Overcoming my Greatest Sabbatical Obstacles

I would tell myself on repeat, “this is what we do but it’s not all that I am.” Being a sabbatical coach that takes a sabbatical presents it’s own set of challenges. For the last 8 years as I have created, lead, guided, and listened, I have secretly been gathering up ideas of how I wanted to live out my own sabbatical one day - I had been taking my own notes. To say that I had thought about how I wanted to sabbatical was a gross understatement!

So, on the first day of my sabbatical, when my house was at an all-time level of destruction in a 6-month construction project, including the kitchen sink and temporary camping stove set-up in the garage, disappointment was the prominent feeling! This is far from the restful environment my whole self so desperately needed. What promises the contractor made, were laughable by anyone who has ever undertaken such a project - to date, I was not one of those naively inexperienced people. One of my greatest obstacles would become allowing myself to be in the messy space of living life while on sabbatical.

The pressure increased externally as I would attend church, a church that systematically promoted sabbaticals for the staff. However, I was likely the only person many had ever lived life in real time with while on sabbatical - pastors were nowhere to be found when on sabbatical, and rightfully so. Weekly, people would ask me what I was doing with the time and how it was going. (no pressure!)

I realize through hindsight that one of my greatest obstacles, not that dissimilar to others we work with in this process, was trust. Trust in the process and learning God wanted to highlight and trust in the people replacing me. Learning to trust others to carry the load was initially harder than I thought, though I’m incredibly grateful and proud of the team that was in place working extra on behalf of my absence. Slowing down, intentionally planning and then beginning to hand off responsibilities in the release phase, meant facing everything I had been too busy, too afraid, or too responsible to confront. It meant facing myself with profound honesty at the place of development this organization is in.

 Here’s how the time within my phases of sabbatical broke down:

Phase 1 REALIZE - 18 months (longer than many but not uncommon, either)

Phase 2 RELEASE - 5 months

Phase 3 RESTORATION - 2 months and 29 days (Nearly my entire time on sabbatical!)

Phase 4 REFLECTION - 1 day, AND also 3 months while no longer on sabbatical

Phase 5 RE-ENTRY - 3 months-ish

Practically, one of the greatest challenges was confronting the misalignment in my organization’s structure - the one I had helped build. As much as this was a season of reflection, I couldn’t ignore the tension between what I was called to do and what I was actually spending my energy on. The clarity I gained, about my gifting, my limits, and our unsustainable model, cried out for change.And change, especially in nonprofit and ministry work, is never easy. Change takes risk, difficult conversations, and the willingness to disrupt what is comfortable for the sake of what is necessary.

Given that my sabbatical was only 3 months, I used my last day to engage with familiar tools related specifically to my roles. I wanted to address whether going back to them were in question and/or whether I would live out the next many months releasing responsibilities. While I spent only 1 set-aside day in reflection of my vocational work and alignment with TWB, I would intentionally reflect for several more months as I put hats back on and re-entered the work. While reflection continues to this day, it feels like the vocational questions cease for a time; Wrapped up as I take back all of the hats with a plan to release 3 in the next 6-12 months.

Another obstacle for me in hindsight, was the emotional cost and energy needed to revisit unresolved relationships and painful memories. Returning to the places where grief, betrayal, and disillusionment had taken root required more courage than I anticipated. There were moments when I questioned why I had agreed to reopen wounds that had been carefully closed. But what I discovered was that healing doesn’t come from forgetting or moving on. It comes from directly facing the past with honesty, compassion, and curiosity. It comes from returning to the stories we thought had already been written and allowing God to speak something new down the spiral staircase of attentiveness.

Perhaps the deepest obstacle, though, was inside of me. The internal work of trusting God again not just for provision, but for restoration felt like the voices of scarcity I thought were limited to questions of finance. I had lived under a scarcity mindset for so long in every area of life, that dreaming felt dangerous. Over the last 18 months, I began to believe and directly see that God could provide—not just financially, but in relationships, in healing, in leadership, and in my identity - patience is not my strongest attribute.

This process stripped away illusions I didn’t realize I was holding. It exposed how leadership had become entangled with fear, and it invited me into something freer, truer, and more whole. The obstacle of taking the time was great—but the freedom on the other side of those sacrifices, and the gifts I discovered in it all were beyond worth it. 

Lacking Community? 5 Intentional Ways to Meet Relational Support Needs in 2020-21

Arguably the hardest part of transition is establishing a new place of belonging. One goes from a place of knowing how things work, feeling like you are missed when you are gone and welcome when you are present. Uprootedness causes great identity disorientation that for many, can lead to isolation, depression and worse.

I want to fast-forward through this predictable stage of re-entry. I want to bypass the need for small talk, and the year-long misunderstanding that I experience in not really being myself because of transition angst and growing pains. In these spaces I’m reminded this is normal. I turn to the great work by Joseph Myers, in his book The Search to Belong.

According to his research healthy relationships have undergone a natural progression through four spaces of belonging: Public, Social, Personal and Intimate. “Healthy community - the goal humankind has sought since the beginning - is achieved when we hold harmonious connections within all four spaces. Harmony means more public belongings than social, more social than personal and very few intimate.”

He goes on to state that for healthy relationships to exist, you must progress through these stages rather than step over one to get to the other. Not every relationship moves, some may stay in the public sphere (i.e. a neighbor, a pharmacist, or a parent of my children’s friend). Those that do move, move in a natural progression through public > social > personal > intimate. When the progression is bypassed, there is lack of trust, authenticity, misunderstanding and potential for shame.

During this time of a pandemic, when the public and social spaces are lacking, those in major life transition are especially disadvantaged in discovering places of belonging. How can they naturally progress if there is no public sphere to enter? While there is still a great need for being deeply known, new personal and intimate connections can not happen without the ability to meet people in the public spheres that are currently limited - like a ball game, a church service or a party.

And while we need people in all 4 categories, we most desperately need people in the personal and intimate.

So how does one find fulfillment, while simultaneously experiencing the natural strain of lacking community due to transition and now also to an enforced pandemic?

1. If at all possible, move to a place where you know at least one other person. While I recognize this is not always possible, I highly recommend it to all who have the opportunity to speak into their relocation’s geographical decision. Finding new friends as an adult is increasingly hard. Add a pandemic where people are leary to make new acquaintances and the possibilities become even fewer. While we may still feel the disconnect involved with transition, when there is at least one other person who has known us in the past, we feel a more stable and integrated part of us moving into the current location with us. To me having one friend is similar to having a life raft. Not meant to be reductive nor utilitarian, this friend can be an emergency plan. Not a forever plan; something or someone to lean on when the transition waters rise! When I’m feeling bewildered by the many new decisions and uncertain of how to get life done, I can call on someone…even just one person to hear me out and speak my language. 

2. Utilize social media gathering spaces such as web-based conferences and virtual learning platforms. While they do not suffice for intimate relationships, there is a host of options to provide the needed outside circles of social and public proximity spaces that Myers refers to.

3. Similarly I have used permissible meetups like outdoor hiking groups and Facebook groups to gain a better understanding of the greater geographic community I am living in. These platforms provide a welcome understanding that we are sharing something but not everything in common. When I share at the level the group is intended for, I feel known, understood and gain clarity on whether I want to move towards people in this group.

4. Take advantage of the unforeseen challenges of those friends that are stuck.  We all experienced many disruptions and inconvenient change of plans during these last several months. However, I have seen repeatedly people in places they were not expecting to be for an extended period of time. While a huge inconvenience for some, this pandemic provided an immeasurable blessing for others. For us, some of our closest friends from Spain who were taking a sabbatical stateside for 6 months had to extend their stay for several months due to the mandated travel bans. What this meant for us was both the presence of people who knew us, but also an extension of the me I used to be. I don’t love saying, “when I lived in Spain” or “just like when I was in Spain” to new people I meet. I understand it gets old really fast! These people from Spain, intrinsically get the differences and similarities and can celebrate the new alongside mourning that my heart will always be divided from this point on. These global nomads, and others who are stuck can provide a gift of support despite their unforeseen stuckness.

“…an extension of the me I used to be”

5. As we talk about transition with others, one way we discuss filing the loneliness in the in-between of having lost friendships and making new ones, is to find bridge people that will stay with you from one place to the next; whether that be via a weekly text or a monthly check-in. Not everyone can or will be able to provide this, but having a few close intimate supports, reminds you that you are known and loved and “held” is incredibly important in a time of transition when your identity is so confused.

In this particular transition, I asked four important people in my life to check in on my emotional health once a month for approximately 6 months. While four people was not a magic number, it distributed the responsibility across a few of my close supporters as each individual knows me and “cares” for me from a different angle. Four also fulfilled a once a week every month commitment. If one of them needed to skip a week, I don’t go a whole month without a check-in. In my case, two of these are helping professionals (coach and counselor) and two are close friends; all have journeyed with me for more than 4 years. I have others that check in too, but not as consistently and intentionally.

And just a sidenote: As transition coaches this bridge relationship is one role we provide for others in understanding and being with people in their way between. We get it. Finding people who get it and get you is the goal!

As I transition to a new country again now in my mid-40’s I recognize I’ve learned a few things from my many moves. 1. I NEED a few soft landing pieces in the form of people more than a house or a bed. I can go a long time without a “home” but not without people who get me. 2. My top priority in friendship is finding people who can track with me and understand my quirkiness, my sadness, my excitement and the me that is not just “new,” “awkward,” or “forgetful” Sara!

From the leaving and the losing, into the gap of not having, and then again into finding new ways of fitting in and belonging, these people who journey with me in that strange and bumpy road are my necessary bi-cultural bridges. I need to humbly ask people to stay with me however they can in this weird season of in between. This patient posture of togetherness fills the great chasm until I can be me more of myself. I truly need these bridge people and recognize what a different emotional place I’m in when I have them in my life.

Bi-cultural bridges are a lifeline between the old land and the new

We can utilize Myers work on belonging as a reminder that long-lasting, personal or intimate relationships take time. And intentionally seeking out a few relationships to bridge transition (and especially the pandemic), may provide the grace we need to stabilize and begin to gain our bearings.

For further thought:

What is your greatest social support need in transition?

Who can help meet that need that really gets you?