Ep #82 - Rest Is Not a Luxury (It’s Leadership)

After a delicious summer with my boys, I’m back — rested, grounded, and calling absolute BS on the hustle-as-a-badge-of-honour. In this episode I share three lessons from slowing down:

 • Rest isn’t a treat; it’s essential if you want to be present and powerful.
 • Self-kindness creates safety — the antidote to your brain’s doom spiral.
 • When cortisol drops, wisdom rises — and the ideas start flowing.

I’m also renaming the show to The Working Woman’s Podcast and moving release day to Thursdays. This space is for all women who love their work and their family, and want more calm, clarity and confidence without dropping any of the balls that matter. Doors are open again for coaching — details in the show notes.

Key takeaways

• Rest is a requirement, not a reward.
• The quality of a relationship mirrors the quality of your thoughts about that person.
• Put your hand on your heart, breathe, and tell your nervous system: “I’m safe.”
• Lower stress → higher access to judgement, creativity and patience.
• Five minutes of daily “micro-rest” counts. Celebrate it.

You can also watch this episode on YouTube with Captions - https://www.youtube.com/@TheWorkingWomensLifeCoach

If you'd like to have a chat about how I can help you further, please don't hesitate to click here & book a time with me, I'd love to meet you.

You can also follow me on IG @NickyBevan_LifeCoach

Transcript

Welcome, welcome, welcome back! To the podcast. How was your summer? Now, if you've been listening to my mini-series, obviously you've heard me every week. But I had a really delicious break with my boys. It always fascinates me when I choose to minimize everything down. The drama that my brain offers me. It's like, if you don't work, it's not gonna work, everything's gonna fall apart, you're never gonna have any money. All the things, all the things. And yet, it is one of my most deepest primal instincts to spend time with my family. I'm very fortunate. I love hanging out with my boys. They are very funny. My husband, also very funny. And I've really started to take ownership of the fact that I have created that. I have had an influence in how my relationships have turned out. Because the quality of your relationships is based on the quality of the thoughts you have about that person. And I have two teenage boys. They're 14 and 15. There is pushback, as there should be, especially towards their mum at this age. It's a biological survival requirement. I don't have to make that mean something about me, because I know that that's happening, I know that that's nature, I've got my own back. I don't make it mean that something has all gone wrong. I think I'm going to do a separate podcast on it, because I'm quite passionate about that particular topic. So, look out for that. I'll do a whole podcast episode. But what I wanted to talk about today: the lessons from resting. The lessons that I have taken away for giving myself that permission to slow down for a season. And it fascinates me, and there are lots of research out there. Google it. If I remember off the top of my head some quotes and some names, I will tell you, but at the moment, they've all gone out my head. But rest is vital. It's not a treat. It's not a nice-to-have. It is an actual requirement if you want to be the most incredible woman in your life. For your family, however that looks for you. So, for you to be the best, most patient, and present mum, for you to not snap at your partner, for you to be really present when you're with your mates or with your parents, it starts with your willingness to start putting your self-care at the top of your list, instead of, I'll get round to that at some point, and never actually get round to it. Because when you are exhausted, when you're running on resentment, when you are really just doing things out of obligation and guilt, it feels shit. For everybody concerned, by the way. Because the people that you're there with, they may not be able to resonate or articulate it, but they will have a sense that you don't really want to be doing what you're doing. You may have experienced this in your life. When you keep saying yes to shit you don't want to do, no one ever actually knows that if you really want to do it. Talked about this before, I'm not going to go over that again. Go back and look at that podcast on how to say no. But rest is essential, it's not a luxury. The other thing that I've learned over this summer is that kindness is key. And I'm not talking about kindness to other people, although that obviously does come into it. I'm talking about kindness to yourself. When that part of your brain is freaking out, how do you respond to you? And what I've practiced, and what I learn, and now continue to practice, is creating that safety. And it is as simple as putting your hand on your heart, taking a nice deep breath, and reminding yourself that you're safe. I am safe to experience anxiety. I am safe to experience dread. I am safe to experience contentment, and joy, and excitement. I've had to practice that. I've had to practice expanding my capacity to feel excited. To allow myself to relax. We don't practice that. That's why it feels kind of wrong on some level, because we're not used to it. Our body is addicted to rushing, to the overwhelm, to the constant stress that we think life throws at us. Resting, taking a little bit of time out, whether that's with your family or on your own, and giving yourself kindness in that process, is key. And then the third thing, and I knew this before, but every time it happens, I'm like, it cements it even more, is that when I rest, I get some really amazing ideas. Because what is happening physically in your body, cortisol lowers, which means you come out of your survival state, and then you have access to your higher wisdom. When cortisol is high, your brain and your body is only worried about survival. All it literally needs to do is, do I need to fight? Do I need to run away? Do I need to fawn and people please, or do I need to freeze and do nothing? They are the four basic survival responses to a life-threatening scenario. So when we take a break, even if it's just 10 minutes walking around the garden and looking at the trees, cortisol is lowered. And I've spoke to people that wear those little, you know, the little insulin monitors, and they say that when you get stressed, insulin raises, cortisol rises. Literally, they go outside for a walk thinking, this isn't gonna do anything, come back, look at the data, and their cortisol drops. You can then access your wisdom. You are so much more effective at your job, at your relationships when your cortisol is lowered, when you are able to access your higher wisdom. Because we get into this kind of badge of honour. Oh, I'm stressed, I'm rushing, I must be important in some way, and I'm calling bullshit on it. That is bullshit. Shit. You know that you are a much better version of you when you are calm, when you are rested, when you are nourished. And that is not your partner's job. It is DEFINITELY not your children's job, neither is it your parents' or your friend's job to do that for you. That's your job. It's your job to give yourself permission to carve out time to fucking rest. Stop. Slow down. The world will not end. No one will die, because you are resting. And should someone die, that's not because you're resting, that's because it was their natural time to pass. Regardless of age. I'm not going to go into that, but your brain might be like, yeah, well, I rested, and then— Okay, shit happens. It's not that you're resting. Shit happens even when you're going and then you burn out, and you're gone, and you're not available for anybody, because you are a blubbering mess on the sofa, beating yourself up. That is not good for anybody around you, and it's certainly not good for you, and you will not be your best self at work, or at home. And I say that with so much kindness. This is a skill that you get to learn. And then practice, just like cooking. You don't learn to cook and then suddenly, miraculously, the meals appear in front of you. I wish they did, but they don't. You have to cook every day. You have to do something in order to have that food in front of you. It's exactly the same with resting. You learn the skill, and then you practice it daily. So, even if it's just 5 or 10 minutes a day when life is hectic, 5 minutes, celebrate that. That's a beautiful thing. When it's a prolonged period of time like the summer, lo and behold, nothing big happened to me physically. It was safe for me to stop. And because I've stopped, because I've got so many ideas now, I am ready to get back to it. Those first few days where the boys get back to school, I always feel very—like, I don't like them going back to school. I love it when my boys and my husband are at home. Most of the time. So when they all go back, I always feel this emptiness. I realize I'm safe to fill that emptiness. I let myself have a couple of days doing whatever I want to do. So I went to IKEA this year. I did a little bit of marketing, I went and had a massage, I sat and chatted to my mate for the rest of the day. I did that with a lot of kindness, not from trying to escape that feeling, but allowing myself to be with it. And now I'm ready. I'm ready to get back to it. I'm ready to open my doors to new clients. I'm ready to start my 30-day marketing strategy. I'm ready to get back to work, because I've got loads of ideas. So, on that note, there were going to be a couple of changes to the podcast! You may not even notice. But I'm changing the name from The Working Mums Podcast to The Working Woman's Podcast. The reason being, I coach a lot of really incredible women who don't have kids, or maybe their kids are older, and they are now adults. And the same thing applies to all of us, regardless of whether we have kids. If you are a working woman, we take on board the fact that we are the ones that have to do everything for everybody. And if you are choosing to work, and you love your job, this is a bit of a problem, because where do you fit everything else in? So I am very passionate about helping working women find that balance. Also, having two boys, I want them to grow up in a world where women can make a fuckton of money if they want to. Women are powerful, lovingly powerful. I'm not talking about manipulation, or putting other people down. I don't buy into that, that's shit. That's also not powerful. That's just shit manipulation. But if you're listening to this podcast, I'm gonna guess that you have an intuitive love about you, a kindness. And it's that love, and it's that kindness that is a very powerful force when we allow ourselves to tap into it. And I'm very passionate that it starts with us. I don't need to change my boys, I need to change me so that I have an influence in the world that they see. So I get them helping me with the cooking. I get them helping me with the cleaning. I get them clearing up the table and washing up. They do all of that in this house. Do they do it willingly? No. Do I do it willingly? No! But we do it. Because it's a balance of all of it. If we keep buying into the patriarchal, men are stronger and men are higher, that's exactly what we're going to keep creating. Now, I don't believe either that women are higher. I think women are incredibly powerful. We give birth. We are the creation of life. But we couldn't do that without a man. It's not like we do that on our own. We could not do that without a man. It takes both. It takes the masculine and the feminine to have a balance in life. So that's why I'm bringing the woman into this, rather than just a mum. Because if we want to change our society, it starts with us. It starts with us being willing to step into our feminine power. And if you're anything like me, that absolutely scares the shit out of me, because I have generations where that power was burned at the stake, persecuted and ripped from life. So it comes with a lot of fear. I'm dealing with that, I'll share more on that when I understand it more, because I'm not sure that I do right now. But it comes with a willingness to be courageous. So that's why I'm changing the name. I'm also changing the day it drops, so you'll start seeing that I talk about it on the social medias on a Thursday rather than a Friday. But even though I talk about it on a Thursday, the powers of their algorithms are gonna send it in front of you, if they send it in front of you at all, at any day. But if you really like this podcast, get into the habit of looking for it on a Thursday. Is there anything else that I'm changing? Not at this point. I've got a couple of things, like, percolating, but I'm not really ready to talk about them yet. Gonna be exciting when I do, but look out for that. And I can't wait to share it with you when I've cemented it in my mind. In the meantime, over the next few weeks, I've got a number of experts coming in talking to me. So, I really believe that the balance in life is mind, body, and spirit. I'm an expert at the mind part of it. I'm not an expert in the body and the spirit, so I'm bringing in experts who are to come and talk to me and have those beautiful conversations, so that we expand our capacity to learn all of it. So look for those over the next couple of weeks. And if all of this resonates with you, and deep inside there's a very definite yes, I'm ready to look at myself, I'm ready to do this work, my doors have reopened. You can find all the information out on my website, just go to the Frequently Asked Questions page. And I cannot book a consult court with me, because I cannot wait to talk to you, to see we're just gonna have a conversation to see if we're the right fit. All the links will also be below in the show notes. Have the most amazing week. It's wonderful to be back, and I'll speak to you all again next week in my first interview. Take care bye.