B. Light Podcast

When I sat down to record the third season of this podcast I had no idea what it would bring and being able to chat with you all about how you’re walking out the R.E.S.T.™ framework in your every day is so encouraging!

As we look back on this season I’m sharing some of the gems I’m keeping close as we wind down 2026.

Let me know what your favorite episode of the season has been so far and let’s stay connected!

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/brieanna-lightfoot-smith

Substack: http://practicingthepause.substack.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@blightfootsmith

Looking for a planner that fits your real life? Grab our Freedom and Flow™ planner. Use code FLOW10 for money off at checkout: http://brieannalighfootsmith.com/flow

Krystle Farmer-Sieghart is a Santa Barbara-native grassroots activist, community organizer, and nonprofit strategist recognized for her work in civil rights and equity. As a creative, servant leader, advocate and parent she is incredibly passionate about legacy work and on today’s podcast episode we dive into what it looks like to creating work that can outlast us and the importance on relying on commmunity.

One of the big takeaways from our conversation was the opportunity to step back and assess what work we do because we feel called to it and where we’re submitting to societal pressures that are not preserving our health and wellness.

Stay connected with Krystle on socials at kryssieghart on Instagram and on LinkedIn.

October is the last real window before the holiday season takes over and demands everything you have. Most women don’t reset in Q4. They white-knuckle through October, November, and December — and collapse in January calling it a fresh start. But you’re not starting fresh. You’re starting exhausted.

This episode is your invitation to do something different this year.

We’re walking through a practical four-step Q4 reset — honest assessment, naming your season, building your rhythm, and protecting it before the chaos hits.

We’re also talking about how your Rest Archetype shows up in Q4 specifically, and what to watch for before it takes over.

Don’t wait until you’re depleted to reset. October is going to build the foundation for what you do next.

Links:

Grab your Freedom and Flow Planner: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/flow

Use code FLOW10 for 10% off

Most high-capacity women can answer “what do you do” in their sleep. Fewer can answer “who are you” — and mean it. When your identity is fused to your role, rest feels like erasure. Slowing down feels like disappearing. And the quiet question underneath everything — who am I when nothing needs me? — can feel terrifying.

Take away the title. Take away the role. Take away what you do for everyone else. Who’s left? That’s the question w'e’re answering.

In this episode, we’re talking about the identity crisis that doesn’t have a name yet. The one that shows up when you’re succeeding at everything on the outside but feeling hollow on the inside. The slow disappearance of self that happens when you live so fully in a role that you lose access to who you actually are.

And we’re talking about how to find your way back.

Start with the free assessment to see where you are right now: http://restwell.space

In 2020, RaKya Leigh got tired of hearing the same story: kids are falling behind, and parents don’t know what to do. So instead of adding to the discourse, she and her co-founder and husband, Deon, did something about it. They started HUMBLE Tutoring, short for Helping Unstoppable Minorities Become Leaders in Education.

A three-time Georgia State graduate, RaKya built HUMBLE around a bigger goal than test scores: rebuilding students’ confidence, closing learning gaps, and creating spaces where scholars can thrive. HUMBLE partners with schools, districts, and families to deliver academic programs, parent workshops, and life skills trainings rooted in literacy, math, and social-emotional learning. Along the way they’ve served hundreds of students and families and worked with organizations like Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Atlanta, AmeriCorps, GEAR UP Georgia, and The Kindezi Schools.

But the journey hasn’t been a straight line. HUMBLE stepped away from its student tutoring program for a season before coming back with a clearer vision. Today they run programs multiple times a year and recently launched Parent University, giving parents the tools and confidence to support their children’s learning.

In this episode of The B. Light Podcast, RaKya and I talk about what it means to build from a place of alignment: responding to a real need instead of the noise, knowing when to pause, and returning with a mission that serves the whole family.

If you’re building something that matters and want it to last, this conversation is for you.

Website: www.humbletutoring.com

Parent University: https://parentuniversity.circle.so/homepage

Newsletter for parents:

https://humble-tutoring.kit.com/subscribe

Newsletter for educators and leaders:

https://humble-tutoring.kit.com/audit

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/humbletutoring

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@humbletutoring

For a long time I thought I had boundaries. I’d say things like “I don’t work weekends” or “I’m not available after 6” — and I genuinely believed them. What I didn’t realize until later was that a boundary you don’t actually hold isn’t a boundary. It’s a preference. And the people around us learn very quickly which ones we mean and which ones we don’t.

This episode is a little convicting. I’ll warn you now.

We talk about what a fake boundary actually looks like in everyday life — and most of us will recognize ourselves in at least a few of them. We talk about why we can’t hold the ones we set, what that has to do with our Rest Archetype, and what a real boundary actually requires.

Lastly, we’ll talk about the 3 cs necessary to make sure your boundary isn’t just announced but implemented.

Many of us may not need to create more boundaries, we just need to be intentional about holding the ones we’ve already put in place.

Links

Continue the conversation on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in-brieanna-lightfoot-smith

Subscribe to my Substack: http://practicingthepause.substack.com

Take your free R.E.S.T. Assessment: http://restwell.space

Your calendar is lying to you. And you built the lie yourself.

Most of our calendars are aspirational documents — planned for who we wish we were, not who we actually are in this season. The gap between the calendar and real life is exactly where burnout lives.

In this episode, we’re naming the lies our calendars tell — back-to-back meetings with no breathing room, scheduling hard tasks at our lowest energy, treating empty space as available capacity — and replacing them with something more honest: capacity-aware planning.

You’ll walk away with a practical calendar audit, three things to add to your week right now, and a completely different way of thinking about what belongs on your schedule and what doesn’t.

A full calendar is not the same as a full life.

The Freedom & Flow Planner was built for exactly this — planning with your real capacity in mind, not your imagined one.

Links

Connect with me on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/brieanna-lightfoot-smith

Freedom & Flow Planner: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/flow

Take the free R.E.S.T. Assessment: http://restwell.space

Today we have our first podcast guest of the season!

Elysha Johnson is the founder of Open Tabs, a holistic operations consultancy for ambitious founders who are outwardly successful and inwardly depleted. With over a decade of experience as an executive assistant and operations leader inside founder-led businesses, Elysha has spent years inside the chaos she now helps clients escape — watching capable people white-knuckle their way to success at the cost of their health, their peace, and eventually their capacity to keep going.

After burning out three separate times in her own career, Elysha rebuilt her approach to work that centers on wild productivity and radical rest. Her core belief is that rest is a key component to success, but that you can’t out-rest a design problem. Through her signature Genesis Journey partnership, she helps leaders redesign the operational systems in both their business and personal life, so they can rest and recover while still moving the needle forward.

She speaks and writes on sustainable productivity, working in alignment with one’s current season, and what founder-level burnout actually looks like.

Links mentioned in the episode:

Rest Assessment: http://restwell.space

Freedom and Flow Planner: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/flow

Energy Audit: energyaudit.zite.so

Sacred Rest by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith

Stay connected with Elysha at http://lessopentabs.com

Here’s a question I’ve been sitting with.

How much of your exhaustion right now is actually about the volume of what you’re doing — and how much of it is about the mismatch between the season you’re in and the season you’re planning for?

Because I’ve noticed something. The most overwhelmed women I work with aren’t always the ones doing the most. They’re often the ones trying to produce at a builder’s pace in a season that’s calling for something quieter.

In this episode I introduce the six R.E.S.T. Archetypes — these are six patterns that show up in how we each relate to work, rest, identity, and capacity. The Overachiever. The Nurturer. The Builder. The Healer. The Dreamer. The Watcher. One of these is running your relationship to rest right now. And once you can name it, you can start to work with it instead of against it.

We also talk about what it looks like to actually honor the season you’re in — and why doing that is what moves you into the next one faster.

Awareness is one thing. But action is where transformation starts happening.

Take the free R.E.S.T. Assessment to find out which archetype is yours — and what your Peace Prescription looks like in this season.

Links

Take the R.E.S.T. Assessment — find your archetype: restwell.space

Freedom & Flow Planner: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/flow

Join me at The Rhythm Reset: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/reset

Grab your planner for this one.

Over the last four episodes we’ve been naming what’s breaking down. Today we talk about what to build instead.

My signature R.E.S.T. Framework is the foundation of everything I do — and I’ve never broken it down this completely in a single conversation before. We go letter by letter: Restore, Energize, Sustain, Track. Not as theory. As a practical map you can start using in your real life this week.

The thing I want you to walk away with is this: R.E.S.T. isn’t a checklist. It’s a rhythm. And you don’t have to start at the beginning. You start with whichever letter your life is most missing right now.

Before you listen — take the free R.E.S.T. Assessment at restwell.space. It’ll tell you your Rest Archetype and give you a personalized Peace Prescription. Then come back to this episode and put the pieces together.

This is a working episode. Come ready.

Links

Take the R.E.S.T. Assessment + get your Peace Prescription: http://restwell.space

Free Energy Audit: http://energyaudit.zite.so

Freedom & Flow Planner: http://brieannalightfootsmith.com/flow

Connect on LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/brieannalightfootsmith