The extra long kind of Sabbath
On taking time off. On feeling into stuff. On non-doing. On reconnecting to what it means to be human. On time travel.
Hiiiii - there are a lot of new people on here!
Seems like my last post on the suburban kind of slumber made a bit of a splash in the world… of substack. Trust me I’m aware of the size of the splash. Not that big. But it’s big for me. My good pal linked to the essay from his RadReads newsletter and many of you decided to subscribe. Thank you and welcome. I am excited you are here. I write to think, but I publish because the world needs more diverse voices in the public narrative - Woman, Immigrant, Mother. I don’t publish on a schedule, because I write when I feel called to it, when inspiration lights up. I decided that writing should always be fun, never a chore. With that, here’s a glimpse into who I am. And - serendipitously - today’s essay goes back to where it all started, because Amble was born out of my sabbatical. Let’s get to it.
Unrelatable and slow
It’s been almost exactly a year since I wrapped up a six-month-long sabbatical. This essay has been a long time coming. I wanted to capture the essence of that experience while it was still fresh in my experience. But I struggled with putting things into words. Because (1) few have the privilege or ability to take such an extended time off from work and I feared sounding unrelatable, and (2) my understanding of what made this experience life-changing widened and deepened as time went on.
I am still probably not very relatable. I am still not feeling entirely ready. But I am attempting to capture some of my lessons, in the hope that this can inspire others to claim the time, space, whenever they find themselves seeking and yearning for something… grander.
Why take a sabbatical?
My sabbatical was a non-choice. I was beyond exhausted. Drained. Debilitated. Dead tired. Chronically stressed. Sleep deprived. Rarely present. Negligent of my body’s needs. Rolling off of a toxic workplace. All happening on the heels of a psychotic presidency, a global pandemic, and a war at my home country’s doorstep. There was no way I’d find any capacity to think about “what might be next for me”. I needed to rest. Like a lot.
One person’s opinion, but informed by first-hand experience: resting is a very solid reason to opt for a sabbatical.
There’s a whole universe of other reasons to take a sabbatical. Obviously.
I have friends who have taken sabbaticals to pursue creative projects like writing a play. Others who have traveled to faraway places. Others wanted to see if they could scale their side gig into full-time self-employment. And some others, simply taking advantage of the sabbatical “perk” at their workplaces, marking a large milestone like 5 years with the company.
Whatever your reason for considering or taking a sabbatical - I encourage you to own yours. Fully. Make that a reason you share openly and repeatedly with your friends, family, your local barista, whoever will listen.
Every time I verbalized my personal proclamation “I’m taking a sabbatical to chill the f out, to find calm and presence” I felt the intention take hold in a bigger way. Every repetition brought me closer to myself. The chorus helped me own what I needed, what I wanted.
How to plan for a sabbatical?
Arguably, I’m not a “life planner”. Never was. I have a demonstrated track record of rarely overthinking major life moves. For better or worse. This time was no different. I did not have a plan.
I did however have an embodied sense of the mass destruction the year prior (or the last 4 years or maybe even the whole decade in NYC) had done to my body and spirit. The level of my exhaustion was inexplicable. So whaddyado… I leaned into the exact opposite.
I made it a regular practice throughout my days to ask myself, again and again, “what do I feel like doing right now?” The most common answer: I feel like taking a nap. I napped long and hard over the first 6 weeks or so. It was weird, confusing, and delightful.
Second most frequent: I feel like being in nature, breathing fresh air.
And then there was a slew of long-neglected yearnings: I felt like reading for pleasure, as opposed to another book about product management or leadership. I felt like cooking something elaborate. I felt like hanging out with my kids.
At some point, I felt like dusting off old practices such as meditation. And soon after, picking up new ones - breath work, journaling. And when my body recuperated, I felt like running, working out, getting strong again. And when I started to feel like myself again, I felt like planning date nights, travel, city adventures.
In some ways, I can now see that underneath the intuitively invented “feeling-my-way-into-decisions-about-how-I-spend-my-time”, from moment to moment, I was in fact setting the tone for the entire time off. The intention clarified over time. The vernacular needed marinating.
As I’ve argued before (here and here): an intention trumps a plan; a commitment is better than specific goals; feeling into something instead of “braining” it into existence. Especially when it comes to sabbaticals.
What to “do” during a sabbatical?
Based on a completely non-scientific sample of a bunch of friends I polled - it seems that the best sabbaticals are filled with a lot of non-action. A sense that time flows and nothing much happens. The best way to use this type of time off, is to actually be off. The beauty and the true power of a sabbatical is in the time slipping between fingers.
Imagine taking a sabbatical and then filling your daily “agenda” with action items for every hour on the hour… like, what good would that do? Could you even tell the difference between life “before sabbatical” and “life in a sabbatical”? I realize this must sound terrifying to most people. We’re all so steeped in functional workaholism that the idea of doing nothing can be uncanny.
Here’s what is hardest to imagine for anyone endorsing hustle culture: time actually flies when you don’t have to do anything in particular; when you’re free to choose your adventure moment-to-moment; when you’re following and trusting your instincts.
The point of a sabbatical is baked into its earliest origin. “Sabbatical”: rooted in the ancient, Biblical tradition of shmita, or sabbatical year, tied to agricultural cycles. Per Leviticus 25, those residing in the Land of Israel were required to observe a year-long hiatus from cultivating their fields every seventh year. I cannot help but wonder if the impact of sabbatical years went beyond regenerating soils? So much can unfold when people slow down for a full year. Could it have been that this was a time dedicated in equal parts to honoring the earth, as well as our human spirit? A time to reconnect with yourself, with others, and with the greater powers that be.
Now, imagine this… What could be possible if every neurotic, hustle-obsessed, always-busy New Yorker had to go on a year-long break, every seven years? Creative energies unleashing! Deconstruction of an ocean of ego! Deeper community bonding! More civic engagement! Noise and pollution reduction! The entire city’s vibe shifting!
OK, I digress. Back to the original question. If you’re considering or embarking on a sabbatical - think about what would an ideal day look like for you? Not a “nice” day. An ideal day.
Dreaming big, but keeping it simple. What do you love to do? What would filling your day with those activities look like? How would a day like this feel? Hopefully, the answer to those questions isn’t “Work. I love to work, so I would just want to work all day long”. In case it is - let me put it bluntly: if you think you would want to work on your sabbatical, it’s because you’re out of touch with your humanity. You haven’t tasted meaning outside of work, in way too long, and you forgot how fulfilling other facets of life can be. We work to create outputs. But we human to human. Our greatest human virtue is to do things for the sake of doing them. Use the sabbatical to reconnect with your humanity. Use the sabbatical to do things without an end goal in mind.
For many people, a sabbatical is a long-time-coming for things out of the ordinary that otherwise couldn’t be accomplished over the average 11 days of PTO in the U.S. Travel, extreme experiences, exploring new cultures. Nothing wrong with that. If that is what your heart yearns for - go for it.
But know this: Research suggests that creating ample space to rest and reconnect with ourselves is a better predictor of whether the sabbatical will have an enduring impact on the rest of your life. Turns out easing into it by slowing down and recharging first, predicted whether you’d be going back to your pre-break life in its old form, or whether you’d be constructing a completely new approach to life in more alignment with your true longings.
If you want a life-altering sabbatical experience, “plan less, and embrace the unfamiliar, unusual, and uncomfortable opportunities that turn your sabbatical into a quest.” Traveling to far away lands can be a beautiful thing, but to appropriate Tony Soprano’s words, “There is no geographical solution to a spiritual problem.”
How to sabbatical well?
Disconnecting. Our lives are so overwhelming in 2023 - social media, emails, texts, voice messages, the never-ending scroll of news. This connectedness is our default state. What’s the opposite of that? Taking a break from the stimulation of socializing.
What’s one of the most uncomfortable things for most people to do? Be alone. In the first 8 weeks, I barely saw anyone besides my closest family and the friendly neighbors I would accidentally run into. It was a time of hibernation, rest, and disconnection. All this helped me reconnect with myself. The surprising thing on the other side of the initial discomfort (“Wait - I haven’t texted any friends in over a week?!”) was that I actually wasn’t bored. I surprised myself at how much I enjoyed my own company.
Downsizing. At one point, I realized how little money I was spending. It was one of the best surprises. When the noise, hustle, stress of my everyday life subsided - I didn’t have to rely on online shopping to numb myself. I no longer needed the addictive behavior (wish more people would talk about it that way…) to compensate for the emptiness and misalignment I felt in other areas of my life. I could see how the coping mechanism magically faded when the core issue (disconnection from my organic needs, my simple yearnings) went away.
Learning new things. I found it refreshing to be doing things for the sake of doing them, rather than with some larger goal in mind. One of my pursuits during the six months, was cultivating a community-based program to support folks struggling with functional workaholism and/or burnout. While deeply rewarding, it quickly grew to look like a possible job, which I wasn’t ready to commit to. So the parts I hung onto were the pieces that didn’t feel like work at all. Writing - which evolved into Amble. Learning - reading voraciously, deepening with formal training. Supporting people - but in a 1:1 capacity. My advice: go for things that the innermost parts of you are yearning for. Whatever you opt to learn - do not make it feel like work. Rediscover the beauty of doing stuff without an agenda, for the simple pleasure and fulfillment of doing them. Which lately I’ve come to understand as a form of returning to the heart of our humanity.
Writing it all down. The space you create will inevitably lead to a lot of epiphanies. You may discover the funny thing about rested brains. They can actually come up with really interesting, original thoughts. I encourage you to capture it one way or another. From my experience the “ahas” can be incredibly varied - from brave self-inquiry, deconstructing the ego, reaching new states of self-awareness, all the way to vacation ideas, professional north stars, and new operating models for everyday life. If you decide to travel - the impressions, places, people, meals, adventures - if uncaptured will inevitably fade with time. I started journaling for the first time in my life, during my time off. Over time, it has become a source of continued and evolving insight as I venture back through my old notes. In a way, I am reliving the sabbatical every time I read through my journals - and the reflections continue to surprise me in new ways.
One of the best-researched resources out there - The Sabbatical Project - outlines the 6 key components of planning a sabbatical - neatly tracks with much of my own experience.
How to manage the transition back to „normal life”?
You gotta do one thing and do that thing well, with lots of intentionality: decide which parts of your sabbatical experience are your new non-negotiables. Is it maintaining your newly established passion for pottery? Is it keeping your journaling practice alive? Is it making room for your favorite afternoon nap everyday between work stuff? Is it making sure you’re surrounding yourself with people that make you feel whole? Is it pursuing an entirely new set of intentions?
I made the conscious and vocal decision to carve out and protect (at many costs) the morning routine I formed during my sabbatical - breathing, meditating, writing, moving my body, being alone. It’s the part of the day that I have protected all throughout the year. With some expected fluctuations - because, well, you know… Summers! Renovations! Temporarily disabled partners! All along, I’ve tried to avoid losing sight of the impact these magic hours have on the overall health of me, my family, and others around me (friends, co-workers, etc). That’s what returns me to the practices (even if at wonky hours) and what nudges me to go back to my routine, when off kilt.
Another dimension to bring to the post-sabbatical life is acknowledging what had unfolded for you. What seeds were planted during your sabbatical that you want to keep germinating? What would it mean to deepen your commitment to the calls you answered during your sabbatical? For me, this has meant deepening areas of inquiry that kept me inspired throughout my sabbatical. Making time to reflect and write consistently. Enrolling in more formal meditation training to continue to expand my understanding of the very ancient kind of wisdom. Joining an advanced coaching program that allows me to intensely explore and practice ways of being I want to embody over the rest of my life. The seeds sprouted sometime in 2022 and the gardener in me just keeps watering them.
Life pre-sabbatical and life post-sabbatical feel night-and-day different. The “from > to” or the “before > after” is a helpful framework to make sense of the experience. What have I shed? What do I want to continue shedding? What have I planted? What do I want to continue cultivating? What yearnings have I answered that I’ve neglected in the past? How do I continue to honor them? And can I even afford to ignore them again?
Those questions and many more like those have journeyed with me over the past 12 months. The answers grow and evolve with time. The experience exceeded all my expectations back in 2022, and it continues to inform so much of my day-to-day decisions, to this day. The gift keeps on giving. Talk about transcendental experiences. Making me realize that even though the moment has passed with the sabbatical being over, the heart of the experience and the wisdom nestled in it, has time-traveled with me. If you’re thinking of taking a sabbatical but terrified / confused / uncertain / [insert appropriate word] - drop me a note at maria@amble.day, I’d be happy to jam and help you think through this.
The Practice
What would taking a sabbatical look like for you? How would you want to spend that time?
What could a mini-sabbatical next week look like, in your life? How could you carve out a tiny-little-mini-sabbatical for resting, stepping back, reflecting?
Random collection of things
🤓 Research insights from Harvard Business School (of all places…) on the transformative power of sabbaticals.
👩🎨 Stefan Sagmeister on his long-standing tradition of sabbaticaling: The power of time off
📕 I feel like in every Amble of late, I’ve linked to something Holly Whitaker wrote, and this edition is no different. Holly did it again. Fantastic essay on why men need to read what women write. Angry, personal, accurate. I’ve sent it to all the men in my life I care about.
“The thing is, I don’t want to be mad anymore. I just want the next man who wants to explain to me what the world is like, or the next one who penetrates me without asking, to be able to answer in the affirmative when I ask him whether or not he’s read a book on feminism.”
🏃♀️ Sari Azout reflecting on the suckness of modernity (also shoutout for Sublime App, which Sari recently launched in beta and which I’ve been thoroughly enjoying - most interesting place on the internet IMO):
“Pathological impatience. What an accurate way to describe the ails of our time. Summarize an article in an instant. Automatically respond to all your emails. Get cookies delivered to your doorstep in 10 minutes. Capture the most value with the least work. Speed and efficiency are the promise of modernity. But speed and efficiency are all destination and no journey. And it is journey that gives life meaning. How do we reclaim the joy of doing something slow and difficult, the satisfaction of not doing what is easiest? If more effort is wasted doing things that don’t matter (doomscrolling for hours) than is wasted doing things inefficiently (taking time to draft a good email), how do we reorient towards elimination of what’s unnecessary, instead of hyper-optimization of what’s important?”
🔬 My old pal - Christina Ducruet - is building Labyrxnth, a spiritual wellness company. Her first, signature 12-week program offers structured exploration and experiential guidance from Lab Guides — a multidisciplinary team of practitioners of potent alternative modalities - and opportunities to gather with fellow seekers. All with the intention of personal growth and spiritual development. The upcoming cohort starts next week, so don’t sit on this one.
🛣 My new pal - Tina Yip - is building a community of practice for people who escape easy categorizations. Strategists, generalists, creatives, solopreneurs. Tina is about to run a program for anyone dabbling in or pondering a move into freelancing. Check it out here.