Hey Sis,

I don’t know if you knew this about me — but last year I took a three-month sabbatical.

Not a vacation. Not a long weekend. A full three months away from clinical medicine.

There was a leadership change at work and I could feel burnout creeping back in. Because I’ve learned some hard lessons, I recognized the feeling immediately. I knew I couldn’t stay. And I knew I couldn’t just jump straight into the next thing either.

I needed a real break. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one.

Now — I’m still me. So of course I had a whole plan. I was going to work out every day. Declutter the house. Reorganize everything. Get my business to a place I’d been dreaming about.

Sis. I did almost none of it.

Once I stopped, I realized just how exhausted I truly was. Not just tired. Not just sleep-deprived. Completely, deeply, bone-level REST deprived. And what shocked me most was discovering how long it actually takes to recover.

Three months. And I’d estimate I only got myself to about 75%.

Let that sink in.

Three months of intentional rest and I was still not fully recovered. So this idea that a weekend away, a week of vacation, or even a staycation is enough? I’m here to lovingly tell you — it’s not. And you already know it isn’t.

Because I know you. Your “vacation” isn’t really rest. It’s just you working your other job — catching up on the house, the laundry, the appointments, all the things that pile up when you give so much of yourself everywhere else. You come back to work more tired than when you left and wonder what’s wrong with you.

Nothing is wrong with you. You just haven’t actually rested.

Rest is not just sleep. It is so much deeper than that. There are actually 7 types of rest — and most of us are only ever recovering one of them while the other six stay empty.

I’m not telling you that you need three months off to feel better. I know that’s not available to everyone. What I AM telling you is that true restoration requires three things:

Intention. You have to decide that your rest matters enough to protect it.

Awareness. You need to know which types of rest YOUR body and mind are actually starving for.

Consistency. Small acts of restoration — woven intentionally throughout your days and weeks — add up. Just like self-care doesn’t require a full luxury spa day to count, restoration doesn’t require three months of nothingness to be real.

Restoration does require that you stop treating rest like a reward and start treating it like the requirement it actually is.
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​I broke down all 7 types today — tap here to see which ones you’ve been skipping.

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I see you, Sis. And I want better for you than just surviving.

Rest deeply!

Chat soon,

Nikia