Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Mums podcast show. I’m your host, and for nearly 2 decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence-based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise, and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work life and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time. I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s get on with today’s episode. Hello and welcome back to Wisdom for Working Mums. I’m your host, Nicky Lowe, and if you’re listening when this episode comes out in August, there’s a good chance you’ve got a summer holiday coming up. Or perhaps you’re already away, and can I ask you something? When was the last time you went on holiday and genuinely switched off? Not just kind of left the office behind, but left it behind in your mind too.

Nicky Lowe [00:01:17]:
Could you resist checking your emails, ignore the Teams notifications, stop wondering what was happening while you were away, or perhaps quietly planning everything that would be waiting Perhaps you’re listening thinking, Nicky, I’m on holiday with young children, rest isn’t exactly on the agenda, and I understand that completely. As parents, holidays are rarely restful in the way the brochures promise. Most of the time they’re simply parenting in a different postcode. There are still meals to organise, bags to pack, arguments to referee, you know, there’s sun cream to apply. Yes, I know. And everyone else’s needs to anticipate. And for working mums in particular, finding genuine time to rest can be incredibly difficult. But even within that reality, there are sometimes small moments, you know, watching your children play without needing to fill the silence, or sitting with a coffee or an ice cream without reaching for your phone, allowing yourself to stare out at the sea without mentally reorganising what the next 3 months are going to look like.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:29]:
And for so many ambitious women, those small moments can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. Here in the UK, we’ve recently come through another period of really hot weather, the kind that seems to make everything slow down whether you like it or not. And in Mediterranean cultures, rest is often built more naturally into the rhythm of the day. And I’ll be honest with you, the idea of lying down in the middle of the afternoon still completely feels alien to me. You know, that idea of a siesta. And maybe it does to you too. And it always got me wondering why, why slowing down feels so uncomfortable for those of us who have spent our lives striving, achieving, and succeeding. Because here’s what 20 years of coaching high-performing women and my own experience of burnout has taught me: while finding the time to rest is hard, giving yourself permission can be even harder.

Nicky Lowe [00:03:28]:
Rest isn’t difficult only because our lives are busy. It can also be difficult because it challenges who we believe we need to be. And that’s what I want to unpack today, not because I think we all need to become better at relaxing, but because understanding why rest feels uncomfortable is one of the most useful wellbeing and leadership lessons we can learn, because it’s not only a time problem. Most of us assume that we struggle with rest because we’re busy, and we are, you know, that’s, that’s true. We’re leading teams, we’re meeting deadlines, we’re managing households, and we’re carrying that invisible cognitive and emotional load, trying to be present partners, parents, and professionals all of the time. So I don’t want to minimise the genuine issue of time, and for many working mothers, there simply isn’t enough space in the day But I don’t think time is the whole story because even when we do find a small pocket of time, many of us don’t know how to inhabit it. We fill it, we check something, we organise something, we think ahead, we tell ourselves we’ll rest once the kitchen is tidy, the messages are answered, or the next piece of work is finished, and of course it never really is. There is a well-established area of psychological research known as the contingencies of self-worth.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:54]:
And the psychologists Jennifer Crocker and Cheryl Wolf proposed that when our sense of value becomes so tied to a particular domain such as achievement, performance, or being needed, our self-esteem rises and falls according to how well we believe we’re doing in that area. And for many high achievers, that domain is productivity. Success stops being something we do, it becomes part of who we believe we are. We become the capable one, the dependable one, the person who handles everything, and the person who anticipates the problem before anyone else has even noticed it. And that identity can become enormously rewarding, like it can really give us that dopamine hit. It can build our careers, it can mean that we lead teams, we support our family, and we can actually create extraordinary things. But it also comes at a cost, because if my sense of value depends on being productive, useful, and needed, What happens when I stop? If I’m not achieving, producing, organizing, or helping, who am I? And that’s a much deeper question than simply finding time to rest. There’s a physiological and a psychological side to this too.

Nicky Lowe [00:06:16]:
There’s Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert, back in, I think it was 2010, published research exploring what people were thinking and feeling throughout their everyday life, and they found that people’s mind wandered for a significant proportion of their waking hours, and that mind wandering was associated with lower mood. I think about that finding when I picture like a high achiever finally sitting down on a sun lounger. She hasn’t stopped moving, Sorry, she has stopped moving, but her mind hasn’t. Perhaps you can recognise this, reaching for your phone, checking emails just one more time, starting to mentally organise what, like, the next few months need— are needed. Perhaps it’s replaying a conversation with a colleague, or wondering whether anybody else needs you, and feeling strangely guilty for doing apparently nothing. And that isn’t because you’re bad at resting. It may be because your nervous system has spent months, maybe years, operating in that heightened state of alert, and it doesn’t know how to switch off when your laptop closes. Perhaps stress has become familiar and stillness hasn’t.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:39]:
And for many of us, busyness is not only about productivity. Sometimes it’s a way of avoiding uncertainty or uncomfortable emotions. Or questions we’d rather not sit with. When we slow down, we begin to notice what constant activity has helped us avoid. So of course, stillness can feel uncomfortable. It gives everything we’ve been outrunning a chance to catch up. And there’s another useful concept from occupational psychology called the psychological detachment. Psychological detachment means mentally disengaging from our work during non-work time, and it simply Away isn’t about being physically away from your desk.

Nicky Lowe [00:08:26]:
You can be sitting beside a swimming pool or walking through the countryside or having dinner with your family, but part of your mind is still very much at work. You might be rehearsing tomorrow’s meeting or thinking through a difficult conversation or wondering what’s happening in your absence. It may be trying to solve a problem you’ve technically stepped away from. So physical distance from work doesn’t automatically create that psychological distance, and research into psychological detachment has consistently associated the ability to mentally switch off with benefits such as lower exhaustion, better sleep, improved focus, and importantly, switching off does not mean becoming less engaged or less ambitious. Recovery is part of what allows us to re-engage with more energy and clarity, but there’s a really frustrating dynamic here that psychologists sometimes describe as the recovery paradox. The times when we most need recovery are often the times when we find it hardest to disengage, and I can so relate to that. When work feels manageable, it may be relatively easier to switch off, but when the pressure is high and the stakes feel more significant, Or uncertainty is everywhere, the mind keeps returning to work precisely because it believes staying alert will protect us. So the greater the pressure, the harder it can be to step back, and yet that is often when recovery matters most.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:05]:
So if you’re struggling to switch off, I don’t want you to hear that as another thing you’re failing at. It may simply be a sign that your system has been carrying too much for too long. And I know this because I’ve lived it. You know, you’ve probably heard my story before, but when I experienced burnout, I initially assumed recovery meant sleep. I thought that if I rested enough physically, everything else would eventually sort itself out, but it didn’t. Sleep mattered, of course sleep mattered, but the hardest part of my recovery wasn’t learning how to sleep. I actually was getting good sleep even with my burnout. It was learning to stop believing that my worth depended on how much I could do.

Nicky Lowe [00:10:52]:
It was recognizing that I didn’t know how to be still without feeling guilty, and I’d confused kind of exhaustion with my level of commitment and my level of worth. And I’d— somewhere along the way, I’d absorbed this idea that if I was coping, producing, and delivering, that it meant that I was good enough, that I was succeeding. And during that period, I read Karen Brody’s book Daring to Rest. And if you’ve not listened to my podcast episode with Karen, I’d really recommend you do. It’s the podcast episode Daring to Rest. And the one idea that stopped me in my tracks, the suggestion that rest can be actually a courageous act rather than a passive one. And that word courageous stayed with me because rest didn’t feel natural. It absolutely felt uncomfortable to me.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:46]:
It actually felt rebellious. I’d grown up probably probably like you, in a culture that celebrates busyness, where exhaustion is quietly worn as that badge of honor. And so I’d absorbed the message that slowing down meant that I wasn’t trying hard enough. But burnout forced me to question that. And looking back, I wasn’t only recovering from exhaustion, I was redefining my definition of success, a definition that had stopped serving me. And the World Health Organization classifies burnout an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. And I find that reframing that genuinely useful because burnout isn’t a personal failure. It isn’t proof that you aren’t resilient enough.

Nicky Lowe [00:12:39]:
It’s just a pattern. And I see this play out every time I host the retreat with— you’ve heard me talk about James Glover. James and I co-host, um, a leadership retreat up in the beautiful Peak District, and we call it our Purpose Immersion. And James has invited me to co-host with him over the last few years. And one of the first things we invite our participants to do is put all of their devices away, so they almost have a digital detox. It’s not that they can’t look at them, but they have to leave them in their bedrooms. And we’re there for kind of 4 days, and we just invite them to slow down, to reflect, to walk, to sit quietly. And it’s often the most, like, I call it discombobulating experience for the participants.

Nicky Lowe [00:13:31]:
Um, most of these participants have been women, and a lot of them are asking, like, what am I supposed to be doing? They— we have this amazing private chef come in and, um, cook and host all the hospitality for us, an amazing guy called Mike. And Mike gets offended if we don’t allow him to serve us. So like, he, he, you know, he’s serving the food, but he cleans up as well. So he will take the plates and he will wash up. And like, he’s like, just leave it. And so many times the women are asking, this feels really uncomfortable. I don’t like somebody serving on me. I don’t like not doing anything.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:10]:
And they find that they want to reach for their phone. And they tell me that they feel really guilty simply for sitting with a cup of tea. And these are extraordinary women, you know, they’re senior leaders, women who walk into a boardroom and hold a room without blinking. Yet asking them to sit and just do nothing for 20 minutes can feel harder than presenting to like an executive team. And that tells me something really important. This isn’t laziness, it’s conditioning. We’ve become so practiced at doing that many of us lost the muscle memory to simply be. And here’s where I want to bring in a piece of thinking I found more useful than almost anything in this work.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:53]:
I am trained in a form of psychological training called Gestalt therapy, and there is this concept in Gestalt that’s called the paradoxical theory of change by a guy called Arnold Bazer, and his central idea that meaningful change happens when we morph fully accept where we are than constantly trying to force ourselves into becoming something else. So it’s almost like the harder we fight our current state, pushing it, resisting it, and telling ourselves we shouldn’t feel this way, the more we can get stuck. So change doesn’t come through coercion. Sometimes it comes simply through presence. And I think that can be really useful when we’re high achievers. If we treat rest like another project, like something to optimise, something to master, something to do correctly, we arrive on holiday going, right, I need to relax now. Then we can become really frustrated that our minds are still racing and we judge ourselves more. We can feel more irritated that we haven’t kind of constantly transformed into this calmer version of ourselves, and we can feel like we’re failing at that.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:08]:
But the paradox of change suggests a more— a different approach. Don’t begin by trying to eliminate the discomfort, just notice it, let yourself be there. You might say to yourself, like, that’s my planning mind, there’s the urge to check my emails, there’s my guilt. And noticing it without trying to fix or suppress it, it almost loosens its grip. And I remember Again, during my burnout journey, I was like, I need to take more relaxing baths. And I’d get in the bath and I’d be like, the water’s not the right temperature, or I’ve not put enough bubble bath in, or the bathroom’s a mess. And like, literally, this was meant to be this really calming, nervous system regulating experience, wasn’t. So I want you to not go into this thought of rest like it is this thing that you need to do perfectly.

Nicky Lowe [00:17:04]:
And Also to not feel like you’ve got to be ready to rest. And this idea sits alongside another therapeutic approach I use, which is this idea of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. And at its heart, this approach doesn’t ask us to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling before we can take meaningful action. Instead, it asks us to notice again and just make room for the discomfort while still choosing actions aligned with what matters most. So the acceptance bit is about accepting that our brains are not there to make us feel happy and relaxed. Actually, our brains are there just as a survival mechanism, so they’re often looking for threat, so they’re often triggered into this like, um, kind of fight and flight. So just accept that, that instead Be committed to what you want. So it asks us to notice and make room for the discomfort while still choosing.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:10]:
So that’s that commitment bit. Actions aligned with what matters most. So if you apply this to rest, it looks like you don’t need to feel relaxed before you’re allowed to rest. You don’t need the guilt to disappear, and you don’t need your mind to become completely quiet. You can notice the restlessness, you can notice the urge to check your phone and the itch to be useful and choose to remain where you are anyway, not because the discomfort has gone but because presence matters to you or recovery matters to you or maybe your health matters to you or maybe being emotionally available to your family matters to you. You can accept that rest feels difficult And still choose it. And that is how we begin to rest even when we don’t feel ready. And I think it’s also useful to know that growth actually happens when we’re resting.

Nicky Lowe [00:19:11]:
I think we understand the relationship between effort and recovery much more easily in other areas of high performance. So if we take elite athletes, they don’t train to maximum intensity every hour of every day. They build recovery into the program because recovery is part of high performance. They know that training creates the stimulus, but the recovery allows the adaption. So we’ll— you’ll hear athletes talk about the muscle is built in, in the rest. It’s not built when you’re working out, it’s built in the rest. So the working out, like, tears the muscle, the rest Kind of repairs it and rebuilds it stronger. So growth doesn’t happen during the performance part, it happens in the space after the effort.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:01]:
The body repairs, the nervous system settles, learning becomes integrated. That’s why it’s often, you know, when we’re in the shower or on the toilet or out on a walk, we’ll get our best ideas because that’s where our brain is integrating. And Whilst we know that, in our professional life many of us behave as though the progress can only come from doing more— more hours, more output, more availability, more effort. We treat recovery as the lost time rather than part of the process. But we know our minds need space too— space to process, space to integrate, to notice patterns, to make connections, to see possibilities that are difficult to access when we’re constantly reacting. As I say, it’s why some of our best ideas rarely arrive when we’re staring at a screen trying to force them. So it’s one of the conditions that makes sustainable high performance possible. And there’s another reason why this matters.

Nicky Lowe [00:21:06]:
How we relate to rest doesn’t just affect us, it communicates something to the people around us. You may have heard the concept of the leadership shadow. It’s like the shadow that we cast, so our behaviour cast a shadow on other people. So if we’re answering emails late at night, if we are available to our team throughout a holiday, the team learn what’s expected of them. Even if we say, please make sure you switch off, people don’t just pay attention to what they say, they pay attention to what we do. They notice what gets rewarded, they notice who is always online, they notice when someone who takes a proper break is treated as committed or quietly judged. So we set the emotional and behavioural tone of a team, often without realising it. And the opposite can be true too.

Nicky Lowe [00:22:04]:
When we take proper time away, when we protect our non-working hours, when we do it without apologising for having disconnected, we make recovery safer for the people around us. We send the message that rest is not evidence of a lack of ambition. It’s part of working sustainably. And for working mothers in leadership, this can feel really complicated because many of us already worry that setting boundaries between our work and life will make us appear less committed or less ambitious or less dependable. And we may feel that we have more to prove. We may feel that we have to compensate for being a mother by demonstrating a constant commitment But modelling health and recovery is about stepping away from our role in leadership. It is part of our leadership because the culture of a team is shaped not only by what a leader says, but what they demonstrate is acceptable. So when you rest, you are not only protecting your own capacity, you may also be giving someone else the permission to protect their own capacity.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:16]:
And many high achievers believe slowing down will make them less effective, but sustained stress narrows our thinking. Under pressure, we’re more likely to default to kind of familiar responses, kind of becomes our negative normal. We become less curious, less creative, less patient. I know that one well. And our attention contracts around whatever feels most urgent. And that might help us respond to an immediate threat, but it doesn’t always help us think strategically or connect meaningfully or make wise long-term decisions. Recovery helps us to kind of widen our lens. It gives us a better and restores kind of a more healthy perspective.

Nicky Lowe [00:24:01]:
It increases the chance that we’ll respond rather than react. And that is why rest cannot be dismissed as like a soft or an indulgent It affects the quality of our judgment. It sets the tone in our families and our teams, our capacity to listen, our ability to lead with intention rather than exhaustion. So rest isn’t a reward for getting things done. It’s a leadership practice, and it’s something that can feel really uncomfortable, as we’ve said. So When you sit down to rest and your mind immediately starts organizing September, don’t fight it. Don’t tell yourself you’re doing rest wrong or you’re failing at rest. Just notice, there’s my planning brain again, there’s that work thought, there’s my urge to check my emails.

Nicky Lowe [00:24:59]:
And remember, you don’t need to follow every thought simply because it’s arrived. Noticing creates like that small amount of space between you and the urge, and sometimes that space is just enough to make a different choice. So what I’d like to kind of give you is that ability to name what you’re feeling honestly. Maybe it’s guilt, maybe it’s restlessness, maybe it’s boredom, maybe it’s the itch to be useful. Or the fear that you’re falling behind, and let that feeling sit alongside you rather than trying to argue it away. And then ask yourself, what matters more to me in this moment than being productive? Perhaps it’s presence with your children, connection with your partner, your own recovery and your own health, or just a space to think, or just a space to be. And choose the action that serves your values, even while the discomfort is still there. As I say, you do not have to feel ready to rest.

Nicky Lowe [00:26:11]:
Being away from work is not enough if work is constantly traveling with you through your phone, so think about what would help you create a clearer boundary. You know this already, but do you need to remove work email from your phone for the week? Maybe turn notifications off. Tell your team when you will and won’t be available. Really create that clear handover so you aren’t carrying every responsibility in your head. And if you’re a leader, could you explicitly tell your team that you don’t expect responses from them outside their working hours? Can you model what genuine time away looks like? Because permission matters. Often people need to see that permission embodied before they believe it’s real. So if you’re lucky enough to have some time away over the coming weeks, I’d love you to get curious. Notice what happens when you stop, not only around you but within you.

Nicky Lowe [00:27:11]:
What thoughts show up? What guilt appears? What stories are playing out? Maybe it’s, I should be doing something, or I haven’t earned this, or if I slow down I’ll fall behind, or people will think I’m not committed, or everything will fall apart without me. Those stories can be far more exhausting than the workload itself, and once you notice them, without needing to fix them immediately, we can begin to question whether they’re actually true and they’re actually helpful. Because perhaps the best thing you can do this summer won’t be climbing another mountain or ticking something off your bucket list. Perhaps it will simply be giving yourself permission to pause, not because you’ve earned it, not because you’ve finally finished everything, but because rest is not a reward reserved for productive people. It’s part of how we remain well enough to keep doing the things that matter. It helps us think more clearly, Lead more intentionally, connect more deeply, and love more fully. So thank you for listening, and if today’s episode resonated with you, I’d love for you to share it with another ambitious working mum who may need this reminder before she heads away this summer. And until next time, take good care of yourself.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:33]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d love for you to share it on social media. Or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to illuminate-group.co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on iTunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together we can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening. Until next time, take care. Take care.