Designing your Soulbbatical
How Shelley Paxton’s Soulbbatical spurred me into action
Earlier this year, Shelley Paxton’s Soulbbatical book came out to much fanfare. I was one of those people who had been waiting for it. I was entranced by the idea that this successful, trail-blazing marketing executive not only could but wanted to walk away from her career to nurture her soul and find her purpose. I loved the simple yet powerful mantra that accompanied her book, her company and her way of life:
Liberate your soul. Step into your power.
I spent many hours after reading the book pondering what my own Soulbbatical would look like if I could muster up the courage to go forward with it. Then COVID happened and two opposite things happened — I felt defeated by the world and couldn’t imagine “finding myself” without doing big, exciting things like traveling or going to see a revered shaman… yet I also felt compelled to keep coming back to the idea. After discovering a new and delicious part of myself (spirituality), I realized that I didn’t need the external things at all… what I really needed was the intention and desire to change the way I wanted to think and live life, and the permission to work toward it.
It was late September 2020 after a grueling week that I decided:
enough was enough.
I knew if I continued down the path I was going — nothing would change. I had to do something. It was then that I thought “I’m going to spend the rest of the shitty 2020 year designing and working on my Soulbbatical.”
I re-read the book and got to work. I found the prompts in her book to be incredibly insightful, and with the addition of my background in journaling for healing and creative expression — I made a mashup of everything and dumped it into a Notion template. It became a powerful roadmap of change for me so then I created the workbook for my community members and others.
At the top of my prompts, I keep Paxton’s quote front and center to be reminded of what the purpose of a Soulbbatical really is:
“Soulbbatical is a way of being. It’s about living and leading from a place of authenticity and courage. It’s about realizing that a fulfilling life means creating what you really want versus settling for what you think you should. It’s about leaning into your purpose in order to unleash your wildest potential and impact in the world. It’s about becoming Chief Soul Officer of your own life, taking responsibility for nurturing both yourself and your soul.”
— Shelley Paxton
While it’s an amazing purpose statement — it’s actually a much harder concept to implement in this day and age given societal pressures and norms. For most of us, we’ve never thought deeply enough about what we want vs what we are settling for.
So with that said, I’m still in the thick of my Soulbbatical but it’s fair to say that I’ve had a few big revelations thus far. I’m telling you about them because I want you to see the power and potential in dedicating your time and energy to this kind of soul-work. It’s not easy, it takes time and energy, but it’s so worth it to get a deeper view of where you’re at in your life… and where you want to be.
Lessons Learned (so far)
The “Whoa! Slow Down, Tiger!” Lesson
This is a biggie for me because I’m perpetually running when I should be walking. My mom jokes that I learned to run before I learned to walk. That’s pretty much been the trajectory of my life. When I started setting up my Soulbbatical — same thing. I had goals, outcomes, tasks, etc. I was treating it as another “project” to be completed. But… that’s not how it works. When you do soul-work, it doesn’t concern itself with time or energy or due dates. It doesn’t have an intended outcome. It is about doing the work and accepting what is.
Well, that’s hard AF y’all.
I don’t do “acceptance” well. But doing this work has taught me the value in learning how because the more you resist and fight the work — the more apparent it’ll become that you need to be doing the opposite.
So, all that planning and outlining I did at the beginning of my soulbbatical? It became pretty worthless in the actual “doing” part. I had to step back and say, “okayyy, goals be damned, let’s just follow the plan and see what happens.”
Slowing down is precisely what I needed to do. Once I loosened the grip of control and trusted the process, things started to happen. Revelations started to show up.
Huh, funny how that works.
The “Container” Lesson
I was on a webinar once (forgot who or what it was for…) and someone said, “build a container for everything and you’ll have freedom for anything.”
That seemed very counterintuitive at the time. How can boxing something in actually create more freedom? It seems like it would just stifle things more.
Well, I was wrong. And that person, whoever they were (thank you by the way) was right. I just hadn’t looked at it in the way it was intended.
I’ve learned that creating containers essentially means setting aside space and time for a certain “thing” and then giving that space/time a little bit of structure.
For example — I’m a #learningaddict (are there 12 step programs for that, if so, I should be in that program immediately). I chronically mismanage my time/energy/money as it relates to learning because I overindulge and think I need to learn everything about everything. However, when I set up my “learning container” and specified the parameters (like only learning from courses I’ve already purchased or learning from courses of things I actually need to learn now), I actually became much more productive and intentional about my learning.
The Data Doesn’t Lie Lesson
For someone who believes strongly in the power of data mining yourself, I was super resistant to looking at the analysis. Why? Because it doesn’t lie… and I knew I’d have to face some truths I wasn’t sure I was ready to face.
Part of my Soulbbatical includes looking at the data I’ve been collecting on myself over the past few years. What I really wanted to discover were the plot points that framed things as a whole. Examples:
What tags or data were most commonly associated with good/bad moods?
What tags or data were most commonly associated with higher steps and better sleep?
How did the weather affect my mood?
What commonalities showed up on the days I was most productive?
As I was combing through all of this data to add to my Soulbbatical journal, I knew there were things that felt like “well duh” revelations. I knew them but tried to ignore them. There were a lot of surprises, too.
But most importantly, faced with the actual data analysis — there were some things I could no longer ignore. The fact that 90% of my bad mood days were associated with “external” work stuff was pretty telling. The days I got more steps in were split into two, surprisingly. On the one hand, it was often when I was happy and running errands, or doing “me” things. The other half was on the lowest of low days. Why the duality?
Because I realized I clean when I get super upset. So of course, on those days where things were awful, I had more steps from stomping around the house cleaning and trying to focus my anger into scrubbing toilets instead of hitting my computer screen.
It may be too soon for this — but I’ve coined my 2020 weight gain the “Covid-19” (I know, it’s not that funny). But in all seriousness, having solid data to show how mood, sleep, environment affect weight gain was a revelation I had to face. And one I can’t really ignore as we move into 2021. It’s time to face the music and make some changes.
The Small Things DO Matter
I think one thing all of us are learning from 2020 is that it actually doesn’t take a whole lot to make us joyful and happy. My Soulbbatical experience has taught me the value of the simple things in life, again.
An afternoon with a binge-worthy book. A weekend that is all about Tiger King and Schitt’s Creek (just us?).
Giving an extra tip to the Instacart delivery person who bravely weathered the elements to bring our groceries.
Amazon deliveries to brighten a day.
You get the point. It’s the small things that have made a bigger impact on my happiness than the larger things.
There’s a lot to be learned and gained from experiencing your own Soulbbatical. The best part is that it doesn’t have to look or be a certain way. It just has to work for you. As I mentioned, I built out a Notion template for myself and shared it with my community. They loved it so much they suggested making it widely available. If you’re interested — you can find that template by clicking here.
