Not a Wellness Plan. Just What Helped. Eventually.

Image: A woman sits quietly with her notebook and coffee, writing relevations after therapy.

At some point, I stopped searching for solutions and just started noticing what made me feel slightly less awful. Like standing still. Tidying a drawer. Crying during that podcast episode about the killer whale that had starred in Free Willy.

Since I’ve been sharing the slow, strange thaw that is healing from burnout, it feels right to talk about what helped me. Not fixed me, nor transformed me. Just... helped.

And let’s be clear: most of these things I started, abandoned, forgot, rolled my eyes at, and then quietly returned to—days, weeks, sometimes months later. Because they helped. Eventually. They’re embarrassingly ordinary, which is perhaps why they worked. So let’s just put them out there.

One Hour a Week, and Everything Around It
Therapy mattered. Of course it did. An hour a week to unspool four decades of tension tucked into my shoulders. But it was everything around that hour that quietly shifted me.
The walk there and back.
The half hour over coffee afterwards. Sitting with whatever had surfaced and writing it down.
Scribbling “that was hard” or “my body aches this morning” in a notebook.
That small pocket of inward focus made space. And when you’re running on empty, space is a miracle.

What Once Worked
I kept doing the things that used to help. There is always something in your arsenal.
The gym, twice a week—just to remind myself I had muscles.
Walks. Not meditative strolls. More like stubborn plods.
I went to the market, bought tomatoes, made a salad.
Or really great toast with something vaguely nutritious.
Or that rice and lentil thing I messed up three times.
Didn’t matter. The point was: I exercised and fed myself. That counted.

The Reassurance of Small, Repeated Things
Making the bed in the morning. With “I know how to do this” care, and hospital corners and decorative pillows.
Keeping my space tidy—not perfect, just functional. Folding the laundry quietly and meaningfully.
The quiet act of choosing rest—early sleep despite protestations of ex-boyfriends, and 8–9 hours as standard to allow my body and mind to reset.
The basic maintenance required when running on fumes.
These helped. Eventually.

Stillness, Without Earning It
Rest was hardest.
Doing nothing without guilt felt almost impossible at first.
Sitting still without trying to improve or optimise or solve.
Just breathing or meditating.
Letting the thoughts pass by like taxis I wasn’t flagging down.
The voice that told me I was lazy? I named her. Stella.
Stella had opinions. Not all of them helpful.
Some days I told her to bugger off.
Other days, we negotiated.

Relearning the Basics (Again and Again)
Some days it took three tries to write a one-line email.
Some days it felt like a miracle just to pick a jumper and get out the door.
Even my writing had gone back to the shapes that my 10 year old self used to make and I had to carefully start to craft letters and words anew.
I had to rediscover the basics—not as things I should already know, but as small decisions I could practise.
Slowly.
Without grading myself.

One Tiny Thing
Some days, the win was tiny.
A text to a friend.
Standing in the garden.
Booking the appointment I’d been ignoring.
Any small task that reconnected me to the world counted.
I didn’t need to feel better to act—I just needed to move slightly, gently, in the direction of life.

Following the Quiet No…
When people offered advice—freelance gigs, new jobs, more of the same—I noticed the quiet no in my gut.
Not ungrateful. Just clear.
That no led me somewhere new.

…and the Persistent Whisper
Hiring a business coach was when I looked ahead instead of just trying to stay upright.
What came from my sessions with Claire was a quiet tug rather than a bolt of inspiration.
That tug led to health. To coaching. To the two together.
To learning something new that actually felt alive.
I didn’t overhaul my life overnight. It was many whispers over years.
I studied for a few hours a week. I eventually started a business for a few hours more.
I noticed when it energised me—and when it didn’t.
I started working with that energy instead of punishing it for not being consistent.

All of Me, Even the Sharp Bits
Recovery also meant making peace with the parts of me I’d tried to squash: the restless one, the irritable one, the one who wants things to be better yesterday.
Those parts had protected me once.
And they still had something to offer.
I wasn’t trying to become some endlessly calm, endlessly grateful version of myself.
Just a version that could hold space for all of it.

Rediscovering Beauty
Beauty returned quietly. In the curve of my handwriting, the shape of my smile, the spark behind my laugh. In the way I showed up, imperfect but unapologetic.
It lived in the warmth of my immense hugs, the giving pulse of my soul, and the sharp clarity of my mind learning to trust itself again.
Not a polished perfection, but a gentle remembering: that even in fracture, there is light. That this messy, fierce self is enough.

The Thread Was Gentleness
Looking back, the only thing that truly worked was gentleness.
Not revolutions, nor hacks.
Just showing up for the quiet, boring stuff that carried more weight than it let on.
Stretching. Stepping into sunlight.
Breathing through panic, one inhale at a time.
Letting myself try again. On a Thursday. At 4:52pm. Without ceremony.
Not one single checklist.
Just a slow remembering.
And a willingness to keep returning to what helped—even if you forgot it yesterday.
Even if you’ll forget it again.