Award-Winning Author Marks One Year of Challenging Conventional Definitions of Achievement, Rest, and Whole-Person Health.
JERSEY CITY, NJ, UNITED STATES, June 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — One year after the publication of her multi-award-winning book, Space To Exhale: A Handbook for Curating a Soft, Centered, Serene Life, author, speaker, podcaster, and community builder Lisa Hurley is continuing to challenge conventional definitions of success and spark conversations about burnout, mental health, rest, and sustainable wellbeing.
Published by Wiley on June 17, 2025, Space To Exhale arrived at a moment when millions of people were questioning the cost of constant productivity, overwork, and hustle culture. One year later, amid ongoing conversations about mental health, burnout, work-life balance, and sustainable success, the book’s message appears more relevant than ever.
“As a society, we’ve spent decades celebrating hyperachievement while often ignoring the toll it takes on our minds, bodies, relationships, and spirits,” Hurley said. “Success means very little if it costs you your peace. We’ve been taught to pursue high performance at any cost, but I believe we’re entering a different era, one that recognizes that rest and good health are not obstacles to being accomplished, but essential elements of it. That’s why I often say that rest is the new success.”
Part personal memoir, part soft-living manifesto, and part mindfulness guide, Space To Exhale invites readers to rethink their relationship with work, rest, self-care, and boundaries. Many of the book’s ideas were shaped through Hurley’s work with The Great Exhale, the community she founded in 2023 to create a soft space for Black women seeking rest, healing, and connection. While the book speaks to readers from all backgrounds, Hurley’s work remains rooted in her commitment to creating spaces where Black women across the diaspora can rest, heal, and thrive.
Since its release, Space To Exhale has maintained five-star ratings across Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble and has earned more than ten literary and industry honors, including Anthem Awards, Literary Global Book Awards, North American Book Awards, Nonfiction Authors Association Book Awards, and, most recently, an International Impact Book Award in the Self-Help/Stress Management category. The book has also received media recognition from The Globe and Mail.
In June 2026, Hurley was invited to join BRAINZ Magazine as an Executive Contributor, further expanding her thought leadership platform focused on burnout, leadership, wellbeing, and work-life balance.
The impact of Space To Exhale has extended beyond the book through The Great Exhale community, her weekly newsletter The Gentle Breath, and Space To Exhale: The Podcast. Launched ahead of the book’s publication, the podcast features bestselling authors, workplace culture specialists, mental health advocates, and leadership experts in conversations about burnout, boundaries, rest, and ambition that does not require self-abandonment.
“We’ve built a culture that knows how to help people achieve, but not necessarily how to help them thrive,” Hurley said. “We’re having conversations about burnout because people are realizing that success isn’t sustainable if you can’t survive it. I believe we’re being called to create a different way forward: one that honors ambition without sacrificing health.”
For Hurley, the book’s first anniversary is less about celebrating a publication date and more about advancing a conversation. Readers have described Space To Exhale as affirming, healing, and transformative, sharing that it has helped them establish healthier boundaries, prioritize rest, and rethink long-held beliefs about productivity, purposeful living, and self-worth.
The anniversary also coincides with Caribbean-American Heritage Month, a meaningful reminder of the Caribbean values and traditions that continue to inform Hurley’s ethos of community, wellbeing, and collective care.
“The goal was never simply to write a book,” Hurley said. “The goal was to create permission. Permission to rest. Permission to heal. Permission to be fully human. One year later, I believe that conversation has only grown more necessary.”
About Lisa Hurley
Lisa Hurley is a five-time Anthem Award-winning author, speaker, podcaster, and founder of The Great Exhale. She is the author of Space To Exhale: A Handbook for Curating a Soft, Centered, Serene Life, host of Space To Exhale: The Podcast, and an Executive Contributor for BRAINZ Magazine. Through her writing, speaking, and community-building, she advocates for a more humane, sustainable approach to success, wellbeing, and personal growth.
Lisa Hurley
Space To Exhale
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