The Rest You Finally Gave Yourself

Have you ever felt guilty about taking leave?

Not just the vague, low-level guilt of being away, but the kind that starts before you've even booked anything. The kind that makes you second-guess the dates, rearrange your plans around everyone else's needs, and wonder if you're being selfish for wanting a break at all.

I have. More times than I care to count.

Working in HR meant that certain weeks were simply off the table. Payroll had to be processed, and there was no flexibility around it. Those blocked-out weeks quietly ate into the calendar month after month, leaving only narrow pockets of time to plan anything meaningful.

In a different role, the nature of my work made weekends particularly demanding. Events, activities, and the preparation for them all fell during the week, which meant that taking a block of leave, whether on weekdays or over a weekend, meant someone would have to step in and cover for me. I never wanted to leave a gap. A long weekend trip with friends became a logistical puzzle, because my availability was always the variable that needed solving first. My peers would have to shuffle their own plans to accommodate mine, and even asking felt like an imposition.

So I held back. And when I did want to plan something, I would talk to the team first, work it through, make sure everything was accounted for. It wasn't that my workplace would have refused me the time. It was that I couldn't quite give myself permission until I was certain no one would be left without support.

And even then, the guilt followed me on the trip.

My mind would drift back to what was waiting on my desk. Messages would come through on the group chat while I was overseas. The rest I thought I was having was only ever partial, because part of me was still at work.

The trip that finally changed that came after my tenure with the company ended. My first solo trip. No team chat to monitor. No inbox slowly filling up. No quiet dread of the return.

For once, there was nothing to pull me back. I walked through nature trails, ate well, went hiking, and even did a paragliding session I had been looking forward to for longer than I could remember. It was the most genuinely restful I had felt in years, not because the trip was extraordinary, but because I was finally, completely, present.

That is what real rest feels like. Not the absence of work. The absence of waiting for work to reclaim you.

And here is what I want to be clear about: I did not need to leave my job to find that.

My first genuinely restful trip happened to come after my tenure ended, but the tenure ending was not the reason. The reason was that, for the first time, I gave myself full permission to be away. There was no mental tab left open, no part of me standing by on standby. I was simply there.

That shift is available to any of us, whether we are still employed, between roles, or somewhere in between. It is not about the job. It is about the quiet, deliberate decision to stop being half-present on your own holiday. To stop rehearsing Monday while you are still living Saturday.

Rest is not a reward for leaving. It is a choice you make about where you allow your mind to be.

If this resonated with you, I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment or send me a message. And if you know someone who hasn't properly switched off in a while, share this with them. The mindset shift is simpler than we think. We just rarely give ourselves permission to make it.