Take a Sabbatical! Prevent Burnout and Realign with Your Purpose
Lyndall Farley (00:00)
and necessarily throughout those chapters there's going to be different priorities that come to the forefront,
House Of Peregrine (00:39)
Hello everyone and welcome back to the House of Peregrine podcast. Today I'm sitting down with Lyndall Farley, the co-founder of BreakSpace, a community for people planning, navigating, and returning from sabbatical or career breaks. I am so excited to have her on when I saw her Instagram and with her and her co-founder, I could not wait to have her on because I think this will resonate with all of you. Please feel free to let us know what you think in the comments. Welcome Lyndall I'm so happy you were with us today.
Lyndall Farley (01:05)
Thank you so much, it's great to be here.
House Of Peregrine (01:08)
So I have to admit, when I saw your posts, it was an immediate yes for me to have you on because I think what you're doing is so important in general, but also for the international community, vital. So I want to start out with what you do, and then I want to talk about who you are a little bit. But tell us what a break space is all about and all about intentional sabbaticals.
Lyndall Farley (01:25)
Yeah.
Yeah, wow. Okay. Well, that's a very big place to start, what an smoke. It's just a little question to start us off. Yeah. So what I do is I help people take extended breaks from work and use them to recharge, but also to then intentionally design what comes next. Right. And lots of people are coming to breaks. They could be sabbaticals. They could be career breaks.
House Of Peregrine (01:37)
Small question.
Lyndall Farley (02:00)
for all sorts of different reasons, but the journey that they need to go through in order to really decompress, figure out who they are, and then intentionally and purposefully sort of design their next steps, that journey is really consistent across the hundreds of people that we've supported.
So I started doing this work as a sabbatical coach, individually supporting people, started that like eight years ago. And then we built BreakSpace, which is this like heart-filled, amazing community of more than a hundred people that are going through this career break or sabbatical journey all at the same time. And we support them with coaching, with courses, with resources.
But most of all, it's really just the power of, you know, having a bunch of people along for the ride who get it, who don't think that you're crazy and who are cheering you along the way.
House Of Peregrine (03:05)
Yeah, awesome. And this came pretty organically through your own story, which I want to get to. But first, I want to just go over a couple of terms because you've actually given me some really good perspectives. So we talk a lot, especially in Europe and especially in the Netherlands, about burnout. And in the Netherlands, we talk about burnout in a way that I think is kind of mysterious. And it's very much perceived as like you just need a
Lyndall Farley (03:09)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (03:30)
You just need to take some time off and relax. that we've had people on the podcast about this, but you have a really beautiful way of conceptualizing what burnout is and how we can be proactive about it. So can you just briefly go over what, how you see burnout?
Lyndall Farley (03:32)
Mm.
Yeah, I think, you know, burnout is unfortunately one of these terms that kind of gets thrown around a lot. And there's various different degrees of burnout, right? So a lot of people come into a sabbatical or career break feeling a little bit burnt out, right? But then there's people who are literally physically and mentally immobilized by burnout, right? They're the...
that the full, the full gamut, everything in between. And I think the, the problem is that we talk a lot about the fact that, you know, somebody just needs to kind of rest and relax and chill out and then miraculously the burnout will go away. Right. But actually most of the time what's led someone into burnout is not just a, you know, stress or a lack of sleep, but
it's a structural misalignment in their life and work. Right. And so without addressing that structural misalignment, you can't actually deal with the root causes of, of the burnout. And so then, you know, you, if somebody, somebody can very easily rest, relax, feel like they're okay, not actually make any structural changes in their life and then return to work. And then the cycle just repeats. Right. So,
What we're always, when somebody is kind of coming to a break and they're feeling burnt out, we first of all need them to, you know, really, really kind of decompress, but then work on designing what is next for them and using the period to sort of reflect so that they can intentionally step into something that they don't need to escape from. But
something that they're excited to return to.
House Of Peregrine (05:38)
Yeah. And you use this word sabbatical, which I really, I think, at least for me, I grew up in the U S and for me, that was something that college professors did, or there's this word, but I love how you're using it and using it as a way of a different way of describing the life cycle of a career in a way. ⁓ and so you have your own story about sabbaticals. So why don't you tell us the evolution of your own?
Lyndall Farley (05:40)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (06:04)
sabbaticals and as a way of teaching us about sabbaticals.
Lyndall Farley (06:08)
Sure. Well, I mean, the crazy, the crazy statistic here is that I've actually taken 12 sabbaticals, which sounds nuts, I realize. But what actually was happening in my early career was sabbaticals one through seven. I didn't even have the word sabbatical to describe what it was that I was doing, but I was your
typical kind of overachiever, high performer, wanting to get all of the A's, you know. And I would through school, through university, through my early career, I would push hard, you know, work hard, achieve whatever goal I was setting out for. And then just need this moment to kind of step back and kind of like decompress, but then recalibrate towards.
what it was that I wanted next, right? And so I would use these breaks and they, they were travel breaks, they were volunteer breaks, all sorts of different things. And it really was my reset mechanism to keep me happy, focused and kind of on, on career. Then came a sabbatical number eight, which really was my most kind of transformational sabbatical. And the reason for that was because
House Of Peregrine (06:59)
Yeah.
Lyndall Farley (07:22)
I was sort of in the lowest point I'd ever been in my life at that point. I was really done with my management consulting career. You know, the work that had really, I'd loved that work for 15 years, but it just wasn't lighting me up anymore. You know, I was out of a bad relationship. was living in Amsterdam far away from my Australian family feeling
very alone, disconnected, just really not in a good place in life. So luckily the company that I worked for had a program where I could take six months off and I made use of that and then actually ended up going through this kind of process of
decompressing, coming back to who I really was and what I really wanted. But sort of like redesigned my life through a kind of messy, it yourself kind of process, which I've now obviously perfected. was really a complete turnaround and led me onto the path that I have today. And basically,
through that experience, but then through sort of studying the psychology and neuroscience of breaks and really getting into to life design and transformation and transition, managing transition and change for people, kind of refined that process into what we offer in Break Space and how I sort of support people through coaching as well. So then
sabbaticals nine through 12 were far more intentional and really focused on, you know, achieving different purposes in my life. So one of them was a family sabbatical with my then one year old daughter. And a couple of them were more kind of entrepreneurial focused sabbaticals where I was taking a break, but also using it to kind inject
creative and entrepreneurial ideas into how I wanted to kind of move forward with my business and that kind of thing as well. So all sorts of different breaks after that.
House Of Peregrine (09:30)
Yeah.
And I think that this is a story that we're now getting used to hearing, which I love, which is like, some people thrive in corporate and some people don't thrive in corporate. But we're hearing more stories of people going from corporate to entrepreneurial paths after a burnout, which I love. And I think it's, it's people like you who have done it and paved the way for other people to make a process instead of it being like, what's happening to me.
But you also mentioned, heard you mention that that kind of newer or more or less known paths, which one of them is to just know that these transitions are coming in your career. We're no longer in a world where you get in a job in your 20s and go all the way through. So there are now more known rhythms that our careers take with family, with career, with family,
Lyndall Farley (09:56)
Yes.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (10:24)
your interest changing, changing countries, a huge one. And so there's that side of just knowing that these transitions are normal. And then there's also, you mentioned which I resonated, startup founders that are coming to you. And there's a whole rhythm there that was a mystery until now we're seeing more and more people come through that entire process of especially startups that are acquired. So I'd like to speak to those two as well. Again, corporate is...
Lyndall Farley (10:37)
in.
House Of Peregrine (10:51)
I feel like there's three threads that you kind of have, which is the corporate experience, love that life and then need a change. Sometimes that goes to entrepreneurship. Sometimes we can talk about that. And then there's what you're encouraging people to do, which is this more intentional Let's talk about that for a second. Actually, let's go with startup founders, because that's a little closer to corporate. And then we'll talk about
Lyndall Farley (10:54)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (11:19)
where we want people to be.
Lyndall Farley (11:19)
Well, actually, yeah, so well, let's take a step back because there's, the threads that you're just talking about there actually have this kind of overarching purpose, right? And what it is that you're speaking to is the fact that we don't live linear lives anymore, right?
So the lives of the baby boomers and before was very much sort of study, work, retire, you know, and often job for life kind of situation. We just don't live lives like that anymore. So there are periods in our life where we have very different and shifting priorities from, you know, young people through to early family years through to...
preparing for retirement, right? And then at the same time, we also know that over the course of a career, somebody is going to have five to seven different careers, not just jobs, different careers, like where they fundamentally shift what they're doing. And like you said, that might be from corporate to entrepreneur back to corporate, whatever it might be, right? And so we've got all...
House Of Peregrine (12:25)
And I would
like to add that AI is now changing that as well. It's ⁓ really making it so jobs are not available. You do have to be ready to change your career and what you're doing day to day.
Lyndall Farley (12:29)
changing it again. Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah. The only constant is change, right? That's the, that's the thing that we're talking to. And so because of that, we need to get ahead of the fact that we're going to need to have periods of pause in our life where we, we intentionally design what's next, but also
recover and get some perspective about what has just happened, right? We're living our lives in these chapters
and necessarily throughout those chapters there's going to be different priorities that come to the forefront,
So even like even in my own life in my 20s and early 30s I was very career focused. I was taking all these breaks but it was in service of my career. Now
My biggest priority is my family and my daughter, right? Yes, I'm running a business and that is incredibly important to me and a huge source of purpose and meaning, but my family comes first, right? It's not about this, know, scale hustle, hustle grind kind of business for me, right? And, you know, I can imagine that in my future, I'm gonna go back to...
a stage where I'm ready to, you know, really scale and go all in again, but that's just not where I am right now. So all of these different phases of life need breaks in between. And some of them are like discovery breaks, know, discovering who you are, discovering the world, right? Some of them are really transitional breaks. So for instance, you know, a lot of your audience is making huge transitions internationally.
really changing the entire framework of their life. And that transition, that change needs the dignity of having some time to actually spend doing that transition well, but also to enjoy the transition, to have the time and space to...
joyfully welcome what is new about your environment and to thoughtfully say goodbye to all that was in the previous environment. And then there's also breaks that like for the startup founders, for instance, that are really transformational breaks. These are the kinds of breaks where, you know, somebody like a startup founder has just been working so hard.
on their business that their identity has become fused with that business and they lose sight of who they are, they lose sight of how to have fun, they lose sight of how to even do anything in life other than work, right? And so they need a real kind of break that allows them to really transform their identity but also transform and redesign those priorities
in order to figure out what their next step is. Because otherwise, it's very easy and you've seen it as well for startup founders to just follow the default path and just roll straight into doing another startup again and burn out, you know? We've heard the story.
House Of Peregrine (15:53)
Do another startup, yep. Yep.
I've heard the story, I've lived the story. ⁓ But the thing that strikes me is that there is, and you've just described my podcast now, is there's no wisdom. So a lot of times people think they're doing this alone because it is uncharted territory. I was talking to my kids the other day and I said, what do you think changed the world more, AI now or Google when it first?
Lyndall Farley (16:00)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (16:20)
would hit the scene. We talked about it as a family for like an hour. my kids were like, actually Google, when Google. We think now that it might, at least today, it changed the world more fundamentally. I mean, that came out when I was in high school. So our generation of people, our parents went through this transition with no roadmap. And now we're going through another one with no roadmap. And so now that some of us have been through it, the early pioneers of changing countries, changing jobs,
Lyndall Farley (16:33)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (16:46)
and what you described, all these sabbaticals, we were almost doing it for the collective so we could make maps for people to do it after us. And that's how I feel as a startup founder and as an entrepreneur. So our audience knows that my partner sold his company during the pandemic and then went through this transition where we thought it was the finish line with him exiting it. It's the beginning of a total transformation that we had no idea was gonna happen. And then when we moved abroad, we thought,
Lyndall Farley (16:51)
Yeah.
Yes, but it's really just the beginning. Yeah.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (17:15)
You know, we didn't have the roadmap. thought, that's the end. We've moved. No, that's the beginning of a process that no one had defined. Yeah. So, so I love this context you're giving to people. It's almost a process of, hey, you're not alone. This is how you do it. This is how you, what you're doing.
Lyndall Farley (17:18)
Yeah.
100%. Yeah. And that was sorry. Yeah.
Yeah. And,
and that's exactly why we built Break Space because both my co-founder and I, so Katrina and I both navigated our own breaks, our own transformational breaks in this kind of haphazard kind of like, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just kind of slap something together and up there we go. I transformed and created a new life for myself, right? But it didn't necessarily need to be.
that hard. didn't need to feel like I was the only one doing this. I didn't need to feel alone. So we kind of built the solution that we didn't have ourselves, right? And inside BreakSpace, we literally have the roadmap for people to follow. Like we literally call it the BreakSpace roadmap. And it starts, you know, way back in planning, you know, really right back at the beginning where
House Of Peregrine (18:05)
that you. Yeah.
Lyndall Farley (18:24)
You have to really give yourself permission to take a break, right? You know, talking about startup founders, mean, the, idea of getting yourself out or exiting and then, you know, stepping back and, you know, unfusing your identity from this business that can take a long time for somebody to grapple with, right? And we're talking years.
right? But then, you know, going through this process of thoughtfully and intentionally designing that break for yourself so that you get what you want, right? Because it's actually very easy for somebody to say, I'm going to take a break. And then they travel the world whistle stop tour of everything ticking off all the boxes, don't actually spend a moment to kind of recharge, recalibrate and then
find at the end that they're just sort of rushing into whatever is the first thing that comes along, right? So,
House Of Peregrine (19:20)
Yeah,
they don't remap their priorities. go straight back in or they can. And that is what you said a little bit earlier is that's sometimes why people are serial entrepreneurs, not because they want to be, but because they don't know any other way. But also I think that that's sometimes why people country hop as well. They don't know any other way. you can country hop intentionally or unintentionally. ⁓
Lyndall Farley (19:24)
No. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
yes.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (19:49)
But I really
do think that one of my goals, and I think yours is too, is to get people, it takes a really long time to realize what's happening to you. And that's opportunity costs for yourself and for your family, but also in my opinion, it puts strain on anyone who's connected to you. So whether that's your family, if you have one, it's the city you're living in even, it puts a lot of strain if you are.
Lyndall Farley (19:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm.
House Of Peregrine (20:16)
And on marriages, I know this firsthand, because I had supported my partner for 15 years to get us through startups. And then I was like, hey, it's our family's turn. And he needed to go through a process that neither of us recognized or gave dignity to, which then took longer. It was destructive in maybe minor ways, seemingly. But it just, like you said, doesn't have to be this way. And so I love that you're naming it.
Lyndall Farley (20:32)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (20:45)
giving it a process, giving it dignity and giving it community. is really one striking thing in my own experience is when you sell a company or you exit a company and you're in a country that doesn't do that, nobody knows what's happening for you. And so having a group of people who knows what just happened in all its glory, great news and also scary news, it's worth its weight in gold. And so what you're doing, I think is really, really cool.
Lyndall Farley (20:48)
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean,
House Of Peregrine (21:12)
It's hard one.
Lyndall Farley (21:12)
go ahead.
House Of Peregrine (21:13)
And what were you going to say? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Lyndall Farley (21:15)
was just going to tell a story because I think a lot of this is, you know, if we give real, real kind of stories to it, it makes more sense. Right. So, you know, just last week we had a new member join Break Space and she posted about the fact that she, she was in the month, sort of two, three mark of her break and just feeling like she was kind of lost and like,
She thought that she was gonna sort of have it all figured out by now. And she was, you know, not really sure what she was doing and directionless. And, know, we, Katrina and I, as the, you know, sort of coaches in the space, obviously supported her through that. But I think the most powerful thing was that all of our other members came in and said, yeah, I felt this too, right? Don't worry, you're not doing it wrong. This is part.
of the journey, right? And it's one thing to have a coach or a mentor come in and say, okay, great. Yes, I know where you are. These are the things that can help. But it's quite another thing to hear people just like you go that are further along in the path, go, what you're experiencing is normal. I went through it too. I came out the other side. I'm fine. Just keep going. You know?
House Of Peregrine (22:29)
Yep.
Yeah, that messy middle, we call it the messy middle, but it's also the process of becoming. And that process, it takes a lot of bravery to do that process over and over again and not just fall into old patterns or societal expectations. So again, if you have your dream job that everyone would love or their dream life, I always tell the story like my life was amazing in the US. No one would understand why I moved.
Lyndall Farley (22:32)
That's exactly what it's called, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
House Of Peregrine (22:55)
but something inside of me said it's time to become something else. And following that call is, first of all, sometimes you have to, but other times, because your body, that's what burnout is, right? We didn't pay attention to some of these calls or misalignments, but it can be lonely if you're leaving something that's great. And so that, yeah.
Lyndall Farley (22:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah and I mean
you know that's exactly where I stand right now on the precipice.
House Of Peregrine (23:21)
Yes, yes, tell
us. And I'm talking to, I am so happy you made time to talk to me right now because you are in the middle of your own. Tell us, tell us where you are personally. It's a beautiful story.
Lyndall Farley (23:29)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I know that you can't hear it, but outside of my office door, my husband is literally packing up our house because we are moving from Amsterdam to Australia next week. And we've been in Amsterdam for 13 years and it's ushered a huge era of our lives, you know.
I actually came here as a single corporate working woman, you know, early thirties. And Amsterdam has taken me through meeting my husband, starting a business, starting a family, getting the mortgage, you know, like, you know, the full adulting from party girl, fun, traveler, kind of corporate lady to, you know, motherhood.
business owner, mortgage holder, you know, all the things. And so, but ultimately what led us to the move to Australia was once it was in COVID, our daughter was born in early 2021.
And so at the, towards the end of 2021, 2022, we actually took her family sabbatical to go to America and Australia so that she could meet her family because it had been all locked up. She literally hadn't met any of her family because, you know, we lived it was on that trip that we were sort of coming to the term, coming to terms with being.
parents and you know saying saying goodbye to the freedom of the solo years without babies and diapers and designing you know we had some time on that family sabbatical to really design the way that we wanted our life to look next right and it was pretty clear for us that Amsterdam was great for us in the early baby years.
but eventually once she sort of got into school and she was, you know, more in those primary school years that what we wanted was, somewhere where we could, we felt we could feel like we could all belong as a family. ⁓ somewhere where we were just in the sunshine in kind of the beach life, beach community kind of thing. And really.
House Of Peregrine (25:40)
Yep.
Lyndall Farley (25:52)
it became clear that Australia was the place to live the life that we wanted to live, right? And it wasn't possible to live the kind of life that we wanted to live in Amsterdam. Amsterdam had served its purpose as the wonderful, amazing place that it is, but it wasn't right for the next chapter. And so that then put in motion a three-year plan to make Australia
House Of Peregrine (26:11)
Yep.
Lyndall Farley (26:18)
our new reality. And that three-year plan is happening next week. yeah.
House Of Peregrine (26:23)
Wow.
So this is a plan that's been three years in the making. And because of your previous experience making these transitions thoughtfully, it's not coming out of the blue. You've had time to properly mourn. And actually, at House Peregrine, we have these ceremonies that we do for people that say goodbye to places. Because doing it, I mean, I've done it. We moved very quickly from the States to Amsterdam.
Lyndall Farley (26:34)
No.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (26:48)
But I noticed, I really felt that the morning, it's something you have to do. Whether you've loved or hated a place, you're saying goodbye to a chapter of your life. that doing it mindfully is sometimes, ⁓ well, you've done it both ways too, and now you wanna do it differently. And so that's a skill that you are helping people through. So if I had to summarize the last part of our conversation, it's like, change is coming, change is a constant, learn to do it more
Lyndall Farley (27:00)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (27:16)
mindfully, which will then lead to more grace. in the end, may seem a little bit again, like I when the way I grew up, sitting still was not seen as productive. And so that gives puts panic in people or maybe seems indulgent, but it's actually the most efficient and humane thing you can do for yourself is to
Lyndall Farley (27:26)
Hmm, no. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (27:38)
project what you want, how you want to feel, how you want these chapters to go, and then plan well and do them intentionally.
Lyndall Farley (27:45)
Yeah, exactly right. And I think you did. And it's about giving, it's back to this word dignity, giving dignity to the human experience of change and allowing psychologically and emotionally the process to flow through you that allows you to gently and smoothly transition, right?
House Of Peregrine (27:47)
Did I summarize it? Yeah.
Yeah.
Lyndall Farley (28:09)
So I understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (28:10)
And you said something I just wanted to go back to one thing you said about your move when we spoke earlier was you said you even planned for your husband to have time to mindfully help you guys settle.
Lyndall Farley (28:24)
Yeah. So, so what the plan is. So, I mean, my business is already, you know, global and just moves to Australia with me, but my husband has quit his job, but he is going to take a sabbatical. I mean, he's married to a sabbatical coach. What's he going to do? Obviously he's taking a sabbatical and ⁓ there's, you know, obviously we've, we've mapped out.
House Of Peregrine (28:41)
Yeah, nice.
Lyndall Farley (28:46)
for him, you know, the different kind of phases and themes throughout the sabbatical. And for him, first bit of our sabbatical is helping our family transition and smoothly land in this new country. It's a new country for him, he's American. My daughter's only ever known Amsterdam, right? She has an Australian passport, but she...
You know, she's more Dutch than she is anything else. And then, she is a true Perigan. And, you know, I am Australian, but we're moving to a place in Australia that is far from where I grew up and completely, you know, different. so there's also, you know, we all need to build community. We all need to make friends. We all need to land. We all need to figure out how stuff works. Right. I've never been a parent in Australia.
House Of Peregrine (29:13)
She's a peregrine.
Lyndall Farley (29:37)
I left as a 20 something like, I've spent more of I've lived in America, London, Amsterdam. I've lived more of my adult life outside of Australia than in it. I don't know how to do adulting in Australia, right? Everybody thinks I know this stuff, but I don't. So it's basically, you know, it's new for all of us and Joseph's sabbatical at least the first month or so is really focused on helping us smoothly land, but also not just the logistics of it, but
enjoying the process. Like he loves a house project, right? And just having time to go to the hardware store. Anybody who knows Australia knows that he's super excited to go to Bunnings. He's going to go to Bunnings, buy all the supplies, do house projects, do garden projects and just love doing that, right? And then at this, then, you know, towards the end of his sabbatical,
He works as a, in tech and AI. And so he's going to like dive into a bunch of startup stuff and, know, get his hands back into maker mode because he's been in sort of a leadership role for quite some time. So get, get back to the nitty gritty of doing, and, and then, you know, he will design, you know, what comes next after that. But because we know.
House Of Peregrine (30:56)
What strikes me about this
is that you're calling it a sabbatical from paid work, but what you're doing in the process is giving dignity and a name to the process of moving abroad, which most people miss that that's an entire, how one adult in the partnership has to spend their time. So you're giving it space, you're making agreements around it, you're giving it dignity, and you're giving it, which I think is a missing ingredient often is
Lyndall Farley (31:00)
Hmm.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah,
House Of Peregrine (31:24)
dignity and pleasure and some joy. Yeah.
Lyndall Farley (31:25)
yeah, joy. Where's all the fun? Like we are literally moving to, we actually bought our dream home in April this year. And so we're moving into this house. We can walk to the beach. It's like sunny all the time. It's warm. We're coming from the middle of the European winter going into the Australian summer.
House Of Peregrine (31:47)
So jealous.
Lyndall Farley (31:49)
It's just like, it's our dream. Let us have the moment to enjoy it, you know? yeah, rushing through it, yeah.
House Of Peregrine (31:53)
Yep, yep. And it's your life. you, it's not about, it's not about enjoying it. Yeah,
yeah, I love that. And I think that you're using this word sabbatical in such an amazing way because when most people think of sabbatical, they just think of traveling or sitting by the beach, which is totally an option. Not saying it's not, but yeah, that's not the only option.
Lyndall Farley (32:15)
It can be part of it. Yeah, it's just not all of it. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (32:20)
And so I love that you're framing it this way. And also I see that you have an agreement with both of you. So it's not like there's no goal, there's no timeframe, there's no... And so this is really important. And I think it's not something that we're taught about remaining in long-term relationships, but also because we haven't had to. With this model that our parents had of just getting a job, da, da, da, da, and...
you know, standard relationship where the mom takes care of the kids and the dad works. We've been out of that for a while as a world population in the Western world, but we haven't had the roadmap of how to navigate that. And so, and this trade off of like, now I'm working, now you're working. We have a sabbatical. This process is super important to be able to have down. And we just don't have the tools yet. So I'm really happy that you're giving language to this process.
Lyndall Farley (33:00)
Yeah.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (33:14)
Yeah, I love it.
Lyndall Farley (33:14)
Yeah,
and it's actually, you know, when we're talking about the actual language, it's what we actually talk about when we're designing a sabbatical or a career break anchoring on the purpose of the break, because the real purpose can get caught up in what people think that they should do, right? But what's the purpose of the break? But then
breaking that down into a couple of different themes or things that you want to focus on. And they end up being almost like they can be phases of your break sometimes, right? They can be a travel and adventure theme and they can be a soft landing theme, right? Or setting up our new life theme or whatever it might be. And then they can be re-imagining and dreaming what's next, right? And so we have these different
of themes and we purposefully don't call them goals because we're trying to actually take this time away from being something that you're doing all of the the things that you are going to achieve and all of the items you're going to tick off your to-do list right because even in a break we have this desperate need to feel productive so we're trying to get away from that and really just lean into
House Of Peregrine (34:17)
goal.
Lyndall Farley (34:32)
the experience that you want to create, right? Measuring the success of a break in terms of the quality of experience and the memories rather than, you know, the things that were achieved, right? Or the to-do list that was taken off, right? So it's a...
House Of Peregrine (34:47)
It strikes me
as not being goal-oriented, which is like really good relationship advice. Perhaps being intimate, like don't be goal-oriented, anchor into the experience. And so it's really good advice.
Lyndall Farley (34:52)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And there's, there's a piece,
there's a piece here that you were talking about, which, is really about that relationship agreements. And I call it contracting, like you're contracting with your partner, right? And what is actually super important is that in any relationship that you agree the
the roles and responsibilities that you're going to either continue or shift during that break. So just because my husband is on sabbatical now doesn't mean that all of the parenting, you know, goes on to him, right? His time on sabbatical is just as valuable as my time working right now because we value the
the time of and the experience of the other person, the tasks or the responsibilities, right? And so it's that initial contracting, but then it's the constant kind of checking in and recalibration with each other, right? And being...
House Of Peregrine (36:02)
Yeah. And that can happen
even that's even happening when you're not partnered. You're doing those things with yourself. And so that contracting, it strikes me is important for safety. So it maybe helps with that feeling of this is going to go on forever or I will be in this state forever. These contract it's like, no, no, no, I have a month more to be in this process. And then this is what the time is for right now. Yeah.
Lyndall Farley (36:11)
Thanks.
Yeah, yeah. And this comes, yeah, exactly. And this is why
it comes back to these focus areas. Because if you really are intentional and thoughtful about designing those focus areas and to achieve the purpose of what you need from the break, then when you have the wobbles,
because everybody has a wobble on that. It's just a completely normal experience of like, what am I doing? I'm wasting my time. I shouldn't be spending this money. you come back to your themes. It's like, okay, I need to rest and recharge. need to fully decompress. Okay. How's that go? Like checking in with yourself mid break. Do I actually feel like I have recovered my physical and mental health? Yes. Great. No. Okay.
House Of Peregrine (36:48)
Part of being human.
Lyndall Farley (37:10)
let's spend a bit more energy there. You know, that still needs some work. And then, you know, the joyful part of your break, like maybe it's like leaning into, you know, things that you love to do. It could be like hobbies, but also just experiences, hiking, travel, adventures, whatever it might be. Have you actually spent time doing those things? And like,
over the hundreds of people and the hundreds of breaks I've seen. It's really interesting how you can set out these themes for yourself and then almost forget about them and then check in midway through and go, yeah, that's right. What I actually said was that I wanted to spend more time connecting with my creativity and I just haven't done that. Okay, how can I get back on track, right?
And then the same thing with designing what comes next. It's like that is also towards the end of a break. You don't want to start it too early. You need time to, you know, just recover, heal, return to who you are again. But at the same time, there comes a natural moment where you start asking those big questions. Like what kind of life do I want to live in this next chapter? And what kind of work is going to fit with that life?
and the priorities that are coming up for that life. And then really designing what that's going to look like, right, before you transition back.
House Of Peregrine (38:37)
Yeah. And you have an incredible graphic that we'll share on the screen for those watching in video, but I love that you've mapped this out. And this isn't something that you do. It's something that naturally emerges, I think is the, if it's so, so there is a process that fits with your actual physiology and neurobiology that naturally emerges when you have these guardrails that you've set out, which I've experienced myself. And also I think.
Lyndall Farley (38:49)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And so.
House Of Peregrine (39:05)
It's helpful to have trust that there is when you work with your system, there is a process that naturally emerges, but you do have to keep your agreements with yourself.
Lyndall Farley (39:09)
There's a process.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I mean, there's, is sort of five distinctive psychological phases that you go through when you're on a break, sabbatical, career break, whatever it might be. The first one is around, but starts well before the break. And it's around the planning of the break, but also giving yourself permission to actually take a break and committing to that time. And intentionally designing that
Right. So that, that can be an entire process in itself, just getting yourself onto the break. And that's the first psychological hurdle, right? Then you actually get yourself onto the break. And the first thing you have to do is go through a decompression period, right? And yeah. Yeah. Healing. Yeah. Healing. Yeah. No. And
House Of Peregrine (39:58)
And that can look like grief, that can look like excitement, that can look like healing, can look like celebrating, it can look like anything it needs to be. It doesn't have to look one way.
Lyndall Farley (40:09)
The starting point for you is going to determine what that needs to look like. If you're starting really burnt out, then it's going to be about physical healing first and then sort of psychological feeling. If you're, you know, coming from a place of having experienced workplace trauma, there's healing, there's grief, you know, there's loss. So that decompressant process isn't just about resting and recharging.
it's about returning back to who you are, right? Getting back to the core of your identity and who you want to be and getting back in touch with like, who have I become? Am I okay with that? Who do I actually want to be? Right? And that's, that's the, that's the, the identity piece that is so important in that decompression. So then we move on to what is hopefully the biggest
phase or longest period, the third phase, psychological phase, which is about discovery. So that's out in the world, maybe discovering things, travel, experiences, whatever it might be, but also discovery of self, know, reflecting, thinking about what, you know, honouring what has been in your past, thinking about the pathway that has led you to where you are.
And just discovering like it's honestly, it's the simple things. Discovering what's fun. What do I find fun? What's playful? Like what does play mean to me? How do I, what gets me in flow, right? Because so many people have just lost touch with those things. Just not put any time or energy into them.
Then the fourth psychological phase is really about integrating what you've learnt but intentionally designing what comes next and that's designing your life first and then designing the work that's going to fit with that and creating that re-entry plan so that you can smoothly transition back to life. And the final and last stage is all about that transition and this can
also be this phase can be years in the making because it's when you're on a break, you have this wonderful container to design what's next, but it's not until you actually return from a break and start actually making it happen that the change really occurs. And so that transition is all about, know, activating your plan, staying on track and, you know, keeping that momentum and motivation going.
as you're trying to craft out this new life. if we think about it in terms of the stages of transition, you were talking about the messy middle. This is the stage of what they call new beginnings, right? When you're actually stepping into that post-break new beginning. Yeah. So, yeah. And we'll share the graphic for people.
House Of Peregrine (43:03)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
we'll share the graphic, but I love that you've just described this with such beauty and it applies to almost anything. Parenthood. It's just, you know, anything. what it really strikes me as is it's less lonely. Even if you know these steps, I think you've given our audience something. doing it in community or with a coach.
Lyndall Farley (43:16)
Yeah. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (43:29)
gives you, because you do feel like you're free falling in some of these, when we've talked about that already, but also I don't think, I don't think that people are aware of how productive that is, this process, if you allow it, how I believe it genuinely changes the world to go through this process in a healthier way or a more connected way, but also
Lyndall Farley (43:33)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (43:55)
Many, there's, we've talked about many ways of living in our conversation, but you can call it privileged, you can call it intentional, but it's becoming less and less so that everyone has to face these transitions. Maybe it used to be a privileged thing to do to have a sabbatical or to have a career break. But it's not always the case. It's not always the case. And there's ways of doing this without being completely off of work as well.
Lyndall Farley (44:17)
No.
House Of Peregrine (44:23)
⁓
Lyndall Farley (44:23)
Yeah,
so there's, it's actually interesting because still the majority of career breaks or sabbaticals, the catalyst for them is a negative event. 75 % of breaks have a negative catalyst. So redundancy, health crisis, death, grief, whatever it might be, right? And
House Of Peregrine (44:43)
Death, divorce.
All the big ones.
Lyndall Farley (44:44)
death, through all the, you know, all the bad things that can happen in life. Right. And then they suddenly make COVID, they suddenly make you
take a step back and go, what the hell am I doing? I need to break this. got to step out of this. I am way off course, right. But sometimes it takes those negative catalysts. But what we're trying to do with Break Space, but this entire kind of break focused movement is switch that narrative.
House Of Peregrine (44:57)
I'm way off course. Yep. Yep.
Lyndall Farley (45:12)
right? Let's recognize, yeah, change is coming. And we can be more intentional about how we plan it. Like this transition and the sabbatical for Joseph, my husband, has been, as I said, three years in the making, right? We've been planning for this for three years. So I'm actually harking back to something you said a little bit earlier about really mourning.
right, the Amsterdam and the loss and that kind of thing. We're saying goodbye, right, but we feel ready, right. There isn't, there is a sense of sadness and there are people who we will need to, you know, it will be very sad to say goodbye to those people and places and you know things, but because we've gracefully given us this, ourselves this time,
We feel so ready. Like if you told me I had to get on the plane tomorrow, I'd be like, great, let's do it. You know? Yeah, it feels, it feels right and it feels complete, right? Our Amsterdam chapter has closed. We have closed it and we're now ready to write that next chapter that we already have been mapping out for such a long time.
House Of Peregrine (46:08)
Yeah, there's a completeness that you have, a completeness.
And it occurs to me that you're united. So a lot of people leave, yeah, you leave a country not united. And one of you wants to stay, one of you wants to go, a career or a job has dictated. And those are hard. Those are hard.
Lyndall Farley (46:32)
Yeah, yeah, we're very united. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, yeah,
truthfully, that's probably why it's been three years in the making, because it was, I was ready to leave Amsterdam three years ago, to be honest. I'm the Australian one, right? But it was a process for my husband to get ready, you know, and want to leave and feel like it was the right time. It was also,
House Of Peregrine (46:58)
Yeah. Yep.
Lyndall Farley (47:13)
you know, we needed to look at it from the right time from the perspective of our daughter. So she's gone to school here because they start at four years old here. But then in Australia, she'll start with all of the kids who are starting school in Australia. And so we wanted her to just not be the new kid in class, but just be, you know, starting school with everybody else. Right. So that just felt like the right time for her.
So, but it's been this gradual process and, you know, I mean, very practically, we also had to apply for a visa for Joseph to get permanent residency. That process takes two years, right? You can't just get into Australia willy-nilly. And so, and then in April, we bought the house, which really felt like, wow, boom, we're doing it, you know?
But then it was this kind of long goodbye for Amsterdam. So with preparation, with a bit of grace for the experience, the painful emotions around kind of mourning, loss, grief, they diminish, right? Because there's less of that to feel because it feels complete. Yeah, you're like, you're being...
House Of Peregrine (48:25)
You've done it over time. You've done the long.
Lyndall Farley (48:28)
gentle with yourself. I mean you know you've done the opposite of doing it in a month. mean that's, that is hard.
House Of Peregrine (48:30)
Yep.
Yeah,
three toddlers, we told our parents four weeks before we moved. And it wasn't because there was a lot of complication. My husband had a company of hundred people that he took remote overnight. ⁓ It was the way it needed to happen for us, but, and sometimes that happens, but the morning is still the same amount of morning and the preparation is still amount of the preparation. It's like when I gave birth to my kids, they said, you can have a fast labor or a long labor.
Lyndall Farley (48:44)
Mmm. Mmm.
House Of Peregrine (49:02)
it's still the same amount of work. So you're doing that emotional work, relational work with whoever you're connecting in a shorter time. Yeah. And so it's less, I would say less humane is how I put it. ⁓ But
Lyndall Farley (49:06)
in a shorter time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Less
humane. Yeah. I think honestly, there is also like, I feel, I feel a little bit like, come on, I'm just ready to go. You know what mean? Like you can almost hang on for too long. So there is, there is, there is, there's, there's definitely this happy medium where it's not too fast, not too slow somewhere in between. Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (49:24)
Yeah, yeah.
Yep. But
it takes constant attunement with your relationship, if you're in one with yourself, with your goals, with other people, like you said, your daughter, those are, that's a lot of self-attunement to your goals. And so that's the process that I think we are all having to get better at in this, you know, new to us since our parents' generation that you're ushering in with your community and with your process. And so what do people do if they want, if they're feeling this pull or
Lyndall Farley (49:48)
Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (49:59)
they see this pattern within themselves and they want to change it. What is your advice to them? And then after that, how do they connect with you? As we wrap up.
Lyndall Farley (50:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think, you know, step one is really get in touch with what it is that you need in this phase or stage of life, right? And this then kind of, yeah, you're all in a stage. Life is not, it's not linear. You live your life in chapters. You can, if you're a Taylor Swift fan, you can call it eras, whatever you want to call it, you're in it, right?
House Of Peregrine (50:18)
First of all, you're in a stage and phase everyone just recognize that we're all in a state
Yeah. ⁓
Lyndall Farley (50:33)
and you're writing that chapter but you're you're thinking about the next chapter right so what do you need to close the chapter that you're in and to start dreaming about the chapter that is to come right and and then what and how can you give yourself dignity and grace in managing the transition between chapters and in my world that is
giving yourself a break, giving yourself some time, right? And then gently ushering in that process and going through those psychological phases and allowing that process to gently unfold. So how do people get support? I mean, come and join us, know, go BreakSpace. You can find out more at gobreakspace.com.
And we open our doors to new members every month and join our waitlist and then we'll give you more information. It's really all about catching people, like as soon as they're even thinking about this and giving them support right from the very beginning. People join us at all stages of the break, but if we can get them right at the very beginning.
then the whole break experience becomes a lot smoother, right? Yeah.
House Of Peregrine (51:46)
Yeah. So, that's, that's
like almost, that's almost like, Hey, I'm in a career. It could even be, Hey, we just moved to a new country. have a two year contract, so I should already start planning my next move. Yeah. Like you can't, you can't start too soon to be mapping out your life as my, as my thing, but you've also shared with me and we'll share with our members that you're offering our members a discount, which we'll put in our app for people who have a membership, but share with us.
Lyndall Farley (51:59)
100%. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah, absolutely.
House Of Peregrine (52:15)
It's so generous of you to offer, so tell me.
Lyndall Farley (52:15)
Yes. So well, we always love talking to people from, you know, sister audiences, right? And I think you guys are so aligned from a culture, but an ethos percent as well. So we would love for people to come and join us. If you're interested, we can give you a 30 % off your first month.
And the code for that is going to be available inside the membership.
House Of Peregrine (52:40)
could talk to you for hours. You are doing such great work. I think especially for international people, because there's more moving parts, we don't have a choice. always say, if you're an international person, you need specialists in your life, whether you like it or not. And that's also a very, I think it's actually very heartwarming that we actually need each other. And so that you're one of those people that I would say is almost essential. So if you're navigating change, which we all are, and this resonates with you, definitely reach out
Lyndall Farley (52:51)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah.
you
House Of Peregrine (53:10)
And yeah, thank you so much for joining me today. We will put everything in the show notes, how to reach out to you and yeah.
Lyndall Farley (53:12)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say as well,
just connect with me on LinkedIn. I love I'm, I'm always on LinkedIn. That's the place to find me and ⁓ send me a connection request, send me a message. Any questions, anything that I can do to support people, it doesn't have to be just join Break Space, just connect with me and let's start a conversation. No problem.
House Of Peregrine (53:22)
Perfect.
Lyndall Farley (53:34)
I literally live to support people and their breaks. And so really that is just an open invitation for anyone of your listeners to connect and start the conversation.
House Of Peregrine (53:38)
Thanks.
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me today. And everyone, thank you for joining us for this conversation. Please like and subscribe to the podcast to share with anyone who you think it might be helpful. It helps us out a ton. And I can't wait to talk to you next time.
Lyndall Farley (54:01)
Thanks so much.