How Internalized Capitalism is Controlling Your Right to Rest and Exist
What if that voice telling you to “be more productive” isn’t your inner wisdom but internalized capitalism? Most of us are living with constant pressure to optimize, monetize, and harvest every moment of our lives, and we don’t even realize it.
In this raw episode, Gervase shares a vulnerable moment from her own life that perfectly illustrates how capitalism has trained us to believe we don’t get to just exist. She breaks down how this system affects modern women and offers practical ways to reclaim your humanity.
This isn’t about becoming anti-capitalism overnight, it’s about recognizing the programming so you can make conscious choices about your own 500 square feet of life.
Listen to this episode to discover:
The moment Gervase realized she couldn’t even enjoy a peaceful lunch with her son without thinking about content creation
How internalized capitalism shows up in everyday life (spoiler: it’s that voice saying “you’re not doing enough”)
Why we’ve been programmed to turn every hobby, idea, and beautiful moment into a business opportunity
The “harvest mentality” and why it’s running you ragged
How capitalism affects both stay-at-home and working moms (and why both feel like they’re never enough)
Simple acts of rebellion: ways to reclaim moments that capitalism can’t touch
Why your worth isn’t determined by your output, and how to actually believe it
How to create conscious moments of rest and pleasure without guilt
The ripple effect of tending to your own “500 square feet” instead of trying to change the world
This episode is for you if:
You feel guilty taking breaks unless you’ve “earned” them
Every hobby feels like it should become a side hustle
You can’t enjoy peaceful moments without thinking about productivity
You're exhausted from the constant pressure to do more, be more, create more
You want practical ways to reclaim your humanity in a productivity-obsessed world
Resource mentioned in this episode:
Toi Marie (Smith): https://www.toimarie.com/
Follow Gervase
📲 Let’s hang out on IG: http://www.instagram.com/gervasekolmos
✨ Want to go deeper (and get juicy discounts)? Sign up to Gervase’s newsletter: https://www.gervasekolmos.com
Feel stuck in your career, relationship or life? Need clarity on how to move forward and get your groove back? Book a 90-minute Soul Shift Intensive with Gervase
How Internalized Capitalism is Controlling Your Right to Rest and Exist
Episode Full Transcript
Hi, it's Gervase, and you're listening to the Modern Phoenix Podcast.
Today we’re going to have a little solo episode about internalized capitalism. Now, don’t run away—don’t turn this off—because I promise you I am far from an expert on this topic. We’re just going to peel back one layer of the onion. We’re going to find the ways internalized capitalism affects all of us, relates to all of us, even if we’re just getting started with the idea of internalizing systems of oppression.
Before I say anything else, I want to caveat that many of the things I’ve learned about capitalism, I learned from Toi Smith—T-O-I Smith. She is such a leader in this space. She has an amazing business and a newsletter called The Deepening, which she sends once a week for a year. Each edition includes a different piece of literature and education—a story, a poem, an essay, a law. It is so robust. And it’s all about capitalism—self-education on what the system is, how it affects us, how it disproportionately affects people of color, how it is oppressive, etc. She is a social activist and such a strong leader. I could not say anything without her help. Go to her website—I'll link it in the show notes—and check it out.
Just know that today’s podcast won’t go quite that deep, mostly because I’m not qualified. What I am qualified to do is peel back a layer on how capitalism has created a culture around us and within us, especially as modern women, to be constantly on—constantly doing, producing, achieving, marketing, selling. I see it everywhere: in my clients, in my own life. I feel the urgency, the rushing, the pressure of capitalism. And I think it’s helpful just to name it.
Obviously, nobody’s going to reverse capitalism today. Toi Smith says something about being responsible for “your 500 square feet” of your life. I think that’s really beautiful—and very anti-capitalistic—because it reminds us: you don’t have to change the whole world. You can change your 500 square feet by being here, learning, educating yourself, empowering yourself against the unconscious brainwashing of an oppressive system. You become better able to clean up your 500 square feet, and that matters—because you’re part of an ecosystem that affects other people: your family, your work, your social life, your communities.
When we shift how we see the systems we’ve internalized—starting with ourselves, even just the top layer—we bring a new perspective to our lives, our communities, our work, and our attitudes. It really makes a difference.
I want to back up and share that I’m having a really intense day over here. My husband is getting ready to go back out on the boat for 10 days, leaving in about an hour. I’m packing me and the kids for a trip to California—we leave at three in the morning. I’m working a half day, he’s working a half day, and the three kids are home because it’s summer. It’s a little crunchy.
So I did the thing I always tell my clients to do when it feels like that: I resourced. I slowed down. Even though I felt like there was so much to do and I had to speed up, I know better now. I’ve created new rhythms for myself. I decided to have a “me time moment.” That’s what I’ve been calling it this summer.
I went outside on a beach towel and lay in the grass. My five-year-old son came out, sat with me, and showed me how his babysitter’s sister polished his nails this morning. I looked at the color—blue—and thought, that would be nice. If you’re watching on YouTube or Spotify, you can see I’ve polished my nails since then. I ended up sitting on the towel and painting my nails to match his. He brought his lunch out. We were just sitting there, having a moment.
I could feel my system downregulating. All the “urgent” things cooling from on-fire to okay. Not perfect, not gone—it probably won’t fully go away until we land in California 24 hours from now—but calmer. I heard the birds, looked at the trees. I was having a moment.
And then my mind: “I should set up my tripod and capture some B-roll. I could teach people. I could show this moment and teach women how to take a moment—how to say ‘fuck you’ to capitalism, sit on the grass, polish your nails with your son, eat carrots and hummus, enjoy the day in the middle of the busiest day.”
Then: “Goddammit, why can’t I just have this moment for me?” It actually brought up emotion, which surprised me. Why can’t I just have this moment because it feels good? Because I get to? Because I’m a human on planet Earth sharing a sweet 10-minute pause with my son? Why? Because of my internalized capitalism.
I’m slightly embarrassed to say, but I’m being honest: I got the tripod and filmed for like three minutes on the grass because I thought I might want the B-roll. The truth is, I rely on B-roll and sharing my stories on social media in order to share my work, for people to find me, know/like/trust me, see what I’m about, and buy from me. That is how I make my living. And it also felt sad that I gave up a piece of that living to market—to produce for consumption.
This is how capitalism is woven into my personal life all the time. “Oh, you’re having a moment? You better capture it so you can produce, package, market it, create content from it, and make money from it.” That thread weaves itself through my life. That’s where I notice internalized capitalism everywhere.
I’m not saying I don’t have choices. I do. I could have chosen to keep that moment for myself. I could have a different marketing system. I’m not a total victim. I opt in—often. I also have plenty of moments where I put my phone down for days, go offline, and forget about social media. That has pros and cons too.
There aren’t quick fixes here. No easy answers. Nobody gets out of this one looking like a hero. I started with my example because I’m part of capitalism too. I’m in it with you. I want you to see and maybe feel how capitalism taught me I don’t get to just be. All of my being must serve production, consumption, marketing, sales.
My friend and colleague Becca Piastrelli posted something similar this morning. She said, “You don’t need to turn your jam-making hobby into a business. You don’t need to take your roadside egg stand and create an LLC. Just because you started knitting doesn’t mean you need to sell your knitting to be worthy or legitimate as a human.” You can knit because you enjoy it. For yourself. You can create things because you have a God-given right to enjoy them.
That is the first thing to go with nearly every woman I meet or work with. There’s this program running in the background—an insidious whisper: “You don’t get to be. You don’t get to create. You don’t get a me-time moment unless it adds to your production later.”
The top layer we’re exploring here is: everything we do must serve mass production, consumption, and the making of money. There’s a systemic undertone and a class dimension. In one of Toi’s newsletters I was skimming for this episode, an author noted that a middle class who luxuriates in time and freedom can be “troublesome,” and this dynamic really took hold in the 60s. There is an upper class that benefits from a middle and lower class who must produce to survive—who don’t have the “luxury” to simply be. Control and order for the upper class are maintained when the rest are consumed by survival and struggle.
We’re seeing this play out on the political stage now. I defer to the experts for deeper dives, but the capitalist thread is relevant. The fact that a high-achieving, successful, powerful, even wealthy modern woman feels she doesn’t deserve time to nourish herself is a signal we’ve all drunk poisoned water. We’ve internalized lies that if it isn’t for mass production or making money, it doesn’t get to exist.
If we go back to our ancestors, we see this isn’t “just the way it is.” The land belonged to all who inhabited it—pre-colonization, pre–industrial revolution, pre-patriarchy. Capitalism—brought by colonizers—said: the land is for taking, dividing, owning, and profiting from. Once land was partitioned and owned by the wealthy, the lower classes had no choice but to work to live, because simply existing on the planet incurred a fee.
Obviously, this is not how it was meant to be. If looking at humans is too tangled, think about animals: they just exist. They don’t pay rent to live on a patch of grass. There is an ethical, integrous truth in the belief that all who inhabit the land have equal value. We don’t have to earn it or prove it. We’re born on a beautiful Earth with everything we need. Yes, we’ve created systems where we work to live, but we all start with value.
The colonizer mindset turned time into money and land into power and money—competition and power-over instead of collaboration-with. It all got twisted. This programming runs inside us in the 21st century whether we subscribe or not—whether we’re eyes-wide-open like me with the tripod on the grass, or we abstain (“I’m off the grid; I’m moving to a farm”), or we fully benefit from the system and see no problem. Whatever your stance, you likely won’t change the world today—but you can look at how the brainwashing operates in your day-to-day.
That feeling that you’re never enough, never done enough, never achieved or impacted enough, never scaled enough, never crossed enough off the list—when we notice it, we can begin to change our 500 square feet. We can become more intentional and discerning about our lives, choices, humanity. Do I get to have parts of my life where I just exist? Or does every moment need to be harvested?
A client of mine is an entrepreneur with tons of ideas, and she pressured herself to turn every idea into a product, content funnel, service, podcast—something. When we got to the root of that urgency, we saw internalized capitalism: “Everything must be harvested.” Every leaf of the mint plant must be picked and used for a mojito. But the mint grows because it grows—it’s beautiful. We take what we need and live in harmony with plants, animals, land, people. It’s when we believe everything exists for harvesting, consumption, and scaling into money/production/marketing that we know internalized capitalism is running our system—and running us ragged.
It’s exhausting to feel like you can’t pause because you’ll “lose the next big idea,” or you can’t relax until every cupboard is cleaned. I know that feeling. This is complex—there are many reasons we resort to the cupboards (and honestly, they can be relaxing). But it’s resourcing for me to pause and remember: I have everything I need. I’m already enough. My biology knows how to be okay now—how to create safety, security, contentment, satisfaction in this moment.
If I feel like a hamster on a wheel, chasing the next big thing for so long that smoke’s coming out of my ears—nothing is enough; I can’t stop; I can’t take a break unless it increases productivity or money—then I can say, “Wait. This is internalized capitalism.” Of course I have it; we live on planet Earth where this is the status quo. It’s sad. It sucks. And while we won’t overturn everything overnight, we can stake our claim to our humanity.
Declare: I get to just be. I get to exist. I get moments just for me—just because. Maybe they won’t make me more productive tomorrow. Maybe they won’t make me a better mom. Maybe they won’t give me my next brilliant idea. Maybe they’re just part of being human.
The more embodied I become—the more human in an age that’s losing its humanity, losing relational tools, losing access to depth, wisdom, relationship, compassion, collaboration—the more a little awareness and conscious resting, consuming, creating, and rebelling will make a difference. It compounds over time. It makes your life better when you realize you don’t have to earn your time off, even if your job tells you that you do. You can drink your coffee without rushing. You can take a pee break without rushing. You can go on the grass and have lunch with your son and polish your nails—even on the busiest day.
It will feel good. It will connect you to the earth, your body, your intention. Why am I doing all of this anyway? It will connect you to the people you’re with. These moments matter—more, I’d argue, than making money.
And if you are in utter survival mode to make money, then the rest of us must do better with our 500 square feet so fewer people live in that state. Most women in my community are not in that level of survival, but many have convinced themselves they are—convinced by capitalism, dominant culture, patriarchy, and their brainwashing. A single Black mom like Toi Smith starts on a different rung of the ladder than many of us. These systems negatively impact her far more. I am affected too—but how can I free myself a little more? How can that ripple outward to change the world, my communities, open my heart to contribute to causes, donate to people and missions that make the world better? To vote for candidates and be regulated and clear-minded enough to make a few calls to my senators—because it’s actually not that big a deal.
We’ve been convinced there’s no time to create the world we want because the hamster wheel keeps us “just surviving”—produce, market, consume, buy, make money. I’m asking us to rebalance: a bit of radical self-responsibility and ownership—done in an empowering way. That move takes our power back from constant pressure and urgency and “I don’t get to” victimhood. It returns us to our humanity and to the current of “I am an inhabitant of the earth.” That has always mattered. Since the beginning of time, that has been consistent. The job, deadline, email, voicemail, content, social post—not the pinnacle of living.
We have to live. To live, we have to be. And being is not for others’ consumption of all our moments. Resting isn’t only to be more productive tomorrow. We have to reclaim our enoughness as humans and see the thread capitalism has woven through our lives—with compassion, humility, honesty, and power.
One last thing: notice how this shows up in partnership. I see women struggling because they’re trying to play a man’s game—patriarchy’s game—to earn worthiness through capitalism: “Look, I am enough, I make money. Look, I have a job.” I love being a working mom; I’ve always wanted that. But how did we get to a place where those raising the children—who may not be making money but are nurturing and growing families—suddenly have no value? When a stay-at-home mom believes she has no value because she’s not making money, and a working mom feels the same despite making money—we know the game is rigged.
We’ve been duped to chase what Glennon Doyle calls the dusty pink bunny. Capitalism dangles a carrot: “Work harder, twice the hours, do a man’s job and hours, have kids, look hot, keep a perfect home—and then you’ll be enough. Keep going. We need more workers.” Internalizing that belief serves none of us.
We can choose what’s right for us and our families—working, staying home, having kids or not. But we have to agree: money is not how we earn value. It’s one contribution in a culture starving for depth, relational connection, to feel seen and tended to—for nourishment. We are starved of nourishment. Money is not filling the void. It’s not healing the wound. More doing isn’t getting us closer. Women are doing as much as men at work and still unhappy. There’s friction in couples because we think power comes from money, legitimacy, jobs.
Your value is not up for debate. Your income is not the currency you want to be compared against or barter with. Don’t let oppressive systems convince you to prove your value via their game. Play the game if you choose, but don’t put all your chips in. Don’t let it wreck your relationship with your partner, your kids, yourself because you’re so busy trying to win that you forget to be who you are—to expand and explore what it is to be in this human body on this gorgeous Earth with other imperfect humans—resting, playing, dancing, sleeping, napping, creating simply because you want to try.
There’s something healing about working with your hands. Music for music’s sake. I play the piano and sing even when there are things to be done. Why? Because it brings me joy. It feels like reclaiming my soul, my time, my sovereignty from a world that tells me there’s never enough time, that I must earn, that I must be a perfect pianist for it to be worthwhile, that I must market it, capture it for Instagram. No. It’s for me. That’s enough. That’s the currency I want to trade in. That’s the world I want to belong to. That’s the 500 square feet I’m tending, a little more at a time.
I hope this encouraged you—maybe inspired or educated you a little—to do the same. Not to shame yourself for the ways these systems are woven through our lives, but to make your choices eyes wide open, and reclaim your life for yourself.
Okay, I love you so much. If you want to take this concept—or any concept—deeper with me, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive. It’s a 90-minute one-on-one where we can go deep into whatever is coming up for you in this season. We’ll do some gentle embodiment, coaching, a guided grounding activation meditation, and see what’s ready to shift. It would be an honor to work with you in that way.
I love you so much. We’re doing it. I’ll see you in two weeks. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Thank you.