I strongly believe that the core foundation for anyone working closely with people is their own personal development – and that for a skilled worker such development needs to be a full-time pursuit and passion. Ethically and professionally, therefore, I felt the need to take time for such a sabbatical process, to fully explore an oncoming transformation period that would need quality focus and time, which couldn’t be done after work or at weekends. I didn’t want to discuss this in advance, as I believe it is always preferable to have an experience before talking about it.

So between November 2004 and April 2005 I spent time sensing what I wanted and needed to do, and then researched what was possible around the world. I made use of my personal networks and the internet for ideas, to find the places that could nurture and support the work I wanted to do. All plans were in place by May 2005, and then it was necessary to bring my academic work up to date, and hope that my family, friends and clients would all think it was a great idea!

So it was that after finishing coaching on the 19th August, 36 hours later I was camping by the Yuba River in the Sierra Nevada foothills in northern California, on a 600-acre retreat. The retreat had been virtually uninhabited for 45 years, and was untouched apart from periodic bush fires. It was a beautiful and peaceful environment in which to relax, to let go of the familiar pressures and energies, and to then allow new processes to begin to emerge.

The Yuba Canyon

The aim was to undertake a 40-day wilderness retreat, although practically this necessitated hiking to the retreat house every couple of days for provisions. I also interacted now and again with people, and went into the local towns, Nevada City and Grass Valley, when I wanted to. But the majority of the time was spent thinking and writing, and simply being in the majesty of California’s nature, both during the day and at night. The retreat was a haven for wildlife, so I was in my element, having loved animals and birds since before I can remember.

There isn’t the room here to go fully into the virtue of the time I spent there, except to say that I was definitely able to achieve what I felt I couldn’t in London. But one thing I did during this period, was to undertake a 12-day juice fast, partly because I felt that my health needed a boost and partly because many great figures from history (including Jesus, John the Baptist, Gandhi and Freddie Flintoff) have fasted, so I thought I would see what it was like. In fact, it was fascinating – consuming only fruit and vegetable juices encourages a serious detox resulting in a great feeling of health and an almost tangible ‘inner glow’. The senses of taste and smell are heightened, and less sleep is needed because there is little digestion taking place.

Another process going on in me was to seek a future vision for my own personal growth. I am very comfortable with my role as an executive development coach, and continue to believe firmly that the most efficacious source of change in organisations stems from this one-to-one work. And as my coaching method arises from my own development pursuits, I felt the need to divine what to move towards in future in this respect. The most state-of-the-art process for this work I could find is called a Vision Quest, which is modelled on a ceremony that Native American Indians used to perform, but has been recognised in various forms all over the world in many races and tribes, and has also been updated for contemporary usage. To explain the ceremony I will quote from Tom Brown Jnr.’s book on his experiences with Native American’s, called ‘The Vision’.

“Vision Quest was held in the highest reverence as the ultimate sacrifice of self. Indeed, the quest was more important than any other spiritual practice, but it could not stand alone. Nevertheless, the Vision Quest did what could not be done with asceticism alone. It answered the deepest spiritual questions, directed our lives, and helped us to transcend the realms of flesh to the purity of spirit. The quest was the ultimate self-denial, requiring us to fast from all things familiar, including rational thought. It was a 'little death' that sacrificed the self for the wisdom of the grander things of life and spirit. All outside distractions were cast aside, and a purity of thought was thus attained. It was only through the quest that we could ever hope to touch spiritual wisdom free from all outside influences. It penetrated our deepest selves, preparing fertile ground for the seeds of the spirit world to grow in purity.

“What is understood first is the pure self – the self outside what you have been taught to think and believe, the self free of all restrictions, that deep inner self that is at the apex of all reality, and that self that is always trying to realise itself. Once the thought is pure, the true self is released, and the deepest yearnings and feelings become reality. But there is much more to the quest than just self-realisation. For once the true self is realised, it prepares the soul for communication and understanding with the spirit world. There, comes the voice of Creation and the wisdom of the Creator. It is then that the quest gives us a Vision, a command from the Creator, and a grand purpose to life. So, the quest satisfies a duality, the duality of knowing the pure self and its connection and ‘oneness’ to all things, and the direction given to us from the Creator. When the communication and contact between self and the Creator become pure, then this we call the Vision”.

Such writing makes me uncomfortable; I find it to be ‘come on, go away’ in its effect, and also too certain. I have quoted from it at length in order to give the best rendition from the literature that I have found, but also to indicate how literature and marketing material often idealise things, give no down side and only a high-octane ‘up’. I suspected that in reality it was probably not like that when one actually arrived in the territory. And in fact, for me the Vision Quest was indeed more down-to-earth – four days and nights, sometimes bored, and living with an obsessive fear of mountain lions.

To go back to my foundational reasoning – I was on sabbatical to assist the emergence of the future direction for my own personal development, and the retreat was the best environment for this to happen. The wilderness solo and the fasting brought about an inner silence and peace that was quite incredible, and the Vision Quest was the next logical task to further enhance this state.

So I found a place by the river down in the Yuba canyon and set up a circle of stones, in which I would stay for the entire four days and nights. I had a sleeping bag because at night it was now cold, and water but no food. This meant that overall I fasted for 16 days. Only one person knew where I was, and he was 2 miles away and would not be checking on me. I had no torch, but the moon was waxing and the Milky Way provided some light at night.

Moonlight at the Canyon

On entering the retreat, I had signed a disclaimer against injury by bear, mountain lion, coyote, rattlesnake, scorpion and so on. I was in the eastern Sierra Nevada foothills, where, as I discovered from my obsessive reading of nature books in town, the mountain lion territories – due to pressure from people and due to abundant availability of prey (deer) – are just 10 square miles on average and not the normal 100 square miles! The lions mostly shun humans but in this area of the eastern foothills there are frequent confrontations. In fact, while I was there the County took out a licence on a lion that had killed a ram 3 miles away. I also found this footprint – confirmed as a mountain lion's by the ranger in the state park next to the retreat – 300 yards from my camp just a few days before going on the Vision Quest.

Hmmmmmmmm

My obsession was with whether I was going to be safe or not. I didn't mind being alone in the wilderness but mountain lions apparently can bound 45 feet in 3 leaps to crash into their prey's neck, breaking it with one bite - and that did bother me. However, they are instinctively programmed to attack animals with four legs, which is the reason for not crouching to pick up a stone to throw at them. But you shouldn't run away from them since they are also programmed to interpret this as prey behaviour. So the protection manual tells you not to crouch or run, instead to look big, have sticks and stones within reach to throw at them, and tell them firmly and loudly to beat it. That's for the one you can see!

So I did spend a lot of time worrying about lions. A sensible question might be, Why bother; why not go somewhere without lions or bears? Well, the answer is that the wilderness environment is so inspiring and special because of an absence of human culture, but such places are not a vacuum – the animals are pressed right up against the edge of civilisation. There is no obvious in-between.

So I entered the circle and soon found, as suspected, quite a difference between the imagery of Tom Brown's words and my actual experience of Vision Quest. The lack of stimulation was sometimes boring; or I could be just about to think something interesting when a fly would land on my head. And yet in a strange, unexpected and uncontrollable way, a version of what he describes went on underneath anyway. I think that's part of the mystery of emergent (chaotic, complex) processes – we don't control them, or when we try to, they simply don't emerge. They need time, nurture and a lack of external pressure.

I stayed awake throughout the first night. I remained on my feet with a pile of stones on a rock at waist level close by. I had a stick in one hand and a Swiss Army knife in the other, and spent the whole night peering neurotically into the darkness, straining my ears for the licking of lips or the breaking of a twig. By dawn I was exhausted and just fell asleep on the ground. A water fast is different to a juice fast, in that there is no nourishment whatsoever coming in, so I was now more tired and less mentally alert than before. This all helps with the turning inwards, but I had to change my approach to my surroundings if I was to benefit from it.

So I decided to trust that nature would not see me as meaning any harm, and for the following three nights I bedded down in my sleeping bag and simply slept. Waking up at dawn each morning was wonderful, and there was a profound shift in my relationship with the task and my communion with nature. The emergent experience then went to another level. Time still dragged, but it was an important part of the experience.

Back from Vision Quest

Best of friends

After the Vision Quest, I returned to eating, walking around and talking, and spent the last few days travelling and meeting people in this fascinating and socially and spiritually radical region of California. I left there after six weeks, having achieved the rest, relaxation and silence I had come to achieve. The deeper vision aspect had started, but was still embryonic.

Next I visited two health communities. I had decided at 48 to find out what it is necessary to know about health and well-being! I spent three days in Patagonia, Arizona at lectures and presentations given by Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and a further two days in West Palm Beach, Florida attending similar talks by Dr. Brian Clement. In these, I was exposed to fascinating and radical understandings of what, at the level of solid food and liquids, brings health and what allows or supports disease. The knowledge and experience of these men and their organisations has only served to heighten my disquiet about the chemicals and lack of organic nutrition in our food, as well the apparently irreversible move towards GM foodstuffs.

From America I flew to the Turkish coast, where my plan was to go mountain biking in order to balance the more relaxing time I'd had in California. But I wasn’t prepared for the actuality. 8 of our group of 12 were serious cyclists who had brought their own £5000 bikes to Turkey. Every day we were taken by support vehicle to around 2500 feet above sea level, from where we would cycle uphill to 4000 feet, and, if still alive, rocket back down to sea level, and then return to the hotel. The other four of us were given Turkish bone shakers worth about £100 each, with little in the way of brakes; so our descents were both exhilarating and mad. I also did some sea kayaking, and generally slept for 10 hours most nights after the cycling exertions.

How to use a back brake

From Turkey, I returned to the UK to do a week of interim coaching. Then I went to Ireland for personal reasons, then on to friends in Somerset. All the time I had been encouraging the inner process that had begun in California, and so was pleased to leave for the final leg of the sabbatical at the start of November, to Mexico.

Here I was to undertake a second wilderness solo, this time on a remote beach. The literature from the organisation that was to transport me to the beach reads as follows:

“Immerse yourself in a sacred journey to Baja California's wild, beautiful Pacific Coast. Your solo is on a secluded beach, in a beautiful cove enclosed by hills, bluffs and mountains. Most people are visited by friendly whales and dolphins during their solo. Bird life abounds, and a powerful ocean inspires communion with the depth of your Being. Watching the sunsets from these secluded beaches is incredible. From your solo site, clear skies stretch out over the vastness of the Pacific Ocean – opening your Heart and merging your Spirit with sky and ocean's spaciousness and light”.

The beach

Although the difference between the idealisation of the above paragraph and the actuality of living on the beach for nine days and nights was noticeable, this time I would say I did in fact experience everything promised. I intended to use this time as a further Vision Quest but without the rigour of the previous one; for example, I would eat for 6 of the 9 days and generally move around the beach as I wanted.
And the beach was wonderful – white sands with crashing Pacific waves; and not very far out at sea there were leaping dolphins, grey whales, sea lions and a lot of birds. Occasionally, fishermen or someone passing visited but otherwise there was no interference.

Camp Davids

This time became a deeper and culminating experience of everything I had been searching for in coming away, and quite unexpectedly, lying in the shade of the rocks by the waves with no demand from me, my final day became a connected time of personal inner revelation that I will remember for ever.

Last day of Sabbatical

I am filled with an immense gratitude for the time and process of the sabbatical, and the support I was given in taking it. But I am now glad to be back, and it has been great to recommence coaching again, as I love my job and what I can contribute through it. The sabbatical was at times very restful and healing but it was not a holiday (mountain biking and kayaking aside). I have come to see a sabbatical as a potential period of search, rejuvenation and even transformation, and would certainly recommend it, used at the right time. I would be happy to talk with anyone who is thinking of creating such a period in their life.

What else to say? Well, I’m looking forward to our next meetings, and Training for Living continues to seek to provide leading-edge executive development coaching in the UK and elsewhere as it develops.

Best wishes,

Paul.