Why Sabbaticals Matter—Beyond “Time Off”

Linzy Bonham [00:00:00]: 

If you step into four weeks off but you’re still spending your time in a really similar way, I wouldn’t call that a sabbatical. I would call that just four weeks off. What makes a sabbatical different is that you are really meeting yourself and your time and your energy in a different way. This is what’s going to help you have the deepest transformative experience inside of sabbatical is if you put yourself in an altered state. 

Linzy Bonham [00:00:27]: 

Welcome to Money Skills for Therapists, the podcast that helps therapists and health practitioners in private practice go from money confusion and shame to calm clarity and confidence with their finances. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by numbers or avoided looking at your business money, you’re in the right place. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned money coach and creator of Money Skills for Therapists. Before we jump in, check out my free On Demand masterclass. You’ll find the link in the show notes or@moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. It’s the best first step to finally feeling empowered with money in your private practice. Let’s get started. 

Maegan Megginson [00:01:04]: 

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today’s guest is Maegan Megginson, our most recurring guest on this podcast, who is here to talk about a project that I’m so excited about and a concept that I’m so excited about that I haven’t heard anybody else talking about, which is sabbaticals and taking a sabbatical. Maegan has a program called Sabbatical School that’s coming out that she has been percolating on and gestating for the last five years. And finally it is coming to life. And Maegan is here to talk about the value of taking a sabbatical, taking like a serious chunk of time away from your business. We talk about some of the things that come up and get in the way when people think about taking time off. Things like money, my clients will all leave. Everything will fall apart. 

Maegan Megginson [00:01:49]: 

People will judge me, I’ll judge myself. It’s selfish to take time off. We talk about those objections. She talks about what really defines a sabbatical for her. What is different from a sabbatical to say just taking some time off to, like, do some stuff around your house or go on vacation. And ultimately we talk about our relationship with time that we have as just people living in the world as it is and how taking a sabbatical can really help you change your relationship with time and come back into yourself. Here is my conversation with Maegan Megginson. 

Maegan Megginson [00:02:29]: 

Maegan Megginson, welcome back to the podcast. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:31]: 

I am so delighted to be back, Linzy. Thanks for having me 

Maegan Megginson [00:02:34]: 

I am also delighted. I don’t know what appearance this is for you. I want to say, like, five, six. 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:40]: 

I think it’s number 721. 

Maegan Megginson [00:02:43]: 

Is that emotionally what it feels like for you? 

Linzy Bonham [00:02:45]: 

Yes. I love it. 

Maegan Megginson [00:02:48]: 

And I’m really excited to have you here today because the topic that we have in mind, I feel like, is something that most therapists don’t even consider as an option for themselves. So I’m so excited that you’re bringing us an idea that, for some folks, might be like, what? Which is, we’re going to talk about taking a sabbatical as a solopreneur. 

Linzy Bonham [00:03:10]: 

We sure are going to talk about that. 

Maegan Megginson [00:03:12]: 

Yep. So sabbaticals for solopreneurs. And I’m saying solopreneurs. Most folks listening to this podcast are probably in the health field, you know, therapists or manual practitioners. Something that defines our business. That’s really different than kind of the normal sabbatical that you might think of is it’s just us. There’s no external paycheck happening. And I know for me, the first time a sabbatical was ever on my radar was like, an academic sabbatical. 

Maegan Megginson [00:03:38]: 

Somebody that I knew whose husband worked for the university, and they took a year off and lived in New Zealand. And I was like, what is happening? That’s incredible. But obviously, in that time, her husband was still being paid his full academic salary and, like, doing some research. That’s, like, pretty different, I think, than the situation of folks listening. Tell me about the distinction. What’s different about sabbaticals for us than maybe that academic sabbatical that we might be used to. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:05]: 

It’s so interesting that most of us, when we think about sabbatical, our minds immediately go to the academic paradigm, because same for me, same for most people. The only time we’ve ever heard the word sabbatical or have known anyone to go on sabbatical, they’re academics. They work at universities. They work at teaching hospitals. And usually what that sabbatical time looks like is, okay, I’m gonna pay. We’re gonna pay you for. For a year to go somewhere else and do something super productive. Like, we’re gonna pay you to go, like, write your book or publish a bunch of articles or deep dive into a research project, which, on the surface, I love it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:04:47]: 

I think that’s, like, what a cool way to use your time as someone who has developed, like, a body of work in a specific field. But what’s funny to me is that somewhere along the way, that became a sabbatical. Because if we look at the word sabbatical, the root word of sabbatical is Sabbath. And the definition of Sabbath is to rest. And if we track it even further back, like the original use of Sabbath days were to have experiences doing nothing, to cease all activity. And somehow, somewhere along the path of colonization, sabbatical became this activity that was available to the academic elite to go off into the world and to create something to. 

Linzy Bonham [00:05:32]: 

So I think in. In so many ways, like, as a society, we have a really skewed idea of what it means to take time off and what it means to like, take a sabbatical. In particular, solopreneurs feel like this is something that is just not available to them. And this is true. It’s similar for solopreneurs. I’m gonna. I’m gonna make a distinction here between solopreneurs and small business owners. So. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:02]: 

So let’s think of like, solopreneurs. Like, you’re in private practice. Like, maybe you have a couple contractors who help you in different ways, but it’s just you, like you said. And then we have small business owners. Maybe you’re like a group practice owner. You have a small team, maybe you have a large team. But even the largest group practices are still small businesses in the scope of, like, capitalist business structures. 

Maegan Megginson [00:06:25]: 

What’s possible for sure, but. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:26]: 

Right, exactly. So a sabbatical experience for a solopreneur versus a group practice owner. It’s going to be a little bit different. But we’ll talk in generalities here just to kind of get the point across. So we, we feel that these sabbatical experiences are so inaccessible to us because there’s nobody to pay us. We can’t imagine being gone for a year like our. What would our clients even do? We think our businesses would fall apart. There’s just this litany of reasons why we can’t place ourself in that paradigm. 

Linzy Bonham [00:06:57]: 

But what I want to offer up is that that’s not the only paradigm for taking a sabbatical and that there is a difference between taking a vacation and taking a sabbatical as a small business owner. And I know we’re going to talk more about this in this conversation, but a sabbatical is something that you can build into the structure of your business to give yourself regular time away from the doing, from the to do lists, from the grind, from the being of service, from the caregiving. Like giving yourself time away from that to really Meet who you are on the other side of your productivity is a profoundly powerful practice that has really powerful impacts on your healing as a person, but also on your business. It’s a great gift that you can give to your business. So for the purpose of this conversation and for my work leading and guiding people through sabbaticals, I like to offer small business owners a one month container. One year isn’t accessible to a vast majority of us, but one month, I find, is an amount of time for a sabbatical experience that really allows you to dive deep and to go through a deeper transformation. That something like a one or two week vacation just doesn’t have the space for that spaciousness. 

Maegan Megginson [00:08:18]: 

The idea of thinking about sabbaticals as spacious, that’s really interesting, that distinction that you made of how now we think of sabbaticals in this academic sense and really what that is. If we think about what a sabbatical is for an academic, it’s more like a deep work period. 

Linzy Bonham [00:08:32]: 

Totally. 

Maegan Megginson [00:08:33]: 

Like it’s one year to do deep work, right? To go off and get out of the daily grind of teaching or yeah, mostly teaching. And then to think deep thoughts and put together a body of work which has really nothing to do with rest. 

Linzy Bonham [00:08:47]: 

It has nothing to do with. And I think it has nothing to do with rest and it has nothing to do with doing nothing. And for me, sabbaticals, getting rest on a sabbatical is absolutely part of the experience, but it’s not the point of the experience, right? I think the purpose of a sabbatical is to deconstruct your relationship with time by giving yourself an extended amount of space to do nothing or to really choose with intention how you are acting and behaving in the world. And in fact, let me share four different types of sabbaticals that you can take. This might be really helpful. I like to say, like, I have an agenda when it comes to sabbaticals. I have a bias about how I think it can be most transformative to spend your time in a sabbatical space. But I’m not the sabbatical police. 

Linzy Bonham [00:09:40]: 

I’m not here to like tell you what you are and are not allowed to do with your time. So I like to give my clients a menu of options, like, let’s look at the different ways, the different intention you can bring to a sabbatical experience so that you can start to play around with how you want to experience a different relationship with time. And that’s the through line. If you’re committing to a sabbatical experience. I want you to spend your time in a drastically different way than you do in your normal day to day life. So for some people, that sabbatical time is productive. I think of this as the productive sabbatical. This is like a really great choice for people who have a project that is just pouring out of their soul. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:27]: 

Someone who’s like, I am so ready to write a book. I am so ready to like dig into, I don’t know, a house renovation. 

Maegan Megginson [00:10:36]: 

Project or like refinish all my beds. 

Linzy Bonham [00:10:39]: 

Refinishing all of your. We were just talking about this before we started recording that. But what I really want folks to ask themselves is, is stepping into a productive sabbatical going to give me the experience of being with time in a different way than I am with time in my normal day to day life. Because if you step into four weeks off, but you’re still spending your time in a really similar way, I wouldn’t call that a sabbatical. I would call that just four weeks off. Right. What makes a sabbatical different is that you are really meeting yourself and your time and your energy in a different way. This is what’s going to help you have the deepest transformative experience inside of sabbatical is if you put yourself in an altered state, which we can talk more about altered states in a second productive sabbatical. 

Linzy Bonham [00:11:30]: 

That’s the one we’re most used to seeing in the academic setting. There is something pouring out of me and I want time protected time to really channel my creative energy into this thing without the demands of my business knocking on the door every five minutes. That’s the first sabbatical. The second sabbatical is what I think of as an adventure sabbatical. This is for people who are like really feeling called to get into the world. They want to backpack through Europe. They want to like do something wild that they’ve never done before and really be in different places experiencing new and different things. But again, this needs to come from a yearning inside of your soul, not just like a bucket list that you’re trying to check off. 

Linzy Bonham [00:12:12]: 

This isn’t time to do all of the things that you need to do. Because if that’s your mindset, you’re just right back in a place of doing, of following a to do list, of following a plan. But if what you know, you need to experience a total shift and the flow of your daily life is an adventure, an adventure, sabbatical is for you. The third sabbatical is a healing sabbatical so these are sabbatical spaces where people really want to take time away to focus on their own healing, right? This might be doing some like intensive therapy, sitting in ceremony, doing some psychedelic work, working with a nutritionist, changing their diet, their exercise, right? If you need some space to really heal your body, to heal your spirit, you can use a sabbatical to meet yourself with that intention. And then the fourth sabbatical, which is the one I think is the most radical and also often the most transformative, is what I call a timeless sabbatical. And this is a sabbatical where you really have absolutely no agenda. Of course you’re still going to be in all of these sabbaticals, you’re still going to be doing the doing of life, right? You still have to shower, you have to do your laundry, you still have to cook your food stuff to get your children off to school. Like that stuff isn’t going to go away unless you’re like super resourced and you can hire someone to do that for you, which if you do, awesome, love that for you, most of us, that’s not going to be accessible. 

Linzy Bonham [00:13:41]: 

So we’re still doing the doing of life. But inside of the sabbatical experience, we actually have no plans whatsoever except to meet ourself each day, each moment, with inquiry, with curiosity. When I have absolutely nothing on my to do list, what do I want? What do I want to say yes to when there’s no agenda, no plan, no expectation for me to show up, to be something for somebody. The timeless sabbatical is a really powerful container that can pull you into some of the deepest layers of yourself that maybe you’ve never had a chance to visit before because you have been so sucked into the busyness of life, of doing so. Those are four ways you can think about, like how might I spend this time during sabbatical? But again, that through line, the thing that differentiates the sabbatical space from a long vacation or just some time off of work is that I am choosing consciously to, to experiment with time, with my relationship with time. Who am I if I create a huge shift in the way I experience my day to day life? 

Maegan Megginson [00:14:51]: 

Yeah, because that transformation of the relationship with time. I’m curious, what is your observation about the relationship that most of us tend to have developed with time, given the world that we live in? What is our normal relationship with time that you tend to see folks having? 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:06]: 

Our normal relationship with time is feeling victimized by time, feeling like we are in like a subservient relationship. With time. Time is the master. We are servants to the clock. And we feel the constriction of time, too 

Maegan Megginson [00:15:24]: 

Right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:15:24]: 

We have these honestly unrealistic expectations about how much we can do in a day, in a week, in a lifetime. But we’re gonna do everything we can to shove those expectations into the time that’s been allotted to us. So it creates this sort of battle. We’re in a battle with time, and we feel exhausted. We often feel regret that there are things that matter that are important that we’re not making time for, that we don’t have time for. So time becomes like this thing we’re in a relationship with, and it’s not a good relationship. It’s not a right relationship. So we’re struggling. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:02]: 

Like, we’re really struggling with the parameters of time. 

Maegan Megginson [00:16:05]: 

Yeah. It makes me think about the book 4000 Weeks, about how he talks about how many of us are trying to cram multiple lives into one life. Essentially, we’re trying to do it all. We’re trying to, like, be that really present parent and be a successful business owner and also be an artist or whatever. Right. And we’re, as you say, in that battle with time, rather than kind of adjusting expectations or choosing this instead of that, which is always painful. That’s what people hate about budgeting, right. Is I have to choose this instead of that. 

Maegan Megginson [00:16:32]: 

But I want both. We do that with time, too. It’s like we’re trying to cram so much in that it’s constrained and pressured. And. Yeah, what I’m hearing, too, is ultimately, we don’t get satisfaction, too, when our expectations are here. And I’m putting my hand up in the air because this is a podcast, but what we can actually accomplish in a certain period of time is down here. 

Linzy Bonham [00:16:52]: 

That’s right. 

Maegan Megginson [00:16:53]: 

Yeah. So that transformation element, that transformative element that you’re talking about, I can see how that is so important to change that regular experience that we’re having. Otherwise, as you say, you could take a month off but still basically do exactly what you’ve been doing of still trying to cram a bunch into a day and then feel disappointed that you didn’t get XYZ done. And I told myself when I was off I was going to do these seven projects, which this is all deeply familiar to me, by the way, on the weekend, even when I’m in a good headspace on the weekend, I had a really good day. I’ve been having a lot of headaches lately, so my energy hasn’t been great. But Saturday I felt great and I started working on the backyard. And I was like, oh, then I’m gonna do this. Oh, and I wanna refinish that wheelbarrow. 

Maegan Megginson [00:17:30]: 

I’m gonna take it down to the metal and I’m gonna, you know, powder coat it. And thinking about all these things when ultimately I can really accomplish perhaps about 5% of those things that are on my list. Yeah 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:39]: 

Such a small percentage. Such a small percentage of the expectations that we have for ourselves. 

Maegan Megginson [00:17:42]: 

Yes. 

Linzy Bonham [00:17:43]: 

And just to make sure that no one listening is falling into a shame spiral about this, I think it’s really important to point out that we have been socialized to act this way. This is a direct byproduct of colonization, of capitalism, of industrialism, that we live in an age where we have been brainwashed to believe that our value and our worthiness is directly tied to our output and our productivity. We live in a culture that rewards profit, that rewards having something to show for your efforts. And. And we live in a society where we are all under this illusion that we’re talking about that it is possible to have it all, that it is possible to do all of the things. This is the first time in history we’ve had access to the Internet. Right. Which makes us intimately familiar with the happenings of the entire planet, which is cool in some regards, but also it’s like, really messing us up in other regards. 

Linzy Bonham [00:18:42]: 

We know too much, we’re aware of too many things of. And the more we’re aware of, it’s like the more we want to do and the more we want to experience. And it’s like, hold on a second. These are all byproducts of socialization. And the reality is that my body and time are actually not separate from each other. My body exists in time. I am time. I am nature. 

Linzy Bonham [00:19:08]: 

Right. I am a part of this ecosystem that I live inside of. And taking a sabbatical is a way to come back into connection with yourself and to come back into a really, like, a felt sense of understanding of your place on this planet and of your unique relationship with everything around you, including time. So it really gives you a chance to step away from the hamster wheel of life, of doing, of compare and despair, and just coming back to your own heart, your own soul, to really feel into. I am here now and what is important to me now, and how can I choose that? And how can I really feel into what I’m doing and cramming into my life that’s actually not coming from a yearning inside of my soul? But it’s coming from a set of expectations that live inside of my brain. Yeah. 

Maegan Megginson [00:20:02]: 

What I’m hearing here is like a coming back to yourself. Right. And getting to know who you are now. Because also, we might be in different chapters of life, different seasons than we were when we set a certain plan for ourself. We might still be playing out that plan. But maybe it’s not even what you want anymore. Maybe it’s not what lights you up anymore 

Linzy Bonham [00:20:20]: 

That’s right. It’s often not. 

Maegan Megginson [00:20:23]: 

So as we’re talking about this, folks who are listening, who are like, okay, yeah, I understand that. That sounds like it would be a good idea to get back into myself, get out of the grind, be curious about who I am now, give myself these new, different experiences that change my relationship with time. 

Maegan Megginson [00:20:38]: 

We know some of the things that come up and get in the way of this. These are things that you’ve experienced, and these are things that I certainly see mostly in my students because I’m more in that small business space where I think it’s a little easier to take time away, actually, when you have a team and there’s kind of the business is still happening for folks who are solopreneurs or who own a group where they’re really, like, central a group practice where they are the bottleneck kind of nothing happens without them. Some of the things that I see come up and get in the way. Even if folks are in extreme burnout and really need this kind of transformation is my business will fall apart if I’m not there. Everything will stop happening. My clients will all go away. They’ll go find another therapist to see. They can’t go without seeing me for a whole month. 

Maegan Megginson [00:21:19]: 

They’re going to just go find somebody else, or they’re going to drop off therapy altogether. And then, of course, I can’t afford that. I can’t be taking time off when already money is tight. What are your responses? Because I’m sure you hear folks say this stuff all the time. 

Linzy Bonham [00:21:34]: 

Oh, all of the time. We’ll touch on just the tip of the iceberg right now in this episode and then direct people to more conversations about this afterwards, because each of those questions deserves a really thorough response and explanation. I will throw one more sort of obstacle or challenge into the mix, which is, actually, I’m going to throw two more into the mix. We won’t be able to get to all of these today, but I just want to normalize, like, what comes up when we start sitting with the possibility that we can take this kind of extended time off. One thing that comes up a lot is, like, the fear of judgment. 

Maegan Megginson [00:22:11]: 

Right. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:11]: 

What will people think of me, and how am I going to communicate about this with other people? That’s a big one. And another one that is a little deeper under the surface, but often bubbles up, especially when you really want this but you feel guilty about it. Is that, like, whoa, this is way too privileged for me. This is, like, selfish. This is a luxury I can’t afford. So that’s an internalized belief that deserves some examination, too. Okay. So we have all of these obstacles that come up when we’re thinking about giving ourselves this time off. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:49]: 

Linds, which of those questions do you want to start with? 

Maegan Megginson [00:22:53]: 

Let’s start with the. Everything will fall apart. My business will fall apart if I’m not there for a month. Great. 

Linzy Bonham [00:22:59]: 

Okay, So I want to speak to that both from the solopreneur perspective and the small business owner. You have a team perspective. But first, I want to say something that applies to everybody, which is just a little bit of tough love to remind you that even though a month feels like a totally wackadoo amount of time to not be at work, it’s really not that much time at all. 

Maegan Megginson [00:23:27]: 

No. 

Linzy Bonham [00:23:27]: 

Like, most people aren’t even gonna know that you’re gone when, like, most people don’t think about you that much. That’s the truth bomb. Like, most people don’t think about you that much. They probably won’t even notice you’re away if you have to cancel, reschedule sessions. Like, it’s not that much time. People are going to be fine. So I like to come in with a little bit of levity just to, like, bring us back down to earth to be, like, folks. We’re talking about four weeks, not four years. 

Linzy Bonham [00:23:52]: 

Blip on the radar. Relax. Relax into that. Like, one month. Our businesses can tolerate anything for one month. So I just like to say that right out of the gate feels like a long time in our bodies because it’s a pretty. It’s a radical act for the self. For the self to say, I’m not going to do a damn thing for four weeks. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:13]: 

I’m just going to tend to myself. Crazy. That’s a crazy thing to do. Who does that? Who says that? 

Maegan Megginson [00:24:18]: 

Right. Like, that’s harder for us than it is for anybody else. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:21]: 

Exactly. 

Maegan Megginson [00:24:21]: 

We are the most impacted by that choice. Like, by an order of magnitude. 

Linzy Bonham [00:24:26]: 

Perfectly said. Now, you said something interesting. You said it’s easier to take time off if you have a team, because Things are still running, but it really depends on your context because I think often the easiest way to begin a sabbatical practice is as a solopreneur. It’s never going to be easier for you to step away than when you are the only person working inside of your business. Now there are more like financial puzzle pieces that have to be put together to make it work for you financially. But in terms of systems, if we’re really looking at that question, like, won’t things fall apart if I’m gone? When you are a solopreneur, everything starts and stops with you. So putting your business on pause for four weeks is not that complicated. It feels complicated if you’ve never done it before. 

Linzy Bonham [00:25:18]: 

But there are so many ways, so many simple systems you can weave into the mix, combined with some really thoughtful analysis around where your time is going to and what is actually necessary to continue while you’re away versus what can pause with you, what doing inside of your business can take a sabbatical along with you. And for the things that need to keep going or moving, there are really simple systems that you can put in place to keep them moving forward. When you have a small team, it gets a little bit trickier for a couple of reasons. Now, it’s nice from the financial perspective because if you have a team like, you’re likely running some group program, you have monthly recurring revenue, you’re selling passive products, there’s some things happening behind the scenes that keep revenue flowing in, which is awesome. But the downside is that you have to coordinate your absence with a team of people. And if those people are used to depending on you for certain things to keep their jobs moving forward, it can be a little bit sticky to figure out how to navigate that. There’s also the level here of equity, which is a really important topic for me as a business owner. When I look at my companies with teams and I’m stepping away to take a sabbatical, what feels equitable to me is making sure that they also have opportunities to take those sabbaticals as well as part of the company. 

Linzy Bonham [00:26:42]: 

I don’t think it’s right that the business owner gets. That’s. To me, when it gets like the luxury privilege part of it gets a little bit sticky where it’s like, I get to do this thing because I own the business and everybody else has to keep working forever. I’m like, something doesn’t sit well about that for me. So I want to kind of zoom out and ask myself both, how can I create a company where everybody gets access to this type of time away to tend to self. I want to make sure we all have an invitation to step into that. And what changes do we need to make inside of the mechanisms of our business so that we can all step out and in and things can still run smoothly? Because if you’re in a position where you are recognizing that you’re the bottleneck, it’s great that that’s being illuminated because that needs to change. Right? It’s like if, if you are the bottleneck, if you cannot step away for four weeks without things falling apart, that actually is shining a light on some larger systemic problems inside of your business that are going to stop it from being sustainable for you for the long term. 

Linzy Bonham [00:27:46]: 

What would happen if you got sick tomorrow? If you were in an accident? Right. If your family member needed you and you had to step away, Your business needs to be able to support you in stepping away. I think hands down. So these are all questions that get illuminated when we start exploring the sabbatical process. And when I walk people through my program, which is called sabbatical school, like when we’re going through sabbatical school, we actually start the program six months before you plan on taking the sabbatical specifically so that there is enough time to really work through all of this. The financial pieces, the systems pieces, getting your team on board. It takes preparation to be able to step away. But once you do it, once, you can build it in as a more regular practice every year, every two, every five years. 

Linzy Bonham [00:28:35]: 

And it gets easier and easier every time. I’ve never known someone’s business to fall apart, by the way, when they do this. 

Maegan Megginson [00:28:41]: 

Yeah. It makes me think about the same thing as making a business that’s sellable. Like when you make a business in which you can take a sabbatical, you’ve also, also just made your business better. You’ve improved your systems, you’ve improved your financial management. Like the things that allow us to step away, you know, when you make your business more resilient, that’s also just good, period. Like, those are all awesome things to do for your business anyway. 

Linzy Bonham [00:29:03]: 

It’s such a. I like to think of it in therapy language as like a secondary gain of a sabbatical practice. You know, it’s like when you are doing, like you’re doing it for yourself first and foremost. Like, this is this. This is a practice you are doing for your capital S self. But there are so many secondary gains that get like wrapped up in a pretty package. You know, you get to Examine your business through this lens. You get to really tighten up your financial systems. 

Linzy Bonham [00:29:29]: 

You get to improve your communication and the expectation you have with clients and colleagues and collaborators. So, yeah, all the work that goes into stepping away for a sabbatical, just like you’re saying, it makes your business stronger from the ground up. 

Maegan Megginson [00:29:45]: 

It also makes me think about their secondary gains when people get their finances together. And sometimes if folks can’t do that capital S, I’m going to do it for me. Because for some folks listening, that might be hard to access. I also think about the secondary gain of, like, your kids get to see you do this thing, even if you can’t quite get to the place yet, of being like, I deserve this. I’m here. Sometimes I find it can help get folks wheels moving in the right direction. If they’re like, what do I want my kids to see? What do I want to think? What do I want to teach them is the value of time and energy and life? Or what do I want to teach them? Money is about right? And I find that that sometimes can be a bit of a spark, of a motivator for folks, especially when we’re so deep in that caretaking role that we’re only thinking about our impact on others. You’re doing incredible modeling when you are stepping away from your business and taking time to be with yourself and get to know yourself. 

Maegan Megginson [00:30:35]: 

And yeah, I just think it’s just such profound work to do for yourself and also for everybody who looks to you for inspiration. 

Linzy Bonham [00:30:42]: 

You’re really speaking to the larger mission I hold around the sabbatical school vision. I really do believe that sabbaticals are acts of rebellion. Right? Sabbaticals are a way to push back against the ways that we’re socialized, the ways that we’re conditioned to reclaim a healthier relationship with self, with family, with community, with the earth. Right. With our businesses. And when we do them out loud, it’s part of the sabbatical school process, is saying, like, how can you do this process out loud? Right? We want to hide. We feel selfish. We feel privileged. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:20]: 

We feel kind of embarrassed that this is something that we’re doing. But I’m like, sabbatical is an act of social change. It is an act of social justice. And the most powerful thing that you can do, the gift that you can share with the world, is to say, like, yeah, I do. As a solopreneur, as a small business owner, I do have the privilege to do this. I do have the privilege to take this amount of Time off. Most people in this country, on this planet, will never have this privilege. This will never be available to them. 

Linzy Bonham [00:31:54]: 

It is available to us. That’s just a fact. So what are we going to do? Are we going to squander it, or are we going to use it for social good? And I think that the best thing you can do for yourself and for all of the people around you and for the collective is to say, I’m going to step into this as a reclaiming, and I’m going to do it out loud. I’m going to let people watch me do it. I’m going to be strong and steady when people project their judgment or defensiveness onto me. And I’m going to show the people around me that change is possible. And it can start in. In ways that feel very connected to self. 

Linzy Bonham [00:32:32]: 

So, look, here I am. I’m doing it. And I’m doing it not just for myself, but for my kids, for my family, for my clients. I think it’s incredibly powerful when your clients see you taking this type of break and when you’re honest with them about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I mean, I could talk about this for hours because I think, like, the ripple effects that happen when you step into this space and claim what it is you’re doing and why you’re doing it are. 

Maegan Megginson [00:32:58]: 

Whoa. 

Linzy Bonham [00:32:59]: 

Profoundly powerful. Yeah. 

Maegan Megginson [00:33:01]: 

Your passion around sabbaticals really mirrors my own passion around money. Like, I feel like I could just sub the word finances into everything you’re saying. Cause what I’m thinking about is, you know, you are really supporting and guiding folks into taking. 

Maegan Megginson [00:33:16]: 

Ownership, autonomy, agency over their time and how incredibly important time is. And that makes me think about, too, when you were mentioning privilege, it’s like, privilege is a power that we have, and whether you use it purposely or not, you still have it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:30]: 

That’s right. 

Maegan Megginson [00:33:31]: 

Your privilege doesn’t go away because you choose to do nothing helpful with it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:34]: 

You can’t give it away either. 

Maegan Megginson [00:33:35]: 

No. No, you can’t. So it’s like this is your. In being a solopreneur, in being a small business owner, you have this incredible privilege to do this powerful thing with your own life, to model that thing to those around you. I feel the exact same way about money in small business and money in general. It is a power that is there. Let’s use it to do incredible things. And just reminds me how much I like you. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:56]: 

Wins. 

Maegan Megginson [00:33:57]: 

In conclusion, feeling is mutual. 

Linzy Bonham [00:33:58]: 

We’re basically the same. 

Maegan Megginson [00:34:02]: 

But thankfully, with not directly competing Businesses, which I love about us. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:05]: 

Confusing. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:08]: 

Yeah, that would be challenging. 

Maegan Megginson [00:34:10]: 

So, Maegan, tell folks about sabbatical school. Tell them about how they can learn more about it. I want them to know everything. 

Linzy Bonham [00:34:17]: 

Sabbatical school is really an offering that is coming from deep inside of my own soul. And it is coming. It is like the offering that has gestated inside of me during my sabbatical experiences. So I have been taking sabbaticals since 2018, and I find that one of the most powerful things that happens for me on sabbatical is that I clear space in my body, in my mind, to really connect more deeply to what is it I really want to do with my life and my work, and how do I really want to be of service. And it takes time, right? It takes time for those visions, for that clarity, to really crystallize and to come forward. And for me, this idea of having a school for people who want to learn how to do sabbaticals first came through in 2020 when I was on taking sabbatical. And it’s just been. Yeah, it’s been gestating, and now it’s ready to be born, which is so exciting. 

Linzy Bonham [00:35:24]: 

So the vision, the way it’s been coming through for me is that a group of people take a sabbatical at exactly the same time. So the first cohort of sabbatical school is starting in February 2026, and we will work through the sabbatical process together and then take a collective sabbatical in July 2026. So a full month next summer, we take sabbatical together, and then we come back for that seventh month to do integration. My sabbatical model follows a psychedelic model. That is in my work with psychedelics, where I have learned so much about what makes sabbaticals work. And I really do believe a sabbatical, when you do a sabbatical with this intention, to change your relationship with time, to change your relationship with doing, what you’re actually doing is creating an altered state of consciousness for yourself. You are really expanding and shifting your consciousness for an entire month so that you can see and experience your life in a way you don’t have access to in the day to day. So in addition to working on preparing your finances and getting your systems in order and communicating about this radical thing you’re doing with your clients, your family, your friends, we’re also gonna walk through a preparation process, just like you would do. 

Linzy Bonham [00:36:45]: 

Preparing for a psychedelic journey, preparing your mindset, preparing your setting, deciding how you’re gonna spend your time what your intentions are having the sabbatical experience itself and then coming out of that experience in that seventh month, which will be August, to do integration. And integration is where most of the lasting transformation happens, because if you have a great sabbatical experience and then you rush right back into your business the exact same way it was before you started, you will lose the wisdom that you unearthed during your sabbatical experience. So having an integration practice to really be guided through the process of taking the wisdom, taking the golden nuggets that you discovered on sabbatical, and weaving them into your life and business in a practical way is crucial. So that’s the arc of sabbatical school. I’m super psyched that you, Linzy, are going to be a guest teacher in the very first month to help us with the financial piece. So we’re going to be doing some really cool financial deep dives. And I created a whole podcast miniseries all about this process that goes in depth into each of those obstacles that you shared, in addition to lots of other fun stuff about sabbatical. So you can search for sabbatical school wherever you listen to this podcast. 

Linzy Bonham [00:38:04]: 

It’s 10 episodes. You can binge them and really just immerse yourself in this whole sabbatical world, and you can decide if sabbatical is in the cards for you at this moment in time. 

Maegan Megginson [00:38:19]: 

I’m very excited for it. I’m very excited to help folks lay that financial foundation, because I think often that’s where folks get stuck, like, right away. They’re just like, I can’t financially. I just can’t. I just can’t afford it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:38:28]: 

And we got to figure out if you can. Yep, you might not be able to. And I think that’s a gift that you’re bringing into sabbatical school. Is that that realism to, like, let’s really help people see, can you afford this? Because some people can’t, but most people can. And it’s like, we. You and I have talked so much about this. It’s like you. You just have to expand the way you’re thinking about money when you’re planning for a sabbatical. 

Linzy Bonham [00:38:51]: 

So I won’t give any spoilers, but it’s. We’re gonna. It’s. We’re gonna break people’s brains in the best way. 

Maegan Megginson [00:38:58]: 

So if folks are interested in learning more about sabbatical school, we’ll have a link in the show notes where you can click over get into Maegan’s world. I’m so excited. As someone who has watched you gestate this for a few years now. I’m very, very excited the sabbatical school is coming to life and that I get to be part of it. It’s like, it’s gonna be so fun. 

Linzy Bonham [00:39:16]: 

It’s gonna be. I think it’s gonna be the best. I mean, I, you know, I go, it’s. This is the creative process where there are moments when I’m like, this is gonna change the world. This is gonna be so amazing. And then there are moments when I’m like, what if nobody comes and it’s just me and like, nobody likes this idea? And you know what, like, riding those waves, that’s just like part of being a business owner. So if this sings to you, like, come and do this with me so that I don’t feel alone, you know, that’s really. I’m just, I’m begging at this. 

Linzy Bonham [00:39:44]: 

No, I’m just kidding. It’s gonna be awesome. 

Maegan Megginson [00:39:46]: 

It’s gonna be awesome. It’s gonna change your life. I think sabbatical is something, especially as mental health professionals, that we deeply need just time to be in yourself. We spend so much time attuning to others and being able to match where they’re at emotionally and remember what makes them tick and shine. Shine. It’s easy to lose track of that about ourselves. So I think that anybody listening could benefit from sabbatical school. So thank you. 

Maegan Megginson [00:40:09]: 

Thank you, Maegan, for joining me today. So excited about this new beautiful thing that you’re putting out in the world and for folks listening to be part of it. 

Linzy Bonham [00:40:16]: 

Thanks, Linds. Thanks for talking about this with me and for being a part of the vision. I’m so grateful. 

Maegan Megginson [00:40:27]: 

I really appreciate Maegan coming on the podcast today. I’m very excited for sabbatical school. Definitely check out that link in the show notes. I am so excited to be teaching the first lesson in sabbatical school to help folks to lay that financial foundation to be able to take that meaningful time off. Time and money are both resources. They’re both things that we have that take care of ourselves. And your money can absolutely be used strategically, creatively, thoughtfully to allow you to have time back in your life and to be able to be with yourself and revisit and reshape your relationship with time like Maegan talked about, and do whatever fun thing you want to do. As she mentioned, whether you’re needing some adventure deeply, whether you’ve got some project flowing from you that you need time to really be with, whether it’s going to be that, that nothing that open ended sabbatical so many different ways. 

Maegan Megginson [00:41:20]: 

But I do love this idea of really stopping and being with yourself to ask what do you really need right now? If you got rid of all the but what this? What about this? What about that? It won’t work because of this. If you got rid of all of those objections, what do you really need right now? And then doing the work to actually start to put the plan and the systems in place to support you in seeking that experience of giving yourself what you really need. It’s a bold thing. As Maegan said, it’s a revolutionary thing. And I would say also as therapists and caretakers and humans in this world, it’s something that we need to be able to keep being people that we actually like. 

Maegan Megginson [00:41:59]: 

Not being, you know, grizzled and tired and resentful and all these things that can happen when we have been over giving, when we’ve been driving ourselves too hard. It is essential for the that and just to actually enjoy life and be in your life is so valuable in itself. So check out Sabbatical School link in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m Linzy Bonham, therapist turned Money Coach and the creator of Money Skills for Therapists. If you are ready to go from money confusion and fear to feeling clear and empowered, my Free On Demand Masterclass is the best place for you to start. You’re going to learn my four step framework to get your private practice finances really working for you. Register Start day using the link in the show notes or go to moneynutsandbolts.com under masterclass. 

Maegan Megginson [00:42:37]: 

I look forward to supporting you.