Some sabbaticals are restful. Some are exhilarating. And then some tear you apart to rebuild you. Gently, intentionally, and in alignment with your deepest truth. Kathryn’s story falls squarely in the last category. When I asked her, a shamanic practitioner and guide, if she could share a sabbatical that truly changed her life, her answer was immediate. “The path of shamanic initiation is not gentle,” she said. “But if I had to name the one that set me on this path, the one that helped me realise this was mine to bring to the world, it was at the very beginning of COVID.”

Laid off from a high-flying corporate career, Kathryn was handed what she calls a “forced sabbatical”, an unexpected but timely invitation to slow down and reflect.

“I’d had a history of trauma, and I had become very addicted to victimhood,” she said. “Even though I was successful on the outside. I used to call them the balconies of my life. I was living with a lot of personal basements too. It had to stop.”

She describes one pivotal night when the grief of being laid off gave way to a deeper insight. “I was lying in bed thinking, how can they not see my value? And then I realised: I don’t even see my value. I don’t truly see my own worth. And that’s what I’m attracting into my life.” That realisation wasn’t just humbling, it was catalytic. It set off a series of choices that would radically reshape not just Kathryn’s career but her entire identity.

Excavating the Foundation

Even after years of therapy and personal development, she knew there was something deeper still. “Every time my house of cards fell down, I’d rebuild. But I kept rebuilding on a foundation of trauma and unaddressed wounds,” she said. “So I made a decision: I would excavate the entire foundation and rebuild from underneath. I would find out who Kathryn is without all the layers. Without trauma, without corporate ambition, without fitness fanaticism. Just… who is she, as a human?”

This was the beginning of her shamanic training in the Shamanic Andean Inkan Lineage of the Q’ero and In the Lipan Apache Lineage as a  Vision Quest protector and guide. The training itself is immersive. You don’t just study the work, you live it. This includes multiple solo quests in nature, each a different encounter with the self, the wild, and the sacred.

Meeting Her Power in the Wild

Kathryn’s first Vision Quest, a four-day and four-night solo immersion in the Australian bush was where everything changed. Armed with only 10 litres of water, a rucksack of essentials, and a three-metre circle of land to call home, she stepped into something ancient and transformative.

“You walk for about 30 minutes out to your site from base camp,” she explained. “There are others out there too, but everyone’s spaced at least 500 metres apart. You don’t see anyone. You are with yourself. And with Country.” There is no food. No phone. No contact. Just the stars, the earth, the silence, and whatever emerges to meet you in it.

“I’d been living through the lens of my wounds,” she said. “Every decision, relationship, even every career move, it all came from that place. But in the bush, with Mother Nature as my only mirror, I met the part of me that was infinitely powerful. The part of me that always has my own back and anchors me deeply in my human sovereignty.” 

One lesson from that experience has shaped her work and worldview ever since: “We can’t be in our power and in our blame. We can’t be addicted to something, or in a wounded state, and simultaneously be in our power. It’s one or the other.. AND we always have that choice. It’s on us. Always.”

From Initiation to Integration

Coming down from a Vision Quest isn’t just a return to daily life, it’s a spiritual re-entry. “Integration is key,” Kathryn said. “If the return isn’t met with deep care, it can be more traumatic than the quest itself. That’s why we hold people so closely in the post-quest process.”

Her own integration sparked a radical recalibration. “I started making different decisions. Not because I should, but because I was listening. That one extra glass of wine? I’d pause and ask myself, why do you want this? And the answer was usually, I don’t. That stillness gave me the ability to make choices instead of living on autopilot.”

She began to reframe addiction. Not just to substances, but to identity, routines, and even self-concepts. “Addiction is anything we feel we can’t live without, or that we no longer feel we choose. It’s where we give our power away. Whether it’s yoga or wine or the idea that we’re not good enough, anything we feel we have to do or be or that we firmly believe we have no choice over, deserves inquiry.”

From Personal Quest to Collective Work

While Kathryn’s journey began as deeply personal, it soon expanded into work with others guiding vision quests and leading transformation processes that weave shamanic energy medicine of the Q’ero Andeans with ancient rites with modern realities.

But her story doesn’t stand alone. In fact, it forms part of a growing movement. A convergence of personal evolution and systemic change, rooted in ancient wisdom traditions and emerging forms of leadership. 

One of the most profound insights to emerge from this dual path, corporate and ceremonial is how misaligned many of our modern leadership models have become. “They’re often rooted in ego, not ecosystem. In extraction, not stewardship. In competition, not co-creation,” Kathryn explained.

That’s why she launched two initiatives: Transforming Tribes (for leaders and their teams) and Wild Tribes (for individuals, women, families and communities ). Both are grounded in a simple but revolutionary principle: bringing ancient wisdom together with modern science and technology, amplified through deep human and nature connection. “It’s about bringing the bush into the boardroom,” she said. “It’s about remembering that which must never be forgotten and learning how to apply it for real-world positive change in our everyday modern lives.”

The Nature of Transformation

At the heart of this work is a framework Kathryn calls The Nature of Transformation. Four foundational pillars that help people operate as parts of a thriving ecosystem:

1. Perspective Shift
2. Lived Experience
3. Awareness of Self
4. Awareness of Environment

“These pillars reflect the belief that true transformation, personal or systemic, requires us to live through something radically different,” she explained. “For many of us, that means reconnecting with nature in ways we’ve long forgotten.” But this isn’t about a stroll in the park. It’s about entering into a relationship with the natural world so profound that it becomes an extension of the self, something sacred, not separate.

Why Rites of Passage Still Matter

Many of the programs Kathryn leads include elements of traditional rites of passage. “There’s a reason these exist across Indigenous cultures worldwide,” she said. “They’re encoded into our DNA.” When undertaken with intention, a rite of passage allows us to shed what no longer serves us, cross a threshold, and step into a new way of being. Vision Quests are one of the most powerful formats for this. In these deeply held ceremonial containers, people are seen, heard, and witnessed not for what they do, but for who they are.

“This sense of belonging and being met in your wholeness is what teaches us what it means to be in a tribe.” And here’s a truth that guides her work from it’s core: “Self-mastery is essential to all of human life and planetary systems. We can’t build healthy families, communities, teams, organizations or societal or planetary ecosystems until we learn how to be whole and well within ourselves.”

Sabbaticals as Sacred Pause

Interestingly, many of the people who come through her programs are at a crossroads. They’ve taken or are considering a sabbatical. They may not be in crisis but something inside them is stirring. “At first, it’s a whisper,” Kathryn said. “Then it becomes a roar. Eventually, they can’t ignore it.” She describes this as the adulting threshold. A moment that has little to do with age and everything to do with readiness. Readiness to take radical responsibility. To own your story. To transmute even your pain into wisdom. “When paired with nature-based immersion,” she said, “a sabbatical becomes more than time off. It becomes a sacred pause. A portal. An initiation into a new way of being.”

In Closing

Whether you’re leading a team, navigating a transition, or simply feeling that deep inner call to reconnect, Kathryn’s story reminds us of something vital: the path forward doesn’t lie in more hustle or data. It lies in slowing down, tuning in, and remembering. We already hold the wisdom, we’ve just forgotten how to listen.

Ready to explore your own sacred pause?

Whether you’re considering a sabbatical, a career break, or simply feeling the stirrings of something new, you don’t have to navigate it alone. I’d love to support you in making sense of what’s calling and help you design a break that’s aligned with your truth.

👉 Book a free exploratory call to begin the conversation.