MIND CAKE PODCAST 9th DECEMBER 2025

MIND CAKE

🍰 NEW EPISODE: From Burnout to Balance.

🍰 Top Slice

What we’ll learn this week:

That “global campaign manager for a multinational charity” sounds glamorous… until you’re spending every other week in Oxford, sleep-deprived and emotionally scorched by climate reports.
Burnout isn’t always a dramatic collapse — sometimes it’s quietly crying in a hotel room in Utrecht because someone asked if you were okay.
Parenting, purpose and politics do not form a relaxing triangle.
Train anxiety is real, tunnels can be triggering and you’re not weird for wanting an exit strategy everywhere you go.
Coaching can sometimes arrive in your inbox like a cosmic Amazon delivery.
And letting go of control might genuinely be found in a cold Scottish loch.

“

When I finally stopped… my whole body went blah. I realised how exhausted I really was"

— Sarah Catnach

🎤 This Week’s Episode

From Burnout to Balance: Sarah’s Journey of Transformation

This week’s warm, honest, quietly powerful slice features Sarah Catnach, founder of The Nest Wellbeing — a compassionate coach who once fought on the frontlines of climate activism and poverty campaigning … until burnout took her out at the knees.

Join Lee and Sarah as they unpack:

🌍 Life inside Oxfam — from parliament to protests, from festivals to global meetings where karaoke gets intense.
🔥 Burnout creeping in — exhaustion, guilt, identity crisis, train anxiety, tunnel dread, and the emotional cost of caring deeply for too long.
👶 Parenthood vs. saving the world — can they co-exist?
🛑 The crash during Covid — furlough, stillness, clarity… and finally admitting she couldn’t go back.
🧭 Coaching as a catalyst — the random email that helped her turn fear into bravery.
🪺 The Nest — coaching, yoga, massage, and keeping good people in important jobs without breaking them.
💨 Anxiety, imposter syndrome & the lies burnout tells us — and why “I’m fine” usually means “I’ve googled emergency exits.”
🌊 Water as her element — how it teaches her to flow and let go.

It’s grounding, funny, human, and full of honest chat.

🎧 Listen now — ideally near a loch, with soft lighting and zero tunnels.

And please follow Mind Cake on Spotify. It really helps!

Listen Now!

🍪 Crumb of Wisdom

“

Turning fear into bravery. That was the shift for me"

— Sarah Catnach

🍰 Icing on the Mind Cake

Which of these things ISN'T true about Sarah?

A. She swam for Team GB
B. She loves a fire walk
C. She broke an arrow with her throat
D. She named The Nest in honour of a friend who kept pigeons

Tune in to find out.

📅 Dates & Walnut Slices

8th Dec – National Brownie Day
We missed it. You missed it. Everyone missed it. But it’s Christmas, so treat yourself ffs.

12th Dec – Christmas Jumper Day
Time to wear something so aggressively festive it could trigger a migraine at 20 paces. Bonus points if it lights up, sings, or actively endangers you near open flames.

25th Dec – Actual Christmas Day
A national celebration of pretending you love receiving socks, judging/mocking/scorning (delete as applicable) your relatives and incinerating a turkey so dry it could be used as kindling.

📌 Listener Mission

This week:

👉 Share this episode with someone on the brink of burnout.
👉 Check in on a friend who’s been “strong” for too long.
👉 Try to identify your own element.
👉 Bonus points if you leave a comment for Sarah — she thrives on knowing she’s helped someone.

Mind Cake is built on kindness, curiosity and people saying “Actually, I’m not okay,” with humour and honesty.

Your shares help us reach more humans who maybe need our mental nonsense.

🍰 And please follow Mind Cake on Spotify. It really helps!

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