Want to hear something weird? I could never just sit. Through my busiest years, all I wanted was a moment to just relax. Maybe sip my tea sitting for a change. Take a breather. Why is resting so hard?
Yet whenever I had the chance, I would catch myself doing anything but that — checking my phone, cleaning something, doing anything really. I didn’t even notice until my daughter finally said to me, “Can you just sit still?” That’s when I realized something was off.
Rest can feel unsafe.
That was surprising. It didn’t make sense to me until I understood what burnout does to the brain. Over many thousands of years, our brains have learned to scan for danger. It’s like a computer program working quietly in the background. And we are mostly unaware of it.
But chronic stress — long shifts, endless to-do lists, constant pressure to perform — keeps that system switched on. If you spend your days caring for other people — whether an essential worker or simply the person everyone depends on — you already know this pattern well.
When we are chronically stressed, our brain shifts into survival mode. It prioritizes action over emotional processing and our feelings get pushed into the background so we can keep functioning. They don’t disappear. They wait. When we finally slow down, they surface, which is why rest can suddenly feel overwhelming. This is a coping mechanism. We all have it. Emotions get pushed to the back to be dealt with later.
This is why stillness can feel so unsettling — like something is wrong, like you’re suddenly falling apart. You’re not. You’re just safe enough to feel.
Pema Chödrön writes in Start Where You Are, about the sky and how we are that vast sky and our emotions are simply the weather passing through. We can notice them but they do not affect us.
So the next time you sit in stillness and feel uncomfortable — simply notice them. Acknowledge them and remember — you are the sky.