about the creator

MEET KRISTEN RENEE INGRAM— THE REST REVOLUTIONARY BEHIND THE MOVEMENT

From boardrooms to courtside to sabbaticals, Kristen Renee Ingram traded burnout for embodied rhythms of rest.

Kristen Renee Ingram is an Emmy Award–winning CEO and theologian whose work explores rest as identity, rhythm, and spiritual practice. She is the founder of Black Girl Sabbaticals, a global lifestyle movement rooted in radical rest and the reclamation of a richly supported life.

With more than two decades of experience across sports, media, and culture, including work with IMG, ESPN, and the NFL, and partnerships with the NBA, Common, Amazon Studios, and Represent Justice, Kristen helped shape cultural moments that moved people and shifted narratives. Behind the impact, however, was exhaustion, grief, and spiritual depletion.

In 2024, after completing her Master of Arts in Justice and Advocacy at Fuller Theological Seminary and navigating profound personal loss, Kristen entered what she describes as a dark night of the soul. The strategies that once sustained her no longer worked. That season revealed the necessity of sacred, sustainable rest not as escape, but as a daily rhythm capable of holding grief, restoring the body, and making space for healing to take root.

Her first sabbatical wasn’t a break.

It was a breaking open.

From that pause, Black Girl Sabbaticals was born, a movement reclaiming rest as the foundation of freedom.

Now a location-independent empty nester, Kristen lives the truth she teaches. Living richly and resting well are not contradictions. They are the revolution.

Learn How

Invite Kristen

Curious about the rituals, tools, and little luxuries that keep Kristen living richly and rested?

Explore her curated Rest Edit—a soulful list of essentials designed to support your own Sabbatical Living™.

Explore Now

What We Mean by Rest

Rest is often treated as:

A vacation once a year.
Sleeping in on Sunday.
A luxury you have to earn.
A quick fix for burnout.

At Black Girl Sabbaticals, rest is understood as:

Sacred — a holy rhythm of returning to Spirit and self.
Embodied — a regulated nervous system and soft presence in the body.
Purposeful — designing life with intention and alignment, not exhaustion.
Sensual — inhabiting the body as a source of joy, beauty, and pleasure

Communal — remembering we rest better together.
Reclamation — rest as resistance, taking back the time and softness history tried to deny us.

What is a Black Girl Sabbatical?

A Black Girl Sabbatical is more than a trip.

It is a mindset, a practice, and a movement where rest is the rhythm, not the reward, and where freedom and wellness belong to us.

Meet the board

The Black Girl Sabbaticals Board of Advisors is a circle of trusted voices.

With expertise across theology, wellness, social impact, and creative entrepreneurship, they guide the growth of a global movement rooted in healing, wholeness, and rest as revolution.

This board serves as a wellspring of wisdom, helping shape our offerings, ensure alignment with our mission, and hold space for the soul of this work to remain intact as we grow.

Together, we honor rest not simply as pause, but as power.