What I Learned on Sabbatical

Hello, beloved friends! 

I’m back from my 5-week mini-sabbatical, and I’m happy to say that I’m refreshed, deeply rested and so, so excited for the months to come! I’m returning to the working world joyful, but also clear-eyed and with some new routines and boundaries. 

Last month I went deep into why I was going on sabbatical and offered some resources you might like if you are sabbatical-curious. This month, I’m offering lessons I learned during my time away. 

Here’s the truth: sabbaticals are not a time of blissed-out moment after blissed-out moment. There was definitely bliss, but in reality, sabbaticals are work. Not work like producing something or leading a meeting, but work to unwind your habits, your body, sometimes your beliefs, and definitely your fears. But what emerges on the other side of that work is pure MAGIC. Like a well-rested butterfly emerging from a cocoon. 

My mini-sabbatical was years, or maybe decades, in the making. I have slowly learned over the past 15 years about how my own combination of overwork and hypervigilance was wreaking havoc on my body and my nervous system. Worrying about what other people think led to working even harder, which led to more and more stress. Maybe this is a cycle for you, too? I was constantly sick, stressed, and anxiety-ridden. Unwinding this has been a long, intentional process.  I’m happy to be on the other side, and to coach others in getting there as well. Taking extremely good care of myself is a key component of my wellbeing, and I knew that I needed extended time away to restore.

Okay, on to my lessons learned!

Sabbaticals are sacred. I could have called my time away a 5-week vacation or time off, but I chose to call it a mini-sabbatical instead. The word “sabbatical” has the same root as “Sabbath” or “rest”. 

Try this: say the word “vacation”. What comes up? Maybe a beach with a drink, time with family, a good book, sadness when it ends. Now say “sabbatical”. What did you notice? Maybe a slowing down (you may have even said the word slower; I do), deep rest, time completely away from responsibilities. Vacations happen every year for most of those reading this; sabbaticals are something different - a sacred time away where one must not be disturbed. 

I noticed that from the moment I told co-workers and clients that I was taking a 5-week mini-sabbatical, they immediately became protective of my time. They made sure not to interrupt me. This is exactly what should happen when you’re on vacation, but our culture of productivity doesn’t consider vacations sacred. It should. And so should you. 

You need more rest than you think. Sabbaticals have their own waves that you have to settle into. The first is a period of unwinding. For me, this meant honoring how deeply tired I was. I rested so much the first two weeks. I mean SO MUCH. I went to bed early and slept late. I took naps often. I moved very, very slowly. And while I rested, I unspooled years of stress and sleep deficit. It literally felt like a spring was unwinding inside me. 

This is not to say rest was easy. I definitely had the thought, “I should be doing something productive right now.” And each time I reminded myself that rest is extremely productive. It’s the patriarchy and our culture of overwork that want me to think I have to produce, produce, produce. Saying no to those cultures helps to tear them down. And, I was not only healing exhaustion, but I was giving myself a gift for the future because when I’m rested, everything else is easier and I’m more creative and patient. That mindset shift helped me sink in and let myself rest. 

Reading the excellent book “Rest” by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang helped as well. Highly recommend it!

Get out of town. The first day of my sabbatical, I drove to Ithaca (to meet my adorable great-nephew!). I spent five days with people I love, hiking gorgeous gorges, marveling at what nature and water and evolution can do, eating amazing food, and watching sunsets over the Finger Lakes. It was lovely. But it was more than that. Being in a new location immediately broke me from the routines of home and allowed me to get into sabbatical mode much faster. I took two trips during my sabbatical and each one helped me to expand in different ways by slowing down, focusing on the people I was with, and experiencing awe-inspiring nature. 

Social media addiction is a truth. Most of us are social media addicts, sadly. How many times have you taken a photo because it would look good on IG. It’s changed our brains, sadly. I did not completely cut out social media on my sabbatical, but I did consciously cut down on it, and it was very, very difficult. I finally had to set a limit for myself and consciously tried to break my patterns. For example, I no longer pick up my phone before I have coffee. My efforts definitely lessened the number of times I reach for my phone, or open an app, but this took seriously hard work. Now I sometimes go days without doing Wordle or wishing people happy birthday on a Meta product. That's a huge improvement (and sorry if I missed your birthday). 

I recently read this article on lockable phone boxes, which are helpful for some people. I may try it because less social media is a habit I want to keep.

Declutter your brain. One of my sabbatical goals was to finish unpacking and decluttering from our renovation. What I found was that as I decluttered and reclaimed space in my house, the same thing happened in my brain. Instead of being overwhelmed by the project, I took it slow, I thought about what I wanted to keep, re-lived moments with friends, family or kids as I read old cards and letters and went through boxes of school art. I took my time and decided what I wanted to keep - either for me or for my kids - what I wanted to pass on to others, and what could be recycled. I even finished a photo album of our honeymoon that I started 21 years ago. 

As I completed these small tasks, my brain got a hit of dopamine for completing something, and I noticed that I was less overwhelmed and more relaxed. I was able to focus more throughout my day. There’s brain science about why cleaning and organizing helps some people to de-stress. I am definitely one of those people. By the time I got to the last box, all the new space in my brain was generating new creative ideas for my work, and I felt energized and renewed. It’s amazing what a little space - physical and mental - can do!

Flexible routines are your friend: I was alone for one week of my mini-sabbatical. Without the routine of my job and my family that week, I felt a bit untethered. My neurodivergent brain lost entire hours doing something…I have no idea what it was because I can’t remember (some of you may be familiar with this phenomenon). 

This was the first time I have been totally alone and not working for this length of time in over 25 years. I have a tendency to overschedule myself. I am interested in a million things and think I can fit them all in, but the reality is that I cannot because I am also human and there are 24 hours in a day. 

It turns out that I need routines in order to function the way I want to function. But unlike my routines of the past, which were jam packed and sometimes quite rigid, I need routines that are flexible. I’ll be experimenting with this throughout the fall to see what works best for me.

You will not always feel good. Once your stress unwinds and there’s more space in your brain (for me, this was around the third week), all the fears that were right under the surface of your mind come to the forefront. 

I have to admit, I was a little surprised at how strongly this happened for me. I definitely said more than once, “I thought I was over this one!” Nope. 

Pema Chödrön, in describing the effects of meditation, says that meditation makes your mind like a still lake in which you can see everything that is stuck at the bottom. When our minds churn the lake up, we can’t see what’s stuck. When we settle, it becomes clear. It was like that with my fears. My brain and body settled and then I could clearly see the fears waving at me from the bottom of the lake. 

Plan on spending some of your sabbatical working through your fears. This is one reason why it’s a good idea to have a therapist and coach as part of your sabbatical support team. At some point, you’ll need it. And then, with a little time and some thought work, I found myself on the other side of those fears and it’s pretty amazing. 

Create every day. One of my mini-sabbatical goals was to refill my well of creativity. I had felt it running dry for months. That’s a scary place for me because creating is one of my very favorite things and it’s where all my good ideas come from. 

I decided that I would try to create something every day. I mostly stuck to this - whether it was writing, painting, collaging, dreaming of possibilities, or visiting museums for inspiration. In order to do this, I set time aside every day to meditate, to journal, and to purposely create, even on days when I didn’t feel like it. 

This developed into a routine that I’m going to carry forward by using my early mornings, when my creative energy is highest, to create something for me rather than starting my day with to-do lists and things I do for others. Intentionally tapping into my creativity in this way not only refilled my well of creativity, but sparked exponentially more creative ideas that I cannot wait to bring forth!   

Relax into joy. About three weeks into my mini-sabbatical, after I had rested and worked through some of my fears, I noticed that I felt more joyful. The more I rested and created, the more I appreciated a walk on a sunny day, or laughing with friends. Once I slowed down and made room for all of my emotions, happiness popped up more and more because I had created space for it to bloom and gave it nourishment to fully blossom. 

This isn’t surprising. The more you take care of yourself, the better you feel. The more you allow room for all your emotions to come forth, the more you can feel your emotions.

Plan your return. There’s a lot of research on the benefits of sabbaticals including, increased employee engagement upon return, injecting more creativity into an organization, significantly improved employee wellbeing, better boundaries, employees learning new skills, rest, rejuvenation, and many more. Employees, organizations and companies are all better off when people take extended time away.

Sabbaticals force you out of your routine and allow you to slow down and recharge your batteries. You learn things about yourself on sabbatical, and about what you want to carry forward. Planning your return - how you will and won’t engage with work, new routines or boundaries you wish to set, new projects you want to bring to life - is best done while you’re still on sabbatical and before you get sucked back into your old routines. 

Changing habits can be difficult, but is infinitely easier when you’re rested and can take a good, hard look at what you want to keep, what you want to change, and what you want to release. For me, this means changing my schedule to make time to create each morning, diving into some projects that will require time to build, slightly scaling back my coaching hours in favor of increasing time spent creating group experiences like retreats and courses, and ensuring that my evenings are fully for my family. 

I can’t wait to get started!

XO,

Patty