Sabbatical Stories: Jodie L.

This is the fourth installment in our series called Sabbatical Stories - a collection of candid Q&As with professionals who have experienced a sabbatical first hand. Each story offers a different window into what happens when we finally make space for ourselves and what we learn when we stop moving long enough to listen.

If you want more, you can hear from Emily, Jeni, and Rachael, too.

This week we’re featuring Jodie L.

Jodie is a strategic, operations-focused nonprofit executive with more than two decades of leadership experience spanning organizational management, finance, human resources, fundraising strategy, and culture transformation. She is known for building strong internal systems that enable mission-driven organizations to grow sustainably while fostering inclusive, high-performing workplace cultures.

After her position was eliminated in 2024, she chose to treat the pause as a true sabbatical. A time to learn how to center herself again, to stop measuring her worth by productivity, and to practice “existing for existing’s sake,” rebuilding her energy, identity, and sense of self outside of constant responsibility and achievement.

This is Jodie’s sabbatical story.

(Interview edited for clarity and length.)

The organization I was working for went through significant leadership and structural changes, which ultimately led to my position being eliminated in January 2024. That moment gave me pause and helped me realize just how burned out I was—burned out to the point where I wasn’t my best self, or even close to okay, in most spheres of my life.

It wasn’t one single thing that caused the burnout, but rather the culmination of many small and large moments that had built up over years. That included delayed grief from my mom’s death in 2021, traveling for work almost every other week for nearly two years, participating in a homeland tour for adult Korean adoptees to return to Korea (my first time back), and fully managing home life while my partner at the time recovered from two significant back surgeries.

Looking back at 2024 with what I know now, I made a clear decision to take the entirety of the year to enjoy life and simply exist. This was something I didn’t know how to do—especially as a Korean American woman. I had always prioritized my career over other aspects of life and often put others’ wellbeing ahead of my own.

I didn’t have a roadmap for this kind of sabbatical, and I didn’t want to research how others had done it. Instead, I gave myself radical permission to do nothing. I focused on how I felt and reconnected with my intuition, which is one of my strongest assets.

At first, it felt great. But after a few months, I noticed myself slipping into a “should” mindset—feeling like I needed to justify why I deserved a sabbatical or prove its value through the politics of busyness. I realized much of that pressure was coming from external sources, like social media or people asking what goals I had set for my time off.

I learned to turn down the external noise and refocus on myself. This time was for me to reset and simply exist. There was nothing I needed to prove. What I wanted most from my sabbatical was to feel rested and rejuvenated, and ultimately to define myself by who I am—not by what I do, or the job or title I hold. That realization has stayed with me as I searched for work in 2025 and recently started a new position.

The biggest challenge was learning to center myself. I’ve always been very good at centering others and saying yes. During my sabbatical, I learned how to say no—even when I didn’t have a reason other than simply not wanting to do something. Instead, I said yes to myself.

I kept returning to the idea of radical permission to do nothing. When people asked what I was doing with my sabbatical, I would answer honestly. That often opened the door to explaining what that really meant, and the more I explained it, the more resolved I became in my choice to simply exist and follow my interests.

Now that my sabbatical is over, it’s incredible to reflect on what I did over the past year and a half and how expansive it felt to give myself that permission.

I experienced a profound internal shift. I feel much more relaxed and no longer feel the need to prove my worth or value through how much I work, the kind of work I do, or how much I accomplish.

I now have this lived example that shows me I can simply exist for existence’s sake, and that I know how to slow down. I don’t have to participate in the politics of busyness by maintaining a packed calendar or chasing milestones by an arbitrary age.

Instead, I measure my worth and value by my relationships with loved ones, whether I’m learning and staying curious, and how I’m contributing to my community, my city, and society more broadly.

I am enough.

Those three short words are something I used to say to myself. After this time away, I don’t just say them—I embody them in my mind, soul, and spirit.

I think it’s critical to highlight the many different models of sabbaticals and the various ways people can rest and rejuvenate more deeply. At the same time, I recognize that it is an immense privilege to be able to take time off without fear of losing your home or being unable to feed yourself. Unfortunately, that isn’t possible for everyone.

To help make sabbaticals more accessible, I would love to see more employers introduce paid sabbatical policies for their employees.

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