96. How to stop feeling guilty when your body needs to rest

Vanessa 00:00
Welcome to the Empowered brain, the only podcast using science, psychology, and coaching to help you rewire your brain and create a life you love with your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, a Harvard grad physician, master coach, and mother of two.

Hello, sweet friends. Welcome to Episode 96. We are talking about a topic that many of us experience which is why we feel guilty when we rest. But I want to give you two updates before we start. Update number one is a life update. So if you're not interested in this fast forward 30 seconds, so we are uprooting our lives. And we are leaving California and making a move out to Georgia this summer. You know, I've been getting some questions as to why we're doing it. Do we have family there? Are we moving because of jobs? And the short of it is no, we are doing it because you know, we were called to take on a new adventure in life.

You know, we've had the itch to do something new and different for a while. We put it on pause for a little bit because of just some things we wanted to hang around for. And we're making a move this summer. So we have just moved into a temporary rental, how we get our house ready for the market. So I am recording right now in my new sort of Office, which is kind of also the laundry room rental. And yeah, we're super excited, we're going to take a big road trip out in the summer. So I will give you guys some updates while we are on the road. The kids are super excited about it too and we can't wait to experience life in a new city somewhere we've never lived before. And we essentially chose Atlanta because it had a lot of the things that we were looking for in a new city, we wanted diversity. We wanted something that felt up and coming that was you know, kind of had a lot of cultural aspects to it, where we'd be able to see sports and theatre and music and food. And we want it to be around a progressive hub, and Atlanta seems to meet all those needs. So we are super excited for the new adventure.

Alright, so the second update I had for all of you is the doors are open right now for the coaching program the journey which is my all-inclusive coaching program, where I help you be your most effective self stop procrastinating help gain mental clarity and get more done. So our doors are open now. And I really love all of the work we've been doing in that program with our students. And you know, people are getting really incredible results. And I'm just so happy to be able to help guide our students on their own journey. So if that is something that you are interested in, I invite you to check it out. Vanessa Calderon, md.com, backslash join.

Okay, so let's talk about rest and guilt today. So, you know, this is a thing about resting, your body is going to need rest. So why is it that our bodies need to rest? Well, plain and simple, because we are not robots, our bodies need rest. And if you do not rest intentionally, you are going to rest unintentionally. So what does unintentional rest look like? It looks like you scrolling through social media or going down that tic-tock or Twitter rabbit hole, and spending your time a lot of ways that you ultimately end up feeling guilty about Now if you recall, your thoughts will always create your results in life. So if your initial thought was I feel guilty about resting, and it leads you to rest unintentionally, like doing all of those things on social media, for example, what will you end up creating, you will end up creating a bunch of actions that ultimately lead you to feel guilty.

However, if you believed that it was safe for you to rest, that it was okay for you to rest and you rested intentionally, you would create different results in life. Alright, so let's talk a little bit about guilt. Because why is it that we feel guilty? So there are two types of guilt. There's a type of guilt called Rational guilt, and then the opposite irrational guilt. So irrational guilt comes from our shoulds in life, these rules that are really not our own, but come from somewhere outside of us these external rules that we've sort of adopted without thinking about them. So anytime you hear yourself saying should that is a clue that you are probably going down some sort of irrational guilt, rabbit hole. So for example, this comes from things like thinking we should be overly responsible for something or having a feeling kind of like underlying anxiety that we will do something wrong. Or having this sort of primitive belief that you know, goes something like this, I can only be happy if they're happy. I can only be happy if my husband is happy, or my kids are happy. So how does this show up?

So let's say, for example, you are a parent. You might have this thought that in order for you to be a good parent, you should spend all your downtime with your kids. So if you're not with your kids, for example, let's say you go to the spa or you go golfing, it might cause you to feel extremely only guilty, and you feel like you can't spend any time any other way except being with your kids. That one was a huge one for me when I had kids, here's another one that often comes up, especially for high achievers, that in order for you to be contributing to society, or to be a good person, you should always be productive. So there's another shift for you. Here's another one that might cause guilt, if your self-worth is tied to being productive, this one is sort of guilt and shame together, if your self-worth is tied to being productive, then you will have an underlying subconscious belief that the more you produce, the better you are. And if you have that unintentional thought, it makes the opposite also true, which means that when you're not producing, you are worthless, nobody here is worthless. By the way, that is just an example.

Now, if you identify, you know, for example, a lot of high achievers do this, if your identity is tied heavily with work, like a lot of you listening to this, then being away from work will also pose a threat to your ego, which will lead to a lot of these feelings of guilt. Again, when you use the word should, then that's a cue for you that you have a thought that you were thinking without reflecting on it first. So irrational guilt comes from irrational thinking. So again, specifically about consequences like your time at the spa, or your time playing golf would hurt your kids in some way is going to hurt your kids in an irreparable way. Now, we know that when you think about that, you know, rationally It makes absolutely no sense. But it's when we don't think about those things rationally. And we follow those shoulds that we start feeling that irrational guilt. The thing about irrational guilt is that it also lingers, even in even in the face of actual facts.

As we know, our kids are gonna go away and have a great weekend. And we still feel that guilt when we're not with them. It's irrational guilt, and it lingers on even after the facts. So let's talk a little bit about rational guilt. What is rational killing, rational guilt comes from violating our own self-initiated, grounded values, and our own integrity. So instead of being driven by sort of that anxious or primitive part of our brain, it comes from the adult part of our brain, for example, we're super clear on our values, and we know it's really important for us to be present with our kids.

So when we're with our kids, and we are on our phone scrolling, for example, that might create a little bit of guilt, and we'll put our phone away. That is rational guilt. So rational guilt comes from us violating our own set of integrities and our own values. Okay, so how do we deal with this? So the very first thing you want to do is you want to define your own values when it comes to rest. How is it that you want to intentionally think about rest? How do you want to feel about rest? Do you want to lean into the fact that rest is needed? It's part of being a human being? And the more you rest, the more focused you will be, and the more effective you will be. Or do you want to continue to think of rest as something that is only for lazy people or something, you know, you can kind of see where I'm leaning towards this.

But how is it that you want to intentionally think about rest? And once you do that, and once you create your values, I want you to ask yourself, Does this intuitively feel right for me? Is this something I want to lean into? That right, there is probably the most important thing of this entire podcast are you deciding for yourself how you want to define rest, and what you want to think about rest. I chose to redefine rest as something, I need something my body, my brain, and my spirit need to be the best for me, which has really allowed me to let go of this idea of guilt. Because I used to believe that only lazy people needed rest. And for me, laziness was probably the worst thing you could ever call me. You know, coming from immigrant parents where work was everything and I had tied myself forth to productivity. Resting was probably you know, being lazy was probably the worst thing I could do.

So once you redefine what rest means for you, then you can lean into that. After you do that, what I want you to do is look out for your short statements. When you hear yourself saying should I want you to pause and ask yourself, Where is this coming from? Where did this come from externally outside of me? Was it from my parents? Was it societal expectations? Because we should very rarely be something that we believe in ourselves. It's something that has been thrown upon us that we have just adopted as our own, but not necessarily. We don't necessarily need to do that.

So I want you to examine your shoulds and then what I want you to do is when you are feeling guilty when it comes to rest, I want you to label that is that rational guilt or II rational guilt. And if it is irrational, say it out loud, huh? Notice that I'm feeling irrational guilt when it comes to rest. Why do we do that for two reasons? Number one, our brain loves clarity. So when you can call it out and name it, you create clarity. But the second reason why is to create distance between our core self and our thinking brain. And we really want to create that distance between our core self and our thinking brain. Because we want to make sure we know we are not our thoughts, our thoughts are something that art is outside of us. And we are our core, beautiful selves.

Alright, the next thing I want you to do is taking action that's aligned with your values. So you've created your values, and you're looking out for your should statements. Next time that you choose to rest intentionally do that and celebrate yourself. Every time you choose to think something intentionally and take an action based on that intentional thought, what you are literally doing is rewiring your brain towards empowerment. And that's what we are all about here. I want you to live a life where you are fully empowered, and you are making the decisions that you have chosen to make intentionally thoughtfully, not based on something that you've heard or was said to you, or some fear that you haven't examined before. So you take those actions that are aligned with your values, and then you celebrate yourself.

Next, and last, I want you to recognize what that feels like, what does it feel like to rest intentionally? It probably feels pretty awesome. And so I want you to is take those actions, and really celebrate yourself. So I'm gonna leave you with a few questions and then a vision exercise at the end. So number one, I want to ask you right now, when will you intentionally choose to rest next? What will that rest look like for you? If you follow me on Instagram, come and tell me DM me or post on Instagram, I am so curious about what your resting will look like for you. And I want to leave you with the vision exercise. Okay. So I want you to imagine the cutest, most precious newborn baby. Maybe you have a picture of you in mind your baby picture or maybe it was your first child, I want you to picture this really tender newborn baby. As soon as they were born, you loved them, you held them, and you gave them everything they needed. They rested. They've they were fed, they got everything they needed. And they were loved simply because they were born. There's nothing that they needed to do to receive that love or to receive resting time. They just got it because that's what they needed. And as they continue to age, they continue to get what they needed.

Now I want you to picture yourself as that baby, getting everything you need just because you need it. You don't need to make any excuses. You just get what you need, because you need it. And now I want you to imagine At what age did that change. And why? Why all of a sudden Did something change? When you were inherently born. You were inherently born with the ability to get what you needed when you needed it only because you needed it. Not for any other reason. You don't need to work to deserve rest, to deserve to be fed to deserve to go to the bathroom. It's just something that you are inherently born with as your gift for being a human being. And that doesn't have to change. You can keep living your life that way.

Alright, my friends, I invite you to rest intentionally this week, let go of guilt. Be clear on your values, and follow that intuition that feels right for you. Until next week.

Hey sweet friends, if you love what you're learning, then you've got to join us on the journey. It's my all-inclusive program and the best community out there giving you the education you never knew you needed to help you create a life you love. Join us at Vanessa Calderon md.com forward slash join. I'll see you there.