Is It Time for a Grief Sabbatical?
Grief asks so much of us. Not only do we have to learn to live with the pain of our loss, but at some point we also have to figure out what life looks like moving forward.
For a long time after my sister died, I felt like I was living in limbo between my loss and my life. I knew that I couldn’t hide from the world forever, but I also didn’t feel like part of it. Everything from my coaching practice to my relationships called for change, but I couldn’t see a single path to take. I often became overwhelmed by the feeling of stuckness, and any efforts to muscle my way through just left me feeling more confused and frustrated
Something changed for me when someone in my life said, “What if, just for the summer, you stopped trying to figure it out? What if you just took a break and thought of this season as a sabbatical?”
Something about that word - sabbatical - freed me. I’d like to tell you more, because perhaps the concept of a sabbatical might also be of help to you.
A sabbatical is defined as “a break or change from a normal routine.” Professionally, sabbaticals are often a time for employees to rest and to focus on their physical and mental health. In some circles, the sabbatical is viewed as a time to deepen and reimagine one’s sense of self and one’s purpose.
A sabbatical is not a purposeless time of nothingness; it is a clearly defined container for rest and self-exploration. Once I defined the summer of 2022 as a grief sabbatical, the way I thought about those months shifted. I no longer thought, “I’m so lost and confused and I need to lean in harder to figure all this out.” Instead, I thought, “This is an intentional time of rest and healing, and it has an end date.” It took the pressure off, gave my brain and heart a break, and created some much-needed space.
The language of sabbatical can be highly useful in grief. It communicates, if only to yourself, “Life is different right now. This is not a normal time, and I cannot expect the same things from myself. I’m in a container of self-tending, integration, and restoration. This is not a space in which I’m expected to undergo normal routines or to have everything figured out.”
While we think of sabbaticals in relation to our professional lives, they need not be limited to that. Clearly not everyone is able to take a long break from work (or from parenting, caregiving, or many of life’s other demands), but a sabbatical may also look like taking an intentional pause to step away from:
Community and volunteer responsibilities
Non-essential family responsibilities and caregiving
Social obligations
Making big decisions
Planning holidays and vacations
Taking on new responsibilities at work
What might a sabbatical look like for you? And how might it feel to shift your language from, “I can’t do this right now” to “I’m on sabbatical from ___ while I tend to my own healing?”
I encourage you to lean in and consider where you might need to step back and let things rest. In the wake of loss, your brain is working on overdrive to make sense of a world that is forever changed. If it feels good to you, try on the word “sabbatical” and see if it helps you create some permission to rest and give things space.
