The Chrysalis Contemplative
A coaching experience to help mid-career tech professionals recover from burnout, craft a career break strategy, reconnect to who you are and create a sustainable life and career that matches.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten via Unsplash
The tech industry is churning with mass layoffs, prolonged job searches, endemic burnout and rumblings of a new era of tech with the rise of AI.
Amidst an uncertain, chaotic and noisy landscape, you’re facing your own internal reckoning…
You're successful on paper, but your soul feels fractured.
You’re burned out and bored from overwork, company politics and tedious tasks.
You feel an inner conflict between your values and questionable ethics in the industry.
You feel disconnected from yourself and what once energized you in your work.
You want to pause and pivot, but are unsure how to with the reality of life demands and market uncertainty.
You want a break from work, but you don’t know how to structure time away for the deepest impact and intentional re-entry.
In critical moments like these, the industry taught us to push, power through and grind, but your grind won't get you to the next stage of your evolution.
To create a sustainable life and career that matches who you are, you need a purposeful pause.
The Chrysalis Contemplative is a 6 month 1 on 1 career break coaching + transition experience to cultivate the inner resources needed to create a sustainable life and career that matches who you are.
We’ll do this work together via The Chrysalis Cycle.
Before they emerge in full form, butterflies spend time within a safe outer shell called a chrysalis. From the outside they seem inactive, but within the chrysalis their deepest metamorphosis occurs.
To create alignment in your life and career, you can’t work harder. This work is not pushing, it’s pausing. It’s not doing, it’s being.
The Chrysalis Cycle
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Coccoon: Rest, Reset & Reconnect
Recover from burnout & depletion and reconnect to yourself.
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Metamorphosis: Contemplate & Clarify
Deeply reflect and clarify your values and priorities through personalized rituals and reflection resources.
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Emergence: Experiment & Plan
Test life and work options through low stakes experiments and a personalized integration plan.
Months 1 and 2
From burned out and disconnected to regulated, rested and thinking clearly
By the end of these two months you will:
Have a stabilized nervous system and renewed energy, so that you know how to prevent burnout from re-emerging.
Discover how to trust your body's signals again so that you can clearly recognize when you need to rest versus catch momentum or distinguish when something is a firm no versus a hell yes! You’ll stop overriding yourself and start responding to real internal clues to make sustainable, aligned choices for your temperament.
Have mental clarity and emotional capacity to sit with uncertainty instead of avoid it, so that you can think about the future without spiraling.
Have a unique, concrete plan for how to structure your sabbatical for rest, recovery, exploration and intentional reintegration.
You will exit survival mode and be resourced to make purposeful, instead of reactive, choices.
Months 3 and 4
From I don’t even know what I want anymore to clear identity, values and direction
By the end of these two months you will:
Have a personal decision making framework grounded in your intuition, what matters most now and your non-negotiables for lifestyle, work and relationships. Start making decisions that come from your internal motivation, rather than guilt or external pressure and expectations.
Have clarity on the specific fears like financial scarcity, identity loss, disappointing others or starting over that are holding you back. You’ll be empowered with somatic tools to convert your fears into compassionate insight and fuel for your vision, so that fear no longer hijacks your decision making.
Deepen your self-trust, so that in uncertainty you can honestly and courageously ask, what do I want? What’s a clear no? And what would actually feel good and aligned to pursue next?
You will know who you are, what’s most important to you and what kind of life and work you are no longer willing to tolerate.
Months 5 and 6
From overthinking possibilities to confident choices and a real plan for the next chapter of your life and career
By the end of these two months:
You will be testing out real options instead of fantasizing or ruminating about them. You'll identify two to three low risk, real world experiences, designed to test career paths or lifestyle changes and gather data about what actually fits you.
You'll have a repeatable, step by step decision making process that you can use anytime you face uncertainty. Instead of freezing or overanalyzing when faced with change, you'll discover how to access your intuition and experiment in order to clarify what works for you.
You’ll have a concrete reintegration plan for after your sabbatical that includes what you're moving toward, what you're leaving behind, timeline, boundaries and how to support yourself emotionally through the highs and lows.
You will move forward, grounded, intentional and rooted in your personal power.
An extended break from work is a chance to recover, reset and make meaningful change. If you go it alone though, you may get stuck feeling guilty for taking a break, struggle to create a structure that supports rest and renewal or churn trying to figure out re-entry to work.
By partnering with me, you gain a collaborator who has navigated this journey. An architect to personalize the experience. A companion to bear witness to your insights. A guide to hold you in compassionate accountability. All in service of your deepest evolution.
Authentic, aligned ambition starts with a powerful pause.
In 2022, I did more than take a sabbatical; I reclaimed my personal power and ignited my inner beacon. I walked away from my 14 year tech career of external success, but quiet burnout, to craft my vision for what it meant to be alive.
I transformed my pain, disillusionment and uncertainty through honest, compassionate contemplation, trusting my intuition and slow, deep habit changes. Using the practices of The Chrysalis Cycle, I nurtured an environment for my own self-discovery, empowerment and metamorphosis.
I believe that you have the resources within you to actualize your vision for your life and career. My role is to support you in deepening your ability to access those resources and trust yourself. My practice is rooted in tuning into your body and inner wisdom as a guide to envision and embody what you want.
This experience is not a course, but rather a personalized, curated 1 on 1 haven to nurture lasting inner change.
Program Features
All support is virtual and 1 on 1
To foster a high touch, intimate experience, only 10 clients will be accepted
6 months total (anticipated program start April 2026)
1x 90 min discovery session to initiate the experience: Based on your client onboarding reflection workbook, we’ll clarify your goals through somatic reflection, visualization, journaling and guided questions and conversations. This session will be the basis for your personalized rest and life rituals and schedule.
60-75min calls twice a month (11 calls total): Drawing on each cycle theme, each call will start with intentional grounding, we’ll reflect on your personal insights or challenges and root into next steps.
Unlimited asynchronous support via email and video/ voice notes (via Loom or similar tool)
Customized guided reflections, creative prompts and resource curation
Gentle accountability through embodied intention setting
Next steps
If you’re ready for a powerful pause to fuel your aligned ambition, I’d love to connect with you. Complete the form linked below, and I’ll reach out to schedule a complimentary clarity call to see if working together feels like a match.
This experience is for you if:
You have a stable context and support financially and emotionally. You have decided that you are taking a career break, and you have a plan for your financial support.
You’re ready to leave behind habits that no longer support you in order to heal and grow.
You’re willing to reflect and take uncomfortable actions, challenge norms, have hard conversations and make changes, however small, in service of creating the life and work you want.
You’re ready to trust yourself and own your inner power and creativity to make aligned changes. You’re ready to choose yourself, rather than focus on what other people will think.
You’re ready to inhabit a life that feels free and honest, even if others don’t understand it or it doesn’t match conventional definitions of success.
This experience is NOT for you if:
You're in active crisis mode or trauma (e.g. income is unstable, about to be evicted, in a health emergency or unsafe relationships, etc).
You’re still unsure or deciding if you want to take a career break. (View the Soulful Sabbatical Strategy Session offering if you’re at this stage and want support).
You’re looking for instant results, a quick fix or bio-hacks in order to overcome burnout and return to the same habits you’ve been doing.
You’re primarily interested in an externally focused sabbatical experience to put on your resume, rather than inner transformation.
You’re unwilling to introspect, take uncomfortable actions, challenge norms, have hard conversations and make changes, however small, in service of creating the life and work you want.
You’re looking for someone to give you answers and tell you what to do. You are the catalyst and creator of your life, so only you can decide what you need.
This is the beginning of a life & career that feels free, honest and is yours.
This is where you remember:
You are not here to contort yourself into life and work that no longer fits you.
You are here to pause and emerge from the inspiration inside of you.
If you’re ready to create a sustainable life and career that matches who you are, let’s connect via the below form.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
— Mary Oliver