What is A Sabbatical and Why I Planned For 6 Years to Take A Break
"If we don't take time for a break, our souls will give out before our bodies do."
— Wayne Muller, Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives
Ever since I started working full-time in Toronto in 2017, I’ve been planning to take a sabbatical in 2024. I knew that a few weeks off each year would never satisfy my deep longing to spend months traveling, reflecting, and experiencing life at a slower pace. I had already spent the previous four years traveling the world off and on, exploring different parts of myself. Something mysterious happened to my personal growth when I had time without the rush of daily responsibilities. I didn’t want to get caught in the endless work grind without making room for that kind of transformation again.
My sabbatical became my finish line, my escape hatch—a lifelong dream that kept me focused and motivated. So, I began saving up. Each paycheck, I put away a small amount, not thinking much of it at the time. It felt far off, but the idea of taking a sabbatical in six years was comforting because I knew I was actively working toward it.
What Exactly Is a Sabbatical?
In short, a sabbatical is time away from your regular work responsibilities. People often use this time for rest, spending time with family, healing, or travel.
Modern Sabbaticals: These days, forward-thinking tech companies have started offering sabbaticals to employees, but this practice is still far from common. We are a long way from a world where sabbaticals are seen as a normal part of life.
Academic Sabbaticals: In academia, sabbaticals have been a long-standing tradition. Professors typically take time away from teaching to focus on research or writing. Though these sabbaticals aren’t necessarily about personal renewal, they acknowledge that some things can only happen when we step away from everyday work demands.
Spiritual Sabbaticals: In many Christian churches, pastors take a sabbatical every seven years. This tradition is based on the biblical principle of a "year of jubilee," where the Israelites let their land rest every seventh year, trusting that they would harvest enough in the sixth year to sustain them through the seventh. It was a practice of trust, celebration, and worship—a rhythm of life designed by God.
Since my parents are pastors, I got to witness their sabbaticals a few times as I grew up. I remember how relieved and open they seemed when they no longer had to deal with the pressures of work. Watching them, I knew I wanted a sabbatical too.
In 2018, I found myself working for a church, but only leadership staff were given sabbaticals. This felt a little unfair to me, but I knew it was the norm. Typically, only pastors got sabbaticals. There were employees who had worked there for over nine years and had never taken extended time off!
I had no intention of working nine straight years without a break. I was determined to have a sabbatical—just like my parents. I felt that if I was going to be part of this faith, I should enjoy some of its benefits, and at the very least, that would mean taking a sabbatical.
That’s how my thought process went:
I needed sabbaticals for my mental and emotional health.
I knew they helped me thrive creatively.
I came from a spiritual lineage that valued sabbaticals.
I was going to make it happen, no matter what.
Sticking to My Decision to Take a Sabbatical
Whether it was funded by the church or not didn’t matter. In the end, any income I could save was from God anyway. One way or another, I believed God was providing for this sabbatical.
So, I set up a slow, steady savings plan—setting aside a portion of each paycheck. February 2024 marked six years of full-time work, and I knew that would be my time to take the break I’d been working towards.
Having that fixed date helped me stay committed. Without it, I might have been tempted to quit my job when things got tough. But I knew I needed to see what six years of full-time work would bring, and then, finally, take the sabbatical I’d been dreaming of.
But there were other reasons too.
Refilling My Creative Tank
As a creative professional, I found myself constantly needing to come up with new ideas, campaigns, and content, often 49 weeks out of the year. Before working full-time for companies, I was used to a different rhythm. As an online entrepreneur, I would pour myself into creating and launching a course for three months, then travel slowly and relax for the next three. That balance helped keep my creativity alive.
However, after working full-time from 2018 to 2023 in Toronto, I noticed I kept hitting a creative ceiling. I wasn’t able to come up with fresh ideas or better content because I wasn’t refilling my creative tank. It felt like I was running on the creative fuel from my previous travels, but eventually, that well ran dry.
I began working from a place of emptiness. While I managed to keep up with my job and maintained a professional front, deep down I could feel I wasn’t at my best—spiritually, creatively, or emotionally. I felt dull, like a pencil worn down with no more lead. I had to press harder to create something, but that extra effort was only wearing me out even more.
There were moments when I realized I was no longer creating from a place of inspiration. Instead, I was regurgitating content I found online, and that wasn’t why I had chosen a creative career in the first place.
I needed to refill, not just with small things like reading a book or taking a short hike, but with something more profound: a sabbatical. If I wanted to stay productive, inspired, and effective in my career, sabbaticals had to become a regular part of my professional life. The first one would begin in 2024.
A Sabbatical Isn't Just a Career Break: It’s a Life Shift
For me, a sabbatical is more than just stepping away from work—it’s a chance to experience a different way of living. It’s a recognition that there are other ways to approach life that are equally valid, healthy, and perhaps even more whole.
Discovering Sabbath & Weekly Rest
Even with my sabbatical on the horizon, I felt more and more creatively depleted as I continued working. I couldn’t access the joy, freedom, or purpose that I had once felt while traveling. I wondered if I was idealizing those years, but deep down, I knew what I had experienced was real. My soul still craved that kind of rest.
That’s when I stumbled across the concept of Sabbath. Over the years, I came across books, podcasts, and YouTube channels that spoke to this longing for a different way of living. Around 2020, I started practicing Sabbath—a day of rest each week, free from work.
Sabbath, or Shabbat, was given to the Jewish people as one of the Ten Commandments. It was a symbol of their freedom, marking them as different from other nations. While many Jews still practice Shabbat, I noticed that modern evangelical and Protestant communities (including my own) have largely forgotten this tradition. We don’t seem to relish a day of ceasing work and delighting in God’s presence as the Jews do.
This bothered me. Why was I practicing a faith that was supposed to give us rest, yet we had forgotten such a beautiful, freeing practice?
Finding Mini-Sabbaticals While I Wait: Embracing the Weekly Sabbath
As I worked toward my sabbatical, I committed to practicing a weekly Sabbath. I believed in its goodness and sensed that my soul needed this rest.
Even though few Christians around me observed the Sabbath in the way I longed to, I knew from the books I had read that I wasn’t alone in desiring this practice. And though it sometimes felt lonely, I reminded myself that I was not alone.
During my Masters of Divinity program, I had to read several books on Sabbath that further convinced me of its importance. Here are a few of my favorite titles if you’d like to dive deeper. You don’t have to follow a specific faith to read these, but they do come from a Christian perspective:
The Sense of the Call: A Sabbath Way of Life for Those Who Serve God, the Church, and the World by Marva Dawn
Keeping the Sabbath Wholly: Ceasing, Resting, Embracing, Feasting by Marva Dawn
Sacred Rhythms: Arranging Our Lives for Spiritual Transformation by Ruth Haley Barton
Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest: From Sabbath to Sabbatical and Back Again by Ruth Haley Barton
In 2020, I started observing Sabbath more intentionally, and I immediately loved it. It became my day of respite, my day of delight—a day where I could simply be, knowing I was loved and sustained by God. As some authors have described, I found myself looking forward to this day as the highlight of my week. With this deeper rest, I began to approach Mondays with a fresh perspective, and that energy carried me through the week.
For the past few years, I’ve embraced the weekly rhythm of Sabbath. But even with this practice, I knew I still needed something more—
