You know you need a break. So why does rest feel like failure? In this episode, we’ll unpack why guilt shows up the moment you slow down—and how to shift it, without abandoning your ambition.

Welcome to The Lawyer Burnout Solution, the podcast for women attorneys who want to stay in the careers they worked so hard to build—without running themselves into the ground. I’m Heather Mills, and every week, I’ll share the tools, strategies, and mindset shifts you need to reclaim your energy, confidence, and career.

Let me guess—there’s a part of you that knows rest is important. You’ve tried to take it seriously: scheduled weekends, blocked out time, closed your laptop early. But instead of relief, you felt… guilty.

Your brain whispered:
“I have to keep pushing through, people are counting on me.”
“If I rest now, I’ll fall behind.”
“They’ll think I’m not committed.”

Even when your body is begging for rest, your mind sees it as a risk. If that’s happening for you, I want you to know: There’s nothing wrong with you for wanting or needing rest. You’ve just been conditioned to see rest as something you have to earn.

This isn’t just a mindset issue—it’s a system issue. The legal profession rewards you for being available 24/7, for never saying no, for putting client needs above your own—even when your own body is screaming for a break. That part of your brain that is telling you rest is weakness? That’s your lawyer brain, trained by a profession—and a culture—that profits from your exhaustion, and by patriarchal values that equate self-sacrifice with virtue.

When you feel guilty for resting, your nervous system stays on high alert. That’s why even after a weekend away, you can come back just as tired. Real rest requires safety. When guilt hijacks your downtime, your body can’t do the repair work it’s supposed to do. You’re physically off, but internally still bracing for impact—like a silent alarm that never shuts off.

This keeps you in a cycle where you’re exhausted, resentful, questioning whether this career is sustainable, and telling yourself, “I just need to get through this week.” But that week never ends.

Let’s get on the same page about what rest is, really. Rest isn’t just sleep or doing nothing. It’s anything that helps your body and mind return to a baseline of safety.

It might look like going for a walk without your phone. Or canceling a meeting you didn’t need to take. Or reading something that has nothing to do with your career.

What rest is not? Collapsing on the couch, doom-scrolling while your inner critic berates you for not working. That’s not rest. That’s shutdown.

True rest is chosen. It’s a conversation with your body that says: you don’t have to earn this. You’re safe now.

Let me tell you about a woman in law whose story has stayed with me. She was a high-performing lawyer at a national firm—respected, billable, dependable. But underneath the surface, she lived with a constant fear: that if she slowed down or took a real break, she’d be seen as weak, or worse—replaceable.

She believed that rest was a risk she couldn’t afford. That the moment she took her foot off the gas, she’d lose everything she had worked for.

But when she finally left that job—on her own terms—they didn’t replace her with one person. Or two. They had to hire four people to absorb her workload. Four.

She hadn’t just been holding up her role—she had been holding up a system that quietly depended on her self-sacrifice. Her brain had convinced her that rest meant failure, but the reality proved the opposite. She was never at risk of being fired. But she had internalized that catastrophizing as truth.

That’s what this system does to us: it makes exhaustion feel safer than rest.

If you’re nodding along, I want to invite you to check in for a second. Where is guilt showing up in your body right now? Tight chest? Clenched jaw? A buzzing under the surface?

Now ask yourself: What would it feel like—just for this moment—if I didn’t have to earn rest? If I didn’t have to prove anything to anyone today? That feeling of relief in your body? That’s how the rewiring begins.

And I’ll be honest—this shows up for me too. Every week, I schedule a voice lesson. It brings me joy, helps me reconnect with myself, and has absolutely nothing to do with productivity. And almost every week, I think about canceling.

My brain tells me, “You haven’t earned this. You should be using that time to catch up.” That voice—the one that says joy has to be justified—is the same lawyer brain I’ve been helping my clients unlearn.

What I’ve realized is this: rest doesn’t always look like naps or bubble baths. Sometimes it looks like choosing joy even when it feels inefficient. Sometimes it looks like keeping the voice lesson.

So how do you actually work with guilt instead of against it?

First, name the guilt—but don’t automatically believe it. Ask yourself: “Whose voice is this really? Is this thought serving me, or is it just an old rule I picked up from the legal system—a system built on patriarchal values that profits from our exhaustion?” Then, try on a new thought: “Rest is a human right, not a reward. I’m allowed to want it, not just need it.”

Start small. Try resting for 10 minutes and see what happens. The more you practice, the more your brain will learn that rest is safe, even when the system tells you otherwise.

Rest isn’t just about what you do—it’s about the relationship you have with yourself while you do it. The more compassion you can bring to those moments of guilt, the less control it will have over you.

Guilt says, “I did something wrong.” Shame says, “There’s something wrong with me.” If guilt crosses into shame, offer yourself compassion, not correction. You are not broken for needing rest. You are human.

The second step is to redefine rest as a professional responsibility.

And I had a client—an associate at a top firm—who used to tell herself, “If I don’t stay on top of every detail, I’ll get benched, or worse.” So even on vacation, she’d check her email five times a day. She thought that was being responsible. But what she realized was—no one was actually expecting that level of constant vigilance. It was her internalized pressure. Now, she sets a clear autoresponder and deletes her apps during time off. Not only has she kept her role—her reviews actually improved.

You’ve been taught that if you just work harder, you’ll finally feel better. But working harder only feeds the burnout cycle. Real recovery starts when you stop believing that myth. You don’t serve your clients well when you’re depleted. You don’t make great decisions when your brain is flooded with cortisol.

Rest is not the opposite of excellence. It’s what allows you to sustain it. You wouldn’t run a marathon on a broken ankle. But somehow, we expect ourselves to lead legal teams, argue motions, or draft deals while running on empty.

What if you stopped seeing rest as indulgence—and started seeing it as strategy?

The third step is to gather proof that rest is safe.

I worked with a lawyer who was in-house at a tech company. She was afraid to log off Slack—even for lunch—because she thought, “If I’m not visibly responsive, they’ll think I’m slacking.”

We started small. One 15-minute lunch, away from her screen, with a clear status message. The world didn’t fall apart. Her energy returned. And more importantly—her anxiety began to loosen its grip.**

Try this: close your eyes for two minutes and just breathe. Notice what happens in your body. That’s not laziness—that’s teaching your nervous system that rest is safe. Look back at a time you rested—maybe just for an hour, or a night—and nothing fell apart.

Use that moment as evidence. Because your brain needs repetition to believe something new. Maybe you took a tech-free walk and came back with more clarity. Maybe you stopped working at 6 and your client didn’t even notice. These moments matter. They rewire the guilt.

The Fourth and final step I have for you today is to separate rest from this idea that you have to earn it.
 

This comes up all the time, especially with women who’ve been told their whole lives that their value comes from how much they can get done.

One client—a mid-career litigator—told me, “I can't rest until after the work is done.” But the work? It was never done. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt fully off-duty. Even when she wasn’t billing, she was mentally scanning her to-do list, feeling like she was falling behind.

We started to unpack that belief: that rest has to be earned. And that only after everything is crossed off her list would she deserve to rest. We reframed rest—not as weakness or indulgence, but as a leadership move. Strategic recovery.

Now, she blocks 30 minutes after court appearances where she decompresses without guilt. She breathes, stretches, reflects—not to justify it to anyone, but because it helps her reset. It’s become a ritual, not a reward.

You are not a robot with billable hour batteries. You are a person with value that isn’t measured in checkboxes. We’ve inherited a cultural script that says productivity is virtue. That rest is something you get only after you’ve proven yourself—again and again.

But you don’t need to prove anything to earn oxygen. You don’t need to perform to earn dignity. Rest isn’t the prize for doing everything right. It’s the foundation for being able to show up in the first place.

Before we wrap, here’s a quick recap of the four shifts we covered to work with the guilt that comes up about resting: Number one: name the guilt—and notice the story it’s telling you, without automatically believing it.
Number two: redefine rest as a professional responsibility—not a luxury or a sign of weakness.

Number three: gather proof that rest is safe—so your brain and body can learn to trust it.
Number four: separate rest from deserving—you don’t have to earn rest. You get to have it because you’re human.

Here’s what I want you to take away from this episode: the guilt you feel around rest? It’s not proof that something is wrong. It’s proof that you’re up against a system that taught you your worth had to be earned.

But you don’t have to work without rest in order to be a successful lawyer. You’re allowed to rest —not because you’ve done enough, but because you are enough. And when you do rest, you're going to find that you're a more effective lawyer. 

And -- You begin to break the burnout cycle—not by pushing through it, but by relating to yourself differently inside it.

This week, try one tiny act of rest—close your laptop at 6, take a five-minute walk, or just sit quietly for two minutes. Notice what happens. That’s how the rewiring begins.

If you’re not sure where to begin, I built something just for that. My free Burnout Recovery AI Assistant can help you figure out what phase of burnout you’re in and what your next step might be. It’s confidential, personalized, and rooted in the method I use with my coaching clients. You can try it at heathermillscoaching.com/aiassistant.

If this episode spoke to you, hit follow or subscribe. Every week, I share practical tools to help you unwind burnout—not by doing more, but by untangling what’s driving it.

And if you know another lawyer who feels like she has to earn her right to rest, send this her way. When we talk openly about rest and burnout, we loosen the grip of guilt and begin building a culture where well-being is the norm—not the exception.

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself this week—especially if your brain tries to convince you that rest is selfish. You’re not broken for needing a break. You’re human. See you next time.