This is part 6 of a 10-part series on my 3-month sabbatical during the summer of 2024.  This series has two purposes: 1) to motivate and equip others to take a restorative break from work, and 2) to share insights I gained during my time away.  To start at the beginning of the series, go here.

A Dime-Sized Focus

Sustained, focused attention is rare.

During the two-day knife-forging class I took during sabbatical, our instructor Josh repeatedly reminded us to have a “dime-sized focus” as we worked.  If our attention were to wander during a sweaty and physically demanding day of operating forges and metalworking equipment, safety (and quality) would be compromised.  Up to this point in my life, I have never been required to maintain such prolonged and intense attention to detail.  There was no room for anything else to edge its way into my mind.  

This was exhausting, but it was well worth the effort, because it revealed a deeper level of reality.  Wearing my reading glasses, hunched over my work-in-process, I noticed details that required refinement— an edge that needed to be straightened, small scratches on metal that should shine like glass, pins that needed to be rotated a few degrees before the epoxy hardened.  Before creating something beautiful, I had to deeply notice the opportunities for improvement.

96 Hours of Silence

I also needed a time of sustained, focused attention on what was going on inside me.

The pinnacle of my sabbatical experience was a four-day silent retreat, hosted by my spiritual director Jackie in Nashville, Tennessee.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I anticipated that something good would happen.  And it did.  

Four factors contributed to a transformational experience:

1. Following a sherpa. Jackie provided exercises and structured conversation.  We met for an hour each day to process what I was learning through my otherwise silent rhythms of reflection, prayer, journaling, wandering, hiking, and running.
2. Limiting outside voices, audiences, and agendas. Author Chris Heuertz contends we all benefit from silence, solitude, and stillness.  Silence involves eliminating other voices to find your own.  Solitude requires removing the audience (sometimes even the imaginary audience we play to in our mind) to find greater authenticity.  Stillness requires letting go of one’s agenda, in order to find restraint.  I intentionally limited the voices and audiences by engaging with no humans (other than Jackie) and reading no books (other than a few scripture passages she assigned).  I stilled my body through more frequent meditation and prayer.
3. Extended time focused on deep pain. Over the four days, I exclusively processed issues related to my family of origin.  Jackie and I ended up spending most of our time together processing my relationship with my earthly parents and my relationship with God.  I believe (not an original idea) that our view of God is distorted by how we experience our human parents.   I had some wounding (as we all do) that was impeding my maturation.  I scrawled many thoughts in my journal as I dug deeper into this one topic. 
4. Inviting Divine engagement.  Jackie introduced me to a writing discipline called a colloquy.  In this approach, one asks questions of God, then writes out God’s answers (as one imagines them).  This practice generated transformational insights— about myself, others, and our relationships.  What follows is a passage out of my journal from day 3 of the retreat.  I share it 1) so you get a sense of the process, and 2) because there were meaningful insights I discovered that seem worth sharing.

Journal entry, 7/31/24

Father, it is hard to see you and know your goodness.  Help me, please.  Heal my crippled heart so I can receive Your love.

We have plenty of time.  Even if you die today, we’ll have eternity for you to experience more of my love, and to be healed from your wounds.  Keep your wounds– especially your father wounds– in perspective.  Yes, they’re real.  They have distorted your view of me.  And do you think I can’t handle your defense mechanisms and misconceptions?  I am.  I am the author of truth.  I created your soul.  It (and all of you) is precious to me.  I’ll keep pursuing you, throughout eternity.  Your role is to surrender.  You’ll come to experience me more over time (ha, what is time?) as safe, gentle, quick to forgive, and fully aware of all of you.  And I accept you fully as my son.  Your less-than-perfect character and actions don’t offend or make me anxious– I’m prepared to keep gently guiding you to greater love, maturation, Christlikeness.  Trust that I know how to manage this process!  And cut your dad some slack.  He also has all eternity with me to grow and mature.  And I’m perfectly (literally) capable of managing that process, too!

—

Spirit, what counsel do you have for me?  Specifically about my relationship with my earthly and Heavenly Father and, generally, about anything else that’s on your heart?

What’s on my heart is unfathomably deep love for you, for your father, for the Father and Son, and for all created beings.  Creation is a manifestation, an overflow, of Our love.  … What does love look like?…  It looks like creation, humans existing, and existing in relationship with Me and with each other.  It looks like Jesus’s “earthly” ministry.  It looks like the hyper-abundance of the Father, giving so much more than you need.  My counsel is to be a conduit for this love.  Let it flow in and through you.  Not generated by you, but you allow it to flow through you to whatever degree you submit and obey.  Surrender to love.

Regarding your earthly father, walk tenderly with him.  He’s wounded.  Be prepared for me to invite detours in conversations, interactions, and even prayers.  Slow down, and keep forgiving— let go of the “right” to be paid back.  When you drop it, try to let it lay there without picking it back up again.  It feels like sacrifice to do so, but it’s healthy for you and him.

This was an intense 4 days for me.  There was a lot going on in my head and heart.  And the retreat catalyzed a healthy pivot in my relationship with my parents (which I’ll describe later).

Summary

1. Sustained, focused attention is rare.  And it reveals opportunities. 
2. Having a sherpa accelerates and deepens the growth.
3. Reducing outside voices, audiences, and agendas helps us find our voice, our authentic self, and greater restraint.
4. The most powerful breakthroughs come from addressing the deepest pain.
5. God knows things we don’t, and seems happy to share with us.

Next up:  Part 7 – Forgiveness

If you have any thoughts on this topic, feel free to engage with it over on LinkedIn

Chip Neidigh is Founder and CEO at Kairos, where he and his colleagues help CEOs build elite executive teams.  Want to be notified when we post articles that invite a journey into more courageous and selfless leadership? Sign up for The Kairos Moment, our monthly(ish) email alert.