My Sabbatical

What a world we live in right now.  

Over worked.

Over stressed.

Over scheduled.

Over our physical, mental and emotional limits.

Many of us are tied to our phones, our email and social media accounts.

A definitive line between work life and personal life doesn’t seem to exist.

We have no idea what balance feels like anymore.

We struggle to put the energy in to time with our significant others. We are short fused with our children.  We miss birthday parties for our friends and concerts or movies that we would have LOVED to go to but are just out of energy.  

We plan over the top parties for our children.  They are signed up to do all the sports and all the extra curricular activities….all the time.  Cook dinner.  Clean the house. Laundry. Hold down a full time job (in the house or outside of it, I don’t care, they are ALL full time jobs). 

How has this happened??  And who has done this to us??  Who allowed it all to unfold this way??

Ummmm….

That would be me. And you. We have done this to ourselves.  

What??  HOLY CRAP right!!

You will have a moment in your life where you realize something has to change or it may cause irreparable damage.

Let me share my moment.  The moment (and some leading up to it) that made me realize I was damaging myself and that I was at the end of the rope.

Over the past year, my body has decided to act like its getting older.  It did not ask me how I felt about it or if this would be convenient.  It just did it.  All by itself.  Without warning my almost 51 year old body, that has been teaching swimming lessons for 35 years, felt almost 51.  I don’t mind BEING “old” (as my kids tease me) but FEELING “old” is a completely different thing.

After teaching between 40 – 45 hours a week for about 6 weeks, I was in so much pain, I would be in tears holding the steering wheel of my car to drive home at the end of the day.  My hands hurt, my wrists ached, I had stabbing pain in my elbows and hips.  I was a MESS.  

Yet I continued on.  I knew I had 3 weeks left to go and then I would be off for 11 weeks.  I would complete the Summer program and then I would get a break.  If my mind could do this, my body was going to have to follow suit.  There wasn’t another option.  Onward solider.  Finish up.  

And I did.

Fast forward to August 13th.  At this point, I have been out of the pool, on a break for 6 weeks.  I picked up a gallon of milk and proceeded to drop it on the floor of the grocery store because of the pain that shot from my right elbow down to my wrist and up to my shoulder.  I left my cart of groceries and walked back out to my car, where I sat and cried.  

Cried because I was hurting so much.  Cried because despite a break, I was in as much pain as I had been while teaching.  Cried because I didn’t know how I would start teaching again in just 5 weeks.  Cried because I was overwhelmed and tired.  I just cried.  I found the end of my rope.  

That evening I called a friend of mine because I needed a shoulder to cry on and some sage advice.  She said to me “Dayna, you need to put your own oxygen mask on first and you need to rest. You need to take a break, like a sabbatical.”

When you hear the word “sabbatical” what comes to mind first??

For me, it is a word associated with a college professor who won't be teaching for a year because they are doing research for a more advanced degree.

Where I came up with that definition, I'm not totally sure but that is what the word “sabbatical” means to me and that is also WHO it applies to when I think about it.

It's funny because this word randomly came up in conversations over the past 6 months or so. I saw posts on social media from people I am connected to, sharing their sabbatical stories.  Memes and quotes about “sabbaticals” appeared in my social media platforms.  Two people that I know personally had put in requests for a sabbatical leave from their jobs.    

Honestly, I glossed over ALL of these things.  The word didn’t apply to me so I didn’t give it much thought.  

I didn’t realize at that time that the universe was nudging me.  It was putting this word in front of me because I was going to need it.  Sooner than later.  Probably right around August 13th.

After getting off the phone with her, I googled the word “sabbatical”.  

Imagine my NOT surprise when the first definition included the words “usually applied to teachers”. 

 But then in the very next moment, the universe nudged me again and I remembered that I. AM. A. TEACHER. 

DUH.  A moment of enlightenment?

No where did it mention that a sabbatical was only for college professors. Hmmmmm….

So, maybe that word could apply to me, a teacher of swimming lessons.

The descriptions talked about taking a year away from teaching OR an extended period of leave from work (not specifically teaching, just work in general) but devoting the time to things like traveling, researching, writing OR taking a period of time to……

REST.

Woah.  

By this point, I am well into the article about sabbaticals and it starts talking about the process people might go through to apply for a sabbatical leave.  I also remember that I know 2 people who have recently done this.  They have APPLIED with their EMPLOYER for this time.

Here we go again.  Another light bulb moment.

Last I checked, I am the boss of me.  I decide how much I will work or if I will work at all.  I DECIDE!!

And I realized that now it was time to make some decisions.  Hard ones but necessary ones. 

Within the next few days I wrestled with taking a sabbatical, about 3 months off, and the guilt associated with taking that sabbatical.  GUILT....lots and LOTS of guilt even though I knew that my body was leaving me no other decision.  

I saw my chiropractor, who was concerned that I was still in so much pain.  I made an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon.  I took a hard look at my bank account and consulted my financial advisor.  I spoke with my sister who is wise.  I met with a few friends who know me and have insight and perspectives that I value and trust.  I talked with my family who support me like no others.  I also spent some time with myself and after 3 or 4 days, I knew what my decision was.

I had done this to myself and now I was going to do whatever it took to fix it, to heal and to rest.  

The decision was that I would be taking a 3 month sabbatical.  September – November.  I would not get back in the pool in December but there would be emails, registrations and paperwork to do then so I could get back in the pool in January.

3 months without any work related to Can Am Aquatics.  

3 months to draw some new boundaries, mostly ones that I needed to keep WITH MY OWN SELF!!  

3 months to do some other things if I wanted to.  Things like write for my blog, learn how to use my fancy camera, eat dinner with my family a couple nights a week, meet up with friends or have friends over….the options were endless really. And I could also do nothing if that’s what I chose on any given day.

After the decision was made, I had to send an email to all the families who had children registered for the Fall program to let them know what I had been going through and the decision I had come to.  I was very concerned that there would be some unhappy people and there may even be some harsh words from some of them.  Those were all things I was prepared to deal with.

Instead, all I got was love and support, encouragement and kind words.  I am so very grateful that I have surrounded myself with the very best people who are ready to be there for me as I experience a sabbatical. 

After the dust settled, I was able to be proud of the decision that I made, because it was the right one.  I even began to get a little excited about having a few months away from all things swimming to focus on some new things and some things that had been on a back burner for a long time.  

For the first time in, well, I don’t know how long, I was able to put my phone away, not check email or Facebook and not stress about it.  There wasn’t one single thing that anyone needed from me that required my immediate attention.  My business was going to be OK.  All my students were going to be OK.  Life was going to move forward and that was OK. 

Realizing those things was freeing.  Realizing those things was also a wake up call for me.

I allowed my body to get to such a state of pain that it made me have to take a break. I had no choice.  What about the months and years before, that led up to the situation I was in now?  Yes, I have taken time off before.  Yes, I have given myself a break from being in the pool.  But in at least the last 12 years, I had never given myself a sabbatical.  A time to REST.

Now, what about you? When did you last give yourself time to REST?  Was your answer “Never”?  

It's OK.  It’s the answer most of us had as well.  Now that you are thinking about this differently, let's ask a new question. When are you going to give yourself time to rest?

I understand that not everyone, me included, can take a “true” sabbatical but do you know what you can do?  You can make up what a sabbatical looks like for you.  That’s what I am going to do 😊

You call the shots!!  You can take an afternoon off…a day off…weekend off, whatever time frame you can do. Yes, you may need to give yourself some time to plan it, move some things around, ask for help in making this happen (we will talk about THAT, asking for help, another time)….but you can take a sabbatical!!

No phone. No email. No social media.

No sports events. No birthday parties. 

No cleaning the house. No laundry. No mowing the lawn. No grocery shopping.

NOTHING.  

For a period of time.  For YOU.  

YOU are important.  Your people need YOU.  Please don’t let yourself get to the point of breaking or being broken before you realize it.

Plan a sabbatical.  Take a sabbatical.  And then let us know all about it so this community can celebrate with you.