Marcia
From August 1, 2025, until mid-February, 2026 I took my first ever academic sabbatical from my role as an Associate Professor and Vice-Dean of Indigenous Health, Social Justice and Anti-Racism. I am very grateful for the support of the Dean and everyone on my teams who stepped up to make that possible. The arenas that I/ we work in are heavy, with increasing complexity and polarization, and threats that transcend from existential to personal safety and security. It was an immense privilege to be able to step away and have more time to focus on my burgeoning career as a writer.
I started writing the first draft of my first book in the summer of 2024 and wrote the whole first draft on Sunday mornings (and the occasional Sunday afternoon). The lesson I had to learn and keep practicing to even start writing that first draft was that I had to be rested to be creative and to write from flow, not force. Writing in turn was a return on the energy investment: I always ended a writing session feeling energized and joyful. The sabbatical was an opportunity to recreate and grow that experience as part of my day-to-day work.
There were things I learned from stepping away from the institution that I count as some of the most successful outcomes of my sabbatical- not because they will go on my academic CV and count towards promotion- but because they have given me clarity in how I want to be and lead differently moving forward.
• I was more rested than I had ever been, and when I wasn’t I napped before trying to write again.
• I did my best creative work in the mornings, and when I did this work in the mornings the rest of my day was better and I was better for the rest of the day.
• I practiced self-kindness in a way I never had or took the space to before. It was nothing short of magical.
• I learned to prioritize how I felt, how centered or grounded I was, as my barometer for deciding what to do, what would serve me best.
As I prepared to return to work, I thought often of how I could maintain these lessons and practices. To paraphrase Audre Lorde, now that I’ve shown myself the capacity I have to practice self-kindness, to love and care for myself and the joy and peace that gives me, I cannot accept or return to any other state of being. This means that I have to question where it was my over-responsibility, my internalization of white supremacy and grind culture, and my perfectionism that limited my space for self-kindness in the institutional leadership role; and yes, where it really was the institution and how the institution needs to change to honor our full humanity. One of those things I have more control over.
And so, as I return here are things I will do differently.
First, I will slow down and stay firmly planted in my own humanity. Really practically this means if it takes longer to schedule meetings because I need to have breaks during the day, then people will have to wait longer to meet with me. If it means that emails don’t get replies on the timelines others would like because I need to be done work at 5ish including being off emails for the evenings, then I will count on people being able to deal with that. Most things really aren’t that urgent anyways. My humanity and my human needs for nutrition, rest, movement, respect and dignity are not things I am willing to trade off.
I won’t be distracted by false urgency, false deadlines, or institutional busy low impact work. If you google “white supremacy culture” and/ or “grind culture” you’ll find some interesting resources about how these things serve to move us away from our own centers, exhaust us, and thus keep us away from meaningful work. I will reserve the right to use my own discretion in setting the pace of my work and my responses, and in choosing where my presence adds value that creates reciprocal value.
I won’t be driven to respond from panic or reactivity: I will take the time I need. Sometimes the strongest leadership move is to be the one to take a deep breath and remind ourselves and others that slowing down and building for sustainability and strength is a better strategy and a better investment than a rushed response or quick fix. This is especially true when the challenges we are working on are generational challenges that will continue to evolve and be in constant tension. The ways I’m looking to move in are slow, thoughtful, deliberate, connected, collected, organized and reciprocal.
I won’t waste energy working harder to transform the institution than the institution is working to transform itself. When I was studying to become an executive coach in 2019 one of the teachings our instructors kept reinforcing was “Don’t work harder than the client.” Coaching is only effective if the client is putting the work in during the call and between calls to identify and practice new ways of being. Trying to do that work for them is futile. As teams we have created a lot of momentum for antiracist and socially just change in some parts of the Faculty: some parts within the Faculty and broader contexts we are part of remain stubbornly fixed. The solution isn’t for us to work harder to force change: it’s for others to step up and be responsible and held accountable for the ways they need to contribute to this change too. I’m going to invest my energy where others are also investing theirs and where we work for transformation together.
I will protect time for the creative work that nurtures me as a human and as a leader. Scholarly creative work is in fact part of my job description, and I deserve to make space for the parts of the job that bring me joy too.
I will remember that centering our own humanity centers all humanity. None of the things I’ve written here are particularly radical: taking breaks to eat, getting adequate rest, slowing down and investing time and energy where it has impact. The fact that I am almost twenty years into my academic physician career and only now practicing them is a by-product of a training and work environment that pressures us to deny our own humanity. It will be impossible for us to do meaningful work in ensuring the full humanity of every person who is part of our community or whom we serve is respected if we do not first learn to and practice centering and respecting our own. The outcome cannot be different than the process used to get there. By centering my own humanity I hope to create a field of permission for others to explore, experiment and practice doing that for themselves too. This is where the next level of transformative work will happen.