The Cost of Overwork: Finding Balance and Preventing Burnout in Allied Health – Interview with Yolanda Harper

Last week, Jo was joined by therapist and writer Yolanda Harper to discuss Yolanda’s book, Soul Sabbatical. You can listen to that conversation here.

While supporting Yolanda with the writing of Soul Sabbatical, Jo realised that she needed to take a sabbatical to address her burnout, work and life. So in this episode, the tables (and microphone) are turned and Yolanda returns to the podcast to interview Jo about her sabbatical experience.

In this episode, Jo and Yolanda discuss:

The emotional response Jo had when she first read the manuscript of Yolanda’s book
The moment Jo realised that she had not been living in alignment and knew she needed to take a sabbatical
The crucial role support played in Jo’s sabbatical
What the hardest part of taking a sabbatical was for Jo (it might surprise you)
Jo’s biggest takeaway from her sabbatical experience
What Jo would say to someone who was considering taking a sabbatical.

Yolanda Harper: While many authors know all of their lives that they want to become published, Yolanda Harper’s first book, Soul Sabbatical, started as a series of journal entries written during a burn out “meltdown” that led to her taking a sabbatical from her roles as a trauma and relationship therapist, researcher, trainer, mental health thought leader, and business owner/entrepreneur. As she shared more about her experience, she realised how much people resonate with the idea of a sabbatical, but don’t know how to step back from the demands of hustle culture to take one.

Yolanda is a warm-hearted music and nature lover who has a strong faith and likes #TrailLife. She is real; a therapist, mental health thought leader, entrepreneur, TEDx Speaker, Soul Sabbatical Doula, wife, and Mama always to her grown children – but a human first.

You can find Yolanda at https://yolandaharper.com

Resources mentioned in this episode:

If you know you need more support, please visit my website at https://jomuirhead.com

Finally, if you loved this episode, please make sure you subscribe and leave us a review.

Transcript

Jo:
Welcome to another episode of The Entrepreneurial Clinician. Before we start, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I am recording today. This is the land of the Darug people. I pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging. And I extend that respect to any and all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be listening today. Thank you for taking care of this land the way you have.
So the tables are turning a little bit in this episode today. You may know Yolanda Harper. She’d been around before. You may have even read her book by now. You may have joined her email list, but have you ever been interviewed by her? No. Well, neither have I, but that’s about to happen. So, Yolanda, thank you for being here again today. Yeah. And let’s make this happen.

Yolanda:
Woohoo. This

Jo:
This is gonna be so much fun. Nervous giggles over here.

Yolanda:
<Laugh>. Right, me too. Me too. Because I’m having to step into Jo’s shoes, or attempt to step into Jo’s shoes. So we’ll see how this goes.

So I just wanna say thank you for this opportunity and such a beautiful conversation that we have had, and I am looking forward to the one that we’re about to have.

Jo:
Yeah, me too.

Yolanda:
And also just in case people don’t know, you were such an important part of Soul Sabbatical being birthed into this world, so thank you for that as well. You were, gosh, one of the first people to lay eyes on the manuscript. And so let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start, <laugh>. What was your experience reading the book, even as you were helping to coach me in putting it out into the world?
Jo:

Yeah. So there were a few indicators along the way because when it comes to looking after myself, I’m not very good at it. So following my cancer treatment I have been left with chronic migraine that seemed to be fairly treatment-resistant. So I’m living with about 17 migraine days a month. And I take a lot of medication to help with that. And my neurologist, who had been asking me for pretty much most of 2023, could you please stop working? I ignored her up until about September of 2023. I went, no, work’s good for me. This is what I’ve been doing my whole life. Work is good for me. People who don’t work die sooner. They have more co-morbidities. Work is inherently good. I need to be working. And she’s like, ou don’t need to be doing what you’re doing the way you’re doing it, and I don’t think you know how to do it any other way. Then we got to about September of 2023, and she said, the progression of your migraines is such that I now need to start testing you for other things if you don’t stop working. And she started throwing some neurological conditions out at me, and I just went, oh, no, I did not fight cancer to end up with a diagnosis like that. So that was one. But I still ran the International Future Proofing Symposium for Health Professionals last year, because when I make a commitment to something, I wanna see it through. And I was the last speaker of those 10 days. And I had prepared my presentation, which I had spoken about previously, and it will form the basis of my next book.
But as I was presenting to the conference, and I remember having this moment, and that you can probably even see it on the recording, where I was like, oh, I am the biggest hypocrite right now. And it would’ve been something to do with the curse of competence, where I’m going, I’m faking it every day. I turn up and I’ve been vomiting for three hours just to turn up today. I’m faking it. And I don’t think I wanna be that person anymore. So after that presentation on that day. I went, this is enough. I now do the sabbatical. I am now doing the sabbatical. So I felt so awkward and uncomfortable and exposed. I felt like the biggest liar and fraud because I knew I wasn’t living from what I was speaking about. And that has become intolerable to me. So that’s how I arrived at the decision of, well, I don’t know what the outcome is gonna be, but I’m gonna give this a go.
Yolanda:
Yeah. And had the idea of sabbatical kind of been floating around since you had read the book or even before that? Or was it based on your neurologist telling you to stop work?
Jo:
No, it was less about that. She was just like, you need to stop work. And in a very neurologist way of doing this, like very cut and dry, we have tried everything else. Please stop working. And lots of people had said, stop working so much, but that’s not very helpful. <Laugh> Because what needed to change was my relationship to my work. But I can’t do that until I have addressed my relationship with myself. And people will be listening to this who have known me for the past 20 years going, who is this woman? This is not how Jo speaks ever. So it’s quite different. It’s quite different for me to be in this space now where I’m at.
Yolanda:
And exploring a relationship with yourself for the first time.
Jo:
Well, for the first time like this with the knowledge and tools and skills, but more importantly, the support. So I’ve tried to do it on my own. I’ve tried to do it in secret. And those things didn’t work.
Yolanda:
What was the difference with the support? What did the support look like? And how did that make it different?
Jo:
Yeah. So the support was my, my husband, my son, my nieces and nephews. Like, I made my inner circle much more inner circle. Rather than trying to fill up all the white noise or white spaces. And I got quite directive about what I needed. And I think, you know, going through cancer the way I did, one of the things cancer taught me to do is you have to ask for heThere is video footage of me, which I’ve shared with you. I was going to do one of those, videos where you fast-forward it so it’s captured and it’s showing you working during the day. But I was reading some of the work that you had given me to review and provide some commentary on. And I started weeping, and then I knew I’d lost my coach hat <laugh>, like my coach hat had fallen off and was under the desk and away from my reach. And your words, your descriptions, your use of language, your stories, it all just came to this point where I couldn’t stop weeping. And it was a realisation that what I kind of suspected might have been going on.
But because my switch was so adaptive at staying on, it was stuck. It was stuck on. So my coping skills were so rigid, I hadn’t given myself permission to go. So what could be underneath all of this <laugh> overfunctioning and perfectionism and the need to keep going and keep working? Why did you feel the need to work throughout your entire cancer treatment when it was really bad? So the book gave me my first realisation that, oh, there’s something bigger at play here. And I also knew after putting my coach hat back on the book is an incredibly important piece of work. So for me personally, it’s rare that something touches me at that emotional level. I’m very good at being emotionally appropriate in the moment. It’s very rare for something to touch me unawares. So I was reading your book, going, I’m helping Yolanda write her book not expecting to be moved the way I was and not expecting to be confronted with myself, but in such a loving and gentle way, which was confusing for me because that’s not been my experience in the past. Does that answer your question, <laugh>?
Yolanda:
That really does. When you initially posted that video, I thought, oh, wow, how cool that Jo is posting a video of her reading the book as someone who’s helping me put this into the world. And then I was like, whoa, wait a minute, <laugh>, there’s something else happening here.
Jo:
Yeah. There certainly was. And so I had to park that because I had made a commitment to you, to help you get the book out, and I wanted to be the person to do that. So I had to make sure that all of my coping skills were in place. But it became increasingly difficult. I must admit, when I was coaching you, we didn’t have the workbook, so thank God for that. I would’ve had to hand you over. I would’ve had to say, you need to go find someone else to help you do this. But I wanted to be the one that helped ’cause I was like, this book needs to be written <laugh>. But I knew as it was going on, it was like this is getting to me in places that have been neglected or so for such a long time, and I’m talking about since I was like five.
Yolanda:
Yeah. I think that can be the most surprising part of it, like, the depth to which the burnout didn’t just happen. The burnout didn’t just even happen in the past five years.
So how did you know for sure that you needed to take a sabbatical? What was that moment for you where you were like, this is it, this is something I need to do?
Jo:lp. And not just wait for people to offer it and go, thank you. That would be nice. You have to get really specific. And you have to know what you need. So my conversation with my husband was, I need you to step in and take over the business operationally because unfortunately my business manager quit the week I was about to start. And at the time, that was devastating. And I was angry and I swore a lot because she had helped me get to a position in the business where I could do this. So having my husband just step in, and he is not a rehabilitation provider or counsellor or occupational therapist or anything like that. And I had people in my business who stuck by me like that. My team members were just like, whatever you need, whatever you need, whatever you need. My son, he was curious. He’s 24 now. And he was just like, really curious about what this was gonna be like for me. Nobody said this is a bad idea.
Yolanda:
Isn’t that interesting? Were you waiting for that to happen?
Jo:
I was. I was waiting for how selfish, how inconsiderate. You can’t do this to your clients, that’s just unethical.
Yolanda:
Who are those voices? Who were you anticipating to say those things?
Jo:
I thought my peers would throw the unethical one at me. Or people in my industry who have known me for a long time, who finally found the thing that Jo’s doing wrong. So we are gonna publicly denounce that and tell the world that she’s a horrible person. So there are some reputation management fears for me. And that’s childhood stuff for me. That you’re inconsiderate and you’re selfish, how dare you want this for yourself. And those voices, or the combination of those voices, they haven’t gone, they’re just not as loud. And sometimes I like to, you know, put them in funny voices like Miss Piggy or Kermit the Frog. Yeah. And it helps just go, oh, you’ve turned up again.
Yolanda:
Yeah. Well, hello there. <Laugh>.
Jo:
Yeah. But that really interesting for me. Nobody said this was a bad idea, and I just got nothing negative about it at all. My neurologist basically went, oh, thank God. And I think for me, the medical decision gave me some legitimacy. But it’s bigger than just trying to recover from migraine ’cause, to be honest, I thought the outcome would be a reduction in migraine. But there’s been no change.

Yolanda:
How is that for you?
Jo:
Well, because you and I are no longer beholden to smart goals because we know the timeframes are, it’ll happen when it happens. I’m disappointed because it’s not nice living with that much pain. But it’s just information that tells me, you get to spend more time with yourself now, Jo. And you get to do the things you enjoy. So some people might think me doing this podcast is work. It’s not, this is full of joy. And I don’t know when this is gonna actually be published because, at the moment, all I can think about is let’s record and then let’s work out the next step instead of in the past we’d be like, we’re gonna have 16 episodes, and they start on the 1st of July. That hurts my head. That hurts my heart. It hurts my soul.
And knowing that I can’t run out of time. So, I’ve had this bizarre relationship with time for 52 years, and we always ran late in my family, and I hated it. I just hated it. And it was always stress about trying to get somewhere on time. It was very stressful to try and get five of us out of the house and somewhere on time. And then I moved into a career that was all about billable time. And the way that you get rewarded is the day I billed 15 hours for eight hours worth of work, I was celebrated. And then the statement was, do it again tomorrow.
Yolanda:
Yeah. We wonder why we’re burned out, right?
Jo:
So then I entered into this relationship with time. That was the more productive I am, the more people like me.
Yolanda:
Right. The more value and worth I have.
Jo:
And then I discovered that I have this amazing capacity. Well, I don’t anymore. I used to be able to hyperfocus, right? I would get more done in four hours than most people could do in a week. And people would think that was amazing.
Yolanda:
But it comes at a cost.
Jo:
It does come at a cost.
Jo:
Yeah. I can’t even remember the conversation now. I just knew that that was relevant at the time.
Yolanda:
Well, the timing of things, I think it is interesting. And not putting the pressure on, like, this is where things are today. And I’m not quite sure that was kind of me putting the book out into the world and in the world of business, you write a book because it leads to this and that, and I’m like, I’m not quite sure what’s coming next with the book. I’m waiting for that to unfold itself. There are lots of things that come to mind, and I’m just trusting that when the time is right, I’ll know, I’ll know what those things are.
Jo:
This whole fear that there’s not enough time, it was an internal conversation that was almost occurring at a cellular level for myself. It’s just garbage.
Yolanda:
It is. It is. Or that it has to happen now. It’s the urgency of now for me. It’s like, if it doesn’t happen now, then it won’t happen. And that’s rubbish too.
Jo:
Oh, it doesn’t happen now, and I’m gonna miss out.
Yolanda:
Right.
Jo:
It’s like you used to believe, I want a million dollar a year turnover business because of that, and it needs to be a million dollars a year revenue or $7 million a year revenue, or whatever number you put on it. And then my husband and I were sitting down and looking at our wealth, and we’ve achieved our wealth goals without me having that. So he goes, why have you been pushing yourself so hard for? I went, well, that’s a freaking good question. Because we didn’t need it to get to where we are.
Yolanda:
<Laugh>. Right. It is a different relationship with yourself at that cellular level to start to question those things. And correct with them. What was the hardest part for you, Jo, in taking the sabbatical?
Jo:
Telling people I was doing it. So that’s why I was so public about it because I know I will secretly put work things in my diary. Nobody needs to know. It’s like a true addiction for me. Nobody needs to know. It’s my secret shame. And we’ve talked before about the relapse. I found myself two weeks ago having committed to something. I don’t do things at night anymore. And I somehow found myself facilitating a professional association’s practice meeting on creating inclusive work environments in private practice. Now I got to four o’clock in the afternoon thinking, oh my God, it’s almost pyjama time. And then this thing pops up on my phone. I’m like, ohhh.
Yolanda:
Who did that? Yeah.
Jo:
And how did that happen? So being really public about it was intentional ’cause I knew that there were people in the community watching. I knew there’d be one or two people who would want to chew me out about what are you doing here. And some of them did it with incredible love, and I’m so grateful for them.
Yolanda:
That’s beautiful.
Jo:
And some people I didn’t know so well were questioning, what does it mean if you’re still here? And I’m like, well, now I’m confusing you. That’s not good. But then still being able to tell people I was taking this extended period of time away to look after myself felt really wrong. And the confusion for me around that is I have two incredible friends in my life who went through horrible situations and they sat down and they said, I don’t feel right. I don’t feel good. My life has just turned upside down. And I said you need a gap year. And that doesn’t mean you don’t work, it just means you don’t try and figure out what your next career move is, you get to go and do something where you turn up to work, do the job, and go home. You just turn up. And so we’ve gotta figure out how much money you need to live on. So I gave permission for these wonderful women to go and take this gap year, which they continue to thank me for. And then they turn around and go, why aren’t you doing that for yourself? I’m like, I feel guilty. I feel so guilty. I’m gonna let everybody down. So telling people about that. And I guess because I was expecting, which did happen a few times, is people say, oh, it’s nice to be able to take a holiday like that. Must be nice of some.
Yolanda:
I wish you could take a sabbatical.
Jo:
Thank you for showing your privilege to us. And I just had to ignore that. I really did. It never came up. But it was a fear of mine. And let’s face it. The health professionals who are online. We are not always nice to each other.
Yolanda:
No, no. You mentioned feeling shamed by your colleagues, and I was thinking how unfortunate that that’s the truth.
Jo:
And I had all these defensive rebuttals to things. It’s like, I’ve worked hard for 30 years to be able to take this time up. And it’s like, that’s not the way we approach this.

Yolanda:
But it is a difficult thing to face because we talked before about how there’s already inherent shame in coming to a place where we’re like, I need to take a sabbatical. Like, that was something that was very difficult for me to put into words. And yes, I do acknowledge that there’s some privilege in being able to do that and taking a sabbatical. And also we’ve worked hard to get to this place, and it didn’t happen overnight. And the planning of it didn’t happen overnight. And I think it also speaks to the people who say, I wish that I could do these people have agency too. And they can take a version like, we all have agency, and if this is something that you need, you can figure out a version of this for yourself. And it doesn’t need to look like a certain period of time.
Jo:
Correct. And I really wanted to share my version. December, 2023 was awesome. And I knew it would be, I’d be euphoric because it was like, I’m not doing anything. And it’s summertime in Australia. And I’m gonna be swimming at the beach and I’m gonna have the best tan. And my migraines didn’t go away. And we got to January of 2024 and the migraines hadn’t gone away. And I got so depressed and it was really, really uncomfortable. Something that gave me joy and purpose, my work, I had taken that away. I let that go. But I was still incredibly unwell, <laugh>. And it was really hard. And I was lonely and I felt very lonely and very isolated. And there’s a beautiful woman in my life, she’s a part of my mastermind, Jane McNaught. And she said, so you’re just creating the flavour of sabbatical in your life now. And she’s coined that phrase, it’s the flavour of a sabbatical. And that has helped me. So that means I only do things that I know will bring me joy. So I still don’t do bookkeeping. And I sold the parts of my practice, which would never have happened if my business manager hadn’t quit. I sold the parts of my practice that were causing me the most emotional turmoil. And I never ever thought I would wanna do that. But in amongst all of the stuff that was going on, my business manager said, I’m not doing this anymore. And my reaction was, I don’t want to do this anymore. And I sat with it. And then the very next day, the opportunity came from somewhere that just wasn’t ever expected. I’d never talked about it. And three months later, my business got transferred over to Theresa from Skilled Health. She took all my clients, she took my team, everybody was being looked after, which was my biggest worry. I actually don’t get to worry about those people anymore. They’re not my work. They’re being looked after. And I can’t be arrogant enough. I can’t be arrogant anymore and think that I’m the only one that can look after them.
Yolanda:
And that would’ve never happened if you hadn’t been courageous and willing to take a step back.
Jo:
Yep.
Yolanda:
So you described some of some really big things that are different now. Anything else that’s different that you wanna share?
Jo:
I think that the most beautiful, impactful thing for me, is people who I’ve known for a long time go, God, you are calm. It’s just so lovely to be around you. You’re just and centred. And if my parents were still alive, they would probably laugh because they do not know this version of me, they would never have known this version of me. I’ve had a few people go, I just love being in your presence. You’re just so calming. And I would never have thought that I had become that person open way.

Yolanda:
What’s it like for you to hear those things?
Jo:
Oh, I get a mushy on the inside. And I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to be able to do this work because the cancer experience really highlighted for me that our words matter. That the systems within which we work are toxic and don’t contribute to healthcare. There’s no care in healthcare. It’s disease eradication. And I was also very confronted by the lack of customer service. So if I had ever participated in some of the behaviours that my health providers would participate in, I wouldn’t have a business anymore. That was really, really confronting for me. So finding treatment providers who didn’t need to be constantly doing three things at once, like typing notes, reading notes, talking to me and doing the 20 questions. How are you? How much medication? What’s changed? What’s not changed? See you later. I just never, ever wanted to be in that situation again. So if I’m never gonna put myself in that situation again, I don’t wanna put anyone else in that situation. I’m gonna show people that there is a different way.
Yolanda:
That’s beautiful.
Jo:
But if all I am doing is trying to keep my low levels of panic, <laugh>. I’ve got so much to do. And I’m gonna run outta time and I’m probably gonna get a migraine and I’m gonna run outta time even more. That doesn’t allow anybody to feel seen or heard. And having team members ’cause I stopped working with clients from some time I stopped working with rehab clients some time ago, but having team members go, just thank you for listening. You didn’t try and fix anything. You just helped me process and affirmed me. And I went, my work here is done.

Yolanda:
Yeah. It’s beautiful just to be. I think that it sounds very similar to the conversation that you had when we were talking when the roles were reversed. To allow ourselves to be.
Jo:
Yeah. So I have a Christian faith. As a Christian, one of the things we’re taught to do very young is find the will of God and stay in the will of God. Find out what God has called you to, and then do the calling that God has called you to. And then it morphed over the years to what would Jesus do? What would Jesus do? And this time has allowed me to deepen my relationship. Not because I’m a Bible scholar, I’m not. Right. I’m not a lyricist. I’m, I’m not watching sermons 24 hours a day. It allows me to sit down and genuinely have conversations with God. And I heard something a couple of weeks ago that said Jesus was Jesus because he entrusted in the inherent goodness of God. And for me, it was like the next layer of crap taken off that went, you know, God is divine, he created me in his image, he created me out of joy. Not because he needs me to serve some great purpose. My existence already does that. What he wants me to do is trust in his inherent goodness. This is really hard when you’ve come from a theology, which is you are bad. You’re evil. You’re full of shame, you should have been nailed to the cross. That’s what Christ did, <laugh> so I don’t have to. So for me if I hadn’t sat with myself long enough and allowed myself the space in my brain ‘cause I was very good at, we got plan A, we have plan B, and then we have contingencies. And I would be running over these plans in my mind. So we talked about going to the movie and feeling guilty about it. I would be creating lists in movies.
Yolanda:
Oh yeah, for sure. How can I sneak in like a text or like the making the list, oh, I gotta do this. So checking the calendar.
Jo:
Yeah. So all of those operational things now have a time and a space in my day. And if they don’t get done in that time and space, too bad. And yes, things get missed. <Laugh> And you know what?
Yolanda:
I’m still alive and the world still spins on its axis. It’s amazing. I just want to piggyback on what you said we’re saying, Jo, because so much of my sabbatical experience was a spiritual experience. It was a deepening of a connection with myself, but of a connection with God because I come from historically a very conservative Christian faith. And this was another opportunity to shed some of those layers that you were describing. And simply be in the presence of God’s love. And allow that to permeate in ways that never have before. And to not only love more but be loved more. And being in the presence of that love has opened me up to being in the presence of the love and the physical space around me even more.
Jo:
Yeah. That being loved part that was agonising for me. Like that it was hard. That anguish that went with that ’cause of so much stuff I had to shed. But when it almost feels metaphysical, but you experience it and for me now, it’s like a craving.
Yolanda:
I call myself a contemplative Christian now.
Jo:
Oh, nice.
Yolanda:
Verging on the edge of mystic.
Jo:
Yeah. Nice. And I think that’s always been there. I just think as human beings, we have misconstrued and we’ve tried to systematise and churches has become a production.
Yolanda:
Well, and we highlight the doing over the being.
Jo:
Yes. Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? We’re all cut from the same cloth. Wow. I was not expecting that to come out today.
Yolanda:
I know. <Laugh>. So what would you say is the biggest takeaway from this sabbatical experience?
Jo:
Oh, it’s not one and done. You don’t just go, I’m taking a sabbatical and then I’ll go back to the way I was. If that is your intention, you won’t receive that.
Yolanda:
What’s the point? <laugh>. Yeah.
Jo:
Most of us get to a point in our careers or in our lives where we start questioning, why am I pushing so high? I mean, we’ve got generations under us who are doing it much, much younger than us.
Yolanda:
Right. Thank God for their examples
Jo:
Absolutely. I love listening to my 24-year-old son who I probably judged quite harshly a few years ago, going, he’s got no ambition. I look at my nieces and nephews and go, they’ve got no ambition. And now I’m like, oh, thank God. Thank God they refuse to get on the treadmill. They won’t even be in the room with the treadmill machine. Right. So can you ask me the question again?
Yolanda:
Yeah, well, it’s your biggest takeaway.
Jo:
It’s giving yourself permission to be curious about you. And I did start to really like who you are, and then you realise you don’t have to wear uncomfortable shoes anymore. You can throw out all the old, what have I thrown out? Old clothing I didn’t like anymore. Chipped plates and crockery, because who wants to eat off that? For me, all of the scarcity stuff that got handed down from my grandparents, post-war, my parents, boomers, where, you know, you had to eat everything on your plate because there are children starving in Africa. For me now, it’s like, I don’t wanna eat anymore. I’m done. And yes, again, that’s another example of my privilege, but it’s also learning to love me.
Yolanda:
But I also hear sufficiency in what you’re saying.
Jo:
Yes. And I think that’s where this has moved for me now is how do I know when enough’s enough? So I keep writing on my socials and in my very little blogging that I do now, I’m still exploring the what’s next? I don’t know what’s next. And I’m actually not scared that I don’t know what’s next.
Yolanda:
I know. Isn’t that remarkable? ’cause I’m an Enneagram six and like my wiring is to be afraid.

Jo:
I just know that, and I used to talk about this from a business perspective, but when I was going through my cancer treatment, I’d say the business could burn to the ground, and that’s okay ’cause I know what to do to rebuild it. What I didn’t expect that the conversation would get here now. And I’m like, well, I sold it. That was my choice. I’m actually not earning anywhere near enough money for us to potentially live on, but do I need it? Do I want it? Is there something else I wanna do? And I don’t have answers yet. So I just wanna serve the rest of the rest of the world around me and go, by me serving you, you’re gonna help me figure out what’s next. Not because I feel pressured. But it’s like, do I wanna go and do yoga teacher training? Do I wanna turn Smudge into a therapy dog? Apparently I don’t. But apparently <laugh> does.
Yolanda:
He wants you to train him to be a therapy dog?
Jo:
Well, John doesn’t want me pimping out my dog. <Laugh>.
Yolanda:
There you go. But isn’t it interesting to be in this place of sufficiency and I find that so much of what I have gotten out of this is a practice of paradox and like two seemingly unconnected things being true at the same time and being able to tolerate uncertainty and liminal space.
Jo:
That’s very new for me because security and uncertainty are not in my wiring.
Jo:
You get overworking Jo, when she feels outta control. You get hypervigilant Jo, when she feels uncertain. Now some of that wiring is still there, but I’m better at catching it and go, oh, I just feel outta control. Oh, that’s cool. I’ve got good support around me. I’ve got a house to live in. There’s food in the cupboard, drugs in the other cupboard if I need them (to help manage pain people, not for anything else). So, believing or knowing at this incredible level that whatever the next thing is, the tools and resources will also present themselves.
Yolanda:
One of the quotes that I really love that I put in the book was Albert Einstein in my very loose translation of the quote or sharing of the quote is, you know, one of the most important questions that we can answer is, do we choose to believe that the universe is a friendly place? I think that I find more and more it is. I mean, there are lots of unfriendly parts for sure.
Jo:
Absolutely. And we’re not trying to minimise that but overall, I think things are trying to conspire for our good Sometimes we get in the way of what that good is.

Yolanda:
So what would you say, Jo, to someone who’s considering a sabbatical and what would you say to the earlier version of you who is on the front side of these conversations with your neurologist?
Jo:
I would’ve liked to have understood why she thought that she thought giving up work for a period of time would do for me positively. I never asked that question. I was just not willing to hear it. I would like to go back and be more curious about what makes you think that this is what needs to happen. And then engage other people around saying, okay, this is what’s being recommended. How do we make this work without me feeling unsafe and uncertain? ’cause that would’ve just destroyed everything. Like, if I become more anxious, because, you know, I still struggle that I’m not contributing to the household.
Yolanda:
Yeah, for sure.
Jo:
Yeah. We’ve had to change the way change our spending habits. But are we missing out on anything?
Yolanda:
Right.

Jo:
We can’t find it.

Yolanda:
We’re not. That’s the agency piece that I was referencing earlier. Like, we can all take a look at those things and make choices.
Jo:
So you need to prepare for this, and preparing means sorting out your finances, putting things in place that allow you to feel safe and secure. And for me, it was always about having choice at the end. I didn’t know what I wanted to choose. I just knew at the end I wanted choices. So I didn’t wanna cut my nose off despite my face. I didn’t wanna shut my businesses down completely. I didn’t wanna change my tax structure. I didn’t want to move house ’cause that conversation came up. I didn’t wanna go to Bali for three months and do it because that conversation came up. So you’ve gotta spend some time thinking about and including the people that are significant in your life in that discussion.
Yolanda:
It impacts them.
Jo:
Yeah. It really does. So I think t that’s what I would tell people and don’t be surprised if you come to me for consulting or coaching or participate in training with me, and I look at you and you start talking to me in ways that I have experienced in the past that I ask you to go and get Yolanda’s book and start that conversation. Like, I had an encounter with my massage therapist and she has a massage therapist for her hands. Now, if you think about it, that is how she keeps herself healthy to be able to keep doing the work. So when she told me, ‘my massage therapist focuses specifically on my hands and my forearms, but I’ve needed her to do some work on my shoulders because of misalignment’. I went, that’s genius.
She can’t keep massaging 35 people a week if she’s not looking after the tools of my trade. And then I went, tools of my trade. I have a whole presentation on that. So for us, our brain, our emotions, our ability to regulate are the tools of our trade, regardless of your discipline, regardless of whether you’re a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, an exercise physiologist, a mental health professional, a doctor, a midwife, if you can’t execute your brain, your emotions and your own regulation, you cannot work. So how do we look after those things?
Yolanda:
Do you know, I think that people can oftentimes be intrigued by the thought of sabbatical? And I think when the rubber meets the road underneath the concerns about finances and logistics of who’s caring for what, which are very important concerns to address, very important plans to put in place. I think underneath all of that is like, I’m really scared to spend time with myself.
Jo:
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. <Laugh>.
Yolanda:
And that almost feels like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna be tearing the lid off of Pandora’s box. And what I know is that not taking the lid off the box doesn’t make the box not exist. It means you’re living in the box. And not addressing the box doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Jo:
And the box is getting really full.
Yolanda:
<Laugh>. Right!
Jo:
You’re in there with all this really un uncomfortable stuff. This box is getting really full. There’s not a lot of space in here now.
Yolanda:
Right, right. And then you miss out on what is truly there and getting to be better connected with yourself and learn that you actually like what’s there.
Jo:
Yeah. I turned everything into aa rehab program at the start. I get up in the morning without an alarm, which I love. And then I would do my meditation, and then I’d tick that off the list, and then I would journal and tick that off the list and I’d do some yoga and I tick that off the list and then I do my walking and tick that off the list. And then I’d do my shoulder rehab. And tick that off the list. This was my sabbatical for the first week or so. Until I realised that it felt like work. And I was like, well, that goes away now. We just don’t do that now. There’s gotta be another way of being able to be as I do the things to be done. So I will go to my physio now and go, I’ve been working on my shoulders, but not every day. But these are the other things that I’ve been doing instead. And she’ll be like, that’s really cool. Show me what your shoulders can do now. So again, it’s about having the right professionals around you who can help you on this quest and that’s probably a good word. A sabbatical becomes a bit of a quest to know yourself better. And curiosity, I think has been the biggest thing. Being curious about me. I’m curious about other people. But I’ve never taken the space, the time to go, what do you really like Jo?
Yolanda:
Yeah. The curiosity and the trusting your intuition when you tap into that to say, yeah, I don’t need to do the exercises that the physio gave me. I can do this thing that serves the same purpose. And I enjoy it better.
Jo:
Yeah. And I had to teach myself that it was okay to enjoy pleasurable things. And that’s still a big struggle for me. If you don’t struggle with that, great. Your sabbatical will be different, but mine was, it’s okay to enjoy, for me it’s okay to enjoy being pain-free. You are actually allowed to enjoy those moments, those hours, those days when you were pain-free. I’m like, but I should be doing stuff. No, you just get to enjoy being pain-free.
Yolanda:
That’s beautiful.
Jo:
Thank you Yolanda, thank you for writing the book. Thank you for including me in that journey so that I could help others go there. It’s not so scary. In fact, at the end of this, or during this I should say ‘cause it’s not gonna end. But yeah, you really do end up liking what you find at the other side.
Yolanda:
<Laugh>. Yeah. It’s a lovely surprise, isn’t it? Thank you. Thank you for helping to give birth to the book and for supporting me through it and helping me to feel like I was not alone and being a big cheerleader for me. Because it’s more of my nature to kind of shrink back and hide. But this felt too important. And the way that I saw my words reflected in your eyes meant a lot. It gave me quite a bit of courage to continue I shared pretty openly and vulnerably in the book, because that’s simply the process, right? <Laugh>
Jo:
It is. And you’re asking people and encouraging people to get to know themselves, which we know is scary. Particularly those of us who have an inkling that something’s not right. So if we’re not sharing openly and vulnerably, and then showing people what it’s like at the other end, nobody’s gonna do anything. Like, would anyone ever choose to climb Mount Everest if they hadn’t seen that other people had done it before?
Yolanda:
Right. For sure. And taking the courage just step to take the sabbatical, because that is not for the faint of heart. And so t thanks for leading the way with that and helping people climb Mount Everest. And for this beautiful conversation. What an honour.
Jo:
It’s an honour and a privilege for me to.

So with that being said, thank you to everybody who has listened to this conversation today. If you’ve got questions, concerns, queries, maybe you’re a little bit curious, you can find yolanda@yolandaharper.com or you can come join us in the Future Proofing Health Professionals Facebook group, where Yolanda is as well, and we can have some more conversations about what this is really like and how you can get ready and basically let’s improve the health and wellness of our industry by willing to do the work that needs to be done. Until next episode, go be your awesome self.