"The body that won't let you relax might be the same body that once kept you safe by staying ready. What felt like survival then feels like prison now."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
I can’t relax. Even when I have time off, even when nothing’s wrong. I’ll be sitting on the couch and my shoulders are up around my ears. My jaw is clenched. It’s like I’m waiting for something bad to happen.
Companion
Yeah, I know that feeling. Body wound tight like a spring even when everything’s supposedly fine. What happens when you try to make yourself relax?
Seeker
It works for a minute and then it gets worse. The more I tell myself to relax, the more tense I get. Sometimes I’ll do all the right things – bath, meditation app, whatever – and I just lie there vibrating with this weird energy.
Companion
Vibrating. That’s such a specific word. Can you say more about what that’s like in your body?
Seeker
It’s like electricity under my skin. Like I should be doing something, fixing something, being productive. Even lying down feels wrong somehow.
Companion
Wrong how?
Seeker
Like I’m being lazy? No, that’s not quite it. More like… like I’m leaving myself open. Exposed. God, that sounds dramatic.
Companion
No, it doesn’t sound dramatic. It sounds like your body knows something about what relaxing means to you. What comes up when you said “leaving myself open”?
Seeker
I don’t know. Nothing specific. Just this feeling that if I’m not alert, if I’m not ready, then… I don’t know what. Something.
Companion
Hm. I’m curious about something. Can you remember a time when you were younger when relaxing actually did mean something bad might happen?
Seeker
What? No, I had a normal childhood. My parents weren’t abusive or anything.
Companion
I wasn’t thinking abuse necessarily. Sometimes it’s subtler. Like maybe relaxing meant getting caught off guard by criticism. Or maybe doing nothing meant disappointing someone.
Seeker
Oh shit. Yes. My mom would always find something for me to do if she saw me just sitting around. “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” And my dad… he’d get this look if he thought I was being lazy.
Companion
So your body learned something.
Seeker
That relaxing meant judgment was coming. That I’d better look busy or useful. Fuck it, I’m 34 years old and I’m still afraid of my mom walking in and giving me chores.
Companion
Not afraid exactly, right? Your body just remembers. It’s trying to protect you from that feeling of being caught unready.
Seeker
By never letting me be unready. By keeping me wound up forever. That’s so stupid.
Companion
Is it stupid? Sounds like it worked pretty well for a kid who needed to avoid criticism.
Seeker
But I’m not a kid anymore. I live alone. No one’s watching me.
Companion
Your body doesn’t know that. Bodies don’t update their files automatically when we grow up and move out.
Seeker
So I’m just stuck like this? Forever on guard against my invisible mother? Against my mother figure?
Companion
What do you think your body would need to believe to let its guard down?
Seeker
That it’s safe. That no one’s going to burst in and shame me for resting. That I don’t have to earn the right to exist by being constantly productive.
Companion
Yes. And how does it feel to say that out loud?
Seeker
Sad. Really sad. Like I’ve been on alert for twenty years.
Companion
Maybe that guard deserves some credit for how hard they’ve been working to keep you safe.
Seeker
I guess. It’s just exhausting. Being protected from something that’s not even there anymore.
Companion
Yeah. Exhausting.
How do I realize that the danger has passed?
If you want to sit with this question, SelfChatter's journal is built for exactly this kind of inner work.