#22 Why Rest Feels Impossible: Understanding Your Productivity Addiction

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.

This podcast is meant to be a conversation — not a lecture. 🖤

Have thoughts, questions, or a topic you want covered? Or want to share how this episode supported you?

Email me at kayla@evolutionwellnessnc.com
or find me on social at @itskaylareilly. I genuinely love hearing what you’re navigating. ✨

Transcript

Morning Motivation and Personal Training

Speaker 1 0:01

Good morning, happy Monday morning. I hope you're ready for the week. I'm ready to kick this one off. Really well. I just joined personal training for the first time in my life because I was going into the local gym to see the physical therapist there because it's convenient it's like two seconds down the street. Anyways, I've been working with a physical therapist because I tore my rotator cuff and everyone keeps asking me what I did to it. Guess what. I had kids and kids like to jump out of your arms at the exciting things that they see and they don't give a crap that you can't handle 25 pounds of human jumping for something out of your arms. Okay, anyways, I tore my little rotator cuff, but it's a midline tear, so they don't want to do surgery, which makes perfect sense. Please don't do surgery if you don't have to. And I'm working on it in physical therapy.

Speaker 1 0:56

And then there's this guy at the gym. He's really spunky and cool and I just liked his personality. Like motivates me and I was like I want that guy to be my personal trainer. Cool, and I just liked his personality. Like motivates me and I was like I want that guy to be my personal trainer. So he is now my personal trainer. He showed up to our first session with a fricking donut. It was hilarious, it was so funny and if you follow me on social media, then you saw me on a treadmill with my trainer behind me with a sprinkly, delicious donut, anyway. So I just started with the personal trainer. So I've got this little nutrition guide and I'm just going to get fit and I asked myself why. Honestly, it's because I feel gross 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 back up. Let's go body Get tight. Um, I usually don't really care, because I would rather watch Netflix and eat pizza than do anything remotely similar to working out, but once I get in there, I do enjoy it. So I'm looking forward to the week. I hope you are. It's summer here. It's beautiful.

Sunday Chores vs. Quality Family Time

Speaker 1 2:09

We went to the beach this weekend. The kids had a blast. But Sunday morning we woke up and my husband was like we have to get shit done today. We have so much to do. We have like four loads of laundry that need to be done, the dishwasher, the house is a mess. There's toys everywhere, like there's so much to do. We have like four loads of laundry that need to be done, the dishwasher, the house is a mess, there's toys everywhere, like there's so much to do. And I hadn't even had my tea yet. So I was like, okay, you know whatever. So I sent him to go do yard work while I just started getting done things and whatever.

Speaker 1 2:44

Long story short, the entire day ended up being chores, chores, chores, chores, chores. But we don't get to spend a lot of time with our kids outside of you know, the weekend. The weekend's really precious and quality because we're with them. So it was kind of a bummer because I just didn't feel like we could be present with our kids. Anyways, the point of this story is to tell you that if you're like my husband and you wake up and you've got this like running to-do list, you're not alone. I think this is a super common experience and I think it actually manifests when people are like breaking down, almost having a mentee bee, because they've gone their entire life in this pattern of anxiety, and then it kind of develops into subtle OCD and I'm going to explain to you what that is and how that looks. So let's get into it.

Anxiety's Origin in Childhood Messages

Speaker 1 3:38

Welcome to Not your Therapist podcast. I'm Kayla. I'm a licensed therapist. I've been doing it for over a decade. I grew a group practice here in Wilmington, north Carolina. Now it runs without me. So now I do a podcast and I do mental health coaching and I do business coaching for other healers. So if you're any of those you want to work with me, hop on over to KaylaRileycom. Check out what I've got going on. I do offer free sessions so that you can get a taste of what it's like to work with me. All right, let's hop into it.

Speaker 1 4:09

Today we're talking about anxiety and how it develops into OCD, and you might feel like, holy crap, I'm always have this pressure to get things done. I'm never present, I'm always stressed and I'm frustrated because you don't want to live that way, and I understand. So let's talk about how this idea develops. So this idea develops typically from our families of origin. There was messages sent to us by somebody, where the messages sent that what you do creates your worth right, and that if you're not doing anything, you're resting or you're taking care of yourself or you're just enjoying your life, that that's somehow bad and lazy. So this message that's sent to you and I say that I'm like none of your parents are sitting you down on the couch. Probably, maybe, but none of your parents sat you down on the couch as a three-year-old and said you know, life is about go, go, go, go go. And if you stop and if you rest and if you take care of yourself, you're a lazy piece of crap. Maybe they're saying that to you explicitly, but a lot of the times when I mean what messages were sent to you, I mean implicitly from your parents' behavior, is your parents' value system get things done or you're lazy. And usually this is transgenerational, right, like?

Speaker 1 5:34

My husband's father was raised by a mother who very much ingrained that in her children you have to get stuff done or else you're useless. So now my husband's father is older, he's got some nerve damage in his hands, he has problems getting around and he's in that old man stage. Right, you should sit down and let your kids help you out and hire somebody to do your yard work. But he has a really hard time accepting that because the message that was sent to him in his childhood was do, do, do. And if other people have to do for you, then you're lazy and you're useless and you're worthless. So if those messages were sent to you in childhood, typically that turns into this value system of get things done or else I suck.

Speaker 1 6:25

Now you're training your nervous system, you're training your neuropathways into that way of thinking. So if you're starting to try to go to the gym, it's so uncomfortable and it's so hard to put yourself in that pattern of like God, I gotta get ready for the gym. Oh crap, I forgot my water bottle. Oh shit, I haven't charged my headphones right. But once you get going and you're like in the groove of it and you've been doing this for like two or three weeks, it becomes second nature. You know to charge your headphones, you know to grab your water bottle. It becomes instinct and muscle memory. The same for anxiety.

Speaker 1 7:05

When we are raised by parents who send these messages that we have to do, do, do, or we have to take care of other people, or some kind of message that leads to anxious thinking, a lack of safety, a lack of secure attachment, we develop these ways of thinking and being that train our nervous system, the part of us that says, ah, this is danger or oh, no, it's not. Over and over, and over and over again for years. We also are carving very deep neuropathways, which means ways of thinking or responding to things. So if you've been thinking all your life in a way of I have to do and that's how I get validation, I have to do and that's how I become worthy, I have 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 to this episode and be like oh yeah, there it is again. I need to stop that. That's not how it's going to work. We'll talk about how to solve this, but later in the episode, hang with me, people.

High-Functioning Anxiety and Productivity Loop

Speaker 1 8:15

This is typically referred to in the psychology world as high functioning anxiety. It's not just nervousness. It's like this constant hum in the background saying like you should be doing more, you can't rest, nothing's done. If you slow down, you fall behind like that pressure, even when there's like no deadline, your body feels like there's this invisible fire you have to put out, because you've trained your brain and your nervous system that way. So again, your nervous system, aka the alarm system in your brain, the amygdala when it thinks there's a threat like rejection, failure, falling short, it sends your body into flight or fight, fight or flight. 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 nervous system. It just takes intention. Okay, so enter the productivity loop, right. So you feel anxious. So you go do something productive and you get a hit of relief. Your brain is like, ah, there's my safety zone. Good, you got this done. You could pat yourself on the back 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 to develop into a very subtle OCD.

The Quiet Form of OCD

Speaker 1 9:41

People often think of OCD as like hand-washing a thousand times or checking locks three times before they leave the house. But there's a quieter form that shows up as like internal rules, mental rituals and relentless like I should, I should, I should. We call this shoulding all over yourself. This is called pure O, so OCD, so it's short for purely obsessional. It doesn't always have visual compulsions, just anxiety-driven mental loops that feel like the truth. So if you're one of these people, you have anxiety-driven mental loops that feel like your reality, but aren't so an obsession. Remember, ocd is obsessive compulsive disorder. It's an anxiety disorder. So the obsession is in your thoughts? What are you fixated on? So obsessions might be. What if I'm wasting time? If I don't get anything done today, I'm going to fall behind, right, like I'm not helping my family if I'm not up doing chores all the time.

Speaker 1 10:53

A compulsion is a behavior that you do that gives you a little relief of the anxiety. So checking your calendar 10 times or making a new to-do list every couple of hours, or just do one more thing to relieve the anxiety, like even though you're physically exhausted. So constant mental rehearsing and planning, avoiding rest, right All of these things can be a form of compulsion. So an obsession is the thought and the thing that creates anxiety. The compulsion is the behavior you do to get a little hit of relief. It feels to you maybe like you're being responsible or productive, but you're just trying 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 culture praises especially our American culture praises this form of OCD, and so it often flies under the radar.

Speaker 1 12:01

People are really uncomfortable and unwell, but it looks good because you're getting a shit ton done. People think, oh, I'm just really motivated, I'm crushing it. But if rest makes you anxious or you can't sit and just be or your worth feels tied to this output somehow, that's not really motivation. That's a trauma or anxiety response wrapped in productivity. So there is good news you can definitely unwire this.

Breaking the Cycle and Finding Balance

Speaker 1 12:35

The first thing you need to do you're already doing right now, which is reflecting, thinking about what are my thoughts, what's my cycle? How do I notice this, whether it's coming from a place of I feel rested and I actually want to be productive, or do I feel pressure and stress and guilt and shame, and that's what's driving my behavior. So once you notice the pattern, you can work on resisting that compulsion, like over planning or checking your phone or writing a to-do list, right. So work on resisting that compulsive little behavior, practice, incomplete exposure, so like leave your inbox unchecked for a little while or don't rewrite the to-do list, and then you learn to sit with discomfort, so slowly but surely, exposing your nervous system and your brain, your neural pathways, to this uncomfortable feeling, and don't rush to relieve it through action right away and you expose yourself to longer and longer forms of that you know later down the line, once you're done with this little regulation part. I really highly suggest working with a mental health coach or a mental health therapist to kind of explore where did these ideas come from, how can I unwire them, how can I rewrite my norm so that my default isn't overdoing and burning myself out and not being present for the people I love and not, you know, taking care of myself? That's what I've got for you today.

Speaker 1 14:13

I hope this resonated with some of you and I hope this gives you permission to rest. Rest is not a bad word. You deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to be present and enjoy your life. Life is so incredibly short. So in the weekend, it's okay if laundry piles up. It's okay if there's some dirty dishes in the sink. Life is not about perfection. Right, take care of yourself and take care of your environment. For sure, be productive, but make sure it's coming from a place of health, not a place of fear and self shaming. All right, okay, hope you have a wonderful week. Don't overdo it. Find that balance. I'm going to head to the gym.