#22 Why Rest Feels Impossible: Understanding Your Productivity Addiction

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Ever feel like you're constantly running on a productivity treadmill, unable to step off without experiencing overwhelming guilt and anxiety? You're not alone. What looks like ambition and high achievement might actually be anxiety masquerading as motivation – and over time, it can evolve into something more concerning.

In this revealing episode, we explore how childhood messages about productivity and worth create deeply ingrained neural pathways that follow us into adulthood. When our parents or caregivers unconsciously taught us that our value comes from what we accomplish rather than who we are, we developed thinking patterns that trained our nervous systems to feel unsafe whenever we try to rest. This high-functioning anxiety creates a constant background hum telling us we should be doing more, and we can't slow down without falling behind.

The most fascinating part? This pattern often transforms into what therapists call "Pure O" OCD – a quieter form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that doesn't involve the stereotypical hand-washing or lock-checking behaviors. Instead, it manifests as internal rules, mental rituals, and relentless "shoulds" that drive our behavior. The productivity loop becomes addictive: feel anxious, do something productive, experience temporary relief, repeat. It's particularly insidious because our culture actually praises this harmful pattern, mistaking trauma responses for motivation and "hustle." I share practical strategies for breaking free from this cycle, starting with simply noticing when you're acting from pressure versus genuine desire, and practicing sitting with the discomfort of incomplete tasks. Your worth isn't measured by checked boxes on a to-do list, and you deserve to be present for the people and experiences that matter most in your life. Ready to transform your relationship with productivity? Listen now and take the first step toward authentic motivation and true balance.

👉 Ask me a question or suggest a topic [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good morning, happy Monday morning.
I hope you're ready for theweek.
I'm ready to kick this one off.
Really well.
I just joined personal trainingfor the first time in my life
because I was going into thelocal gym to see the physical
therapist there because it'sconvenient it's like two seconds
down the street.
Anyways, I've been working witha physical therapist because I

(00:23):
tore my rotator cuff andeveryone keeps asking me what I
did to it.
Guess what.
I had kids and kids like tojump out of your arms at the
exciting things that they seeand they don't give a crap that
you can't handle 25 pounds ofhuman jumping for something out
of your arms.
Okay, anyways, I tore my littlerotator cuff, but it's a

(00:47):
midline tear, so they don't wantto do surgery, which makes
perfect sense.
Please don't do surgery if youdon't have to.
And I'm working on it inphysical therapy.
And then there's this guy at thegym.
He's really spunky and cool andI just liked his personality.
Like motivates me and I waslike I want that guy to be my
personal trainer.
Cool, and I just liked hispersonality.
Like motivates me and I waslike I want that guy to be my
personal trainer.
So he is now my personaltrainer.

(01:07):
He showed up to our firstsession with a fricking donut.
It was hilarious, it was sofunny and if you follow me on
social media, then you saw me ona treadmill with my trainer
behind me with a sprinkly,delicious donut, anyway.

(01:27):
So I just started with thepersonal trainer.
So I've got this littlenutrition guide and I'm just
going to get fit and I askedmyself why.
Honestly, it's because I feelgross in a bathing suit.
That's, that's my why.
And once you pass, you know,your mid thirties, everything
starts to sag and get sad.
So I want to pep everybody backup.

(01:49):
Let's go body Get tight.
Um, I usually don't really care, because I would rather watch
Netflix and eat pizza than doanything remotely similar to
working out, but once I get inthere, I do enjoy it.
So I'm looking forward to theweek.
I hope you are.
It's summer here.
It's beautiful.
We went to the beach thisweekend.

(02:11):
The kids had a blast.
But Sunday morning we woke upand my husband was like we have
to get shit done today.
We have so much to do.
We have like four loads oflaundry that need to be done,
the dishwasher, the house is amess.
There's toys everywhere, likethere's so much to do.
We have like four loads oflaundry that need to be done,
the dishwasher, the house is amess, there's toys everywhere,
like there's so much to do.
And I hadn't even had my teayet.

(02:33):
So I was like, okay, you knowwhatever.
So I sent him to go do yardwork while I just started
getting done things and whatever.
Long story short, the entire dayended up being chores, chores,
chores, chores, chores.
But we don't get to spend a lotof time with our kids outside
of you know, the weekend.

(02:54):
The weekend's really preciousand quality because we're with
them.
So it was kind of a bummerbecause I just didn't feel like
we could be present with ourkids.
Anyways, the point of thisstory is to tell you that if
you're like my husband and youwake up and you've got this like
running to-do list, you're notalone.

(03:15):
I think this is a super commonexperience and I think it
actually manifests when peopleare like breaking down, almost
having a mentee bee, becausethey've gone their entire life
in this pattern of anxiety, andthen it kind of develops into
subtle OCD and I'm going toexplain to you what that is and

(03:35):
how that looks.
So let's get into it.
Welcome to Not your Therapistpodcast.
I'm Kayla.
I'm a licensed therapist.
I've been doing it for over adecade.
I grew a group practice here inWilmington, north Carolina.
Now it runs without me.
So now I do a podcast and I domental health coaching and I do
business coaching for otherhealers.

(03:56):
So if you're any of those youwant to work with me, hop on
over to KaylaRileycom.
Check out what I've got goingon.
I do offer free sessions sothat you can get a taste of what
it's like to work with me.
All right, let's hop into it.
Today we're talking aboutanxiety and how it develops into
OCD, and you might feel like,holy crap, I'm always have this

(04:18):
pressure to get things done.
I'm never present, I'm alwaysstressed and I'm frustrated
because you don't want to livethat way, and I understand.
So let's talk about how thisidea develops.
So this idea develops typicallyfrom our families of origin.
There was messages sent to usby somebody, where the messages

(04:41):
sent that what you do createsyour worth right, and that if
you're not doing anything,you're resting or you're taking
care of yourself or you're justenjoying your life, that that's
somehow bad and lazy.
So this message that's sent toyou and I say that I'm like none
of your parents are sitting youdown on the couch.

(05:02):
Probably, maybe, but none ofyour parents sat you down on the
couch as a three-year-old andsaid you know, life is about go,
go, go, go go.
And if you stop and if you restand if you take care of
yourself, you're a lazy piece ofcrap.
Maybe they're saying that toyou explicitly, but a lot of the

(05:23):
times when I mean what messageswere sent to you, I mean
implicitly from your parents'behavior, is your parents' value
system get things done oryou're lazy.
And usually this istransgenerational, right, like?
My husband's father was raisedby a mother who very much
ingrained that in her childrenyou have to get stuff done or

(05:45):
else you're useless.
So now my husband's father isolder, he's got some nerve
damage in his hands, he hasproblems getting around and he's
in that old man stage.
Right, you should sit down andlet your kids help you out and
hire somebody to do your yardwork.
But he has a really hard timeaccepting that because the
message that was sent to him inhis childhood was do, do, do.

(06:09):
And if other people have to dofor you, then you're lazy and
you're useless and you'reworthless.
So if those messages were sentto you in childhood, typically
that turns into this valuesystem of get things done or
else I suck.
Now you're training your nervoussystem, you're training your

(06:30):
neuropathways into that way ofthinking.
So if you're starting to try togo to the gym, it's so
uncomfortable and it's so hardto put yourself in that pattern
of like God, I gotta get readyfor the gym.
Oh crap, I forgot my waterbottle.
Oh shit, I haven't charged myheadphones right.

(06:50):
But once you get going andyou're like in the groove of it
and you've been doing this forlike two or three weeks, it
becomes second nature.
You know to charge yourheadphones, you know to grab
your water bottle.
It becomes instinct and musclememory.
The same for anxiety.
When we are raised by parentswho send these messages that we
have to do, do, do, or we haveto take care of other people, or

(07:13):
some kind of message that leadsto anxious thinking, a lack of
safety, a lack of secureattachment, we develop these
ways of thinking and being thattrain our nervous system, the
part of us that says, ah, thisis danger or oh, no, it's not.

(07:33):
Over and over, and over andover again for years.
We also are carving very deepneuropathways, which means ways
of thinking or responding tothings.
So if you've been thinking allyour life in a way of I have to
do and that's how I getvalidation, I have to do and

(07:55):
that's how I become worthy, Ihave to get things done and
that's how I can validate myself, that's a really ingrained way
of thinking.
You're not going to listen tothis episode and be like oh yeah
, there it is again.
I need to stop that.
That's not how it's going towork.
We'll talk about how to solvethis, but later in the episode,
hang with me, people.

(08:15):
This is typically referred to inthe psychology world as high
functioning anxiety.
It's not just nervousness.
It's like this constant hum inthe background saying like you
should be doing more, you can'trest, nothing's done.
If you slow down, you fallbehind like that pressure, even
when there's like no deadline,your body feels like there's

(08:37):
this invisible fire you have toput out, because you've trained
your brain and your nervoussystem that way.
So again, your nervous system,aka the alarm system in your
brain, the amygdala when itthinks there's a threat like
rejection, failure, fallingshort, it sends your body into
flight or fight, fight or flight.

(08:57):
Actually it's fight, flight,freeze or fawn, but we use a
shortcut.
Okay, but you're not being,you're not really in danger, so
you can retrain your nervoussystem.
It just takes intention.
Okay, so enter the productivityloop, right.
So you feel anxious.
So you go do somethingproductive and you get a hit of

(09:20):
relief.
Your brain is like, ah, there'smy safety zone.
Good, you got this done.
You could pat yourself on theback and then you repeat that
cycle.
So then you're doing nothing,you feel anxious, you go do
something productive.
Ah, okay, this is starting todevelop into a very subtle OCD.

(09:41):
People often think of OCD aslike hand-washing a thousand
times or checking locks threetimes before they leave the
house.
But there's a quieter form thatshows up as like internal rules
, mental rituals and relentlesslike I should, I should, I
should.
We call this shoulding all overyourself.
This is called pure O, so OCD,so it's short for purely

(10:06):
obsessional.
It doesn't always have visualcompulsions, just anxiety-driven
mental loops that feel like thetruth.
So if you're one of thesepeople, you have anxiety-driven
mental loops that feel like yourreality, but aren't so an

(10:27):
obsession.
Remember, ocd is obsessivecompulsive disorder.
It's an anxiety disorder.
So the obsession is in yourthoughts?
What are you fixated on?
So obsessions might be.
What if I'm wasting time?
If I don't get anything donetoday, I'm going to fall behind,
right, like I'm not helping myfamily if I'm not up doing

(10:51):
chores all the time.
A compulsion is a behavior thatyou do that gives you a little
relief of the anxiety.
So checking your calendar 10times or making a new to-do list
every couple of hours, or justdo one more thing to relieve the
anxiety, like even thoughyou're physically exhausted.

(11:12):
So constant mental rehearsingand planning, avoiding rest,
right All of these things can bea form of compulsion.
So an obsession is the thoughtand the thing that creates
anxiety.
The compulsion is the behavioryou do to get a little hit of
relief.
It feels to you maybe likeyou're being responsible or

(11:37):
productive, but you're justtrying to relieve anxiety with a
false sense of control.
That's the compulsion part.
The relief is totally temporary, but the loop just got
reinforced.
So it's sneaky because culturepraises especially our American
culture praises this form of OCD, and so it often flies under

(12:01):
the radar.
People are really uncomfortableand unwell, but it looks good
because you're getting a shitton done.
People think, oh, I'm justreally motivated, I'm crushing
it.
But if rest makes you anxiousor you can't sit and just be or
your worth feels tied to thisoutput somehow, that's not

(12:23):
really motivation.
That's a trauma or anxietyresponse wrapped in productivity
.
So there is good news you candefinitely unwire this.
The first thing you need to doyou're already doing right now,
which is reflecting, thinkingabout what are my thoughts,

(12:44):
what's my cycle?
How do I notice this, whetherit's coming from a place of I
feel rested and I actually wantto be productive, or do I feel
pressure and stress and guiltand shame, and that's what's
driving my behavior.
So once you notice the pattern,you can work on resisting that
compulsion, like over planningor checking your phone or

(13:07):
writing a to-do list, right.
So work on resisting thatcompulsive little behavior,
practice, incomplete exposure,so like leave your inbox
unchecked for a little while ordon't rewrite the to-do list,
and then you learn to sit withdiscomfort, so slowly but surely

(13:28):
, exposing your nervous systemand your brain, your neural
pathways, to this uncomfortablefeeling, and don't rush to
relieve it through action rightaway and you expose yourself to
longer and longer forms of thatyou know later down the line,
once you're done with thislittle regulation part.

(13:48):
I really highly suggest workingwith a mental health coach or a
mental health therapist to kindof explore where did these
ideas come from, how can Iunwire them, how can I rewrite
my norm so that my default isn'toverdoing and burning myself
out and not being present forthe people I love and not, you

(14:09):
know, taking care of myself?
That's what I've got for youtoday.
I hope this resonated with someof you and I hope this gives you
permission to rest.
Rest is not a bad word.
You deserve to take care ofyourself.
You deserve to be present andenjoy your life.
Life is so incredibly short.
So in the weekend, it's okay iflaundry piles up.

(14:33):
It's okay if there's some dirtydishes in the sink.
Life is not about perfection.
Right, take care of yourselfand take care of your
environment.
For sure, be productive, butmake sure it's coming from a
place of health, not a place offear and self shaming.
All right, okay, hope you havea wonderful week.

(14:56):
Don't overdo it.
Find that balance.
I'm going to head to the gym.