Hello and welcome back to The Happya Life. I am Clare Deacon, trauma-informed therapist, positive psychology coach and founder of Happya, and today we are diving into something I hear almost daily from women who are tired, wired, overwhelmed, and frustrated by one question: why can’t I just relax?
You cancel plans, you set boundaries, you block out a whole Sunday to rest, but when the moment comes to slow down your brain is still racing, your chest is tight, you cannot sit still. You find yourself scrolling, or tidying, or making lists, because the idea of doing nothing feels deeply unsafe.
I want to tell you right now, you are not broken, you are not lazy, and you are not bad at self-care. Your nervous system just has not learnt yet that stillness is safe. That is not your fault, but it is something we can gently change.
Let’s just take a moment together.
Wherever you are, let your shoulders soften.
Exhale slowly, and take a moment to ground yourself, knowing you are here, and taking this moment for yourself.
This episode is for those of you who cannot switch off. For the woman who feels constantly on edge. For the one who is burnt out but still cannot stop. And for the woman who has spent years keeping it all together, and now wonders why peace feels impossible.
Let’s start with the truth. Rest does not feel good when your nervous system is dysregulated. In fact, it can feel threatening, because stillness makes space for what you have been outrunning: thoughts, memories, emotions, and sensations that do not feel manageable.
From a nervous system perspective, we call this a survival response. You are either stuck in hyperarousal, that is fight or flight, where you feel anxious, agitated, and overwhelmed. Or in hypoarousal, that is freeze or shutdown, where you feel flat, disconnected, and numb. Both are protective states, not personal failings.
Can you recognise which one feels more familiar for you?
Is your system revving, or is it withdrawing?
Just notice. You do not need to solve it in this moment.
Hyperarousal says, “I have to stay alert. I have to control everything or something bad will happen.”
Hypoarousal says, “It is all too much, I cannot do this. I will just shut it all down.”
If you grew up in an environment where chaos or unpredictability was the norm, your nervous system may have learnt that calm equals danger. You were always waiting for the next explosion, the next shift in mood, the next crisis. So now, when things are finally quiet, your body goes looking for a threat, because that is what it is wired to do.
That wiring does not undo itself just because your life is technically safe now.
Safety has to be felt, not just known.
This is why “just relax” is such an unhelpful phrase for people who have lived in survival mode. It bypasses the body, it shames the response, and it misses the point.
Your body is not being dramatic, it is being protective. It is saying, “We have been here before, and it was not safe. Until you show me differently, I am not letting go.”
So how do we start to shift this?
First, we stop fighting the response. We start by saying, “Of course. Of course my body feels alert. Of course rest feels unfamiliar. Of course I am struggling.” This is what happens when we have lived in overdrive, and never been taught how to come down from it gently.
Then we bring in the language the nervous system understands. That language is not logic. It is not mindset work. It is not pushing through. It is safety, presence, choice, and time.
So what does that actually look like?
It might look like breath work, but not just deep breathing. Lengthening your exhale. Humming. Sighing audibly, because your vagus nerve responds to vibration and sound.
It might look like movement: rocking, swaying, tapping, or shaking, because your body stores stress and needs an outlet to release it.
It might look like grounding: pressing your feet into the floor, holding something cold or textured, reminding your system where and when you are.
And it might look like orienting: slowly looking around your space, naming what you see, hear, and feel, helping your brain realise there is no threat here.
For me, one of the most powerful shifts came when I stopped trying to relax and started trying to regulate. When I stopped demanding my body feel calm, and started asking, “What would support me to feel just a little more present in this moment?”
Sometimes that looked like placing one hand on my heart and one on my belly, and saying, “I am here. I am safe. We are okay.”
Sometimes it meant making a cup of tea and holding it in both hands, breathing in the warmth. Not because tea fixes anything, but because ritual tells the body, “I am safe enough to pause.”
You do not go from chaos to calm in one leap. But you can build a bridge between the two, one breath, one choice, one nervous system moment at a time.
If you have been stuck in this state for a long time, I want to say this gently. Your system might resist at first. It might feel worse before it feels better. That is not a failure. That is rewiring.
You are asking your body to do something it has never known how to do: to feel without fear, to rest without guilt, to stop performing and start receiving.
So here is a simple reflection to try this week:
When you notice yourself unable to relax, pause and ask, “What state am I in right now? Am I in fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown? And what would support me to shift just slightly towards presence?”
Maybe that is breath. Maybe that is grounding. Maybe it is asking someone to sit with you. Maybe it is closing your eyes for one minute, instead of ten.
That small shift matters. And it compounds.
If you are listening and thinking, “This is me. This is why I am exhausted. This is why rest does not work. This is why I feel broken,” you are not broken. You are protective. And there is nothing shameful about that.
But you deserve more than survival.
If you are ready to gently move towards that, if you want support that actually understands the nervous system and meets you where you are, not where you should be, send me a message on Instagram or through the website and I will help signpost you to the right support. Whether that is coaching, resources, or just someone to say, “I see you, and I get it.”
You are not behind.
You are learning how to be in your body safely, possibly for the first time.
And that is brave work.
I will see you next week, where we will explore overthinking and over-feeling, and how to find calm in the chaos.
Until then, breathe, soften, and remember: you do not have to fight yourself to feel better. You can work with your body, not against it. And that is where everything begins.