Coping Strategies for Teachers with Dr. Christine Reeve [episode 93]

Kelsey Sorenson [00:00:00]:

You are listening to episode number 93 of Wife Teacher Mommy. The Podcast coping Strategies for Teachers with Dr. Christine Reeve. In this episode, you will hear an amazing conversation that we had all about how teachers can cope when hard times come up. Hey teacher care of you whether it’s the time or resources you have why teacher Mommy they have got your back they’ll bring the galaxy on. They’ll break the galaxy between your family they’ll bring the gala teach welcome to Wife Teacher Mommy, the podcast. I’m Kelsey Sorensen, a former elementary teacher and current homeschool mom. And even though I’ve been a resource creator since 2014, I’ve realized that printables alone aren’t all you need in order to thrive as a teacher or homeschool parent. That’s why I also created this show and got certified as a life coach to help you finally kick burn out to the curb and feel confident with whatever challenges come your way. With the right mindset, strategies, and new teaching inspiration, you’re going to be well on your way to your best teacher life. Now let’s go. Okay, I’m really excited for today’s episode. Now this is an interview that was originally recorded to be on Dr. Christine Reeves amazing podcast, autism Classroom Resources. As soon as we ended the interview, I was like, wow, that was such a good interview. She asked such great thought provoking questions. She is a great podcast host, so be sure to check out her podcast. And I asked her if I could re air this show or this episode on my podcast after the event was over and she said yes. So I’m very happy about that. So all of you can hear this too. And also you can always hop over to her show. It was on episode 162 is where it was originally found. But keep listening here and then be sure to subscribe to her show because she has lots of other great episodes as well. Now, what we talked about in this interview are tips for handling stress when things are out of our control. Because a lot of times things will happen and these are what I would call circumstances. Like things that happen that we don’t have control over. And we talk a little bit about how we can focus on the parts that we do can have control over. There are drive our feelings and our actions and results. We talk about that and we talk about how teachers can advocate for what they need if they feel like their needs aren’t getting met. We talk about why self care isn’t selfish, what it is and what it looks like and how teachers can spend their summer preparing for next school year while also taking a break and really striking that right balance. I just love how this episode turned out. Dr. Christine Reeve is amazing. Be sure to check out her podcast where this originally aired as well. And I also interviewed her on my podcast back on episode 78 of the podcast, where we talked about simple and effective tricks for addressing problem behavior. So be sure to check out that episode if you haven’t already, once you’re done listening to this one. But I can’t wait for you to listen to today’s interview. So let’s go.

Speaker B [00:03:17]:

I am Chris Reeve and I’m your host, and I am super excited you were here for this episode because I have an amazing guest, kelsey Sorensen. Kelsey is a former third grade teacher and a substitute teacher. She’s now a home school mom to three kids, an owner of Wife Teacher Mommy, where she and her team serve pre K through 6th grade teachers. She is also a certified life coach with the Life Coach School, so she’s got a lot going on. She spends a lot of her time now focusing on how to help educators and homeschool parents save time and find balance in their very busy lives. And I know that our normal year has been anything but normal, and with staff shortages and turnover, along with kids who still aren’t quite adapted to being back in school. So I really wanted to have Kelsey on to share some of her wisdom with all of you. We’re busting some myths about self care, and she has some amazing actionable tips to help balance all your different roles, as well as how to conceptualize events in our lives in a way that will impact how you feel about them. In addition, we’re going to talk a little bit about Educate and Rejuvenate, which is a two day virtual summit happening June 27 and 28th. Kelsey and her team have organized a huge list of educators of all types, presenting all different types of things from balanced career and home life to homeschooling. I am there. I’m talking about behavior. We’ve got lots of their other special educators there as well. She’s got some amazing keynote speakers that she talks about in our interview today. So I will have all of Kelsey’s links in the show notes for this episode and where to find her. She has a freebie to share with you as well, and you can learn more about Educate and Rejuvenate in the episode. In addition to what we share, though, you can find it with my affiliate link@autismclassroomresources.com, educate 2023. And you can also find the show notes for this episode at Autismclassroomresources episode 162. So let’s get started. Welcome back to the autism classroom. Resources podcast. I am really excited that you are here to listen today to Kelsey Sorensen who is going to talk about some of the stress that everybody’s been under this year and ways that we can cope with it. Because I know that’s an area that has been very difficult for this audience and with the short staffing and things like that as we come to the end of the year, I think a lot of people are kind of at the end of their tether. So I thought it would be really nice for her to come on and talk about some thoughts about self care and things like that. So I’m going to turn it over to Kelsey to tell us a little bit more about herself. She’s from? Wife mommy. Teacher.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:06:17]:

Wife teacher. Mommy. I know people do that all the time.

Speaker B [00:06:20]:

All the time blogasty. You can catch her there. We’ll make sure that link is in the show notes, but I’ll let her tell you a little bit about herself.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:06:29]:

Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me, Chris. I’m really excited to be here. And I know you said that I was like on your list and you were on mine too, so we’re going to have you on my show at some point too. But yeah, I’m Kelsey from Wife Teacher Mommy and totally normal for people. I actually had to buy Wifewommyteacher.com for it to redirect because I feel like a lot of people are like, oh, well, you’re Mommy before teacher, right? But I actually did it in the order I became those things literally. That is why it was that name. And I didn’t think it was really going to go anywhere at that time when I picked the name of just my little TPT store. So I started that in 2014 while I was substitute teaching because I wanted to like, I got my teaching degree taught a little bit, but then when I had my oldest, I wanted to just have something a little more flexible so I could also have more time home with him. So I substitute taught. And then when I was subbing, I realized that teachers could use some more help with sub planning because I’d now seen both sides. And as a sub I was like, oh, sometimes I needed a little more. So I started making sub plans, both so I could bring them with me and just so teachers, if they wanted to buy them, they could. So did that and then fast forward it’s like now we do a lot more than just sub planning. We’re now putting on these events. And I realized that teachers, especially with COVID as we were planning our first educate and rejuvenate conference in summer of 2022, I was surveying our members and people in our community to find out what was it that you need the most support with just to kind of figure out what this event would even become. Because we promised an event when we launched our membership and I was like, okay, well now what? Just trying to figure it out. And what I realized is teachers, they need so much more than just like printables and resources right now. They need true support because there is so much stress going on. So I also ended up in 2022 starting my life coaching certification because I feel like teachers just need more support than that too. So I certified this year, so I’m now a certified life coach as well. Kind of more the direction that we’re going with the company now is giving that more like doing events and offering life coaching and doing more holistic support. We still do the printables, too, but we just feel like kind of more big picture. So that’s what I do over at wife. Teacher. Mommy.

Speaker B [00:08:49]:

That doesn’t keep you busy at all, I’m sure.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:08:51]:

No, not at all. And I have three children who we home school, so there’s that too.

Speaker B [00:08:57]:

That is a lot. That would be a full time job by itself.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:09:00]:

Yeah, and actually, I mean, I wouldn’t be able to manage that all myself. My husband actually does more of the homeschooling at this point. The business is our full time thing.

Speaker B [00:09:09]:

That’s great. That’s really cool. So I’m so glad you’re here because this has been just a really rough year for a lot of teachers. I know in my special educator Academy, I hear a lot from the teachers of some of the struggles we’ve had this year with classrooms being short staffed, not being able to add support, lack of paraprofessional support, a lot of turnover. That has been really difficult, especially when we’re working with really challenging students. And so I would love for you to just share some of your suggestions about these are all things we can’t control. And I think those are the hardest things sometimes to cope with because you can’t see when they’re going to end and you don’t really know what to do. I would love to have your suggestions. I know my audience would as well. For how do you handle stress about things that you can’t control?

Kelsey Sorenson [00:10:03]:

Yes. Well, first off, very first thing, I think we need to give ourselves so much grace because there is a lot going on and our students do have wider gaps both in behavior and in education and everything than before. And we’re handling things like what I’m hearing is a lot of what used to work isn’t working now, and that can lead to a lot of putting extra pressure on ourselves or thinking, oh, I just can’t figure this out, or whatever. But I think what we need to do is give ourselves and this is actually a quote from Christina Kuzmich, who is one of our keynotes that educate and rejuvenate, which we’ll get into later in this episode. But I was interviewing her and she’s amazing. And in her book and on the podcast, she shared this quote, and it’s give yourself more credit than criticism and more grace than judgment. And I feel like so often we give ourselves so much criticism, so much judgment, when really what we need to be giving ourselves more than ever is grace and credit for what we are doing. And another thing is the harder the day this is another thing she said, the harder the day, the more grace you need to give. Not the more judgment, not the more piling on those thoughts that are going to pressure us even more. Because what I also want to share is there is so much we can’t control in our lives. Like we can’t control our students behavior, right. Ultimately they behave in the way they’re behaving, right. We control how we manage it and what we do, how we react, but we don’t control what they’re doing. We don’t control where they’re at educationally exactly in this exact moment, right? So one thing that has been a game changer for me that I’ve learned, and this is why I ended up certifying as a life coach and everything just such a game changer is the difference between circumstances and our thoughts. Because you might even know the definition like, oh, a circumstance, that’s just what things are, that’s like the facts of the situation. And our thoughts are like what we think about it, the story being put behind it. But so often we think a thought is a circumstance, a big one that has come up for and what it sounds like, what comes up for your academy a lot is I have a hard class, or this student is I have the bad kids in my class and everyone around us I’m not doing this right? Yeah. And everyone around us is kind of like, oh yeah, this is the hard class, or whatever. And we kind of just roll with that as if it’s a fact and really it might just be the meaning we’re putting behind it. Maybe I just have students who need more support or whatever. But when we say certain things, like word it in a certain way, that causes us to feel maybe more anxious or more stressed. And when we feel that way, we show up in a different way and we get different results. So it’s just kind of being aware of that, just bringing awareness to what is going on and how the way we’re framing things inside our head, even small tweaks can make a big difference. So one thing I like to do, because even now, knowing this, and having studied coaching for and for me, I’ve been studying coaching since beginning of 2020. I just got certified starting last year. But I’ve worked with a coach since the very beginning of 2020 and I was very glad that shortly before COVID that I learned all these things. But is like doing a big brain dump of just getting everything out of your head. For one, even that is just refreshing because it no longer just lives in your head. You can physically hold it. You’re like, okay, here is everything. And then you go back and read it and try to read it from just as clean of a perspective as you can, as if you were reading something like your friend was telling to you instead of your own writing. And then you can kind of analyze it and be like, oh wow, I didn’t realize I was telling myself this or whatever or that. And then you can kind of see, like, oh, this is why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling. And it just gives you that awareness of what is going on. And you don’t necessarily even have to change anything. It’s just that awareness. But you might, when you read it, realize things you do want to, like, okay, maybe I do want to kind of try to reframe that. And again, there’s nothing wrong ever with how you’re doing anything. That’s the circumstance, too, the way you were thinking about it in the past. And you just get to kind of use that awareness. Either it’s like, okay, now I’m at least aware of what’s going on, or, okay, maybe I want to change something. Totally up to you. Nothing wrong either way. But it’s just how we understand that those thoughts are what drive our feelings. So those feelings of anxiety or stress or whatever, and how we show up and what the results end up being. So we can just take a look at that, but what we don’t want to do is use that as another thing to beat ourselves up about. Like, if you’re reading that and you’re like, oh, man, I can’t believe I was saying that about my students. That was terrible of me, or whatever, don’t use it as another thing to just pile on more judgment. It is an awareness tool and nothing more than that.

Speaker B [00:14:55]:

I really like that, and I know from work with coaches that I’ve worked with that concept, that the way that you frame your thoughts impacts the way you respond to them. The way that you interpret them builds on how they make you feel. And so my background is in behavior and cognitive psychology, and so that fits right in there with that idea of we can change the way that we’re perceiving a situation, which changes the way we respond to it. So I think that’s really good, and I love the quotes about give yourself grace. I think that that is a huge thing that I think I say to my audience so often, especially in the academy. I’m like, I feel like I’m broke a record, but I feel like we need to say this again.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:15:42]:

Yes. Over and over. You cannot hear it too much because we need that reminder, like, every hour. I swear. Set that reminder on your phone. There are times I’ve needed to do that, actually, is have a little thing that pops up and be like, with Affirmations or whatever, you’re doing great. And you’re like, oh, yeah, I am.

Speaker B [00:16:00]:

Yeah, that’s so true. Alongside with that, I would love to get your take on how teachers can advocate for what they need. I think it’s really hard for teachers especially, and I don’t know if this is really teachers in general, but teachers in special ed often have to advocate for what their classroom needs and what kinds of supports their students do. And I talk about tools that they can use to show why they need more staff and things like that. But I think it’s still really hard for a lot of teachers to kind of stand up for themselves because they feel like they’re being pushy or they feel like they’re going to be kind of labeled a complainer. But being able to actively advocate for yourself in a positive manner is not only necessary for your mental health, but it also, I think, puts them forward as being a more self aware teacher who really understands what is needed in a situation. But I think they have a hard time figuring out kind of where that line is and how to do that. So I’d love to get your thoughts on that as well.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:17:06]:

Yeah, and I feel like all teachers have been seeing this too. It’s just there’s so much going on. And with COVID I honestly and this is where I want to also mention that teachers so often fall into this, people pleasing. I feel like we always have, and I feel like even maybe so because it is a very female dominated profession and women in general, we tend to love to make everybody around us happy, potentially at our own expense a lot of times. But another thing that I’ve learned through my certification and I actually really want to dive deeper into that, but sometimes it can even be a trauma response. And I do feel like teachers, you might think of trauma as like when something big happens. Obviously there’s PTSD, like when people go to war or there’s assault and all those things, but there’s smaller traumas too. Such as when I feel like with COVID having to go back and forth and everything that was going on. There are some teachers who have felt some institutional trauma. That is the thing from teaching. And there is a trauma response, like, you’ve probably heard of Fight Flight Freeze, but there’s one called Fawning as well. And the actual definition of that is like, your people pleasing. And I learned about this during my certification. And what Fawning is, is really you’re just basically trying to do everything you can to incredible thing is, I’ve seen how I do this in my own life. You’re doing everything you can to please everybody else, so you don’t have to feel the uncomfortable feeling of bringing things up. So in a way, you don’t realize this, but you’re actually being a little bit manipulative because you’re like, I don’t want to actually address this. I’m going to pretend everything’s okay, but it’s because you have this deep fear of doing it. So it’s nothing intentional. And it’s actually like you might not even be ready to have that conversation or whatever, but it’s just being like, oh, wow, that’s actually what is going on. It’s pretty fascinating. And this is where our nervous system really comes into it sometimes, and I want to learn more about this. I’m actually planning on doing an additional certification because I feel like they just touched on this. And I’m like, this is fascinating. I want to learn more about it, so I plan on doing that. But I feel like whether or not it’s a trauma response, people pleasing just always comes up. And when that happens, you just have this built up resentment. You’re not being true to yourselves, and sometimes it’s going to take some time to do that. And it’s okay to like, you can just be in that for a little bit if you need to, but it’s important to have that awareness of what’s going on and know that by waiting for it, this is what will continue happening. If you don’t, maybe you need that time, but if you’re ready to like, okay, I do need to bring this up. I can’t take this anymore. That is when you need to be able to have that conversation, right? And a lot of times, the thing that might be stopping us, maybe it’s not even trauma at all. It’s just like what we’re thinking about. It like what you said, I don’t want to be a complainer or whatever. And at the end of the day, that is us being like, oh, I don’t want them to see me as a complainer. They may not think that they might end up feeling terrible about, oh, my goodness, I didn’t know you were feeling that way. And it might just be like, oh my goodness, I should have done this sooner, right? And if they do think you’re a completer that’s on them. That’s not you doing that. You’re not causing you to be a complainer. That’s what they think about it. And at the end of the day, that’s their business. What’s our business is what we think about it. And if you think, I deserve to advocate for myself or my students need this, or I need this support, and that’s where you’re coming from. You’re not a complainer, so just reframe that. You aren’t a complainer. You’re just advocating for what you need. So the big thing to remember is that a lot of times, you and the person you need to talk to, there are things that you are on the same page about or ultimately when it’s teaching. At the end of the day, they want you and your students to be supported just like you do. So it’s not looking at it from a place of like, oh, they don’t want me to have this, or whatever it’s looking at, okay. They want us to have this support. Maybe they’re not aware of these specific needs or whatever, so it’s really coming in and starting that conversation. And I learned this tool from a book called Crucial Conversations. Have you read that book?

Speaker B [00:21:11]:

I’ve heard of it. I haven’t read it.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:21:13]:

It’s really good. And they talk about starting with heart. And it’s where you start the conversation by being like, hey, I know you and I both want this. And I feel like that’s so powerful because then you can talk about what it is you both want first figure out where you’re on the same page. And I feel like that makes it way easier to start that conversation. And then from there, that’s when you’re like, hey. And I feel like there’s this sort of disconnect and there’s actually a full process to it that it’s been a little bit since I read the book. I don’t remember what the next step was, but really, overall, I would recommend that book. For one, when I was preparing for a conversation I was really stressed about, I read that book and it was like, oh, this is exactly what I needed. So I would recommend checking out that book from your library or ordering a copy of it because and I’ll find.

Speaker B [00:22:00]:

A copy of it.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:22:01]:

Put that link on in the show notes. Yeah, it’s a good one. Another thing they talk about in that book, too, is the fool’s choice is what they call it. And that’s when we think that our only options are we can tell the truth or we can keep a relationship like it’s one or the other, but the truth is we can’t have both. We can tell the truth of our situation and still keep that relationship as long as we don’t come at it in a super combative way. You can have both. So if you could have both, why wouldn’t you want that? Right? Right. Yeah.

Speaker B [00:22:33]:

Well, it’s interesting because the crucial conversations really fits a lot with one of the things I think of, which is we make decisions in our classroom based on having the student at the center of the discussion. So when we’re working with families, we’re all coming at it from that same perspective. We may have different other things that are factoring in, but our focus is what the students need and what will support them. So that fits perfectly in there with start with we both want this. This is what we’re all really working towards. These are the tools I think I need to get there. So that’s awesome. I really like that approach.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:23:10]:

Those tools have been really helpful in talking with family when you’re like, oh my goodness, I don’t want to suffer relationship there, or people you work with or it’s just really helpful. Are you ready to have the most successful and stressfree back to school season ever? We’re Heidi and Emily from the Teacher Approved podcast and we are here to help with our free Back to School mini audio course. In this three day private podcast, we will help you master your classroom procedures and routines, plan the perfect morning routine to start every day on the right foot, and learn how to use guided discovery to introduce your classroom material to sign up, head to secondstorywindow. Net. Btsmini, we can’t wait to help you find backtoschool success with our free mini audio course. And don’t forget to come check us out on the teacher approved podcast.

Speaker B [00:24:19]:

I think that people talk a lot about self care, and for a long time, I heard it so much that it just kind of became self care, became associated with eat chocolate and get a massage. Massage just stressed me out. That really wasn’t very helpful, and I think it kind of got a bad rap for a long time as a term because people really thought it was just some people look at it as I’m being selfish and things like that. But really, we need to make sure that we’re addressing the stressors that are causing the problem and that we are taking care of ourselves because we can’t take care of anybody else unless we’re taking care of ourselves. One of the things I’ve been talking with teachers about this year is the idea that at some point, there are issues you have to let go because it’s not worth losing a really good, qualified teacher over this issue. And if you’re burning yourself out, that’s what’s happening, and that ultimately is worse for our student population as well. So it still comes back to not just because you have to take care of yourself, because that’s what’s good for you. It’s also because you can then continue to give back to that population, but if you get to the point where you have nothing to give back, it’s really going to be a huge loss. So I’d love to hear kind of your take on what self care is and what it looks like.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:25:42]:

Yeah. So first, I want to piggyback off your thought of saying it’s selfish. And one thing that is really interesting that my mentor Brooke Castillo, brought up in one of her podcasts that I shared on my show, because I was like, whoa, this is like, yeah. She literally read the definition of selfish, and she’s like, the definition of selfish is putting yourself before other people. And she’s like, I think that’s the only way to show up in the world. And I was like, Wait, what? But it’s like, if you don’t put your knees first, and it doesn’t mean, like, you spend the most time on that or that you’re not putting yourself ahead of other people at their expense. We’re not doing that. But it’s if you don’t take care of yourself, then you can’t properly care for those other people, and you aren’t at your highest capacity to be able to serve them at the capacity you want to be able to serve them. So I think it’s really important that when we’re building our schedule, we make sure that we do fit those times in and make that a top priority, not be like, oh, okay, what’s left for me? But like, okay, I’m going to be and. Again, it doesn’t mean I need to have hours and hours of time for self care, but it is like, where am I going to fit that in? Because that is a top, top priority. So that’s one thing I wanted to mention is that it’s not selfish because it’s actually, like you said, helping to be able to serve your students or your family, all the other places you are in your life, too, because you’re not just a teacher. That’s one thing I always like to say as well. You’re so many other things. And as far as what self care is and what it looks like, it’s really multifaceted, in my opinion. I feel like that cliche like you mentioned of taking a bubble bath or whatever, that’s all good. It’s not a bad thing. And that can be self care, but it’s not the only type of self care that we need. It’s not always going to address the situation. Like, if you are like in Burnout, eating some chocolate is not going to like, that’s not even a band Aid, in my opinion. That’s going to give you a little moment, a little bit of dopamine, but then maybe you might even be like, oh, I shouldn’t have eaten that. And then you’re going to use that. Another stressor, right? Exactly. And sometimes what we’re doing when we’re like, oh, I’m going to eat some chocolate, too, is actually we’re just avoiding feeling our emotions. We’re like buffering them away. We’re trying to get that hit of dopamine. That’s not necessarily self care. It can be if you’re like, oh, this is what I’m going out with my friends, and we’re going out to dessert, and this feels good, that’s great. But a lot of times what we need is something more, maybe. I feel like the most important thing is our physical health, our mental health and our emotional health. And I think you would probably agree with that, Chris.

Speaker B [00:28:19]:

Absolutely.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:28:20]:

And those things don’t always take care of all of it, like eating chocolate or getting a massage, maybe. So first, talk about physical health. Maybe we need to eat better or move our bodies. Not because we’re like, I need to lose weight or anything like that, but just because we’re feeling sluggish or we’re tired or we’re feeling a little bit more irritable or cranky than usual because we’re not taking care of our physical body. Sometimes either what we’re eating or a big thing is not getting enough sleep. I feel like a lot of us are so guilty of that. If we’re not getting our sleep, that is self care. Getting your whatever your body needs. I feel like it’s different for everybody. I’m usually okay with six to 8 hours, I’m fine. But if you need that full 8 hours, you need to get that. Just know what your body needs and know that if you realize like, oh, I’m feeling sluggish, I’m feeling this weight, why is that? Is it because is it a physical thing? Is that any more sleep, I’m not drinking enough water, I’m dehydrated, and I don’t even take the time to realize that. I feel like those things are literally self care and again, top priority, like taking care of our physical bodies. Another thing is our mental health. So we can kind of do what I mentioned before is like doing a brain dump, seeing what’s going on in our minds, bringing that awareness to it. But also you might need to talk to, like, a therapist or coach if you’re feeling really burned out. Or you might need to talk to your doctor and get on some medication. There’s no shame in that. I’ve been on medication. There’s no shame in that. I feel like it’s getting better, but a lot of people still say, oh, yeah, that’s great for other people, but for me, no. No way. Not for me. Like, I can’t do that, but you can if that’s what you need. And so doing what you need to take care of your mental and emotional health in that way, and sometimes it’s finding yourself again, literally, because you might get so consumed in the role of teacher. And that’s why I’ve kind of taken on with the name wife, teacher, mommy is you get so into those roles of wife, teacher, mommy for a lot of our people. Or it might be like dad or partner, spouse or neighbor, friend, grandmother, whatever it is, you get so into those roles, how you’re helping everybody else that you completely lose yourself in the process. Some of my members might. Well, what do you like to do outside of that? And they can’t even answer that question. And how sad is that? If you would have asked yourself when you were like a teenager or a child, you would be able to name off so many things that you love to do. And then when we become adults and we come so focused on everyone else that we just completely lose who we are. We don’t know. For me, I always was singing all the time. I loved that and doing all these other things, and I realized, like, wow, I have not been doing these things for years. And so many of us are like that. And I love reading books, and now I’m making sure I do that now. But for years, it was like I was not reading books just for enjoyment because I was not making time for that. And it’s just what are those things that light you up that have nothing to do with your job or even other people around you? Yeah, we love the other people around us, but what is it that lights you up, that makes you you and really tapping into that again? And maybe it’s even different than what it was before. As we grow, we might have different hobbies, but finding something that is that for you at this point in your life, right?

Speaker B [00:31:38]:

No, and I think that’s very true. I think it’s very easy, especially if you’re my age, where you may be taking care of aging parents and kids and teaching, and it’s a lot, and if you don’t take the time for yourself, you can’t show up for anybody else. I think that’s a really good point. So thank you for that. So I have been planning activities for the summer. I’m trying to balance giving my academy members the support that they need to go into the new year without adding too much to do on their summer list. Because I very much believe that they need to take a break every summer and not just amen, but I also know that for many of them and it was for me not knowing what I was going to do or not knowing what my plan was when I walk back into a classroom. I’m one of those people that everything’s set up the night before I leave a classroom because I’m not going to be able to think about it. And I will stay up all night thinking about what I have to do first thing in the morning if I don’t do that. And so I know that a lot of them, we spend some time in the Academy setting, working on classroom schedules and things like that in one of our study groups. So what suggestions do you have about how teachers can spend their time in their summer and we can talk a little bit about Educate and Rejuvenate as well. I really like that title. That to me, is what I want the Summer to be for them. So I’d love to know, can you talk a little bit more about that and what you kind of foresee what you think they need?

Kelsey Sorenson [00:33:10]:

Yeah, so I agree with you that really it’s like a balance of finding you need that time for rest, like 100%. You need that. And then we also want to make sure we are thinking of our future self as well. And what do they need to feel like when they start the school year? Because if you just spend that whole time, like, I’m going to completely avoid it, completely avoid it. And then that time comes, then you’re going to feel really stressed. So it’s like, how can I set my future self, who’s going back to school up for success? And the way you do that is by doing both of those things, you need to make sure you have that time to rest. So you’re starting the new school year feeling invigorated and ready to go, but you also maybe have some new fresh ideas that you’re excited about or, you know, some new strategies that will help you cope during the next school year because you took that time during the summer to learn those things. So that is where Educate and Rejuvenate comes in because you’re taking that time to rejuvenate yourself, rejuvenate your body, take time to rest, maybe. Take time, like I just mentioned, to figure out what those things that you want to do outside of teaching are. If you feel like you’ve lost yourself and there are some of you here who probably are like, oh, I’m already doing those things, and if so, great. But if not, take time to do that too. But also you might want to find some new way. Like if you’re thinking about the past school year, like, what might I want to do different? If, you know, there’s a certain subject or certain thing that kept happening management wise in your classroom the past school year that you’re like, I kind of want to figure this out, you can kind of have a goal for figuring that out. Or I’ve been feeling really stressed. I just need to learn how to manage myself better. I feel like it’s kind of a combination of those things like manage my mind and know how to better handle those situations as they come up next year. And that is why we created Educate and Rejuvenate because we have so many incredible presenters who are coming together and teaching about such a huge variety of things that you could want to learn about. And we’re also, while you’re there, going to teach you all of these tools about managing your mind, self care, all of those things too, so you can educate and learn all these new teaching ideas and strategies and everything. Then you also rejuvenate by learning how to manage your mind, kick, burn out to the curb, all those things. And we also just have a lot of fun built in there too. We brought in some hilarious keynotes. We also have workouts or how we start the day by getting our body moving and everything. It’s really like a whole teacher experience. So that is what we’ve been trying to create with this. There’s also the community component of coming together with all these other educators. Last year, people were making friends there. It’s not just like we’re talking at you, but there’s a whole community component of when you get to interact with all the different presenters, but they also just get to interact with each other. And it’s pretty incredible when a group of thousands of educators who all want to do this, they all want to figure out new teaching strategies and also how to feel less burned out in the next school year and rejuvenate all of those people come together and that’s just a magical thing in itself. So with Educate and Rejuvenate, you’re speaking there, which I’m really excited about. And the great thing is you can come in and just have specific goals for what you want to achieve from this event. Don’t feel overwhelmed to be I have to do everything that every single presenter mentions. I feel like you just come in and like what little nuggets what is it that I’m focusing on as I’m listening to each of these sessions? Everything else, you can kind of say, okay, that’s a good idea for later, or whatever, because different things are going to pull out for different people and just come in and know, like, okay, this is what I’m doing. Awesome already. This is where I want to grow and kind of come in with what you already want to get out of it, and then you’ll get so much more out of it that way.

Speaker B [00:36:56]:

That’s awesome. I think there’s a lot of really cool things going on with educate, rejuvenate, and I am excited because I am presenting and I always like that opportunity just to share ideas and learn from everybody else that’s there as well. So I think it’s going to be a really cool opportunity. Can you tell the audience a little bit about when it is and where they can sign up? And I’ll make sure there’s a link in the show notes to all of that as well.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:37:24]:

So, yeah, you can educate and rejuvenate is happening on June 27 and 28th, 2023, but you can grab your ticket now, so you just have it and you can mark it on your calendar. And we have some awesome bonuses when you buy your ticket sooner, so be sure to like whenever you’re listening to this, go and check it out. Chris is going to put a link for you in the show notes, so be sure to use that link so you can grab that ticket and a little bit more about the event. So we have two amazing keynotes that I’m almost like, how did we even manage this? And how do we even manage this speaker lineup? Like all these people who are just so incredible. We have Joe Dombrowski, who’s known as Mr. D, and he is hilarious. Most teachers tend to know who he is when we say who he is, but he went viral with like an April Fool’s Day video where he had a spelling test and he was doing like, fake words or whatever. Have you seen that video, Chris? I have not. I’ll have to find that one. You should look it up and then put it in the show notes for anybody who has not seen it because his students are like, wait, what? It’s like these fake words where they use it in a sentence and then some of them the spelling is ridiculous when he’s correcting it. It’s like hilarious. And he got on Ellen a few times and he just went really viral. He’s been doing stand up comedy since he was eight, though. That was just kind of his viral moment. He’s a stand up comedian, so he’s one of our keynotes, so it’s going to be hilarious. But he’s also talking about how we can infuse humor and stuff into our days and also even talking about management a little bit in his session. I believe he is, but it’s all with humor. So I think that everybody is going to learn so much from that. And then we have Christina Kuzmich, who I mentioned. She’s the one who had the quote like, give yourself more credit than criticism, more grace than judgment, and the harder the day, the more grace you need to give yourself. She is just so motivating. Have you heard of her before?

Speaker B [00:39:22]:

I’ve heard of her. I haven’t heard her speak, so I’m excited about that.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:39:26]:

She’s amazing. I’ve been a fan of hers for years. I don’t know, I just stumbled on her on Facebook at some point years ago, which, I mean, she has 2.9 million followers on Facebook, so I’m just one of many who stumbled upon her years ago. She has over a billion video views. She is just a sensation. She won a show on Oprah and stuff. She is funny, but also just so motivating. And you listen to her? I listen to her audiobook. It’s called hold on, but don’t hold still. And you just feel how much she loves her fellow humans. She’s like, I’m a cheerleader for my fellow humans. That is her job description. So she’s really just trying to motivate everybody and help us. And she’s really speaking to I wanted to find a keynote because this year we are also, I know you mentioned you do have some parents in your audience, so we do have kind of some different tracks this year. We have like the teacher track and we also have a parent track because we have started getting more homeschool parents in our community as well. And so Christina is really going to be able to speak to both audiences because she just has a love for teachers. She has some videos about teachers that are incredible, but she also is really relatable to all the moms out there because that’s like her core audience. So I’m really excited that we have her as well. Joe will be on the 27th, christina will be on the 28th. Those will be live. And then there will be some live sessions and then some lives that we will do where we’ll invite presenters again. We’ll get you this info, Chris, once we have it too. We like to do some live panels with some of the presenters too, but then most of the sessions are pre recorded so you can watch them on your own time. You’ll have ten days to watch as many of them as you would like with a general admission ticket. If you would like longer, there is an option to upgrade after you check out. That’s completely optional. That will give you access through December 31. So yeah, that’s kind of how it works. You get to join the live sessions on the 27th and 28th, but it’ll actually open that Friday before to start watching the pre recorded and go through July 3, I believe it is. So right until the July 4 holiday. So you’ll have some time to get through because we gave more time this year because we have more speakers, because we have the two tracks. So we want to make sure that people have time to watch whatever they want to watch.

Speaker B [00:41:33]:

That’s awesome, because I know that’s one of the things I struggle with sometimes is I sign up for things and then I’m like, I was supposed to watch that, wasn’t I?

Kelsey Sorenson [00:41:40]:

Right. I know about that.

Speaker B [00:41:42]:

It’s like when I sign up for Trading, I’m like, I come live whenever again, because I’m like, I’m not going to remember to come back to this. So you kind of have to put it on your calendar.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:41:50]:

Yeah. And we will send emails. And on the thank you page, actually, we have like and I would really recommend this, we have a sign up where you can sign up for text messages so you can get text when the keynotes are going on or hey, you have access now, because they know emails can sometimes just get lost in your inbox. So if you want I mean, that’s optional. You don’t have to. But if you sign up for the text messages, then you can make sure you at least don’t forget because you’re going to open.

Speaker B [00:42:14]:

Right. Those are really helpful.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:42:16]:

Yeah.

Speaker B [00:42:17]:

And I will definitely make sure that I will share all the links and everything like that. Thank you so much, Kelsey, for being here. I think what you have shared has been really amazing in terms of helping my audience figure out kind of how to just navigate some of the struggles that we’ve had this year and then be able to move into Summer by putting it kind of to the side. But thinking about how going into next year, I can be kind of mentally prepared for it. I think educate, rejuvenate offers a really great opportunity for that, as well as a lot of the tips that you have shared and the philosophies that you’ve shared, I think are really a good way to think about the whole thing. And I know that that really helps me. I know I always go back one of my most stressful times, there have been a number of them, but was when my mom was aging and had Parkinson’s. And so I always go back to that experience of once I went, okay, these are her final years, I’m going to shift my life so that I can spend more time with her. It became a lot easier to handle at that point because I’d made positive action in that direction of just kind of accepting what was and how I was going to cope with it. So I think that’s a really everything you said I think really fits well with that. Anything else you want to add? Anything we missed?

Kelsey Sorenson [00:43:39]:

I don’t think we missed anything, but I’m just so thankful for you having me on the show. Today, Chris. And I want to say to all of your teacher listeners or the parents, anybody who’s listening to this podcast, that you are doing so much better than you think. The fact that you’re even here listening to this podcast all the way at the end of this episode shows that you just care so much about your students and about yourself and your personal development. And just way to go. You are already doing an amazing job, so just remember that and look at your wins and how amazing that you’re already doing.

Speaker B [00:44:12]:

Thank you. That is a perfect place to end. I think that’s a great sentiment to leave all of them with and I hope that you’ve really gotten something out of this. If you have, I would love to hear from you in our Facebook group@specialeducatorsconnection.com and I hope that you’ll be back next week for another episode. Thank you so much for listening.

Kelsey Sorenson [00:44:41]:

If you enjoyed this podcast, be sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss an episode. And if you’re ready to take the next step and work with me and take everything you learn on this podcast to the ten X level, I’d love for you to join me. Inside Wife’s Future Mommy Club you’ll get access to a library of 1000 plus resources that will help you take back your time. The resources alone easily pay off your club membership. Plus, if you join us on the quarterly plan or above, you’ll get our luxury leatherbound Teacher Planner, a $50 value shipped to your door for free. But in my humble opinion, the most important part of the club is the opportunity to get coached on whatever comes your way that you can thrive in teaching and life. You’ll get to join weekly coaching calls with me and fellow club coaches to not only listen and consume this content, but really apply it to your life. This is where the magic happens. The doors are closed the majority of the year, but you can request a personalized invitation. As a podcast listener, simply go to Whiteteachermomy.com podcastinvite to learn more. You can also find the link in the show notes. I hope to see you face to face on Zoom soon. Inside. White Teacher mommy club