One of the hardest parts about carrying a full mental load is that finishing everything rarely feels the way you imagined it would. The emails are sent. The laundry is folded. The boxes are checked. Yet your mind is already racing toward the next thing. Rest still feels out of reach.
This journaling practice is an invitation to pause long enough to notice what might actually be keeping your brain in overdrive. Maybe it isn't your to do list at all. Maybe staying busy has become a way of avoiding something that feels harder to sit with.
As you move through these prompts, there is nothing to solve or fix. Just a chance to become curious about the beliefs driving your productivity and whether doing more has ever truly given you the peace you've been chasing.
Journal Prompts
Think about today or yesterday. What is one thing you accomplished that was productive,but you weren't really present for while you were doing it?
What feeling could you have been avoiding by staying busy in that moment?
If you stopped and allowed yourself to fully feel that emotion instead of pushing through,what are you afraid would happen?
If your entire to do list was completely finished,how would you actually feel? What would you do next?
What if the belief behind that fear didn't have to be true?What if the opposite could be true instead? What comes up for you when you consider that possibility?
Sometimes the thing keeping us from feeling settled isn't another unfinished task. Sometimes it's the emotion we've been running from all along. The moment we're willing to slow down and meet it with honesty, everything begins to feel a little lighter.
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Welcome back to Beyond Awareness. I hear this a lot, not just lately, but throughout the past full year, I would say this has been a topic that has been coming up. And it's women telling me that they have had a completely full day, right? Like they've had a full to-do list that they've been crossing off, a full calendar, like things that they've been accomplishing.
But they still feel that they didn't do enough. Like there's still more to be done. There's always more to be done. And so they're feeling restless. They don't feel settled at the end of the day, or at least not at the end of the workday. And then if they could just do a little bit more, like a few more things, even 30 minutes, sometimes they even pop into their office or log back onto their laptop for
Quote unquote 30 more minutes. And I put that in quotes because it's not really 30 more minutes, but if they could just do a little bit more, then they would feel like they could mentally rest. Then maybe tomorrow would be slightly easier. In my mind, being busy and being at peace internally are two totally different things.
And today we are going to be journaling strategically through it so that you can see what might be stopping you from feeling more at peace no matter how busy you are, no matter how long that to-do list is, no matter how much you cross off from that list. So grab a pen and paper, open up your Google Docs, the notes app on your phone, whatever you want.
Or if you're driving or your hands are sudsy from doing dishes or folding laundry, you can just think through these and save this episode so that you can come back to them. All right, let's dive in.
Prompt number one. Think about today or yesterday and think about one thing that you did that you would call productive. You accomplished it, you crossed it off your list. But if you're honest with yourself, you weren't really present for it.
You just got it done.
Prompt two. What feeling could you have been avoiding by staying busy in that moment? Maybe it was boredom, sadness, frustration, overwhelm, maybe something you didn't want to sit with. So what feeling could you have been avoiding by just staying busy and grinding and getting it done in that moment?
Prompt three. If you let yourself stop and actually feel that feeling instead of doing something and pushing through, what are you scared or afraid would happen? It might be something like you would slow down too much and not get it done, like you might be less productive, or if someone else saw you taking time for yourself.
They might think you're lazy. So again, if you let yourself stop and actually feel a feeling instead of doing the thing and being productive, what are you scared would happen because of that?
Prompt four, what would happen now if your to-do list was fully crossed off and completed? How would you feel? And what would you do?
And our final prompt five, what if your belief from prompt three, your fear, what if that didn't have to be true? Or even what if the opposite could be true? What if you could access your feelings, give yourself that time and space to feel them, and be more productive? What comes up for you if you were to believe that?
Amazing job. What I'm thinking you may have noticed through these prompts and what may have come up for you is that your to-do list never really ends. Even when you do cross everything off one day, we always build a new list. Sometimes we do it immediately mentally before we do it physically, right? Like as soon as we cross off one thing, we think in our brains, yeah, don't forget the milk.
That for tomorrow's grocery list. And then later that day, or maybe tomorrow, we write the grocery list. The women that I coach, and honestly, my old self always thought that I was one more task away from feeling settled, like getting that milk. And then I could be present. Like if I just do enough, then I could leave work at work and really be home, like really be present with my son.
But today we viewed this from the perspective that no matter how long our to-do list is, perhaps we are staying busy from an emotion that we are avoiding. And busyness was never going to make us feel like we did enough. Doing more was never going to make us feel like we did enough or make tomorrow easier because we keep using that list.
To mask what we're actually feeling. And if we stopped long enough to look that emotion in the face, maybe we would get what we wanted even faster. I'm so curious what came up for you when I asked you that in prompt number five. Being productive isn't how we get to feel settled. That's an inside job. And that's what we're gonna dive into next Thursday. So
Save this podcast, follow us if you're not already, so that you can come back to that episode. And if you know that you want to be able to access your feelings and be productive, like that's not two different things. In fact, accessing those feelings is how you become more productive, but you also want to stop overthinking all the time because that's what's getting in the way, overthinking all the things. And you want to stop doing that.
I'm launching a 12-week experience called Lighter on Tuesday. So in just a few days. And we will have a one-week pre-sale, which will include founder pricing and a clear your mental load workshop and toolkit. So mark your calendar for that if that is up your alley or just stay tuned.
For the link. It's gonna be amazing. Thank you for journaling with me today, and I will see you next week.
