Shownotes
We have made a quiet religion out of busyness. And somewhere along the way, stillness started to feel suspicious — something we have to earn, justify, or feel guilty about. If you have ever collapsed into rest rather than chosen it, this episode will feel like a long exhale.
In this conversation, host Nazish sits down with Rashi Kaur, life coach and founder of The Joy Consultant, to explore why high-functioning people can be deeply depleted at the same time, what the body is actually trying to tell us when it pulls us toward pause, and how to begin building a real relationship with stillness — not as a reward, but as a basic human need we have forgotten we deserve.
About the Guest:
Rashi Kaur is the founder of The Joy Consultant, a coaching practice for women who have built lives that look right on paper and feel quietly off. A former forensic accountant turned life coach, she works with women navigating identity transitions, helping them move from external success without internal fulfillment toward clarity, self-trust, and genuine joy.
Key Takeaways:
- Exhaustion does not always look like falling apart. It often looks like holding everything together perfectly — functioning and depleted at the same time.
- Stillness feels threatening because silence is where everything you have been outrunning tends to surface. Fear, guilt, and shame are often what live underneath the motion.
- You do not have to begin with meditation. Start with one minute: no phone, no music, just sitting — and noticing where your body feels tight or your mind keeps spinning.
- Your body sends physical cues when it has been running on adrenaline too long: heaviness in the chest, tightening in the gut, an overreaction to small disruptions. These are not minor irritations — they are signals worth listening to.
- Drifting back into overdrive after slowing down is not failure. That was your baseline. Untrained takes time, grace, and repetition.
- Rest is not something you earn after everyone else is settled. You deserve rest as a human being, not as a reward for productivity.
Connect With Rashi Kaur:
- Instagram: @thejoyconsultant
- Website: www.thejoyconsultant.com
- YouTube: youtube.com/@TheJoyConsultant
Episode Chapters:
[00:00] Opening — Why We Made a Religion Out of Busyness
[03:30] Rashi's Story — Functional, Depleted, and Running on Autopilot (approx.)
[09:00] What Stillness Is Really Protecting Us From (approx.)
[14:00] The Body Keeps Score — Physical Signs of Long-Term Adrenaline Running (approx.)
[20:00] How to Begin — Starting with One Honest Minute (approx.)
[25:30] Small Bodily Cues Worth Treating as Messages, Not Nuisances (approx.)
[29:00] Protecting Rest Over Time — Grace, Setbacks, and the Bigger Picture (approx.)
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Transcripts
00:00:09 Nazish: Welcome to inner peace. Better health. I am this, and this is a space where we explore the loop between your inner world and your physical well-being, telling them as one living conversation rather than two separate things. Today we are talking about stillness and how learning to stop is not the opposite of health, but a quiet of but one of its quiet foundation. My guest today is Rashid Khan. What draws me to Rashid is the sense that she understands rest not as a reward, but it's a basic human need. We have somehow forgotten Rashi. It is wonderful to have you here.
00:00:50 Rashi Kaur: Thank you so much. It's wonderful to be here. Yeah.
00:00:54 Nazish: So, Rashi, I want to start with your own story rather than the principles. So take us back to a season when your of your life when you were moving, constantly doing everything right on paper and yet something in you was quietly running on empty.
00:01:14 Rashi Kaur: Yeah. I think that as you know, uh, as a high functioning woman and, you know, trying to feel like I was trying to do all the things, raising my kids, working full time. And I just felt like, this can't be it. There's. I have no space. And I loved, you know, your intro because I think this is such an important topic. It's you just we get so used to being on this autopilot of, okay, I'm gonna get up and then I have to get ready. Then I have to get the kids ready. We have breakfast, we go to work, we come home. Then they have to have an activity, and then you just do it again. And there is no time to be still or rest. And if you do stop, you feel guilty because then you're looking at everyone else around you thinking, oh well, how are they doing it? And you know, it started for me just realizing when would I make that time for myself if I didn't start choosing it now? You know, I always just think, okay, well, when they get to become eighteen, okay, then, you know, they're going to go to college. Okay, then I'll get a break. Or when they were five and I thought, oh, when they get to ten, then I'll get a break. But I think the thing I started realizing is no, then I'm not really living. I'm just almost dying because I'm not really doing anything. I'm not growing. I'm not valuing myself as a human being. And I think that's really important and we forget that.
00:02:41 Nazish: I completely agree with you there. And there is something honest in what you just said and shared about being functional and depleted at the same time, because, you know, we tend to think exhaustion looks like falling apart. But yeah, so often it looks like holding it all together perfectly.
00:03:02 Rashi Kaur: Yes.
00:03:04 Nazish: Yeah. And I suspect a lot of people listening right now are recognizing themselves in this.
00:03:09 Rashi Kaur: Yes, definitely.
00:03:11 Nazish: Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it is, uh, I think there's a reason stillness, uh, so feels so threatening to so many people. Like it's, it's that when everything goes quiet, things we have been outrunning tends to surface. Like when you sit with people who genuinely cannot slow down, what do you find is really underneath the underneath that.
00:03:38 Rashi Kaur: I think you it's your it's a fear. It's, it's the fears. I think the things that we don't want to acknowledge. And then part of it, I think, is guilt or shame. I think for myself, when I started to really sit with myself and, and like, think about the things that were coming up, the thoughts that were coming up, I, it was there was a lot of fear there of, you know, well, and I think this is what's happening for so many people is that if you keep moving, you don't have to sit with yourself and listen to that fear or that shame or that guilt that's coming up. And so we just continuously try to move in an effort to, um, you know, avoid that. And I think that for me, I mean, it was true as well when I started to, to make changes in my life. I was afraid of how my family would react. I was afraid of how my friends might see me. It's like there's so much fear there that I didn't realize, because I always saw myself as someone who was very outspoken, who was very brave, who didn't care about, you know, like the collective opinion. And then when I started to really listen to myself and sit in that in those thoughts, I was like, wow, I'm really scared. I didn't realize that. And I think that fear makes people avoid those that that silence and that quiet.
00:05:01 Nazish: Yes, sometimes silence can be so difficult to, you know, deal with. And, you know, because it's like restlessness can as something protective rather than something broken.
00:05:14 Rashi Kaur: Yes, absolutely.
00:05:17 Nazish: And I think we are not addicted to motion because we are we are shallow. Like we're in motion because stillness can be where the hard feelings live and movement has been a way to stay one step ahead of them.
00:05:34 Rashi Kaur: Yes, absolutely.
00:05:37 Nazish: Yeah. So like, I want to ask you, um, like, uh, like what happens on an ordinary day? Like this relationship with busyness does not stay in mind. Like it lives in muscles breath and the sleep and the digestion. So in your experience, what is the, what are the some everyday physical signs that someone has been running on adrenaline for too long? Like symptoms usually treat one by one without ever connecting them as a deeper exhaustion.
00:06:11 Rashi Kaur: Yeah. I think that you, it's you, your body. So you, your body is so used to those things like you were describing it, right? Like everything inside of our body is so used to that system, that schedule that we're running on that it, be, it actually will become uncomfortable when we try to make the changes. And so when you are running on that, any, anything that you try to do that is out of that normal routine or that schedule or system that you've created, you are going to feel uncomfortable. So I think if you do anything like if you have a day that, let's say your kid gets sick or you get sick or a meeting gets changed, anything that throws off your schedule, and if it really upsets you, that is a moment where you should pause and think, why is this upsetting me? Because obviously, yeah, if your kid is sick, it's stressful, I understand. But like, if you really start to think about, there will be moments that will come up that will really trigger you. And when that, that trigger means something much deeper. If you're willing to sit there and then explore what it means for you. Um, like for, for an example, I'll give for myself very personal. So like, one of the things that really made me change was my husband was telling me, you know, he's he's like, you're so my husband's very calm, which I love. It's one of his best qualities. And I was raised in a very intense environment at home. And I am much more reactionary. I used to be very reactionary. So even though I would try very hard not to react to situations or with the kids or whatever, you know, he's like, you just he's like, no one likes it when you're like that. You get so worked up. And I myself didn't like it, but I didn't know how else to do anything about it. And so when I started to really peel back, well, why am I reacting that way then, you know, I started to really figure out, oh, well, it's because of these other things that are going on underneath because I'm already on edge. And I think people feel this, whether they will acknowledge it or not, you'll feel it if you're on that edge because you're constantly there. And then then you do lash out or you, you know, want to have a drink or you want to cope with it in some way, you're going to have your own whatever that coping mechanism is. But that's really what your body is trying to tell you overall, even though he may be trying to protect you, to keep you in that same routine.
00:08:33 Nazish: Thank you. Yeah. That is that is very true. And thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I appreciate how concrete that is, because it it pulls this out of the abstract and into the body people actually live in.
00:08:49 Rashi Kaur: Right.
00:08:52 Nazish: Yeah. And the and, you know, so let's talk about how, how people actually relearn stillness. Like, because for someone wired to go, sitting quietly can feel almost impossible at first. So when somebody comes to you genuinely wanting to slow down, but not knowing where to begin, what do you what do you suggest them to do?
00:09:18 Rashi Kaur: So the first thing that I always suggest to every person is sit and sit in stillness for like, start with even a minute. If you can't handle five or ten minutes. Ten minutes is really what we want to build up to. And it's not about meditating. It's literally sitting there. No music, no phones, no kids, like by yourself, which I think so many people don't even have that time to be by themselves. But really sitting by yourself and then just listening to what is coming up, what is your body telling you? Where are you feeling it? Because if you actually start sitting and first you can just start with just, you don't even have to listen to your thoughts if you don't want to, but feel what your body is feeling. Where are you feeling tight? Where do you feel uncomfortable? And then really start listening to your thoughts. What is your mind spinning and what is it telling? What are the thoughts that are coming up? Um, I think that's like, it's, it's such a basic thing that we have forgotten to do because we're not given that, um, luxury. I feel like, I feel like this is a luxury now, like to have stillness and, and downtime that, you know, in future or sorry, past generations we had this. It was just a part of our being. And now it's, it's like this hustle culture is what people are striving for. And I think that is not as human beings, we are not meant to be that way. We are not meant to constantly be hustling. We do need that quiet time, that stillness, to have that peace.
00:10:51 Nazish: Yeah. Yes. That that, that, that makes so much sense. Because for a lot of people, the first taste of stillness is not peaceful. It is it is almost loud and unbearable.
00:11:03 Rashi Kaur: Yes. Right.
00:11:05 Nazish: Yeah. And, you know, naming that honestly, instead of selling instant calm is what makes this trustworthy as well.
00:11:15 Rashi Kaur: Yeah, I just don't because that's, that's not that's not going to be true. I mean, and a lot of what I try to help and teach is what I went through because it worked for me. And so I think that, yes, what I loved even now, I mean, meditating is still hard for me. It's, it's not something that naturally comes to me, but I still try because that at least I'm trying and I'm, and I'm connecting. And then you can also try to find ways that work for you. You know, not every way is going to work for each of us because it depends on our upbringing and our conditioning and all the things that, you know, silence can, can be very hard because it could have been a punishment in your childhood, you know? So I think it really depends. You have to find what that is for you. But the first thing is just allowing yourself and giving yourself that permission to, to have that time.
00:12:05 Nazish: Yes, yes. Giving yourself permission to actually. Yeah, that, that is so true. And that goes a long way as well.
00:12:15 Rashi Kaur: Absolutely.
00:12:16 Nazish: Yeah. So what do you think is a small bodily cue that would tell someone to start treating as a message rather than a nuisance.
00:12:27 Rashi Kaur: I think if you're feeling heavy, like one of the things that I realized is, you know, if you if you are like, for instance, a lot of people feel things in their gut, you know, that is your body's response telling you something. So if you're saying very simple is something is you're saying yes, even to your kids, you love them, but you're saying yes to them and your body is like physically telling you no, you'll feel it. Or if you feel like, you know, you feel a heaviness in your chest, there's that's your body's way of telling you. It's, there's something else there. Explore it. I even had a recent conversation with my kids. They're twelve and fifteen now. And, you know, I was telling them that I realized I said, you know, I don't rush them because I always felt rushed as a child. And so I, I'm trying to, you know, give them good boundaries of like, hey, okay, if we're going to, we need to leave for a certain thing at a certain time, be ready and have everything prepared. So then we're not rushing. But then I realized I was telling, you know, them is that I feel like I don't do the same for myself. I do rush myself for you guys and I don't want to do that either. I want to have that peace and the the time that I need to, you know, either whatever it is that they're asking me to book something for them or I have to take them somewhere, you know, I want enough notice so that I'm not rushing myself either. And I think that's something, again, that we forget because we're trying to keep all of the people happy. But your body will tell you, you know what? That something is off. I think, again, when we're so busy, it's, it's very easy to because you're, you're constantly pushing past signs, whether it's your mind, your body or whatever telling you or even the universe is giving you cuz you're just too busy, you're not noticing them. And so when you start to even slightly slow down, or even if you're not at that point, your body's going to start telling you those things. It's just we have to be aware enough to receive them.
00:14:23 Nazish: Yes. Yeah. Yes. And, you know, we have to be easy on ourselves. We have to give ourselves that grace. We have to appreciate that we don't have to work hard to deserve rest. Sometimes we can take it without everything going sideways as well.
00:14:41 Rashi Kaur: Absolutely.
00:14:43 Nazish: Yeah. So, you know, uh, before we close, I want to ask you, like we live in a world built to pull us back into busyness, the moments we soften, like, so how do you help people protect this over time? Like how do you how do they relate to the relapses into overdrive without deciding they have failed at the whole thing?
00:15:10 Rashi Kaur: I think what you just mentioned, giving yourself grace, I think that's the biggest thing for me. I constantly am talking about, you know, with women going first and not being selfish. And a lot of the things that I want people to understand is that, you know, the decisions you make are most likely not selfish. It's just we've been taught that they are, you know, remove the shame and guilt around the choices that you have made, like in the past, because the past is the past and you should leave it there, but learn from it and grow. And also just, you know, being able to, um, you know, just remind yourself that just because you didn't meet whatever goal it is, it's really about the experience. And I so like, I always have people, you know, what kind of life do you want to experience? Like what areas of your life do you want to bring in joy? So those experiences will help remind you if you're going, if you're, you're, you're in the right direction, if you're working towards the right goal, because we're all going to have setbacks. I have setbacks, right? It's, it's normal. But I think giving yourself grace and, you know, the, the room to fail like failure does not mean we've. I think we've made it such a negative thing. It's it doesn't it doesn't mean anything negative. It really just means you learned. Right. Every time we fail or we or we think we failed, we're learning something, something good will come out of that, um, that situation. But like, even for me, you know, I had planned multiple workshops. They didn't end up happening. And, you know, I was so happy that that happened because I didn't fall apart. I didn't get into this. Oh my gosh, I failed. I can't believe it didn't happen the way I wanted it to. But that's not what the universe wanted for right now. And that's okay. And so I think when you're working, especially this is a this is a marathon, it's not a sprint. You're going to have setbacks. But if you keep focusing on that bigger experience that you want to bring into your life, it's easier to look at and be like, oh, no, I'm still I'm still getting there, you know, but it's, um, healing and our journeys, it's human beings are so intricate and they are not linear. I think that's something we always have to remind ourselves is that these are, you know, there's going to be peaks and valleys consistently and that it's okay because when you're in that valley, I always think, okay, great, what is the peak going to be after this? Because that's usually how it happens, is that when you're in that period of growth, you know, in that valley, then what comes afterwards is so rewarding. But I think it's, it's so hard to be in those, in those valleys in that period of growth. But you have to keep reminding yourself of the bigger picture. What are you working towards like in a bigger picture versus just the day to day?
00:18:02 Nazish: Yes. Uh, that is that is such a beautiful thing and you know, it. We have to get out of that shame and that guilt that those setbacks brings us. Because if we, if we stay with them, then then it just becomes a whole vicious loop, I believe.
00:18:20 Rashi Kaur: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
00:18:24 Nazish: And I think that is something that I want to hold from this conversation with you, that the idea that drifting back into busyness is not a failure.
00:18:35 Rashi Kaur: No it's not. It's absolutely not. It's so normal. That is your that's your baseline, right? So if your baseline is that it's so easy or you've trained your think about how long you've trained your body to be there. So when you try to untrain it, it's going to want to go back to that familiar place.
00:18:56 Nazish: Yes. And, and, you know, we expect to find a balance once and keep it forever and then feel defeated when it slips.
00:19:05 Rashi Kaur: Yes. I think even for me, I think that was probably one of the first lessons I learned in my healing. And I have been so lucky to find other friends who are also coaches. And so we talk about this and I said, I love it because that's why I talk about it so much, because I want people to know, no, you're not failing. That's normal. It's going to happen. It's part of the process.
00:19:27 Nazish: Yeah. Yes. And we have to appreciate the process. And I believe we have to lift the process as well.
00:19:33 Rashi Kaur: Yes, absolutely.
00:19:37 Nazish: Yeah. So, uh, uh, before we close, if someone is listening and has been running on empty and calling it productivity, what is the one thing you most want them to carry away from this conversation?
00:19:56 Rashi Kaur: That rest is not, uh, it is not, uh, earned. It is not a reward. It is. You deserve rest. I think that is the biggest thing I have learned is that eventually it will catch up to you, and I hope it does not. But I think as human beings, we are meant to rest. We are meant to have down periods, and I'm so happy that, you know, we have platforms like yours where we are talking about these things, especially as South Asians, you know, we're taught to just like I, I've had my own family tell me that, you know, that oh, you're, you're not, you're being lazy. And I'm like, no, I, I need downtime and I don't feel guilty and I don't want others to feel guilty. So that's one thing I want people to take away is rest is so vital. We are human beings. I mean, think about animals. They go to sleep for a certain amount of time. They work for whatever it is. But because of all of our busyness, we think that, oh, I should never have downtime. And that's not true. You need that rest.
00:21:00 Nazish: Yes, we do need that rest. And that is the real thing. And it does go a long way as well. And, you know, this has been an absolutely wonderful and a beautiful conversation with you. And I believe there are going to be many people who would want to connect with you and, you know, find more about your work and what you do. So how can they connect with you? Where is the best place to find you?
00:21:24 Rashi Kaur: Yeah. So on Instagram, I'm the joy consultant and my website is the joy consultant dot co. And I would love to hear from you. Um, I love connecting with people and I think the people that are drawn to me, they, they feel something. And so that should be like the first thing, if you feel drawn to this conversation or something that I posted on Instagram, that's your first sign to reach out and I'd love to work with anyone.
00:21:49 Nazish: Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. I will make sure to include the include these details into the show notes so that a lot of people can reach out to you and connect with you. And thank you so much for, you know, being here with us. Uh, this is the kind of conversation, you know, peace, better health exist for the kind that gives people permission to stop. And what is staying with me is your reminder that the pull towards stillness might be the most intelligent signal the body sends and not the laziest one.
00:22:23 Rashi Kaur: Yes, absolutely. I love that you said it so well.
00:22:26 Nazish: Yeah. And to whosoever is listening right now, especially the one who has truly, not truly paused in a long in longer than they can remember, I will leave you with this. You do not have to earn your rest. You do not have to collapse before you are allowed to stop tonight. Even for the one honest minute, you can let the body doing fall away and simply be here. Your body has been waiting for that minute. Let yourself give in.
