Everyday Vacations: How Micro-Escapes Prevent Burnout Artwork

Love From the Inside Out: Healing, Mindset and Confidence Tools for Women Navigating Anxiety and Midlife

Welcome to Love From the Inside Out, a podcast about healing, mindset, and confidence for women navigating anxiety, burnout, and midlife reinvention.

Hosted by Susan Kricun — former sports and entertainment PR executive turned storyteller, writer, and wellness advocate — the show blends heart, humor, and neuroscience to help women calm their minds, regulate their nervous systems, and reconnect with who they really are.

Each Thursday, Susan shares honest reflections and science-backed tools to help you move from survival mode to self-awareness. You’ll learn how to release stress, reframe your mindset, and rebuild inner confidence so you can live and love from the inside out.

If you’ve ever felt anxious, stuck, or ready for your next chapter, this show will remind you that peace, purpose, and clarity are already within reach — and it’s never too late to feel at home in yourself.

✨ New episodes every Thursday. Subscribe now and start your journey toward healing, confidence, and calm.

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Love From the Inside Out: Healing, Mindset and Confidence Tools for Women Navigating Anxiety and Midlife

Everyday Vacations: How Micro-Escapes Prevent Burnout

September 18, 2025 • Susan Kricun • Season 1 • Episode 9

Nearly a decade after first writing about “pressing the escape key,” I’m revisiting what self-care really means in 2025. Spoiler: it’s not about waiting for a once-a-year vacation or a system-wide crash to finally rest. It’s about creating micro-escapes — tiny daily choices that protect us from burnout, restore our energy, and bring us back to ourselves.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

Why burnout has become a modern badge of honor (and what Brené Brown calls “exhaustion as a status symbol”).
The arrival fallacy: why finishing the list never feels like enough.
How micro-habits retrain your brain (with insights from James Clear’s Atomic Habits).
Why “cognitive load” — the simple act of remembering everything — drains us more than we realize.
Practical ideas for creating “everyday vacations,” from naps and bookstore strolls to unplugging from email and tech.

I also share personal stories about resisting rest, what I discovered on vacation, and how I finally stopped letting email run my life.

👉 Grab my free Exhaustion Meter Quiz + Daily Micro-Escapes Checklist here.

And don’t miss the bonus journal prompts below to help you take this episode deeper.

If you’ve ever felt drained, overwhelmed, or stuck in busyness, this episode will remind you: self-care isn’t indulgence — it’s survival. And even the smallest escapes can create the biggest shifts.

Bonus Journal Prompts ✍️

What are the inherited stories or beliefs about rest and productivity that I’m still carrying — and do they actually serve me?
If I gave myself a daily “micro-vacation,” what would it look like? (Five minutes, one action, no guilt.)
Where in my life am I numbing with busyness instead of giving myself permission to feel?
Which of today’s “menu of escapes” resonated with me most, and how can I build it into my week?
When was the last time I felt truly restored, and what small element of that could I recreate today?

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🎶 Music Credit:
“Seize the Day” by Andrey Rossi, via #Uppbeat (uppbeat.io/t/andrey-rossi/seize-the-day)

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