(My daughter does not have the same challenges resting as I do. To wit, me on a Saturday morning, still in my PJ’s, attempting to edit book chapters and her just using me as a pillow for her morning “rest” after 11 hours of sleep the night before.)
Summary
This post is a personal account of what happened when a lifetime of nervous system hyperactivation finally caught up—when the body refused to comply with the demands placed on it. It’s about recognizing rest as not laziness but a biological necessity, especially for women who’ve spent years running on survival energy. If your body has ever staged its own quiet rebellion, you’ll find something familiar here.
Nervous System Dysregulation
Your nervous system is the body’s threat-detection apparatus. When it’s been shaped by relational trauma, it can get stuck in patterns of hypervigilance (always scanning for danger) or hypoarousal (shutting down to cope). Nervous system dysregulation means your body’s alarm system fires too easily, too often, or not at all — regardless of what your conscious mind knows to be true.
There was an afternoon recently that perfectly captured everything I’ve been writing about this month—a moment where the abstract concepts of rest resistance became painfully concrete in my own body. I want to share this with you because sometimes knowing we’re not alone in our struggles is therapeutic in itself.
Okay, so, I’d been running on empty—five hours of sleep, an eight-hour workday behind me, and my nervous system frayed at the edges. Ahead of me lay the promise I’d made to my daughter: taking her to ballet class followed by softball practice. The classic mom-taxi afternoon that so many of us navigate with a mix of love and bone-deep exhaustion.
Nervous System Hyperactivation
Nervous system hyperactivation is a state in which the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system remains chronically elevated, keeping the body in a state of low-grade readiness or threat response. In driven women with relational trauma histories, this state can feel entirely normal—productive, even—until the body’s resources are depleted. Signs include difficulty relaxing, disrupted sleep, a persistent sense of urgency, and physical tension that doesn’t resolve.
Relational Trauma
Relational trauma is the psychological injury that results from repeated experiences of feeling unsafe, unseen, or unvalued in significant relationships — particularly early ones. It doesn’t require a single catastrophic event; it accumulates through patterns of emotional neglect, inconsistency, or control in the relationships that were supposed to teach you what love looks like.
Table of Contents
My body had reached its absolute limit.
It wasn’t just tired—it was the kind of exhaustion where your eyes burn, your thoughts move like molasses, and your reactions slow to a dangerous degree. This was the third night of poor sleep (thank you perimenopause hot flashes!). And yet, I had promised her I would take her that Tuesday. That I would be the one, not her dad this time.
In that moment, my physical exhaustion collided head-on with the weight of Mom Guilt—that familiar visitor in the foundations of so many women’s psychological houses.
You know the one—that voice that whispers you’re never doing quite enough, never present enough, never sacrificing enough for your child. In a culture that glorifies maternal sacrifice, setting a boundary based on personal needs feels almost transgressive.
I did something then that felt surprisingly difficult: I had an honest conversation. I told my daughter and husband, “Sweetie, I don’t think it would be safe for mommy to drive, and I don’t feel very well. I’m going to stay here and take care of myself. I’ll drive you next week.”
She understood. Children often do when we’re honest about our limits. They can handle disappointment better than they can handle the disconnect between our words and our exhausted, resentful energy. I’ve found this to be true both as a mother and in my years of clinical work—children sense the truth of our bodies even when our words say something different.
What happened next surprised me, and it’s where this story really begins.
After they drove off in the RAV4 with a bag full of snacks, I changed into my softest sweatpants, a well-worn sweatshirt, and those ridiculous fuzzy slippers my daughter got me last Christmas. I grabbed my Kindle and settled into my favorite spot in our house—the corner of our blue couch by the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out on the forest that borders our property. It’s where the afternoon light filters through the trees in a way that makes everything feel slightly enchanted.
My first feeling was elation—like I’d won the lottery. I could count on one hand the number of times I’d been alone in a clean home since we moved in August 2024. Maybe three times total. This was supposed to feel like a vacation, a total indulgence. Two hours of solitude in a clean, quiet house with a new book? This is the stuff of parental dreams.
But then—the anxiety and guilt arrived like uninvited guests, settling heavily in my chest and stomach.
You see, typically when I’m home alone (which is rare enough to be noteworthy), I’m in perpetual motion: tidying, cleaning, meal prepping, unloading the dishwasher, gathering laundry from every basket, sweeping. Making “productive use” of every precious moment of alone time. Moving as if my worth depends on how much I can accomplish in these stolen moments.
The hours at work are for using my brain. The hours at home are for using my body.
My body is rarely, if ever, used just for resting on the couch. For simply being rather than doing.
So there I sat with my new Sarah J. Maas novel (usually engrossing enough to override any guilt), but my body was in open rebellion against stillness. In my nervous system, rest is permitted at 8 p.m. when the day is done—but not a minute before. Not in the productive daylight hours when there are always a thousand things that “should” be done.
All I could think about was how guilty I felt. Not just the Mom Guilt of not being with my daughter, but the deeper guilt of not being productive—not tackling the home projects still lingering from our move, not prepping lunch, not cleaning the lunchbox, not getting ahead on tomorrow’s tasks. My to-do list paraded through my mind, each item weighted with an urgency that my rational brain knew was manufactured but my body felt as truth.
It was the worst of all worlds: I wasn’t being “productive” with my body, but I also couldn’t enjoy this beautiful slice of quiet time with my book. My nervous system was in chaos—heart slightly racing, stomach churning, muscles tense as if preparing to spring into action at any moment. I felt guilty for “not doing anything,” despite having worked 80 hours the previous week and pushing through two straight weeks on a special project.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I had “earned” this right to rest—to skip ballet and softball, to sit in cozy clothes in a home I purchased with my own money, reading a novel I’d been looking forward to. And yet my body wouldn’t allow it.
For all the reasons I explored in this month’s essay and workbook, my nervous system had been primed with such deep hypervigilance around rest and stillness that I had to actively breathe and combat the cognitive distortions telling me this rest wasn’t okay.
Hypervigilance
Hypervigilance is a state of heightened alertness where your nervous system constantly scans the environment for potential threats. In the context of relational trauma, this often looks like obsessively reading others’ facial expressions, tone, or mood — and adjusting your behavior accordingly to stay safe.
This is what I mean when I talk about foundation cracks. These deeply embedded patterns that persist despite our conscious understanding. My logical mind knew I deserved rest. My body remembered a different story—one where rest meant vulnerability. Where productivity meant safety, where my value was tied to my output rather than my being.
I’ll admit something vulnerable: being a therapist didn’t make this any easier. I know the neurobiological underpinnings of these patterns. I understand polyvagal theory and how chronic stress reshapes our threat-detection systems. I’ve taught countless clients about the window of tolerance and how to expand their capacity for regulation. And yet, in that moment on my blue couch, all that knowledge felt distant and academic compared to the visceral resistance in my body.
Window of Tolerance
Your window of tolerance is the zone of nervous system activation where you can think clearly, feel your emotions without being overwhelmed, and stay present in your body. Relational trauma narrows this window, meaning you flip more easily into fight/flight (hyperarousal) or freeze/collapse (hypoarousal).
Continue Your Healing as a Driven Woman
You’re reading part of a larger body of work now housed inside Strong and Stable—a space for ambitious women who wake up at 3 AM with racing hearts, who can handle everyone else’s crises but don’t know who to call when you’re falling apart, who’ve built impressive lives that somehow feel exhausting to live inside.
All new writing—essays that name what’s been invisible, workbooks that actually shift what feels stuck, and honest letters about the real work beneath the work, and Q&As where you can ask your burning questions (anonymously, always)—lives there now, within a curated curriculum designed to move you from insight to action.
If you’re tired of holding it all up alone, you’re invited to step into a space where your nervous system can finally start to settle, surrounded by women doing this foundation work alongside you.
Step Inside
If you’re ready to go deeper, I work one-on-one with driven, ambitious women through relational trauma recovery therapy and trauma-informed executive coaching. And if this essay resonated, there’s more where it came from — my Substack newsletter goes deeper every week on relational trauma, nervous system healing, and the inner lives of ambitious women. Subscribe for free — I can’t wait to be of support to you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean when your body refuses to relax?
When your body can’t seem to relax even when you want it to, it typically means your nervous system is stuck in a high-activation state. This is common in people who grew up needing to be constantly available, alert, or emotionally attuned to unpredictable caregivers. The nervous system learned that dropping its guard was dangerous.
Is being unable to rest a sign of trauma?
It can be. Chronic difficulty with rest—particularly when it’s accompanied by guilt, anxiety, or a compulsive pull toward productivity—is often a sign that the nervous system is still operating from old survival rules. This is especially true for driven women who can’t locate a ‘why’ for their restlessness.
Why do successful women struggle most with rest?
Driven ambitious women often built their success partly on the fuel of unmet early needs—proving worth, staying needed, avoiding the discomfort of stillness. The very skills that propel achievement can also make rest feel threatening, because rest removes the activity that regulates the nervous system.
What is ‘rest as rebellion’ and why does it matter?
For women whose nervous systems equate productivity with safety, choosing rest is genuinely countercultural and personally courageous. It means overriding a deeply conditioned survival response. That’s not a small thing—it’s a deliberate act of reclaiming something your system was never allowed to have.
How do I know if my exhaustion is physical or trauma-based?
Both are often true simultaneously. Trauma-based exhaustion often presents as being tired but wired—unable to sleep or slow down despite genuine fatigue. Physical exhaustion responds to rest; trauma-based exhaustion may require nervous system regulation work alongside physical recovery.
This is part of our comprehensive guide on this topic. For the full picture, read: High-Functioning Anxiety: A Complete Guide.
DISCLAIMER: The content of this post is for psychoeducational and informational purposes only and does not constitute therapy, clinical advice, or a therapist-client relationship. For full details, please read our Medical Disclaimer. If you are in crisis, please call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or text HOME to 741741 (Crisis Text Line).
You deserve a life that feels as good as it looks. Let’s work on that together.
