E113: The Recipe for Rest without Guilt

Are you tired—or are you burned out?

In this powerful episode of The Kitchen Table Dreams Podcast, Coach Chef Kimberly Houston opens up about the moment she chose to close her photography business and what it revealed about burnout, boundaries, and reclaiming purpose. This isn’t just a story—it’s a permission slip.

If you’ve ever felt drained, overcommitted, or out of alignment, this slow-cooked episode is for you. Kimberly walks you through the 5 key ingredients in her “Recipe for Rest Without Guilt”:

• Permission: Reclaim your ‘yes’ by honoring your ‘no’
 • Boundaries: Protect your peace like your future depends on it
 • Reframing: Shift your mindset from obligation to intention
 • Strategy: Build rest into your routine, not just recovery
 • Community: Surround yourself with people who help you refill, not deplete

Whether you’re in a creative slump, facing decision fatigue, or just ready to stop running on empty, this conversation is your invitation to recalibrate.

✨ Want more support? Subscribe for weekly episodes that help culinary creators and entrepreneurs build a business that actually feels good.

🎧 Listen in and ask yourself: Am I managing my life, or is it managing me?

Chapters

• 0:00 The Journey to Closure: A Personal Reflection
• 6:55 Understanding Burnout: The Emotional Toll
• 9:32 Five Ingredients for Recovery: Permission and Boundaries
• 15:10 Reframing Mindsets: The Power of Perspective
• 21:17 Strategies for Sustainable Living: Rest and Community
• 28:19 The Overflow: Balancing Self-Care and Responsibility

Transcript

Kimberly Houston (00:01.356)
On today's episode, I want to tell you a story. I want to take you back in time to last summer, 2024, and the day that I made the decision to close my photography business. To a lot of people, it seemed like it came out of nowhere, but in all honesty, it had been building for months. And one of the things that I realized

was that there were so many changes happening in my life all at once that I really just kind of blew it all up. And I know that over the last couple of weeks, I have been rapid fire coaching people. So, so much, so much coaching has taken place. I've done literally over 30 coaching sessions in the past 60 days. And the thing that I can tell you is

The more I began to analyze what my life looked like last year, the more I was able to empathize with the people that I have been coaching for the last couple of weeks. What I would like to present to you today is...

slow cook episode. I know we've been dealing with recipes and we're gonna call this one a slow cooker recipe. I want to talk to you about what it's like when you feel burned out. I want to help you get through resting without guilt. Welcome to the kitchen table dreams podcast. I am your host

Coach Chef Kimberly Houston. And today we're going to spend a little time together talking about rest without guilt and the recipe to make that happen. So as I started this podcast and let you know that last year I closed my photography wing of my business.

Kimberly Houston (02:00.81)
The reason that I did that is that one, there were a lot of things happening too. I was preparing to move and so a lot of my photography equipment was packed up. But then also three, I started a new job, right? And so in doing all of those things, I was moving, I started a new job. I was very unsure of what my life was gonna look like and how things were gonna play out. And so the...

easiest thing for me to do last year was to relieve myself of some pressure. And the thing that kind of hit the chopping block was that particular wing of my business and I closed Studio Kimihoo. Now, one of the things that happened with this was I had to evaluate what caused me a lot of stress. While I absolutely love baking, cooking, and photography, what I did not love

was having to deal with clients that were not a good fit for me. And it hadn't registered to me yet that I just had the wrong clientele at the time. And we'll get into how I discovered those things and how it came around. One of the things that I want you to know and understand is that if you are tired, you can take a nap and you can feel better.

When you are burned out, you cannot. According to Time Magazine, burnout and tiredness are very different. Burnout causes us to question our purpose, lose our motivation, and destroy our emotional wellness. In essence, we lose our sense of self.

I've been coaching entrepreneurs for the past three years consistently. And one of the things that I realized by the time people get to me as a coach, they have lost that sense of purpose. And it has taken me time and understanding and learning and growth and maturity within this industry to understand that people need to be handled

Kimberly Houston (04:26.016)
a little bit differently and we as healers, we as lightworkers need to handle those who have been burnt out, who are facing extreme fatigue a little differently. You're not lazy, you're burned out. And that's two different things. You're gonna need more than a nap in order for rest to fully settle in.

Many entrepreneurs are susceptible to burnout creatively, financially, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, simply because when you work for someone else, the stress of how you're going to pay the bills, how you're going to keep the lights on, et cetera, juggling people, juggling schedules, all of that responsibility rests with someone else.

When you make the decision to become the boss, you have to make all of those decisions and decision fatigue is real. The more you subject yourself to decision fatigue, the more you realize that the things that you used to love no longer serve you. You begin to teeter along the lines of experiencing burnout. I thought that I was going through a creative drought last summer.

And so closing my photography wing of the Teach Me How to Bake brand made sense, right? Because that's where I needed to show up creatively. I needed to have beautiful photos. I needed to be able to think on my feet in order to be able to photograph the things, right? And so I was like, well, right now I'm just going through a creative drought. I'm going to go ahead and let this go. I have a new job. I don't really have to worry about money right now. It's fine.

And that's what I did. Around January, I realized that it wasn't just creative burnout. It wasn't just a creative issue or a moment in time. I was burned out in general. And so I want to have this conversation with you because this is something I have dealt with, again, for the past year.

Kimberly Houston (06:47.954)
I really began to pay attention to it in January, so much so. I've done so much research and so much thinking and praying and meditating on this. I'll actually be teaching multiple classes on bakery burnout in the coming months. And so I want to just give you a little taste of what that is going to look like for those who I will be meeting.

at different conferences across the US in the coming months. But I just I kind of want to give you a little taste of that on the podcast.

If I had known a year ago that I was facing burnout and not just a lot of stress, I probably would have handled my business very differently. Number one, I would have stopped and evaluated myself. I would have evaluated the things that bring me joy in my life, excuse me, and the things that do not.

One of the things that I have noticed in very specifically coaching outside of the culinary field for the past 10 months or so, I've been coaching entrepreneurs in general. One of the things that I noticed is that as humans, we all share this desire and this want to be well received.

And when you do not feel as though you are being well received, you will begin to internalize that. And so one of the things that we have to think about often is that our singular lived experience is also living among other people's singular lived experience.

Kimberly Houston (08:44.182)
And so when you do not receive the recognition that you want, that you desire, that you crave, that you need, you then internalize that as feeling like you're not showing up as your best self, as feeling like you are not where you are supposed to be. You will begin to question yourself. You will begin to experience extreme fatigue. You will begin to experience

tiredness that is unrelenting, you will begin to experience emotional, spiritual, and financial turmoil quite simply because you've gotten in your own

Kimberly Houston (09:29.11)
The beautiful thing about this is once you recognize it, you can stop the spiral, but you have to be able to recognize it. You have to be able to call it what it is. I've heard someone say you got to be able to name it to tame it, right? If you can name it, you can tame it. And so I want to give you the tools. I want to give you the ingredients. I want to give you the recipe to be able to do that.

So let's talk about five ingredients that will help you understand. Number one, how to take back control. Number two, how to wade through the muddy waters and come out on the other side. And number three, how do you show up as your best self?

and rest without the weight of guilt on your shoulders.

Kimberly Houston (10:33.646)
So those five ingredients, the first one is going to be permission. Number one, I want you to give yourself permission to sit back and analyze where you are in your life. I want you to think about the things that bring you joy, and I want you to think about the things that don't. I want you to think about the things that you do on a daily basis that you don't actually want to be doing.

I want you to become aware of saying yes to things when you really want to say no. My email signature says, if it's not a hell yes, it's a no. That is one of those lines that has become a thing for me over the past two years. And it's quite simply because a lot of times we say yes to things that we don't want to. And so in order for me to like be able to take back control of my yes,

I implemented the boundary that if it's not a hell yes, the answer is no. I do not tell people I'll think about it. I do not tell people I'll get back to them. If I have to come up with either one of those, then the answer is no. The only exception to that is if I absolutely want to be there, but I need to verify it against my schedule.

That is the only time that's gonna happen outside of that. If it's not an immediate hell yes, the answer is no. So I want you to give yourself permission to begin looking at what things are you saying yes to that you really wanna say no to. I want to give you permission to identify places in your life that are dry.

I want you to look at things in your life that are no longer serving you. I want you to look at things in your life that you think allow you to show up in a way in other people's eyes that is pleasing to them, but it's something you absolutely hate doing. If I can give you a quick example of that so that this one lands for you. There were times as...

Kimberly Houston (12:52.628)
when my children were younger that I would be like, yeah, you can do X, Y, Z because I felt like if my children were in church or if we were at church all the time that I would raise good humans. Right. That is not true. I did raise good humans, but we all know in this age of deconstructing from Christianity,

that we find ourselves closer to source, closer to God, closer to the universe when we no longer have the barrier of the institution of a building. Right now, this is not a religious podcast. We're not going to get into it. But what are you saying yes to because you think other people expect that of you? What societal norm are you trying to adhere to that actually is not serving you? Right.

Okay, so your first one is permission. The second ingredient is boundary. So we've already spoken about one boundary. When you say yes to something you really want to say no to, that's a boundary. The second thing I need you to understand about boundaries is that they are non-negotiable and boundaries are to protect you and not other people. I'm going to say that one more time. Boundaries are for you, not other people. So the boundary cannot be that you enforce a boundary so that it affects another person. The boundary

affects you. So you cannot enter my personal space without my permission is a boundary. Telling you that you can't come somewhere because I want you to suffer and I don't want you to do something that's not a boundary. That's manipulation. So when you think about boundaries what are your boundaries? I have a boundary that on Mondays I don't work.

or if I am working, it is nothing client facing. I do not talk to clients on Mondays and Fridays. And I definitely don't talk to people on the weekend, right? I don't necessarily engage with clients prior to 12 PM during the week. These are all because I took the time to learn my energetic frequency.

Kimberly Houston (15:17.802)
At one phase of my life, I was a night owl, right? And so I would be coaching people well into 9, 10 PM because that's when I was at my best. In another season of my life, I was best in the morning. First, I was waking up. You all know don't use an alarm. I was waking up very early and by 10 AM, really by 9 AM, I had already woken up, been to the gym, done my morning routine, done my journaling, and I was pumped and ready to go.

and I was ready to coach people at 10 a.m. in this phase of my life, not before noon. It is not something that I engage in. I've tried it. It doesn't work. I'm not at my best. And I am at my best between, honestly, between 1.30 and five. That is when I'm firing off on all cylinders and you're going to get the best version of me. And so I have curated my schedule.

around that. While I understand that that is a privilege, I also know and understand that it took me many, many years to realize that just because I showed up in one way six months ago, I don't have to adhere to that same policy six months later when my life looks different. If you are someone who has been trying to fit the mold of who you used to be, I would like to encourage you to take a look at that, which leads us into

our ingredient number three, which is reframing. Let's talk about the mindset really quickly. A lot of times I am on coaching calls and I will be very silent. One, because I'm a Virgo and I like to fix things, but two, because I understand that as a coach it's not my job to fix people. It is my job to help you see things different.

And so I like to offer reframes to people and I ask for permission before I offer a reframe. So if you tell me something, I may say, I give you another way to look at that? Nine times out of 10, people say yes. When you are reframing things that are happening in your life, you can be standing.

Kimberly Houston (17:35.212)
This is a personal example from this week standing in my kitchen and I'm like, dude, nothing is going right right now. Like my measurements are off. I've attempted this recipe. I've made this recipe before and I know it works, but right now as I'm trying to do it, nothing is working. I was dropping utensils in the kitchen. you know, the music playlist wasn't doing what it needed to do. Everything was just off, right? The energy of things was off.

When the oven preheated and then it beats, it scared me and I jumped. Like everything about the moment was energetically charged and very, very off. And I stopped and I took a deep breath. I turned off the oven and I went and sat down.

Kimberly Houston (18:26.206)
What I had to realize was I cannot fight against my current reality.

Kimberly Houston (18:36.64)
I needed to acknowledge that energetically I was not in a flow state. Energetically, there was resistance in the kitchen. It wasn't the kitchen's fault. It wasn't the ingredient's fault. It wasn't the utensil's fault. But there was something in me out of alignment. And I knew that in order for me to avoid further injury,

whether that be emotionally, spiritually, or physically, I needed to stop. And I did. I stopped, I turned everything off, and I went and sat down and took several deep breaths and went into meditation until I was better. 30 minutes later, when I returned to the kitchen, everything was moving as it should, but it's because I now understand when I need to recalibrate.

When you are going through things and you feel very emotionally charged, you feel almost like a live wire. Like if anyone says anything to you, you're going to erupt, you're going to explode and it's not that person's fault. I need you to stop because sometimes the reframe also needs to be a recalibration. And I need you to take a look at what is causing the things. When I went into meditation, I realized

that nothing had happened to me that day. Something happened to me two weeks prior that I did not address two weeks prior. And it showed up, it resurfaced in that moment. Don't know why, don't know what triggered it. But once I sat down and began to sit with myself and ask myself, what do you need right now? You are safe, you are loved. What do you need?

How can I be of service? These are the things I'm asking myself. The same questions I would ask my friends, the same questions I would ask my family, the same questions I would ask my clients, I ask them to myself. And my inner self let me know this is what we needed. And so once I was able to sit with that and say, okay, I acknowledge that this is what we're feeling, that this is what is happening, then I could move forward.

Kimberly Houston (21:03.49)
My question to you would be when was the last time you checked in with yourself? If you check in with everybody else, if you were the strong friend, and I am the strong friend in recovery, right? If you were the strong friend and no one ever checks in on you, then I would like to give you permission to begin checking in with yourself. Ask yourself the exact same questions you would ask your friends.

and see what happens. It will fundamentally change how you show up in life. Now that leads me into our fourth ingredient, which is strategy. So that is one of my strategies is that I check in with myself, right? We are thinking about resting. You need to build a rest into your life. So the same way that you will schedule people on your calendar, you should schedule a rest. What does that rest look like is the question.

So sometimes rest looks like I don't work on Mondays. Sometimes rest looks like I need to go for a long drive and drink some coffee. Sometimes rest looks like I'm gonna journal. I'm gonna color. I'm gonna go sit by some water and just listen to the waves. Sometimes rest looks like

opening up a window while it's raining and just allowing the sounds of nature to calm your spirit. Then there are other times where rest requires you to fully and completely adjust your life.

There will be times where we encounter things that we cannot push through. There will be times when we encounter things that change who we are at our core. I think one of the easiest things I can bring up is losing a parent. Who you were before you lost that parent, regardless of the relationship, is not who you are when that parent is no longer present.

Kimberly Houston (23:14.92)
you become a different person. I believe that our molecular structure even changes. There's 100 % in energy transference that is happening. so energetically, we are different. We are a different being. We now are on different frequencies. And if that's a little too woo for you, it's OK. I'm moving on.

You have to know and understand what your strategy is going to be. Starting simple with what do you do on a daily basis that will allow you to be in alignment. This could look like journaling. This could look like scripting.

And scripting and journaling for me are two different things. So scripting is kind of like when you get in trouble in school and they would make you write a hundred times on paper, I will not talk when the teacher is talking. Maybe I'm the only person who had to do that, but like this is supposed to reinforce your brain and you will not talk when the teacher is talking. That's scripting. If you use that as an adult and you write out the things that you want to happen, right? I will be a millionaire by the time I'm 45.

I will be a millionaire by the time I'm 45, et cetera. When you are scripting out the things that you want to happen in your life so that you can recalibrate yourself, recalibrate your energy and your thought processes to align with these things so that they can happen, that's one strategy. Drinking water on a daily basis is in my strategy. Going for a walk on a daily basis, a part of the strategy, move your body.

It could be if you don't like to walk, go for a run, do some dancing, but move your body for at least 10 minutes a day. Checking your bank account. One of the things that I've realized in coaching entrepreneurs is that we don't watch our money enough. If you want to have more money, you need to be a good steward of the money that you have, but how can you be a good steward of the money you have if you don't never check your money? Checking your bank account on a daily basis, regardless to what's in there.

Kimberly Houston (25:28.224)
or not in there, you still need to be very intimately aware of what's happening with your finances. Another thing you could be thinking about is who do you need to speak to on a daily basis? Are you checking in with at least one person every day? Last summer when I was going through transition, one of the things that I said was I wanted to be a millionaire and I want to make a million dollars in a year.

Has it happened? No. Did I begin making strides? Yes. One of the things that came with it was the realization that I was not around millionaires, nor could I call one. And because I did not have access to people who have made a million dollars, how was I going to get there faster? Right? And so part of my journey over the last year was getting in rooms with people who have made a million dollars and they could make it easier for me to get there. Right? And so I've done that.

they're my check-in squad are people I didn't even know a year ago. Like the people I talk to on a daily basis right now, I did not know they existed a year ago. And so you are going to have to build in our fifth ingredient, which is community. When you're building in community, adding a community of

people where you are not the smartest person in the room. That is super important. If you're the smartest person in the room, how are you growing and how are you learning? Right? That's a reframe. That's a mindset shift for somebody. How are you showing up as your best self if you're the smartest one in the room? My community of business besties, my community of peers, we are all striving to reach our rich life. It might not be that we're all trying to be millionaires, but we're all

definitely yearning for a very specific type of lifestyle, all different. And we all check in with one another at least once a day on where we are, whether that's in our WhatsApp group, it's via email, it's via text message, it's on social media. Somebody is reaching out to somebody else very organically on a daily basis. That is also part of my strategy, right? Everybody in my life won't understand.

Kimberly Houston (27:51.19)
I'm 100 % positive that the reason I was able to release Teach Me How to Bake Volume 2 last week is because of my new squad. They were so into what I was doing, fully, completely. They were the people who when I was going through, like, okay, so I'm really thinking about doing this and I sent them and they were like, my God, this is incredible. my God, this is amazing. Right? The reaction that I got from them.

fueled me more than if I had just sent it to my best friend. My best friend is always going to support me, right? So if I send it to you, of course you're my hype man. But sending this to a community of other entrepreneurs who are looking at the creativity that I am bringing forth with unbiased eyes did something different for me. And it turned that book into something.

that I am not only extremely proud of, but something that will change the lives of hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of families around the world.

Permission, boundaries, reframing, strategy, and community are five ingredients, none weighing more than the other, but they are five ingredients that all are required for this recipe for rest. Here's why I say that. The recipe for rest without guilt is going to require you to give yourself permission to rest. It's going to require you to have

boundaries in force so that you don't feel guilty when you need to take a rest. It's going to require you to reframe your thought processes that you don't have to be everything to everybody leaving nothing for yourself. It's going to require you to have a strategy where you are checking in with yourself on a daily basis so that you can show up as the version of you you are striving to become. And it's going to require you to be in community with people

Kimberly Houston (29:58.072)
who are going to hold you up when you feel like you can't do so anymore.

The recipe for sustainable success must include you being able to rest without guilt. As someone who was a single mom, is a single mother, who has very active children, who is also an entrepreneur for most of their lives.

I can remember the time when they were the most important priority in my life. I can remember the time when I was the least prioritized person in my life. And understanding the balance between the two has fundamentally changed how I show up in the world. I no longer pour from an empty cup. Everybody in my life gets the overflow. Kimberly.

is getting everything in that cup. Everything in that, my cup stays full. I am always looking for ways to continuously pour into myself. And anything that's extra, that's more than enough for everybody else in my life, is more than enough for clients, is more than enough for my parents, is more than enough for my children.

is more than enough for those who I encounter on the street on a daily basis. The overflow is what other people get and the overflow is more than enough.

Kimberly Houston (31:42.146)
The thing I want to leave you with today from this podcast episode is that you have permission to rest without guilt. It's not something you need to ask permission for. I'm giving it to you right now. It's not something you need to debate. It is something that should be non-negotiable in your life.

If you're listening to this and the idea of exhaustion and tiredness is weighing heavily on you, would ask you to look at your boundaries. I would ask you to seriously evaluate where you are in life, where you are in business.

And C, are you showing up and doing things that don't serve you anymore? Are you saying yes when you should really be saying no? Are you in control of your life or are you just a puppet and somebody else is pulling those strings?

In order for you to rest without guilt, you must know the type of rest that you need. Are you tired or are you burned out friend? That is the question I want to leave you with today.