Inhale

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If you’re holding this book, there’s a reason.

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Maybe you’re exhausted. Maybe you’re overwhelmed and don’t know why. Maybe something in you is whispering: I can’t go on like this.

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I’ve been there. And because I have, I want to share something with you. 

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It isn’t a checklist or a burnout recovery guide. I’m not here to play expert or hand out tips. What I have is a story about what became possible when I finally stopped tuning out my inner voice and ignoring my body, which had been speaking all along.

 

As you enter it, you’ll walk with me from the subtle warning signs I brushed aside, through the crash I didn’t see coming, to the slow, imperfect journey of recovery. You’ll see how burnout reshaped my priorities, my work, my relationships… and how it gave me back my voice. You’ll also see the messy middle: the false starts, the doubt, the unlearning, and the small, ordinary choices that made the biggest difference.

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My hope is that, through my story, you’ll recognize pieces of your own, see you’re not imagining the weight you carry, and find the courage to set it down before you break.

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Writing a letter was how I began to set mine down.

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Words have always been my refuge. Since childhood, I’ve been crafting them into stories, plays, and movie scripts. But adulthood changed that. The kind of writing I loved began to fade. My career was built on words, yes, but it wasn’t the same. The words I shaped served deadlines and deliverables. They demanded creativity, but not the kind of imaginative play I had once lost myself in. Eventually, I stopped writing for myself. 

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Until January 3, 2025.

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It was the end of Christmas break. I was lying in bed in a hotel room, still shaken by a moment that had unravelled just days before (one you’ll come to later in these pages). As I was drifting off to sleep, a few sentences floated into my mind—clear, clean, and sharp. I remember thinking, Oh, this is good. There’s something here. I promised myself I’d write them down when I woke up.

 

By morning, they had slipped away, leaving only a faint impression that something in me was asking to be voiced. 

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Around lunchtime, they came back. Just as vivid. Just as persistent. And I knew. I knew I needed to stop everything else and write them down. Which surprised me because I’m the kind of person who sticks to the plan. I like order. Predictability. But that day, I dropped the plan, and I picked up my laptop instead.

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When I create, it’s a beautiful kind of chaos. Sentences come in no particular order. Ideas interrupt one another. That day was no different. It began with one sentence. Then another. Then a rush. Words poured out urgently. I gathered my ideas into loose clusters, shaping the early architecture of what would eventually become this book. When I looked up, I had written 8,857 words.

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Unedited. Unfiltered. Unapologetically honest.

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At first, I didn’t call it a book. I was just trying to get my feelings out, to make sense of the burning in my chest and the questions circling in my mind. It wasn’t easy, and yet I wrote my story because I couldn’t not write it. And yes, it cost me. But not writing it might have cost more.

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I was inspired in a way I hadn’t felt in years. I saw the shape it could take. The impact it could have. Not just what I had survived, but what that survival could mean to someone else.

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I realized something else, too. My story wasn’t just mine. It echoed something I saw all around me: women like me burning themselves down by degrees and calling it success.

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If this book could reach just one of them before she hits the wall, before she breaks in silence, then writing it was already worth it.

It could help her see that it’s okay to ask for help. To take a break. To take a pay cut.

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She doesn’t need permission.

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I kept thinking: What if it lands in the hands of a woman before she ends up in the ER on a Monday morning, terrified she’s having a heart attack, when, in reality, her body is just done carrying what she should never have been asked to hold? What if these words reach her in time?

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That thought kept me going. 

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It could have been so much worse for me. I see that now. I see how close I was to losing more than just my energy. How far I had pushed before I even recognized I was in trouble.

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Writing turned my hindsight into warning signs for myself, and hopefully for someone who needs them. Maybe that someone is you. Or your sister. Or your best friend. 

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Whoever she is, I don’t want her to wait as long (or hurt as quietly) as I did. I don’t want another woman to look at her children and wonder if they saw her break and if they’ll ever unsee it. I want her to know that pulling back isn’t a weakness. That rest isn’t selfish. That healing isn’t optional. That softness is strength.

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This book is mine. 

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But I wrote it for her. I wrote it for you.​​

 

© 2025 Rachel Anne Hamelin. ​​​