instead of taking a full entire day off, which can often feel really overwhelming, take 10 minutes to sit on the porch and just be outside. I mentioned in a few of the prior episodes, scheduling kind of a block of time where you don't have anything planned and it's just sort of a just be or sit in stillness or find ways to intentionally reconnect with yourself.

 

time period. And those little blocks can simply be 10 minutes of pre-scheduled time to do nothing and just rest. Drink your coffee

 

slowly. Turn off your podcast during your walk and just be with your footsteps and with what you're seeing around you for that time period. Just be without the need to use that time for something. We don't need to use our walks to listen to a podcast. The walk can simply be enough. It can simply be a time to just be with yourself. There doesn't have to be a purpose or benefit to it other than

 

the act itself. Let your nervous system build trust in those pauses by practicing truly not doing anything and using those pauses for anything other than just being with yourself.

 

Four, get really curious instead of judgmental. And what I mean by that is inevitably when you start these practices, you're going to have a lot of stuff come up. You're going to have a lot of judgments. You're going to have a lot of feelings. You're going to have a lot of thoughts. And so what I want you to do is really start getting curious about why am I thinking that? Why am I feeling that? And when you notice those emotions or guilt creep in.

 

Try asking yourself, what story am I believing right now? What story is playing in the background that's making me feel like this? Who told me that I shouldn't be doing this or that rest means I can't hack it or that I'm not valuable? What do I fear people will think if I'm not busy? These are the types of questions that will pull you into self-awareness.

 

instead of that autopilot primitive brain that's just screaming, you know, this is a bad idea, don't do this, and here's all the reasons why, we need to step out of that and get curious and start exploring why is this so hard for me and where does that come from? Again, my prior podcast episodes include some additional kind of journaling prompts and explorations that can help take this a little bit deeper.

 

In sum, our theme and my message over the last several weeks has been that doing less or resting, it's not about abandoning ambition and it's not a sign that you can't hack it or you're not good enough. It's truly about making space to become more connected with what actually matters and creating the intentional safety to enjoy it and check in.

 

If we ignore those parts of ourselves begging for rest, it robs us of the opportunity to really check in and see, you how am I? What's going on with me? Am I happy? Am I unhappy? What do I need more of? What do I need less of? When we don't slow down and make time for that, we end up just continually and repeatedly sprinting at brick walls, falling apart, burning out, recouping from that and doing it again.

 

That is not rest, that's recovery. And so what I'm advocating for is periodic rest along this sprint so that you continually check in with yourself and ask, where am I going? How am I doing? What do I want? And what that means is taking space with no purpose other than to simply be with yourself and see what comes up. You are not less than when you rest and it's not an indication.

 

that you can't hack it and you're not as good as everybody else. It means that you're making a more intentional investment in your long-term success and capacity. You're a human, you're healing and you are rewriting the rules. This idea of periodic rest and breaks is a rebellious act that I promise you will pay off greater dividends than joining the herd.

 

and sprinting at those brick walls and repeatedly burning out because you're believing that you have to work just as hard if not harder than everybody else.

 

if today's questions or topics over the last several episodes sparked anything in you, if you've got your own questions about guilt or boundaries or rest, please send me a message. I love hearing from you. You can send your emails and questions to autumn at the lawyerlifecollective.com.

 

Your question could possibly be something that will appear in one of the later episodes. It could be something that someone else is wondering and needs to hear. So please don't hesitate to reach out with those questions. And again, if we haven't met yet, don't hesitate to reach out and schedule a free coaching consultation. Those are all linked in the show notes or check out additional details at thelawyerelifecollective.com.

 

As always, thanks so much for being here with me and thanks for sharing the podcast with your friends and supporting other women and lawyers on their own journeys. I hope that you are enjoying your summer and finding ways to make space for yourself during this beautiful time. Until next time, my friends.