I want to pause my account for 6 months. How do I do that?

You can either mark yourself as Unavailable for the time period or mark all services as Away. Neither of these will prevent customers from contacting you, but it won't count against you when you say you aren't available.

You also might put a line at the top of your profile that you are not accepting any clients from X to Y dates. I would put it in all caps with !!! or * around it.