What I Learned While I Was Away

When I left fulltime employment to dedicate my time to my business, I had all of these fantastic ideas about how I thought it would go. I rebuilt a website thinking I was going to create a place capable of holding all of these big plans I had in mind. Multiple courses, resource library, community spaces. I mean, thinking small limits the blessings, right?

Not even a month into my solo entrepreneurship, one of my grandchildren was diagnosed with cancer. I spent the next several months helping my child at the hospital so that they in turn could take care of their sweet sick baby. While having a sleeping child resting on my shoulder, I would write blog posts with my makeshift office on my ipad and keyboard. I'd come home exhausted and emotionally depleted. Only to wake up and do it all again the next day. A lot of my business plans were put on hold for many months while life needed my energy elsewhere.

Once everyone was healthy and my nervous system had settled, I dove right into writing my first book. All about self care and recovering from burnout. I'd spend hours and days writing over the next few months. Diving into my own real life examples of burnout and patterns I'd adopted in my life that allowed me to constantly overgive at the cost of myself. Writing wasn't easy. It was emotionally heavy and made me really come face to face with events in my life that led me to moments of deep burnout. I put all of my time and energy into birthing this work. Spirit moved me to write.

As this project came to a close and I had a published copy in my hand, I began to move on to the next big project. Developing my Intuition Course. No breaks or pauses, just right into the next big thing.

Behind the scenes of this, my body and health were giving me a run for my money. Multiple doctor visits and medical appointments, plus intense therapy sessions to help process the trauma of caring for a child with cancer and the toll it took on my own child. It was a lot, but I pushed on. Until I couldn't. Apparently, just because you write a book on self care and recovering from burnout doesn't mean you're an expert of recognizing and implementing those practices when you're in the middle of it.

December came and I thought, maybe I'll just take some time off for the holidays. Though, my body didn't really give me a choice. There was at least a solid week where I lived on the couch with only enough energy to eat and take care of basic bodily functions. Nothing humbles a person more and makes them mindful of not pushing their body past its limits like living in the same clothes for a week and relying on others to take care of you.

The holidays came and went and I couldn't will myself to think of my business. The voice in my head said, you have to be consistent. You should be posting on social media. You're going to lose all the momentum you've been building. That voice that shows up when I'm feeling not enough. The anxiety that creeps in that says you're only worthy and of value when you're productive or being of service. I've spent years trying to rewire this in my brain. I mean, I did also write a whole book about having compassion and grace for yourself and that you are worthy because you exist. And yet, that voice and that belief still live in the shadows, slowly creeping back in when the guilt of having to rest takes hold.

Around this time I found myself in conversation after conversation, with my spouse, with my therapist, and with myself, circling the same guilt. I felt guilty for taking care of myself. The voice of hustle culture would almost drown out any promptings to slow down, telling me I was wasting money, wasting the opportunity to build my business, that I wasn't holding up my end of things at home. There was one conversation with my husband in particular where I finally said the quiet part out loud, that I was scared he saw me as lazy, that resting felt like I was failing him even though he had never once said anything close to that. He reminded me of the time he was in a similar situation and had to take time off work for his own health issues. He told me that he felt all the same things I was now sharing with him, and asked me to remember what it was that I had told him back then about being glad he was taking care of himself. It all required me to take an honest, hard look at myself, at what I believed about my own value and worth, and at what I truly needed to build or let go of in order to create sustainable support for myself.

I would reluctantly remind myself, that it was ok to take time to care for myself with the same care I would give to others. I tried speaking to myself the way I would to one of my children or a close friend. I gave myself true permission to rest. I told myself that I would return to my business when I felt excited to create again and not because I needed to prove my worth. Slowly I let go of social media. For the first time in over a decade, I hadn't opened a single app for months. The noise of the world began to quiet. I took naps, and moved my body in ways that felt good. I took care of the medical procedures that would hopefully help me with some of the struggles I was having with my body. I fell deep into the hobby of diamond art paintings. I blame my kids for that; it's what they gave me for Christmas. I fell back in love with journaling. I went to lunch with friends.

One month became two, and before I knew it six months had passed. I truly, for the first time in my life, deeply cared for myself. I'd love to say it was easy and didn't come with an ounce of guilt, but that wouldn't be honest. Some days the voice of "I should," was very loud. But, I did it and I'm really proud of myself because every previous version of me would never have even considered loving myself this deeply.

I know that I was blessed to be able to have my financial needs met by my spouse and that I was working for myself. It was another way the universe conspired on my behalf. If those two factors, having my financial needs covered, and not working outside of the home, hadn't occurred at the same time, I don't think I would have put my own very real needs in the equation. I would have found a way to rest just enough to keep pushing forward, often at great cost to myself.

As the summer started approaching, I began to think about my business. What would that look like moving forward? What do I need to feel like I was ready? How do I support myself in ways that are more sustainable? I didn't rush into it right away. I just allowed myself to be curious. To wonder. And to once again dream.

Then as if all at once I woke up on the first of June and was ready once again to sit at my long vacant desk. I opened the business planner that I'd spent a good week on in December preparing for the year ahead. It had sat empty, pages carefully planned, unused for the first 5 months of 2026. I turned to June's section and stared at the pages before me. It was almost like I didn't know what to do with myself.

I decided to meditate. I called forward the energy of my business, seeking insight and clarity for what's to come. I was taken to what I call my helm room in my Akashic records. There I was greeted by my higher self. A long conference table with open books and sheets of loose paper sprawled out before me. As I focus more attention to the books on the table, I hear:

"Let your business be a resource for you! Ask how it can serve you in the areas of your life you want to grow/foster. How can it build connections for you? It's ok to be selfish with your own life. The work you do is part of who you are. It's going to consume your time and energy. You don't have to constantly give your whole self away in the name of service to others. You're here to experience your life just as much as others. It's ok to think about what you want and where you want to go."

Never before have I thought of my business as something for me. It's always been about how I can be of service to others. Everything I had built to this point was always about creating things that would allow me to serve at my greatest capacity. I now realize that this was also something that compounded my most recent season of burnout.

I then felt called to look at my business planner. The one I'd set up so many months before. Where I had carefully crafted each section to help me be more productive and consistent in my business. Where I would plan new goals and visions for my dreams. The one with so many pages that will never be completed. There on the inside of the front cover was the word I was given for my business word of the year. (Prior to this I'd only ever had a personal word for the year and not one just for my business.)

There in front of me were words I had written six months prior, and had long forgotten. They now read like a roadmap for the guidance I had been given in my meditation.

The word was steward. Underneath the boldly written word was the definition for me in relation to my business.

to tend without overgiving

to hold responsibility without self-sacrifice

to care for something that's alive, not extract from it

to protect the integrity of what I'm building

Followed by three important questions:

Is this good stewardship of my energy and my people? Does this honor what I'm entrusted with? Am I tending what already exists with care?

Coming back from burnout this time around, would require me to think differently than I had before.

As I started to think about what comes next and every step that's followed, I asked myself these questions. "Is this supportive for me as well as my clients?" "Is this building a resource for me as well as offering value to those who need it?" "Is this good stewardship of my energy?"

Care of myself is now a part of my business strategy.

Some of the biggest lessons I've learned while I was away from my business and the noise of the world is that, sometimes you have to tear down things that aren't working and start over. That coming back from burnout truly requires you to listen to the needs of your body and your spirit. That caring for yourself will be a life long practice that you will have to come back to over and over again. All of these things will also come with their own level of discomfort and require you to really take a long look at the systems you've put in place that aren't supportive of what your needs actually are.

For me a few of these examples are:

I had to take a look at the website I had built almost two years prior. The price for the platform was increasing significantly and I could no longer justify the cost. This meant that I had to look for alternatives, and would require me, once again, to rebuild my website. In doing this I was able to compile a list of what my needs going forward would be and those things that were causing a lot of friction, like being limited to only one course, or digital downloads. I was constantly trying to find ways to work around this, which meant I was spending more time trying to problem solve than being able to create. I found a new platform that was able to do everything I needed at a quarter of the cost of what I had previously.

As I began setting up my new website, I continuously asked myself, "Is this supportive of me?" This led to simplifying the graphics, and scaling back the mental load of designing images. Leaving me more energy and time to be able to create things I've wanted for a long time, like my free Resource Library.

I had to pay more attention to how my body and energy felt throughout the day and give myself permission to rest or to pivot on what I was working on, instead of pushing through. There has been lots of time spent on the couch mentally wrestling with myself over things I wanted to be doing and knowing that I'm allowed to rest. This is very much the discomfort part in loving yourself.

In this season of being away from my business, there were a lot of big family events. The passing of a few extended family members, the birth of our newest grandchild, and lots of birthdays to name a few. For each of these moments, I applied the skills I was learning. Going to events, I would check in and ask myself, "What do I need to be able to show up in a way that is healthy for me?" "What are my limits here?" Sometimes this would be me having to say no to going to an event that I would have normally attended. And then sitting in the uncomfortableness of that, knowing I was choosing what was best for my energy in that moment. (I wrote more about this here in this Resource Library post.)

While I was away, I also learned that the very things I wrote about in my book to help be a resource for others, would be the same medicine I would have to return to in my latest season of deep depletion. That just because I have the tools, doesn't mean it's easy to recognize when burnout has again become the normal state of being. And, that every season of burnout can and will look different.

Sitting here at my desk now, writing to you, I feel alive again, not just in my business, but in my life. I still have days when the guilt for taking time to care for myself gets to me. I probably will always struggle with that in some form. What's different for me now is that I have built systems that are now more supportive of me, my energy, and the hope I have for what the future brings. Tending to myself the way I'm learning to tend to this business, without overgiving, without waiting until I've run myself dry to matter, is its own kind of stewardship. I'm getting more comfortable asking myself, "What do I need?" and allowing myself to actually follow through with that. I look at rest as being a valuable tool that supports my desire and ability to create, and that it needs to be scheduled in just like everything else on my to-do list.