If you’re a mid-life woman who’s somehow ended up at the top of everyone else’s “people we need” pyramid and the bottom of your own, this one’s for you. In this episode, Monique talks about what happens when you finally admit you’re exhausted – from the unpaid, invisible work that quietly attached itself to your life while everyone else’s stayed more or less the same. By the time she left for her grown up’s gap year, she felt she’d been on call for decades and someone had forgotten to roster her off. You’ll hear the story of the infamous spreadsheet she handed to her Dear Bloke (AKA “this is what my free labour would cost if we’d outsourced it”), and why she calls it a receipt for services rendered, not a ransom note. We’ll dig into the research on the mental load and guilt, talk Winter season energy, and walk through two simple tools – your daily hot coffee moment and the Not Now / Not Me list – to start building higher, kinder boundaries in real life, not theory.

There are three boundary experiments to try this week, a quick Values checkpoint, and a short Dear Blokes fridge note for the men who genuinely want to help but don’t know where to start. We wrap with Monique’s new Your SPACE Prescription – Anti-Guilt Calculator: a two-minute, data-backed way to tally your invisible load and turn it into an actual time-out receipt you can stick on the fridge.

Episode Resources & Links:

• Your SPACE Prescription
• Free Weekly Newsletter
• Dear Blokes Downloadable
• Boundaries Checklist
• Book: Atomic Habits - James Clear

📚 Get your copy of A Grown Up’s Gap Year the book, from Amazon, moniquevantulder.com, bookshops and libraries, subscribe to the podcast, and take the first step toward your own A Grown Up’s Gap Year.

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