Most of my life, I felt like there was a monkey on my back telling me “Not yet….You can’t pause, you can’t breathe, you can’t relax.”
That’s because from my earliest experiences I learned that love, acceptance and belonging were conditional. I learned that I it was up to me to make my mom, grandma, and ex-step-father happy. To stay safe, I played mental gymnastics. I tried to figure out how to get my mom to stop bullying me. I obsessed over how to make my ex-step father not drink.
I Can’t Relax – I Need to Make Others Happy
Maybe, I thought, if I won the spelling bee they’d be happy? I didn’t. Maybe if I walked on eggshells? I did – but it didn’t matter there were landmines everywhere. Maybe if I got good grades? I did – but it was expected anyway. Maybe if I didn’t do drugs or drink as a teenager? I didn’t – but it was expected anyway. Maybe if I kept quiet about his abuse and didn’t air “dirty laundry” as my grandma instructed me? I did for a long time but it ate me up inside.
By the time I reached adulthood, I was stuck in this cycle of burnout. I was well practiced in trying to earn my love, acceptance and relative safety with others.
I Can’t Relax – Or I’ll Stagnate and Regress
I was always striving not just academically and then professionally but personally too. I was dumbfounded when a therapist told me many years ago that I had the right to not always work on self-improvement. “What? Then I’d just stagnate?” I exclaimed when he tried to explain my inherent value which I didn’t yet believe.
Later on, I realized he was trying to teach me self-compassion. But this didn’t make sense yet. My internal paradigm was that every bit of love, attention and acceptance I received was conditional on making others happy.
Just One More Thing Before I Can Relax
I was in a constant cycle of believing I had to achieve just one more thing before I could finally be valuable. Then I’d relax.
But of course, this cycle of thinking you have to do just one more thing before you relax never ends. After all, you can always find one more thing to accomplish on your to-do list.
But despite this constant striving, I’d inevitably hit a wall. After all, human bodies and brains need a break. This is true whether we honor this consciously and kindly or not.
Related: Why Self-Care is Not Selfish
Hitting a Wall – & Coping in Ways You Don’t Like
When I’d ignore my physical cues I needed a break, I’d get sick. Or I’d get lost in depression. I’d be unable to get out of bed until the late afternoon on my days off.
Inevitably I’d be so sick of being all-work and no-play in my perfectionism, I’d go out to blow off some steam. I would drink to the point of blacking out. I’d wake up the next morning unsure where I got the bruises on my body. And while I was ashamed of this, all of my behaviors made sense. I needed a break even I didn’t want to honor this.
A part of me was going to get this respite by any means possible. And so all of my “self-sabotage” actually made sense. Even though I felt I can’t relax yet, I needed to.
The Endless Treadmill of Doing “Just One More Thing”
And maybe you relate?
Maybe you feel like you have to keep doing just one more thing before you can relax?
But of course, one more thing keeps you on a treadmill. And so you naturally burn-out and lose yourself. A part of you is drowning and so to cope you do things that you aren’t proud of. Maybe this is by drinking, or using drugs, or losing days on your phone, or seeing that toxic ex you know is just using you just to get a break.
And then the perfectionist, can’t relax part of you, gets upset at you after this “self-sabotage.” You set timers on your phone or buy a lock box. Or you vow to never drink again. Or temporarily blocking your ex.
You Can’t Break the Cycle by Doing More
But of course, this push-pull between the part of you that feels like it can’t relax because it was trained to constantly seek approval and your part that knows you need a break isn’t satisfied by doing more. Rather, it comes when you realize the part of you that feels like it can’t relax learned it’s worth was conditional.
You developed a codependent part that’s always striving to prove it’s worth and it doesn’t find peace by doing more.
Rather this codependent part is like a hungry ghost. The hungry ghost is a concept from Buddhism. The hungry ghost is never be satisfied. No matter how much it consumes, it will never get full. It has a tiny mouth and giant belly.
Resolving the Inner Conflict that Keeps You Stuck
In regard to the feeling that you can’t relax, you can never do enough to satisfy this hungry codependent part of you. It endlessly believes your worth is conditional on what you do. It feels like no matter what you do it’s not enough because it mistakenly learned you are not enough.
Breaking the vicious cycle of being unable to relax means breaking out of the illusion that you have to prove yourself.
You were born inherently and equally valuable and worthy to all other human beings. Your worth is not up for debate regardless of what you learned from your family, a toxic partner, or society.
Having the Courage to Stop Proving Yourself
You break free from this vicious cycle when you learn you don’t have to earn relaxation. Human bodies need a break and rest no matter what the codependent, hungry ghost part of you says. You break free when you have the courage to remember that your worth is unconditional.
Breaking free means remembering you can’t prove yourself out of this cycle. You won’t wake up and suddenly feel like you’re enough. Not when you get the dream job, or the money, or the loving partner, or the hot body. Because the codependent part says, “Ok yes you did this. But now you have to do this other thing before you can feel good and take a break.”
There Was Never Anything to Prove
Liberation happens bit by bit when you realize there was never anything to prove. You were born inherently valuable and equally worthy to all others.
And then because there was never anything to prove you can take a break no matter what’s on your to-do list. You can relax in truly nourishing ways rather than numbing out because you feel guilty resting. And as you restore your body and nervous system, you realize that no matter what you do or don’t accomplish in your lifetime, you are valuable. You add to the world just by being your authentic unique self.
Reconnecting with Your Authentic Doing
From this place of liberation, you reconnect with the creative, authentic part of you. This part wants to do things simply because they light up your truest self. You start to do things not because you feel compelled to prove yourself. Rather you are called to create from your truest, passionate self. You do what lights you up rather than chasing approval from others or the algorithm.
This process happens bit by bit but then it snowballs. Eventually you get to the point where you feel so connected to your authentic worth that resting when you feel called to it and creating or working when you feel called to it feel as natural as breathing. This is the peace of ever-evolving codependency recovery.
