20230725 Of Sabbaticals

Dear Coach Roxygen,

Yes, please let’s talk about sabbaticals and why they’re considered so taboo in this bro-ductivity world we live in.

I have needed an emotional sabbatical. Deep, difficult secrets of my psyche seem to be bubbling to the surface and stopping the flow of my life. I have been struggling to push through in every arena: parenting, relationships, career, giant purpose project, health, avocation… I avoid true feelings in all of them.

Instead, I’ve been finding pockets of unhealed resolve. The resolve to live through bad times, the resolve to find purpose and happiness after living through those bad times, and worst of all, the resolve to go after the unhealed resolve.

I didn’t know resolve could be a form of a wound until I took up this quest to find out more about what an emotional sabbatical would look like. Would I, like you, visit many metaphysical ‘lands’ while vacating the connection to these emotions? Or would I retreat into an isolationist cocoon, waiting to emerge with wings of emotion on the other side?

Whatever this fantasy, I have come to the conclusion that vacating emotions isn’t the answer to the unhealed resolve. Sadly. I must seek to heal the resolve. To carefully dress the wounds resulting from my unskilled attempts at a safe and connected inner map.

What does this mean for business?

I am the business. The business is me. The product I offer comes from my ability to weather this sabbatical nonsense and then help others see a more streamlined approach to their own nonsense.

Isn’t that what we’re taught? Entrepreneurs are lab rats, salesperson, and product all in one.

I think this is kinda the point of the sabbatical thing — and maybe? Where you are with your business, too?

What if selling ourselves or our experiences or our inner safety is the wrong approach? What if the product isn’t what I can offer, what if it’s an example of how to set a boundary between me and what I can offer?

What if I am not my business and my business is not me?

What if it’s also not a division between “business” and “personal”? (Gonna have to go with Kathleen Kelly on this bit of wisdom) Business is always personal, but it doesn’t always have to consume me in order to be personal.

What if the business could nurture ME instead of me nurturing it?
I think, that the big question you gave me in your last letter wasn’t “How do I make money at this?” But instead… “How can I build a business that truly nurtures the sabbaticals I will need to take in order to continue building that business?”

Things are changing. It’s true.

Tell me how you’re feeling and what you’re thinking since your letter? How have things been with your life?

How is your life nurturing you?

Many thanks, Sincerely,

Your Advo-Kate