How to Plan, Execute and Pause with intention.

A Sabbatical isn’t just something reserved for University Professors and the wealthy and taking one intentionally might just be the answer to prevent burnout and realign with your purpose

In this episode of the House of Peregrine podcast, Mickelle sits down with Lyndall Farley, co-founder of BreakSpace, to reframe intentional sabbaticals and career breaks. Not as an escape hatch, but as a beautifully designed bridge between chapters, especially for Peregrines who move, adapt, and rebuild belonging across borders.

Non-linear careers and the chapters we’re actually living

We don’t live linear lives anymore. Careers shift. Priorities evolve. People move countries, grow families, exit companies, start over.

Lyndall describes life in chapters (or eras, if that’s your language): seasons where different priorities come forward, and where a well-timed pause helps you close one chapter with care and step into the next with intention.

Burnout as structural misalignment (not a rest deficit)

Lyndall’s reframe is as calming as it is clarifying: burnout is often a structural misalignment in your life and work. Rest can help you catch your breath, but if you return to the same design, same pace, same expectations, same values mismatch, the cycle quietly restarts.

The point isn’t to recover so you can endure more. It’s to use the pause to design a return to something you don’t need to escape from.

When achievement becomes identity: founders, high performers, and “the next thing”

For founders and high performers, the risk is subtle: identity can fuse with work. A startup, a title, a pace becomes the whole container for selfhood.

Without a conscious reset, the default is seductive: finish one intense chapter and roll straight into “the next thing.” Another build. Another move. Another sprint. And suddenly your life is a loop.

A thoughtfully designed break interrupts the repetition, not with indulgence, but with clarity.

Themes, not goals: how to design a break that actually restores you

A standout idea from Lyndall’s approach is to anchor a break in themes, not goals.

Goals can smuggle performance pressure into the very time meant for repair. Themes create a gentler container, one that invites restoration, play, creativity, reconnection, and a slower kind of progress. They also give you something to return to when the wobble hits (and it will): What am I doing? Am I behind?

Themes bring you back to purpose without turning your break into productivity theatre.

The 5 psychological phases of a sabbatical

Lyndall maps breaks into five psychological phases, a framework that normalizes the experience and makes the transition feel less lonely:

1. Permission + planning  -  deciding you’re allowed to pause, and designing the time intentionally
2. Decompression / healing  -  recovery, grief, recalibration, and returning to yourself
3. Discovery  -  rediscovering what’s meaningful: play, curiosity, flow, life beyond output
4. Integration + design  -  designing your life first, then shaping work to fit it
5. Transition / new beginning  -  activating the plan and making change real (often over time)

It’s not a straight line. It’s a humane process, and it’s remarkably reassuring to hear it named.

In this conversation Lyndall outlines;

• Why burnout is often structural misalignment (and why rest alone isn’t enough)
• The reality of non-linear careers and shifting life priorities
• Founders, identity fusion, and the pull to default into “the next thing”
• How to design a break with themes, not goals
• Lyndall’s 5 psychological phases of a sabbatical, from decompression to re-entry

Explore BreakSpace + connect with Lyndall

Lyndall and her co-founder built BreakSpace as the support system they wish they’d had: a roadmap, coaching, and, most importantly, community for the messy middle.

Learn more about BreakSpace: https://gobreakspace.comConnect with Lyndall Farley on LinkedIn (DMs welcome). To grab the discount, visit https://www.houseofperegrine.com/my_account/rewards

Next Steps

Listen to the full episode and if you’re feeling that quiet internal pull, don’t wait for a crisis to grant you permission. Name the chapter you’re in. Name the chapter you want next. Then give the transition the dignity of time.

And if someone in your orbit is navigating a move, an exit, a reinvention, or a recovery season, share this episode with them. It might be the map they’ve been missing.

Feeling inspired? Share this episode with someone you know navigating life between cultures - and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review. Every story shared is a thread that weaves us closer together.