I’m taking a few days off soon — me and my daughter are heading to Poland for a little break — and I realised something the other day. I haven’t actually taken much proper time off this year. Like, a full-stop break. And I’m really looking forward to this one. But there’s also this weird little part of me that’s like, “Okay, how do I balance this?” Like… how do you step into rest without dropping the ball completely? How do you keep your community or business spaces alive without burning yourself out? So I’m curious how other people do it. When you take a 3–5 day break (or longer) - Do you step out fully and just trust everything will be there when you come back? - Do you set a few non-negotiables you stick to each day? - Do you announce it? - Do you let your community hold the energy for a bit? - Do you schedule stuff ahead of time? - Or do you just wing it and hope for the best? I feel like there’s no “right” way, but it’s interesting seeing how different people manage that balance of rest + consistency. So yeah — how do you handle breaks? I’d love to hear, because this is probably the first time all year I’m properly slowing down and I want to find a way that feels good, not stressful…

I had one of those moments this week where I was just standing in the kitchen staring at a packet of pasta like it was some sort of advanced maths equation, and the ridiculous part is nothing was actually wrong, it was just that my brain had tapped out long before my body realised it was supposed to stop too. People talk about burnout like it’s this big dramatic collapse but honestly, most of the time it’s the tiny shutdowns that give us away, the micro-freezes, the blank stares at random objects, the sudden “nope, I can’t” that slips out before you even know you’re saying it, and if you’re a mum of ND kids AND running a business, you’ll know exactly what I mean because capacity isn’t a weekly conversation or even a daily one, it’s every hour, every decision, every moment where you’re trying to hold everything together while your nervous system is whispering “absolutely not.” And I’m curious, genuinely, because we rarely talk about the early signs, the subtle ones before it becomes “too much,” before you hit the point where you’re crying over something stupid like the way the dishwasher was stacked or the fact someone breathed too loudly. What does burnout look like in you before it hits the red zone? The real stuff. The messy stuff. The micro-signals your body gives you that say: “I’m done but I’m still pretending I’m not.” I reckon whatever you share, someone is going to read it and think, “God, same.”