I Couldn’t Sit Still

We met on her day off.

A senior school teacher.

Decades in the classroom.

Sharp. Efficient. Put together.

We were chatting casually when she mentioned her morning.

She said it simply. Almost lightly.

“I utilised my day off well. I woke up early. Set the cupboards. Made laddoos.”

Then she smiled — not apologetic, not tired.

Satisfied.

“I can’t sit still,” she added.

Not as a complaint.

As a fact.

Almost a virtue.

I noticed how natural it sounded.

How respectable.

How familiar.

A holiday fully utilised.

Nothing wasted.

Everything in order.

I remember thinking — yes, that makes sense.

Because that’s how capable women move through the world.

We don’t rest.

We optimise.

As we spoke, I could feel it in my own body —

that quiet agreement.

That inner nod.

Of course you can’t sit still.

Why would you?

There was a time I lived exactly like that.

Managing work.

Home.

Children.

Meals.

Deadlines.

Emotions — mine and everyone else’s.

If something needed doing, I did it.

If something fell apart, I held it.

If someone was overwhelmed, I absorbed it.

There was pride in that too.

Subtle.

Unspoken.

The pride of being the one who manages.

Who copes.

Who doesn’t collapse.

I told myself I was strong.

Efficient.

Built for more.

And then there were the moments when nothing needed me —

and I didn’t know where to put myself.

Stillness made my skin crawl.

Rest felt like theft.

Sitting without purpose felt… wrong.

So I found things.

Cupboards.

Lists.

Extra work.

One more task before I allowed myself to stop.

I didn’t call it fear.

I called it discipline.

What I didn’t know then was this —

When your worth is tied to usefulness,

rest doesn’t feel nourishing.

It feels threatening.

Because if you stop…

and nothing collapses…

what does that say about your importance?

That question lived in my body long before it reached my mind.

And slowly, without drama, something began to thin.

Not break.

Not explode.

Thin.

The space where tenderness should have been.

The place where effort should have been met.

The pause that never came.

I learned to keep going even when I was tired.

Even when I was hurting.

Even when slowing down would have been the most honest thing.

Because being capable was safer than being needy.

Being useful was safer than being human.

It took a long time to admit this —

I wasn’t afraid of resting.

I was afraid of finding out who I’d be

if I wasn’t constantly required.

Healing didn’t begin when I learned to sit still.

It began when I let myself feel the grief of that pride —

the cost of being “the strong one,”

the loneliness of being valued for what I could hold

and not for who I was when I couldn’t.

What I offer now —

in the quiet 1:1 spaces I sit in,

and in the depth, I offer in my Practitioner’s training programs,

I train others to hold this space..

From knowing how hard it is to stop

when your identity is built on movement.

From learning how to stay with someone

when productivity falls away

and only truth remains.

If something in you tightened while reading this —

if that line “I can’t sit still” landed a little too close —

that’s not coincidence.

That’s recognition.

And whether you’re longing to finally rest without guilt,

or feeling called to learn how to hold others at this depth —

you already know why you’re here.

Some patterns don’t need fixing.

They need witnessing.

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