The podcast. I’m Kelsey Sorensen, 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. I’m really excited for the first co hosted episode I’ve had on Wife Teacher Mommy the podcast. So in this episode, we’re not interviewing each other. I’m not like, asking her questions or anything. We’re just having an honest, frank conversation about self care for teachers and our beliefs about it. And you really just get to listen in on what we’re talking about. And both Brittany and I, we are both like, basically self help gurus. We are always reading all the self care books and everything, and we love helping you learn how to take better care of yourself, too. So you are in good hands today. So, as I talked about on episode 56 of Wife’s Teacher Mommy, the podcast, that one is called how to Practice Self Care as a Teacher and or a Parent. A lot of us, when we think of self care, we think, oh, I don’t have time for that, or we think self care is selfish, or that we can do that, but not until we’ve done everything we could possibly do for everybody else. Now, what want to point out is that when we think of selfish, we usually think of, like, putting ourselves above others in the way where we’re thinking only of ourselves. We’re lacking consideration for other people, putting ourselves at the expense of other people. But putting our own self care as a top priority, maybe even above some other things, is not selfish. In fact, it’s what allows us to be able to help other people. Christina Kuzmich at, educate and rejuvenate she was one of our keynotes. Everybody just loved her. Be sure to check out my episode with her, too, which was hope, humor and inspiration for teachers. You do not want to miss that one. But when she did her keynote. I can’t remember if this was during her keynote or the Q and A that we had with members. It was all kind of blending together. It was so much fun. But she mentioned that we want to take care of the person who is the most important person in our child’s life. Like, why wouldn’t you want to take care of that person? And if you’re a parent, that person is you. And if you’re a teacher, you are also a very important person in those students lives. So why are we not prioritizing ourselves? We really should be. And it really is not selfish. We’re self full. We’re taking care of ourselves. So that is what we’re talking about today. Really excited to be chatting with Brittany Blackwell on this. She’s super passionate about this, too, like I mentioned, and she even hosts a conference all about self care for teachers, and she invited me to present at it this year, and it’s free, so you’re definitely going to want to check it out. I will put the link to it in the Show Notes. I’ve got a special link that you can use to get that to sign up for it for free. Really excited for it. You’ll hear from tons of incredible speakers, some of whom are also educate and rejuvenate, such as Brittany Blackwell. She was awesome. And Amber Harper, who was a keynote our first year, and she also spoke this year. Jamie Sears is a speaker. So many amazing people. You’re definitely going to want to check out that conference. So that link is in the Show Notes. And this is probably the only episode I’m going to mention it on because we also have our three day teacher transformation that is happening end of July as well. Luckily, they don’t overlap. One’s, like, right? Ours is, like, right after her summit. But for that reason, if you don’t want to forget, be sure to head to the Show Notes now to sign up for that self care summit. Okay, now let’s get into that co hosted episode. Welcome to this co hosted episode with Brittany Blackwell. That’s me. And I’m Kelsey Sorensen from Wife Teacher mommy. The podcast. We are so excited to do a co hosted episode, and we actually both discovered it is our first co hosted episode either of us have done. So we’re really excited. We’ve interviewed each other before, like, separate interviews, and that was so much fun. We had a blast doing that. It was so much fun to just talk, and it was easy to talk, so figured we’d do a co hosted episode. Yeah, and it’s actually really excited because Brittany is hosting the Summer Self conference for teachers, and I’m presenting at it, which I’m so excited about. And Brittany just presented at Educate and Rejuvenate, too, so we’re just like doing each other’s stuff, collaborating. So much fun. Yes. So much fun in this episode. Today, we’re going to be talking about self care and what exactly that is. So, Kelsey, you want to start and just kind of yeah. So we’re talking about self care, kind of like leading into your self care conference. We want teachers to kind of think about what is self care. I feel like that’s the biggest thing that I think of when we talk about self care, because I feel like it’s so hot right now to talk about self care and maybe taking a bubble bath and unwinding, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But I feel like there’s so much more to self care than just taking a bubble bath. I kind of call that Fluffy self care, is what I call it. There’s, like, fluffy self care and then, like, true, like, deep self care that’s, like, soul fulfilling. Like taking a bubble bath. Like, I might feel good in the moment, but it’s not, like, soul fulfilling. It’s not completely rejuvenating me. It might feel good in the moment, but it’s not like, with all the things that we have going on as teachers or as wives or moms or whatever we have going on in our lives, that’s not quite enough self care, in my opinion. Right. And I think that people like, when you hear self care, some people just immediately think, Fluffy, and then they’ll think, oh, well, I don’t even know what to do when it comes to self care. So if you’re telling me that taking a bubble bath or getting a manicure is not enough, well, what is self care? And when I think about self care, I’m thinking self care is when you’re aware of your own needs and you can actually take the action towards fulfilling those needs. And so sometimes I do take a bubble bath, and that does work for me because all I’m needing is some real rest and just calm that way that my brain can think. I can really take apart all of the stress that I’ve encountered. But when I also think about self care, it is doing that dirty work that sometimes we don’t want to do. We don’t want to focus so much on these things about ourselves or really taking care of our mental health in that way. And so to me, it’s not all that Fluffy stuff. It can be, but I don’t think it is. Absolutely. There’s nothing wrong with it, like self awareness, like being aware of what is going on for you. One thing I like to do that is a big self care practice for me is doing what I call a thought download, or a lot of people might call it like, a brain dump or something. And it’s really just getting everything out of my head, because I feel like so often we just get into these spirals of overwhelm because we’ve got this running to do list in our heads that never goes away, right. If we get it on paper and we can hold it there and we can kind of see what’s going on in our brain and we’re like, okay, this is what is going on in my brain. And you can identify, like, okay, these are the ones that are causing me to feel this way. And kind of just having that awareness of what is going on, that is one form of self care. For me, that was kind of random, but no, that’s a really good one. Knowing what’s going on in your life, in your mind, in your life, your feelings, processing your feelings, that is another whole thing. And those are all self care for me too. Yeah, I think that so often we leave out of the equation of self care the reflection piece, like really reflecting on what’s going on, how you’ve felt in certain circumstances and how you can’t continue that pattern over and over and over again. Because so often I think we get stuck in these patterns of mistreating ourselves, maybe limiting beliefs that we tell ourselves we might get into just poor self care where we’re not focusing on our nutrition, we’re not focusing on taking all that stuff out of our head. So like you said, like writing all that stuff down, brain dumping, all of that, that is self care because you’re taking all of these thoughts and you’re putting them down onto paper, getting them out so that you can do something with them. And I love that. I love it. Yeah. It really just brings awareness to what is going on. That when you mentioned kind of knowing what you need, it’s like, oh yeah, that’s how I figure out what I need. And it might look different for other people, but that is something that really helps me, for sure. Yeah. And the other part of self care that I think gets kind of left out of the equation is the individualized piece. Because like you were saying, it might look different for other people. To me, when I used to go to these professional developments at school, or people would talk about self care, they would be very like cookie cutter. And I just couldn’t deal with, I couldn’t wrap my head around that. I’m like, this is not going to work for every single person because every single person’s journey or life or expectations or wants or needs or any of those things aren’t going to be the same. And so when I think about self care, it is a very individualized process where you are, one, becoming self aware, and then two, really taking action that’s going to be good for you. And I don’t feel like you can do that without really trying things on. It’s like you go to a store and you try on a bunch of different outfits and you’re like, I really like this. I don’t know if I like the way that this looks. Like I tried on shorts the other day and this makes me think of that. I haven’t worn shorts in forever. So when I tried on the shorts, some of them, the style was not me. And I’m like, it fits, but I’m probably not going to wear that, so put that away, try on a different pair. And once I found the one pair, I feel like I’m just going to wear them all the time because they’re great. They’re great for me. And I think that’s the same way with self care. Yeah, absolutely. And those ones, we were like, no way, I’m not going to wear those for someone else. That was their perfect fit. Like their style, they fit them correctly. So it’s just finding what that right fit is for you. The problem I think a lot of teachers run into as well is they don’t even go looking for that fit. They’re so focused on finding everybody else’s fit, like figuring out what their children need, what their students need, what their spouse needs, even potentially with spouses, especially. I feel like sometimes we’re trying so hard to make sure that they’re happy, that they’re not frustrated if we’re taking too much time away from the kids or whatever. At least that’s for me. I don’t know if that’s for you. Yeah, but it’s like making sure that everybody else around you is happy. And as long as they’re happy, then I’m happy. If they’re happy. But really, are you? Because if you’re not taking care of yourself, then you might not. One thing that Christina at Educate, Rejuvenate said is you need to take care of the most important person in your child’s life or in your student or one of the most important people in your student’s life if you’re not a parent, and that is yourself. Because you can’t show up other people if you’re not taking care of yourself. But I think so many of us forget. We just get consumed in these other roles that we get lost along the way. You don’t even know when exactly it happened. At some point, you’re like, yeah, back when I was a teenager or in college or whatever, I would do all these things. And then you start teaching, you start a family, and suddenly, slowly, your own personality, potentially not personality, but the things you do or ways you take care of yourself might slowly dwindle as you add on those other responsibilities if you’re not careful and self aware about it. Right. And so this is why I love things like educate and rejuvenate and the Summer Self Care conference, because it brings all these different people with all of these different mindsets all together to really bring what they’re passionate about. What’s worked for them in their journey of self discovery or self awareness or self care or burnout prevention or recovery, whatever you want to call it. But it brings all of these people together so that when there are people coming in where there’s attendees coming in, they can kind of pick and choose, what do I like? Okay, well, I’ve never heard of breath work, so let me check out breath work. Let me try on those shorts and see how they fit for me. And maybe you don’t like that, but that’s what the beauty is of that, is that you can sit there and you can listen and you can say, oh, I like that, or that’s totally not me at all. And I would have said that about just speaking of breath work. I would have said that about breath work years ago if you’d have told me, oh, if you just take deep breaths, it helps with your stress levels or it can help you release trauma or heal or all of those things. I would have been like, you are so full of crap, but crunchy or whatever. But as I actually did it, I was like, whoa, okay. There’s like science behind that. There are people that can facilitate it. So even when I don’t feel super comfortable with my own ability to facilitate my own breath work, there’s people out there that can do that. And I think that’s what’s so cool about educate and rejuvenate the Summer Self Care Conference is you get to meet those people that have tried these different things and you can try on those shorts or you can try on those self care activities and really dive deeper into your own well being. Absolutely. And I just love that everybody always brings their own unique perspective to the table. Even when there are sessions on similar topics, everybody has their own way of explaining it. And sometimes the way somebody explains it can kind of give you that additional AHA moment or whatever. Okay, that analogy clicked or something like that. So I just love hearing from all the different perspectives and people teaching different things. For example, in your summer self Care summit, it all falls under that umbrella of self care. So no matter which direction they go, like which sessions they decide to watch or which ones they decide are the ones that are their fit and they’re going to try on, they’re headed to that destination of better self care, which I just love that for teachers because now in summer is the time to reflect on it. We have some more time to do that so then we can build those habits that can follow us into the coming school year. Yes, I love it. And so one of the things that I was doing this year for the Summer Self Care Conference was over the course of the last year was I thought about how different things come into self care, like we were just talking about. And so I thought about how systems, you need systems in place that can really take care of you, that allow you to have the time, the energy, the bandwidth to spend on yourself. And so systems was a huge piece of that. So there’s a lot of different presentations about systems, another one being sustainability, like making your teaching career sustainable, but also making you sustainable. So the mindsets that go behind that, the things that you need to have in place in order to make that sustainable and then support. Because I think that there is no way for you to be an effective educator, an effective parent, an effective present person without support. And so often I think teachers are not supported. We hear teachers all the time say things like, well, my Admin doesn’t care. Or sometimes it’s even our spouse or whoever doesn’t care about the things that you’re passionate about and really taking care of yourself requires community, it requires support from people who will understand. And so those were the three components under the self care umbrella that I just really wanted to focus on because I thought those were some of the biggest keys to making a transformation. Yes, I love the community portion you talked about too, because sometimes we might not find that right in our homes or in our schools. Maybe you don’t click with the teachers who are in your team. Because I’ve even had teachers come to coaching and they’re like, I feel like everybody talks about having their teacher bestie and I don’t have one or whatever and they think they’re the only one who doesn’t have one, which is so not true. Right. Awesome community or whatever. And what I found at these events, like even virtual events, people think like, oh, it has to be in person. But it doesn’t because as we just saw Educate and Rejuvenate and as I’m sure we will see at the Summer Self Care Summit, these teachers, we come together and when you come to an event like this, you know, you’re kind of joining people who also want to start practicing self care. You kind of have that common denominator to begin with that you want to kind of improve and it’s kind of a positive mindset people have at these events. Like nobody’s putting each other down or anything, everybody’s cheering each other on and people are really connecting online. And I’ve seen people make friends at these events. Yeah, I have friends that I have made from the Summer Self Care Conference for the last three years. And so even with Educate and Rejuvenate, which was just a couple of weeks ago, I’m making friends from that that met me and then I met them. And we’re just having these conversations and just having someone that I think people can reach out to or that they can go to and just have that teacher bestie, even if it’s not in their school building and it’s online. I think that’s super powerful and why I love anything that’s community oriented and probably why I like social media so much, honestly. I know I saw on TikTok recently one of your TikToks. I’m like, wow. Brady gets TikTok. I’m still figuring that out, but you get it. I love me some TikTok. Honestly, though, with TikTok, I thought when you scroll through the For You page, finds the people that are for you. It is crazy to me because it’ll say something like, if this shows up on your For You page, then your birthday is they don’t say this, but December 3. And I’m like, it is December 3. How did you know that? But cool. Yeah, I love stuff like that. But, yeah, we got on a tangent there. We did. But it’s all in the same support community, finding people that really relate to you and can support you along the way. So that is cool. Can be inside or outside your school building or your neighborhood, or it can be across the country or across the world. That’s the great thing about the Internet. Yes. I found you on the Internet, which is pretty awesome. I know, it’s great. And then we realized on the last time we recorded podcast, we’re like, oh, what books? Let’s trade book lists of things we need to read because we are both obsessed with reading. Yes. And we both talked about how both of us read a bunch of books at the same time and then synthesize them all together to make our own story from it. That is so cool. It’s the best. What are you reading? I’m like, do you have time for the list? I’m friends with Angela Watson from Truth for Teachers and I decided I was like, I’ve never read one of her books. And so I picked it up and I started reading Awakened. Have you read that book? I have it and I’ve read it. It’s really good. The one that I’ve been reading is Grit. Have you read that one? It’s in my audible library. See, this is why, like, a collector. And then I read as many as I can. Yeah. Yes. Oh, my gosh. It is so good. I don’t know why it’s so good. Because it’s talking about how the power of grit and perseverance is what really makes the difference. It’s not like your intellect or it’s really good. It’s a really good one for that resilience piece, that perseverance piece of self awareness and self care. Yeah. One of my favorites that my session for your summer self care conference is about. It was kind of inspired by this book, but then I kind of did my own thing with it. But it’s called The Gap in the Gain, and it talks about how so many of us, we just move that goalpost of where we want to be so we forget how far we’ve come. For example, at one point, all of us wanted to become a teacher, right? We had to go to school for that or whatever, or do whatever we need to do to get that first job or whatever. And then we just forget. Conveniently that we made that whole journey to get this far and then we were just like, oh well, that doesn’t matter because now I need to get better at this. Now I don’t know enough about the science of reading or now I don’t know all these different things and just always kind of beating ourselves up about where we want to be rather than how far we’ve already come. So that’s kind of what I’m talking about. In my session at the Summer Self Care Summit is like owning our wins, looking at how far we’ve come. And then from there, it doesn’t mean we don’t set goals and we don’t try to achieve bigger and better things and learn more about how to be more effective educators or how to build in more self care for ourselves or up level our own mindset. Any of those things are all great, but we come from it, from this framework of wow, look at how many things I’ve already accomplished. And I’ll be sharing kind of my process like you mentioned processes for doing this, for doing this each day and it’s really simple. So I’ll be sharing that. I’m really excited to share that with everybody. I am really excited for you to share that too because that is such a powerful thing. And I do think a lot of times teachers, they get stuck kind of not thinking about the wins. They don’t realize how far they’ve come. They don’t do that. And so your session is totally needed. I went from the perspective of the systems part. So I have a session at the Summer Self Care Conference too, which is all about automation. Automation changed my whole life. I mean, I automate literally every part of my life and I wish I had known about it sooner. When I first started teaching, not only did I not celebrate my wins right, I didn’t do that for sure. I was constantly getting beat down and I beat myself down. But then I also tried to do everything. Are you like that? Are you one of those people who tries to do everything? Yeah, I tried to do everything and at some point you can’t do it all. You can’t. But if you’re a person who is like me, like a recovering high achiever, a recovering perfectionist, all of those things, then you need something that’s in place that can do some of those tasks for you so it can allow you to do more. And automation is that thing that really helped me be able to do that. I learned cahoot and block it and all of those things, those are like things that are automation. But when it comes down to taking care of yourself, if you don’t have the time to take care of yourself, you need to automate some tasks. You need to get really strategic about that and it’s easier than it sounds. And I’m really excited to talk more about that and really go in depth with it because it’s really exciting. It’s my favorite thing. I can’t wait to watch that because I use automation for some things, but I know that there’s more I could be doing both with automation and with AI. I feel like those are tools that we have to help us save time so we have more time for that self care, to relax, to reflect, to own our wins, to do all those things. So it really is twofold. It’s like the things we do, but then also, what can we let go of so we can do these things? And automation or AI, is kind of a way that we can let go of things without fully letting go of them. We’re just kind of working smarter to get it done faster or more automatically. Yes, automatically. I think that so many people get stuck on that, well, I don’t have the time to do it or they don’t have the bandwidth to do it. And so AI is one of those things that really frees up your ability to be a little bit more creative, which is part of self care that many people don’t even think about. Like just being creative. That is a huge piece of taking care of yourself because you’re doing something that lights you up and fills your cup, but it’s not taking so much away. And so if you can kind of balance the scales a little bit for your draining tasks and your retaining tasks I don’t know, is that what I want to call it? Draining tasks and retaining tasks? The ones that really draining and retaining yeah, so they’re bringing you and drain versus the ones that retain you were the ones that even lift you up. So when you can actually balance those things and you start taking away those things that are draining your energy and adding more to the things that are bringing you energy that are energizing you, then you start to feel a whole lot better. You feel more in control. You feel as if, yeah, I can take on this day and you’re able to then own your teacher win. So, yeah, I’m all over it. I’m so excited. I can’t wait for this conference. And I love that you put it together. And I know it’s a lot of work to put together a conference because I’m just coming off of mine. So I appreciate the opportunity that you allowed me to be part of it this year, which was a lot of fun, of course. And like I said before, it’s so needed. These types of conferences are so needed to bring these people together, to bring teachers together, to realize that they have more control over their own mental health and their own mental awareness than they realize, so that they can start feeling better start sustaining their career. Start feeling better about being a mom and a teacher. Or a dad and a teacher. Like a. Person again and so that it’s not taking over their entire life. So I’m excited about the conference and I’m so excited that you are going to be there as well. Do you want to share a little bit about where everybody can find you if they’re listening in on the Resilient Teacher Podcast? Yeah. So I have a podcast called Wife Teacher Mommy. The podcast. And so you can find me there. If you’re here, you’re obviously a podcast listener. I would love for you to hop over and check out my show. I’m also on all the socials just as wife, teacher, mommy including threads.
