Why do I feel like I’m not allowed to rest?

[Intro] Hello and welcome to Empowered to Thrive. I'm so glad to have you here with me today. And this space is always meant to be a place where I am showing up real and vulnerable.

I am sharing my own stories and reflections and giving you motivation to create change in your life, giving you tools, information, and a way to get where you want to go. 

Corinne Powell: Now in today's episode, I am reflecting on some of the things that I've noticed within myself recently and talking about where it all came from. And I'm certain some of you are going to feel like I'm sharing your own inner world.

I know that many of us are connected in some of these ways. And so I hope that you not only feel understood, but you also find the path to come out of the heaviness you might be experiencing, the exhaustion you might be feeling. So let's get into it.

I wanted to share something that I realized yesterday. I was saying to my husband, it was probably 6:30 in the evening, and I said, I don't feel like doing anything else. I am so tired.

But I also felt that because I didn't have a list of 40 things I had accomplished this weekend or yesterday, that I should not need a break, or that I should push myself more to get some things done before taking a break. And it was interesting to me because as I reflected and realized, I would tell someone else taking care of four children, nursing a baby throughout the night, just managing a family is enough. You have plenty of reasons to be tired.

Set aside anything you did in addition to that, any activities, any tasks. And I realized that it wasn't me, it wasn't Corinne, who was actually saying, you shouldn't relax, you haven't done enough. It was other people, people I grew up around, people I was highly influenced by, that held this perspective, that you had to have a certain number of things done in order to qualify to take a break, to relax.

So here's the thing. We get to choose whether we're going to live our life and hold a perspective based on the perspective that people around us when we were growing up had, or if we're going to choose a different one. We also, and I said this to Evan, I don't even think I'm tired from the events of the last couple of days.

I think I'm tired from the last 37 years. And what I mean by that is, I was a parentified child. I took care of my siblings when I was a child myself.

I grew up really early. I have been doing very responsible, mature things for a lot of my life. But I also pushed myself too hard for too long.

And my body feels the residual effect of that, and yours might too. So we don't need to have a good enough reason to rest and relax. And also, and maybe oftentimes, the reason you feel so tired or I feel so tired, the reason we need to rest and relax is not always because of what's happening presently, what is going on in the last couple of days.

Sometimes it is the accumulation of the life behind us that we've been living. At some point, we have to pay attention and take action based off of what's happened in the past. And then we can create those new patterns for the present and the future as well.

I would invite each of you to pause in this moment, to breathe, to remind your body that if in fact you're in a safe environment, that you're safe. To remind your body that it can relax, it doesn't need to be on guard. Right now I'm in my office, the door is shut, the heat's on, there's nothing else here.

But I could feel on guard and on edge as if something was going to happen if I'm not staying in the present. So often we don't feel safe in our bodies and then hence in our surroundings, even when there's no threat present. Because we're living from a past reality when threat was present, when it was very close.

Consider the child who had a parent who would get angry and explode at any moment. Very unpredictable. A child who would be sexually or physically or verbally abused for seemingly no reason and out of the blue.

There are so many ways we learn that we are unsafe. But what about right now? The thing is, and this isn't about convincing ourselves we're safe, our body actually needs to experience the healing on the cellular level so that we don't have to strive at feeling safe. But I invite you into this moment to become present, to get grounded, because we do have that option.

And beyond that, we should take space and make time to be able to give attention and heal the past parts of ourselves that were rightly terrified, that did experience threat, that were harmed. And then as we heal, our body heals and it does transform our present. So much love to you.

Much love to the little child you used to be. Let's invite that past part of ourselves, that little one we used to be, to come close, to be held and to be able to experience the safety that we can offer them. Because now we have a choice.

Now we can be the protector. They always deserved, that they always needed, but they didn't always have. This is the beautiful work of self-parenting. This is what change is everything.

[Outro] As we wrap up for today, I want to offer you a gift. Keys for Change is a downloadable workbook with a video lesson attached to it, and it is free to you.

Just go to the show notes, click on the link, one click, and you can access that workbook. Also, would you do me the favor of rating and reviewing my podcast? It is so helpful for other people to be able to see what you think of Empowered to Thrive, and I am eternally grateful to each one of you for your support in spreading my message and in helping me help others create change in their life. Also, if you've been listening today and someone else came to mind, or even now as you sit and think a friend or a family member is coming to mind, and you think, oh my goodness, I know they would appreciate this message as well, would you share this episode with them? Or share my website, and they can access the episode.

Thank you so much for your support. I love having you here, and I will see you again next week.