Why Do I Feel Guilty When I'm Not Working?

In my work as a psychotherapist, I often come across people who find it surprisingly difficult to rest.

They may have finished work for the day. There are no urgent emails to answer and nothing that immediately needs their attention.

Yet instead of feeling relaxed, they feel guilty.

They might be watching television, spending time with their family or simply sitting down, but there's a voice in the back of their mind telling them they should be doing something else.

Checking emails.

Getting ahead for tomorrow.

Working on that project.

Doing something productive.

For some people, rest doesn't feel like rest at all.

When productivity becomes part of your identity

I think this can be particularly relevant to people who have built successful careers.

If you've spent years being rewarded for working hard, achieving targets and being dependable, it can become easy to associate productivity with personal value.

You achieve something and receive recognition.

You work harder and progress.

You take on more responsibility and your career develops.

Over time, your mind can begin to make a connection between achievement and worth.

The difficulty comes when you stop.

If you're not working, achieving or progressing, you may start to feel as though you're not doing enough.

Why is rest so uncomfortable?

Sometimes people tell me they don't know how to relax anymore.

I think there's an important question underneath that:

What does resting mean to you?

For some, it can feel like wasting time.

For others, it can bring up feelings of guilt because there is always someone else who seems to be working harder.

And for some people, being busy provides a useful distraction from thoughts and feelings they don't particularly want to sit with.

Keeping busy can mean you don't have to stop and ask yourself how you're actually feeling.

So the busyness continues.

You don't have to earn your rest

One of the things I explore in psychotherapy is the belief that we have to earn the right to stop.

We tell ourselves we'll relax once the work is finished.

But what happens when the work is never really finished?

There will always be another deadline, another email, another target or another opportunity to do more.

At some point, we have to recognise that rest isn't the opposite of productivity. It's part of being able to function well.

Psychotherapy can provide a space to explore where these expectations come from and why slowing down can feel so uncomfortable.

It isn't about becoming less ambitious.

It's about developing a healthier relationship with achievement.

Because your value doesn't disappear when you stop working.

You are still you when the laptop is closed.

And perhaps learning to be comfortable with that is one of the most important forms of rest there is.