…and the clarity that arrived
how do I share what I gleaned from 5 months of sabbatical in one tidy article?
I find I cannot – not fully.
part of me wants to concretize the beauty and gifts that came from stepping out of the world for a time, and the much-sought-after clarity that came from it. parts of me hesitate to make sense of the experience, because for me sabbatical wasn’t tidy or linear or (often) comfortable – it was a wild, wily, dynamic living beastie with a will and way of its own.
quieter parts of me – the empath, the highly sensitive being, the shy one – honor that I’m at heart a private creature and there will be things I keep close and sacred.
editor’s note: I’ve written a few pieces about the sabbatical previously and shared when the spirit moved me – about what it took to step away, and ‘the thousand sacred no’s.’ this, though, was the most confronting article in the sabbatical series to write so far.
however. I feel that some of these ‘armchair aha’ moments may be of service to another woman in a time of change, in our increasingly fast-paced and performative age, so I’ll try.
deep breath. here we go…
before the stopping: the long underworld years
the years before the sabbatical were a mix of beautiful work that I love, and a long personal sojourn in the underworld. thirteen major tragedies blurred into season after season of loss and initiation.
I learned endurance so deeply that I forgot its opposite: ease.
I’m blessed to be partnered with the most wondrous man. he makes my world sing, and got me through the long, hard years. he knows me better than anyone, and it was painful to receive his reflection during the sabbatical about how many days I had wept during the underworld years and still showed up to all the things that needed doing, stumbling from one required task to the next.
there was a lot of fierce survival mode before the sabbatical, and although I *knew* that, I could barely see the impact it was having on my heart and life. I had held compassionate space for thousands, and without noticing, held so little for myself.
it’s surreal to type that. I mean, I help women through this exact tangle. also, healer heal thyself! (gentle palm to forehead, there) in retrospect, I feel so much compassion for that past self, who kept breathing and doing because she couldn’t imagine stopping.
big heart hug to her, and big heart hug to you if you can relate.
the cost of constant interaction
in the month before the sabbatical, I was often on around 25 calls a week, with a mixture of colleagues, clients, and friends. like many outliers of sensitivity, I’d learned to be adept at masking, showing up like a virtuoso – bright, capable, kind – even while quietly howling on the inside.
that had a cost.
one of the big sabbatical understandings was just that – every interaction has a cost.
that may sound simple, and indeed sounds so to me now, but I didn’t understand in our strange era of constant performative noise, with the consistent and relentless pings and dings and rings, the countless energy leaks and tugs that somehow have been normalized…how much it cost to answer every email with mindfulness and care, how much it cost to sit with full presence with thousands of human stories, how much it cost to navigate shattering personal experiences that piled atop each other.
much as a house of cards eventually loses coherence and topples, I toppled.
face-first into sabbatical.
the guilt of bright and good
a thing I notice in our modern world is a tendency to feel guilty about what is good and bright in a human life, on a planet experiencing so much intensity and complexity. I notice a trend of folks apologizing – often performatively – about embracing what is pleasurable or smooth, sweet or kind.
part of sabbatical for me was learning how to pour out some of that unhealed collective guilt from my system, and wrap my arms around the fact that I creatively found a way to stop, when stopping was life-saving.
I honor that not everyone can step outside the world for a season of rest. if you find yourself still moving when you’re past your edges, when your very starfluff feels ragged and thin, if you’re tired or aching or full of yearning – I see you.
if another’s rest stirs jealousy or grief, if even the idea of stopping feels impossible – I hear you. big heart hug, big blessings.
but this is not an apology note for finding my way back home to myself. this is me, writing still tender from the rest, trying to understand the gifts of sabbatical, and the clarity that it brought.
and somehow, magically, it did.
somehow, the song in the silence came.
I prayed for peace, and it arrived.
in that peace, I saw more clearly what I call the control – the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) pressures that can put our hearts and gifts to sleep, turning us into ever-productive automatons, lost to the whispers that called us here planetside in the first place.
to wake from the trance isn’t luxury – it’s reclamation. if this writing, this small constellation of words helps even one beautiful one (you), find your way home to the life-saving medicines of rest and remembering – then the sabbatical continues its holy work, offering you emergence from trance to your own aliveness.
from that reclaimed stillness, the real listening began.
emerging, with newborn skin tender and bright, I don’t want as much interaction with humans. I’m blessed to be graced by brilliant and wondrous people in my life. and I see now that even one rich conversation or interaction can take me a month or more to digest.
about that – about digesting all the experiences…
‘too much to love’
I heard a wonderful story once that has stuck with me for over a decade. it’s about a little boy who loved hot wheels. folks wanted to give him wonderful things, and he was showered in these little cars he loved so much. as the story goes, the little boy started lining up his cars on a windowsill – everything in the field of vision, and untouched. when someone asked in surprise why he wasn’t playing with his hot wheels anymore, he did what children do when they cut right to the heart of the matter, and replied:
‘there are too many to love.’
after sabbatical, as I do my emergence and learn what life will be like now, I notice feeling like that boy:
too much to love. too much to hold. too much to be present with.
even the sweetest things, the richest connections – I find I want less.
way, way less. of everything.
silence is something I crave. stillness is a boon.
slow is sacred.
what remained after the silence
part of me longs to be back in the sabbatical – already. to be in the quiet, where my phone sat silently untouched for weeks at a time in the armoire. to read a book a day, and find a simple, feral joy in it. part of me holds light concern that I’ll slippery-slope back into who I was before my first real rest. at the same time, I don’t think I actually could; too much has been set down.
but I have a watchful eye, all the same, on speeding up again. of even ‘too much to love.’
here are three (of many) things I’ve kept or put in place after sabbatical that feel of service to share. the magic of that experience will fade, like all experiences once integrated do, and it’s my prayer that the teachings, the great gifts remain. to honor them, and hopefully keep some of the sabbatical medicine alive:
- ‘the sacred day of nothing:’ this was a meaningful practice for me before sabbatical, that had fallen to the wayside under serious pressure. in ‘the sacred day of nothing’ there are zero calls, zero appointments (even great ones), zero adulting. one day to putter, to walk, to read, to simply listen to the energy of the moment and meander into it. a weekly exhale, pause, sacred rest. a day of no-thing.
- 3-day monthly personal retreat: folks who have walked with me for decades know this one already, and you’ll find occasional intensives and articles about the art and gift of personal retreat. it’s a beloved practice for me – and I feel its wisdom in a new way. these small oases won’t be like the strange, soupy months of sabbatical, but oases they will remain. the gifts of regular personal retreat are rich and deep. life-saving.
- ‘phone in a cupboard:’ we’re all built differently, of course. for my nervous system (and yours?), the constant rings and dings and pings of texts and emails and notifications are scattering, draining. and, my gods, I’m not even on social media and don’t use a pile of apps to stay unendingly connected. the phone now lives quietly in the armoire. the laptop lives closed behind a couch, unless it’s a boundaried work time. there is no tv in our home. screens are curtailed as much as possible; they are tools and not lifestyle. I treat them as such.
closing the circle
like you, I’ve encountered a bunch of life narratives online that begin with ‘before I discovered x, I was burned out and exhausted.’ each of these stories is of course a jewel, and a hard-won journey towards freedom, and there are so many of them now that they can almost feel standard. I suppose I’ve joined those ranks now in my own way, and my small, creative sabbatical was the thing I discovered that brought me back to life.
there’s more, of course, lots more. I wrote 500 pages in the rest, and most of it will stay quietly with me. now and again, I’ll share a bit about that quiet time, in service to you finding your version of yours if you wish it.
the holy gift of slow
if you’ve taken a sabbatical or deep rest, you have your own lore that you earned and might someday share. (or…not) all joy and honoring your way. thanks for being an ‘imaginal cell’ in our fast times who carries the much-needed, holy medicine of slow.
if you’re shuddering on the edge of too much, are tired and yearning, or read this and feel like ‘hey, I really want my own version of that,’ you can get a hold of me. we can see if we’re a good fit together, and if we are, we can explore how you, too, might find your own way back to slow.
however, whenever we connect – or if we don’t and this article was our cup of tea together this lifetime around here planetside – I wish you well. I wish you rest. I wish you grace.
with heart,
anna
ps – if these writings bring you a little quiet or wonder, you’re warmly invited to join the dreaming otter email list at the bottom of this page. new stories arrive there from time to time, like small lanterns along the road.
