a long, true story about exhaustion, revelation, and reclaiming rest (17-20 min read)

the early seed:

friend jeff & personal retreat.

it all began…
with my friend jeff.

you know those wild and wonderful conversations, where a beloved says something that changes the trajectory of your whole life? yup. such was the seed planted by magical friend jeff.

or maybe it began…

like every collapse does, when major life events fall like rain, one hits exhaustion, and things can no longer continue in the way they have. when a big reset, a big shift, a big inner evolution demands to begin.

this is how it happened for me:

a lot of years back, in a time of significant initiation, I was chatting with jeff. he’s a great friend and magnificent listener, who delivers jewels in every interaction. I shared what was going on, and he asked in his quiet, gentle way, ‘have you ever taken a personal retreat?’ (I hadn’t, but my ears perked up).

I didn’t know it at the time, but my friend was planting seeds for what would become one my steadiest practices and joys, and also a greatest gift in my life. that seed would later morph and evolve into the strange, soupy land of sabbatical that had you click on this article. it will become a book. the gifts from that chat are still rippling out…

perhaps you’re arriving here in curiosity, in the mood for armchair adventure. perhaps ‘sabbatical’ sounds like something you’ve been secretly longing for. perhaps we are just here together, you and I, exploring one way human experience and deep rest in our robust times can look.

the early path:

sacred day of nothing → full moon retreats → kali’s teaching

when jeff inquired gently about personal retreat, I had to respond that I hadn’t done such a thing. I loved the idea, though!

a little backstory for context: students and clients from the first couple decades of the 21st century may even to this day perk up and chant, ‘wednesday is the sacred day of nothing!’ (laughter)

back then, I’d managed to train everyone in my little world that there was one day a week where I didn’t respond to emails or texts or messages, was completely unresponsive and off-grid for everyone and everything, not even scheduling nourishing experiences to restore myself. I was simply…in the deep quiet for that one precious day a week.

but personal retreat? I hadn’t ventured so far outside the well-trampled pathways that dictate that modern humans always be on, available, and in motion.

and.

something buried under layers of conditioning came rumbling and roaring to life in the face of jeff’s gentle question. I was delighted by the notion – ‘personal retreat’ sounded…yummy. soul-restoring. vital. a ferocious kind of hunger woke up in me.

so, the sacred day of nothing, way back when, evolved into…an exploration of personal retreat thanks to jeff, that would later yield a sabbatical, and someday a book.

all those many years ago, pondering whatever this alluring ‘personal retreat’ thing was, I decided I’d start with an experimental 3 days with every full moon, for one year. that’s another longer story – and a beautiful one – about how initially tricky it felt to create this container in my life, how uncomfortable I was shifting from moving a zillion miles an hour and slowing down into three full days unplugged, or the powerful teachings I received from several ancient goddesses who became friends along the way – all as I began to dip my toe into the waters of resting and flowing with life instead of rushing or resisting.

one of the most pivotal messages in that first exploratory year of personal retreat practice was from the dread mother kali, who told me sternly in one retreat vessel that I should seek ‘the song in the silence.’ hoo nelly, was I resistant to this!

I huffed and said, ‘does that mean I just sit in a room for three days staring at a blank wall listening for some mysterious song in the silence?’ (laughter)

I couldn’t imagine anything that sounded more horrible, at the time.

and yet, beloved kali replied with her usual ferocity and bluntness, ‘if that’s what it takes.’

welp, I’d asked for her counsel and gotten it, so I threw myself into the uncomfortable experience. in one of those early 3-day personal retreats, I did actually slow down enough, flopping around in my discomfort over the lack of habituated screens or books or friends or appointments or input and…

it came padding up to me on quiet feet:

the song in the silence. it had been there all along.

the disruption:

loss, collapse, and holding everyone else

this was a wondrous unfolding for me, discovering ‘the song in the silence.’

I’ve lived an unusual life, marked heavily with immense initiation, sorrow, and challenge – and also graced by extraordinary gifts, wonderful friends, and the strong love of the spirits. the sentience of the practice of personal retreat began growing in me – the song in the silence began coming for tea more and more often.

we have become good friends.

I don’t have good human words for how important this has become for me – to go into solitude and allow the quiet to be its own rich and timely medicine. it is something I cherish.

back to our story – I continued the practice of monthly personal retreat for many years. it took some doing at first, carving calendar time out far in advance, defending its boundaries, and staying in reverence with the practice. and I loved it!

I was poised to write my first book about personal retreat many years into my practice, that all stemmed from that extraordinary conversation with jeff.

I outlined the book (a 6-page outline, well-fleshed and rich with stories, a joyful dedication to a beautiful practice that can be for everyone)…when one of the 13 major tragedies in my life happened. the book had to be set aside, when a violent experience in my family fell to me to tend that would demand 23 months of my life, land me in the hospital, and bring me to a breaking point.

that was a hard time, compounded by many other hard times that preceded and would later follow it.
without going into the particulars – and ‘because reasons’ – the thing is this:

I never stopped or slowed down.

initiation after initiation, tragedy after tragedy, hardship after hardship rained down in my life, and I stubbornly (and desperately) continued running my little healing practice that I love so much, and tried so very hard to show up. looking back now, I can see how I had fallen deeply under the narrative trance of being ‘ever ready for everyone.’

this would reach a boiling point.

the breaking point:

scorpio moon, light codes, and the decision to stop

a pause: here’s the thing. I’ve spent the last 23 years of my life hosting hundreds of intentionally small circles, retreats, and events, and sitting with marvelous folks in thousands of healing sessions.

I love helping folks remember how to talk with the spirits, work with healing energy, and although it took me decades to parse and language it, what I’ve really been engaged in is helping people come back to themselves and live in a magical way.

it’s wondrous, woobly, unusual, lustrous work, and I’m delighted by it.

the tricky thing, that in retrospect I can say now: I love my work so much, and the beautiful people who show up for it, that I became blind to how much accumulated energy and profound weariness was unfolding in my soul as the initiations ground on. embarrassing as that may feel to say, it was so.

in may of 2025, things reached a crescendo.

for once, there was nothing behind the scenes in my life demanding I edgewalk between life and death – things were sort of puttering along and I was shuddering my first tentative sighs of relief. I was doing all the things that one is supposed to do as a small business owner, wearing a hundred hats and reinventing myself over and over, and trying to find a way to be heard and seen online in a way that felt safe, amidst the wild cacophony, casual online cruelty, and performative noise of our times.

and I was doing a great job.

(maybe…)

right before the sabbatical decision arrived, I had diligently created copy for an entire new website (not the one you’re browsing today. this beauty was created towards sabbatical’s end, holding the fruits of deep rest), completed a professional photo shoot with a group of women I deeply love, was working with a really wonderful business coach who was poised to help me strategize and hopefully lift the strain of ‘constant doing’ off my plate…

and I did all the things. like I thought I was supposed to.

then, on one fateful scorpio full moon, everything changed.

note: I’m a firm believer in the notion of ‘lightcodes of activation.’ by this I mean that it’s possible in a human life for us to reach a particular date or moon on the calendar, travel to a particular place on the planet, hear a particular phrase or see a particular sign or omen, and something inside – some heretofore dormant piece of spiritual dna – kicks into action and becomes a catalyst for deep and lasting change.

on that potent scorpio full moon…a lightcode arrived.

there is a lot to that night, the moon singing her siren song, tears flowing fiercely and freely, signs and omens raining down on me in a way that they had not for years. every fiber of my being, that had joyfully given so much to 5,000 lovely folks over 23 years of holding space, every self that had been killed off along the way through so many personal initiations, every particle of my being that remembered what a human life is for anyhow, came into perfect alignment…I had to stop.

the dismantling:

financial reality, creative strategy, sacred logistics

side note: as an extremely sensitive creature who is gentle at heart (perhaps you can relate?), it’s really something to navigate this ridiculous astrological chart I carry in this lifetime. I mean, who comes in and says ‘it would be a great idea to have 5 scorpio in the chart?’ apparently I did (laughter), and I mention this because moments of sea change, big upheaval, significant declarations and endings – even when I pray for peace and grace – are pretty common for me, whether I wish or will them.

I joke about ‘the death and resurrection show’ that I seem to walk through as a scorpio lady, and if you swim in those waters with me, you may be ruefully chuckling along. whether it’s my proclivity for phoenixing again and again or whether it was simply time, I hit a tipping point on that full moon. it’s not the first time I’ve ripped apart everything in my life and set things down to go on some kind of adventure, and it’s very probably not the last.

anywho. coming tearstained and resolute out of the full moon, I’d made this big decision! I had no idea how I would pull it off, or how it would unfold or what would happen, but this notion of setting down everything familiar and wandering off into rest and the unknown, was alluring and vital.

I knew in my bones it was the right thing for me to do.

but how would I sustain myself financially? what about the beautiful folks who were used to having access to me for healing and community experiences? what about all of the deeply ingrained patterns and identities that were habituated to an almost terrifying degree?

how would I pull this off?

I started getting creative. I’m a one woman show running a little healing practice, and after a lot of life events, financial reserves were slim. I would have loved to have the means to take a year (or even half a year) off and not need to work (glory be!), but in this particular chapter of my life, that wasn’t how things were for me.

I decided that I would do one herculean, long client day a week with women I love behind the scenes, and continue to host one monthly circle already in progress to sustain myself. there was beauty, practicality, and strength in this approach.

I made calculations, did a lot of math, looked at how frugally I could live during a time of deep rest, and then began dismantling my life as I knew it.

the medicine + the initiation:

people’s reactions, inner grappling, identity work

this was a fascinating process! I began cancelling a surprising (to me) number of regular calls, sessions, appointments and commitments, all of which were expensive energetically. as I did so, I began seeing just how mired in constant ‘doingness’ I had become, I who lauded sacred days of nothing, taught ‘b is for boundaries!’ and took regular personal retreats. (palm to forehead, that’s a very human realization there. I’m still blushing. healer, heal thyself!)

I worked mindfully, set things up behind the scenes to reach towards deep rest, and sent an announcement to folks on my little list.

I began receiving some of the first strong medicine from the sabbatical process.

it was not comfortable.

some people were delighted. some people chose to tell me how upset they were that I would be taking time for myself, and how they now had to adjust their expectation and projection of me. some people wanted to dedicate my time off to others, as though my time to try to find myself again had anything to do with anyone other than me.

a few angelic folks (thank you so much, loved ones) donated money to help fund the sabbatical, and with great thanks to their generosity and in their honor, 500+ pages were written in the rest. those pages are the seeds of the book waiting to be written.

the people who truly love me – my beloveds – celebrated. one by one, they generously met my request for total space and time and quiet. some of them may have felt a way about it, but they loved me enough to let me leave the world for a time.

I am so grateful to them.

a thing about being an extreme outlier of sensitivity, gifted with a bright and quick mind and a nervous system that seems to want to deep dive into every permutation of every human experience:

setting down people’s upset over my tiny sabbatical was…really hard.

I would hear particular phrases over and over for months in the beginning of the sabbatical, sent in the emails following my announcement. people asked, ‘can you work one day a week and have it be a real sabbatical?’ and I wondered the same thing with them.

I grapple with an old safety strategy of perfectionism, and I’d ask myself several hundred times in the first month or two of sabbatical, over and over: ‘am I doing this right?’ and, ‘how can I take this time of rest when so many cannot?’

these were painful questions.

the gift:

letting go of “available,” reclaiming self, sacred no’s

I know this is a long writing – thanks for being here.

I took a little time at the beginning of this armchair adventure to share the initial sacred day of nothing, that evolved into monthly personal retreat for years thanks to jeff, that later evolved into my own funny, soupy, life-saving hybrid sabbatical.

this is important, because the sacred day and the monthly retreats had primed me for the discomfort that can hallmark the beginning of these types of experiences – I was mercifully prepared (well, mostly) for the anxious voice inside repeatedly asking:

‘am I doing this right?’

these previous experiences stepping outside the world had shown me: the unease and vigilance would, eventually, ease. those questions quieted down in the sabbatical process, and I see them very differently now.

at the end of the uncomfortable first two months, I wasn’t asking anymore if I was doing it right, and I didn’t care whether people thought it was ‘a real sabbatical’ or whether I should be working one day a week during it. I let go of worrying if I should feel bad about having created a life where I could take rest when it was needed, or that people were upset because I wasn’t available for them anymore.

all I wanted was silence, and those energy tugs and narratives simply began not matter.

it turned out, a massive part of the sabbatical process for me was…setting down my previous identity as much as possible, and practicing the noble art of saying ‘no.’

I’ve taken to calling that passage the thousand sacred no’s, and each of them built complex strength in me.

that alchemy has been pivotal, transformative, and deserves its own article – it’s the deep furry belly of the retreat, that gave and gave so many rich, deep gifts.

speaking of, thanks for reading along – see you in that next article, coming soon: the thousand sacred no’s.

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