Why You Don’t Need to Fix Everything Right Now [#166]

Welcome to Educate and Rejuvenate, the podcast, the show that helps you teach and live well. I’m Kelsey Sorensen, a former classroom teacher, current homeschool mom, and a proud teacher goals author. I’m on a mission to help educators of all kinds, not just survive, but thrive. Are you ready to educate and rejuvenate? Let’s go. Hi. Hello, everybody. I am so thrilled to be here live for educate and rejuvenate the podcast, and we are finally back after a break for a actual full series of the podcast. So, so thrilled to be back. And today, what we’re going to be talking about is the common sentiment among teachers, educators, homeschool parents, admins, whoever, that I just need to get through the next two weeks, or I just need to get through the next two months until the end of the year, or if I could just fix this one thing. We like to fix everything. Right? Kids’ test scores, maybe your schedule, maybe your meal planning, maybe if, like, if I could just get my centers just right, whatever, I will feel better when I get that fixed. And we just are constantly in fix it mode. Right? So when we fix one thing, we’re then we want to fix the next. So today, we’re going to talk about how we don’t need to fix everything right now, that that might actually be contributing to your stress, especially at the end of the school year, which this series is called ease into summer. We actually voted on that name in the educated and rejuvenated collective Facebook group. So we are going to ease into our summer. We’re gonna going to talk about what we want to do instead. Hello, Chris, in the comments. So I’m excited to be recording live today. Right now, there are a 22 among the different platforms here live in the studio with me so far, and the number keeps inching up a little bit. I’m so thrilled to not be live only on the educate and rejuvenate platforms, but also the teacher goals platform. So hello to all of you popping in the comments. When you do, make sure that you pop in there and let me know you’re here because when you do, you are entered in to win a Starbucks gift card. For the next two series of the podcast, we’re really leaning into these being like a coffee chat. Although I have my water bottle right now, I actually ordered some really cute, Starbucks, like, hot cups that I will be using when they arrive from Etsy. Like, because I really want these to feel like a coffee chat where we’re together as teacher friends, just like real talking. Now I want to also address those of you who might just be listening to this after the fact when it popped in on Apple or Spotify. That is actually where the largest percentage of the educate and rejuvenate following of this podcast is. So you’re probably hearing this, like, after and, like, wait. You were going live? I didn’t even know. So if you’re one of those loyal followers, don’t stress. If you prefer to listen on Apple or Spotify, we will get these up within twenty four hours ish onto the podcast feed. So you will you can still listen to it that way. But if you would like to join us live, which is going to be so much fun, we will get, the schedule shared out to our email list and on the educate and rejuvenate and teacher goals platforms. So you can join us live if you’d like and be entered in to win the Starbucks gift cards. They say hello, Nam. Hello, Alyssa. Hello, Chris. Again, those comments are for those live are getting you to enter that $5 Starbucks gift card giveaway. So I’m really thrilled. Like I mentioned, I’m not only live on the educate and rejuvenate platforms, but the teacher goals platforms. Teacher goals is for those of you a lot of you who are here live are like, yeah. I’m here on teacher goals. I don’t know who you are, so let’s talk about that too. I’m Kelsey Sorensen. I am the author of the book educate and rejuvenate, which was published by teacher goals. So we’re collaborating on these episodes because I’m really talking about some themes from my book that came out just last year and hit, number one in a bunch of education categories when it came out on Amazon. Teachers are loving this book. We just hit over 50 reviews, which I’m thrilled about on Amazon. So thank you to everybody who has read and reviewed so far. And if you haven’t heard about the book yet, we’re going to be talking about some of the stuff in it today. And so I’m super duper thrilled about that. Now, again, for those of you who are here on teacher goals platforms, I’m the author of this book here on educate and rejuvenate the podcast. We really like I mentioned in that intro that you may have heard if you were here right from the beginning of this, really here, we’re helping you teach and live well. We’re helping you educate and rejuvenate. And that is my goal as a certified life coach, a former teacher, current homeschool mom. So kind of bridging those two audiences together as we are recording this series. Now one other thing I want to address for those who I did leave on a bit of a hiatus at the beginning of this, calendar year in January, where I was recording an episode every week. And then now and then I said it was taking a break and that I would come back, with doing some seasons of the podcast that are more themed. And that is starting now. And now I’m actually calling them series because I don’t know that they’re really going to be long enough to be called a season, and they might shift a little more often. So this is our ease into summer series, which will be taking place in April and May. And I don’t have the full schedule yet. I’m still figuring that out. But right now, what we have scheduled is this episode, obviously, that we’re doing right now today. And then on April 22, we are doing the educate and rejuvenate reveal party for our event, which I’m really thrilled about. And for the event, we are going to be partnering again with teacher goals to promote the event because we are featuring not only me and my book, but many teacher goals authors and their books. So we’ll also be sharing their expertise. So I want to just tell you a little bit about that. So let me share my screen quick. So the educate and rejuvenate reveal party is happening on 04/22/2025. Now this is where we are going to reveal the full speaker lineup for our fourth ever summer, educate and rejuvenate virtual conference that we do. And I see Vanessa saying yay in the comments. If you have not yet attended an educate and rejuvenate virtual conference, let me tell you. It’s not like any other teacher PD that you’ve ever done, especially in a virtual conference because so often virtual conferences, there’s not a lot of connection. It’s just like you watch a bunch of videos. And this you could do that if you wanted to, but also there’s so much connection that happens in the chat. It is incredible. Now it starts with this reveal party where we are going to reveal our full speaker lineup, our keynote, something really fun we’re doing this year that we’ve never done before. So even if you have attended an event, this month is going to be a little bit different in some ways, and you’re going to be really thrilled to hear about that. Vanessa says they are amazing about the events. Yes. So if anybody here is live who has attended one of our Educate More Doo May events before, feel free to pop in the chat, what your experience was with the event. This is what I love about doing it live. I can share your comments and what you have to say on the screen. Chris says yes. She’s excited. She joined our community just to educate and rejuvenate last year, and, we are always, loving to welcome new people into our world, into the educate and rejuvenate community. So when you sign up for the wait list, which the link will be near wherever you’re watching this video, you will not only be signed up for again and, again, it’s free to sign up for the wait list. You’ll get a free resource. Our cute some bunny is watching out for you, looking out for you resource where kids get to secretly write fun things to each other. You’ll get to learn about our keynote, something really fun and exciting we’ve never done before. You’re going to hear our full speaker lineup, and you’re also gonna have the opportunity to get the lowest early bird ticket pricing. Chris says best thing I ever was joining this community. Amazing. Thank you, Chris, for sharing that. I I love our community. It is just such an incredible community we’ve got here at educate and rejuvenate. Okay. So oh, and now my screen there we go. Got it full screen again. So thank you. I had a little bit of housekeeping today because it is the first podcast we’ve done. Well and and it I did a couple of just random live podcasts, but this is like we’re officially back type of thing. We are getting into this series. Now the other difference is before, for those of you who are on Apple or Spotify, it would release consistently, like, every Tuesday or for a while, it was every Friday. But now that we’re doing it live and we’re coordinating with my schedule and sometimes a guest schedule, it’s not going to be as regular what day it lands, but they are going to be landing more regularly. So, again, you can see the schedule, on our email list and all of that to keep up with when we’re doing these podcasts live. But the thing I love about doing it live is the energy and that we get to connect on these podcasts. Okay. So the next thing I want to do is explain this series that we are getting into. So this is the ease into summer series. This is the first episode of I believe it’s going to be five or six episodes that we’re going to do in this series. And the whole point of it is because at the end of the year, tell me for those of you who are here live, and if you’re not here live, if you’re watching or listening after the fact, just think about your answer in your head. How often do you feel like the end of the year is just so hectic? Like, one thing after another, And you just cannot wait for summer break, and everything is going to be better then, and everything is terrible now. How many of you have ever, like, felt like that or had thoughts like that pop into your brain? And the point of this series is to help us actually ease into summer. We had some different, I’m trying to remember what the other names were that we were voting on, and it was clearly the winner, the ease into summer. And I think it’s because so many of us, like, we can’t wait until summer. Right? So the fact that this one wasn’t about the end of the year, it’s about summer, like, yes, they want to get there. But what if we could ease into it? What if it didn’t have to be just, like not that finishing strong is a bad thing, like, of course. But, also, what if it could feel softer? What if it could feel like we are just easing into this? What if we could take out being so hard on ourselves or being judgmental or worrying about our kids’ test scores so much or worrying about getting everything right for the end of the year ceremony or, all the like and, yes, there are things we need to figure out. Like Vanessa said, field trips, assessment behaviors, wishing we were outside in nice weather. Yes. All of this and all of it is so valid. Right? And that’s why we want to ease into it. We want to actually see what’s going on in our mind, look at all the things that are going on on our plate, admit that, yeah, this actually can be a kind of hectic season, and like, there’s the and. That’s why I like, like, educate and rejuvenate. We really like to pay attention to that and piece because two things can be true. Right? It can be a hectic season, and we can pay it can because it’s hectic, we might need to pay more attention to to our thoughts, to our feelings, to what actually does need to be done and what doesn’t. In this season of the end of the year, what that I’ve been doing all year can maybe wait for now because we’re in a different season now. Right? So that is the point of this series as a whole is to help us ease into summer, to kind to help us to enjoy our time now as well and not just look forward to the future because as you’ll see in a coaching clip I’m going to share on this episode, in the summer, we’ll find other things to worry about and want to fix then. Like, we think it’s all going to be amazing then, but new stuff will come up then. Right? And so, like, we don’t wanna just wish our life away. Right? We want to be like, what if right now we focused on the relationships with our students or with our own children? Or what if we focused on all the wins, how far we’ve come this year? If we look at you might be like, oh, these last few weeks, like, I feel like I’m behind on my to do list. Oh, but what about since August? How far have you come? How far have your kids come in that time? And so we’re really getting into the right mindset now so we can ease into summer. We can also bring that pride and that joy into us during the summer with us in the summer as well. Chris says, I really like this idea because there’s too much to do before the end, and I don’t transition well after it’s all over. Yes. So this is all about being in the now, enjoying the now, and also having a good transition into it. And the other thing that I talked about on the podcast last year too is sometimes we are like, go, go, go, go during the school year. Right? And then we think, oh, I need this summer just to recover, and I don’t wanna think about school all during the summer. And and I think that’s fine for a time, but, also, it’s a symptom. It’s a symptom that maybe you were pushing too hard during the school year if you need a full two and a half, two months off completely not even thinking about it, to where during that time, you could also be like, oh, what can I do to make next school year better so I don’t burn out? Right? So I can enjoy both the school year and the summer. Right? Okay. So I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself now. So, we’re going to get started here with episode one, which is teachers, you don’t need to fix everything right now. That is the actual title of this episode. And I realized that I forgot to, ask you. I would love you to share in the comments, and I’ll come back to it. So, again, the of the 426 of you who are live on the various platforms, most of you want teacher goals. So thank you for being here. A lot of you are new to educate and rejuvenate, and so thrilled that you’re here. With that, I would love for you to pop in the comments. Again, when you comment, you are being entered to win a Starbucks gift card because this is our fun coffee chat friend time. I want you to comment what you are trying to fix right now. What are you trying to fix, like, during this end of school year season? Just think about that in your mind if you’re not here live. Or if you’re here live, comment in the chat. And just think about what is it you’re trying to fix right now. And while you do that, I’ll kinda discuss this tendency that we, as educators, tend to have in general. So we like to solve problems quickly. Right? And for good reason. Right? A lot of times, we need to. There are there’s a lot going on. We might have, what, like, 30 plus kids in our classroom, and we are differentiating for them. We are meeting these. We are doing IEPs. If you’re a parent, you are, working with your kids at home. Maybe you have multiple kids, and there’s always a lot going on, getting kids to activities. Whatever it might be for you and whatever your classroom looks like. We are always adjusting, adjusting lesson plans, creating accommodations, reteaching, modeling, all the things, trying to get caught up, yes, in the comments. Trying to get caught up, yet it never ends. Right? So we’re always doing that, and that’s a great thing. It’s an amazing skill that we have as teachers that is a useful life skill. It is very valuable, but often doesn’t extend to internal challenges, like exhaustion or anxiety. Like, if we’re like, I’m just so overwhelmed. I just need to push that down. I just need to like, you know, when I fix all these things, then I won’t feel this way anymore, or I just need to avoid this feeling. All of that that we tend to do. Let’s just scroll on my phone because I’m feeling so done. Let me go to the pantry and grab a little Debbie or something because, like, I am feeling so overwhelmed. Let me just not do the stuff that like, you know, moving my body or whatever because I’m too overwhelmed to do that even though it’ll make me feel better if I do it. Right? All these things that when we’re feeling overwhelmed, we don’t always fully take care of ourselves. Right? And we don’t even notice. Right? Because we’re so focused on everyone else around us. We’re so focused on our students, our own children, what our admin wants, what, what other people in our community want, all of that, that oftentimes we aren’t really tuned in to what it what our own internal experience is, our own thoughts and feelings, and, what we actually want. Like, what our actual goals are as a teacher, what it how it is we want to transition, how we want to end the year with our students, how we want to transition into summer. We are so used to acting like the teacher that we forget to be the student of our own experience because we want to be learners and learning and growing too. And if we’re too focused on everyone else learning and growing and not ourselves, we are doing ourselves and, honestly, our students and everyone else around us, miss or a disservice. Right? Sometimes I, like, mix up my words, but you know what I mean. Charity says, my mindset, I shadow a teacher tomorrow for an upcoming long term subposition, and I’m both nervous and excited at the same time. Yes. And that is so, like, good. And I’m observing that you’re noticing how you’re feeling. Right? And that you’re like, yeah. I have this thing. I’m feeling nervous. I’m feeling excited. And we’re going to talk about what we do with that. And Charity, I know because you’re in our community, and I love if you’re seeing the video here, for those of you who see her, even her, profile picture is from our educate and rejuvenate event last year. We have these fun frames that you can add to your profile. So, again, we want to tune in to that. And, also, the cool and this has nothing to do with the podcast, but just your comment, and I love sharing little tidbits here and there. When you’re feeling nervous, we you’ll notice that this and, again, this is part of observing. Right? This is in my book. In the framework, there are three steps we talk about, and that is to observe yourself. And we’re going to talk about this a bit later in episode two. Observe yourself, choose your direction, and align yourself. And observing yourself, first off, is noticing those feelings. So noticing that you’re feeling nervous and excited. And then also noticing, what does nervous feel like? What does excited feel like? And notice that there are actually similar sensations between both of those emotions. When you’re feeling nervous, again, your blood is rushing. Right? Your heart is beating faster. You might notice, like, a little bit of sweat, whatever that looks like for you, and you might feel that exact same thing with excitement. So what I try to do and, again, it’s not to I acknowledge the nerves. Right? I acknowledge that, yes. Like, for example, if I’m going into shadowing a teacher for a position, I might be like, yes. I’m feeling nervous. That’s valid. And I’m really excited because and then I think about all the reasons I’m excited about it, and I can lean a little bit more into that while still acknowledging the nerves too. We’re not pushing them away. That’s never helpful. But, again, we can kinda channel it a little bit more into the excitement. Okay. So, any other let’s see. Independent reading time so I can meet with my group. So I have more culture in the classroom and not working all hours. Yes. I’m seeing a lot of comments. Trying to fix and, again, these are the things we’re trying to fix. Right? Trying to fix the lack of class trips and the number of sports team competitions, PE lead in The UK. I love it. I love how we are reaching teachers worldwide via the Internet. It is the best. So we can all just connect because, you know, we might have different experiences, but yet similar at the same time. So, yeah, trying to fix the lack of class trips and number sports teams. Again, trying to like, you’re taking that. Maybe some of that is yours, but maybe some it’s not. And maybe, like, it doesn’t have to feel as urgent even if, like, you’re like, yeah. I do wanna figure this out. We can ease into it. Right? It’s kind of more of a mindset, more of a vibe that we’re going for. Okay. So I’m going to share a quick personal story. And, again, if anybody else has anything that they would like to share in the chat, remember, for those who are here live, you get entered to win a Starbucks gift card when you comment. And for those of you who are not live, who are listening or watching later, just think about the answers in your head. I want you to, not just consume this content, but really observe yourself, really learn what is going on for you. So my little personal story that I wanna share about trying to fix it and trying to fix things is actually on page 60 of my book. You can read the full story. And this goes to show when we don’t, identify our emotions and when we really react from them. So, some of you may know, those of you who know me that, so I’m a former teacher. I taught third grade, and then I substitute to all of elementary for several years. And now I homeschool my children and run my business working with teachers and coaching. So now I teach adults. I don’t know. My education career has been all over the place. But with homeschooling my kids, there was a season where I was very busy actually, two years ago. With the two years ago, educate and rejuvenate event, like, the one that I’m talking about. Again, this is our fourth year, so the one two years ago. I was, like, in the heat of prepping for that. It was the end of that school year, and there was a lot to do. And we were kinda we were still only in our second year of doing these events. We were still kinda figuring things out. And so I let my husband kind of take point on the homeschooling on a lot of it at that time. Like, he was doing the curriculum. I was kinda checking in and all of that. Just for a few months, I was like, I really just need to put all my full focus into this event. And what happened was one day, he was sick or something. I don’t remember. And so I needed to do their lessons with them that day. So what did I do? I opened the curriculum book to see where my kids were at, and I about lost it because I looked at where they were at, and I was like, wait. They should be further than this. Right? And, again, immediate, as you know if you read my book, should. Right? That is a cognitive distortion that they should be there. But, immediately, I just went into a panic, and I ran upstairs because at the time, we had our homeschool room in our basement. I ran upstairs with my husband, and it was not my proudest moment. I was like, you know what? I have to take back the homeschool. You can’t do this, or I’m gonna hire a tutor because you know what? They are not where they should be, and I really just kind of, lost my temper a little bit before I even gave him a chance to explain. And so it wasn’t my proudest moment, but it was an example of me trying to fix something, right, and trying to fix the thing by telling my husband, like, you’re doing it wrong, and we need to hire a tutor, or I need to take it back or whatever, before actually getting regulated and really thinking about it. Right? And sometimes, it’s not just a moment, but it’s actually, like, an extended period of time where we’re feeling that way. Now, of course, I did talk to my husband, and he was immediately shocked. And then I apologized, and then he was like, you know what? I haven’t fully actually been following the curriculum. We’ve been doing a lot of other things to, like, tie it into their interests and help them learn. And look. Here’s how she’s going here and how he’s going there. And I was like, oh, like, I actually kinda value, like, not sticking just to a book too. As a teacher, I love like, I mean, I started a whole Teachers Pay Teachers store, for crying out loud. Like, so it was funny when we actually got to talk about it and when sometimes these problems that we think are so urgent that we need to fix, like, right now, coming from that energy is not going to help us fix the problem. And that and that’s just one example. Let’s see. I don’t see if anybody has anything they’d like to share in the chat, go for it. But another one that I had too was in my first in oh, no. This is when I was teaching, when I was in actually, no. This is when I was student teaching. So we were it was my first time in a classroom, like, full time. Right? And, we were using in that district, we were using the Go Math curriculum. I don’t know if any of you here have used that. And it was probably, again, similar time of year, probably a month or so earlier, though. It was probably February or March. So we’re getting, like, closer to the end of the year. And I realized and, again, this is about curriculum again. This shows so much my brain. Like, again, I was a very, like, type a student. Like, we need to be here in the curriculum. Why aren’t we here in the curriculum? That was in my brain back then too. So I realized I kinda did the math on where we were at in the curriculum and whether we’re going to finish every single lesson in that curriculum by the end of the year. And I was like, there’s no way. We’re not going to be able to do this. And so I was trying to fix it. I was trying to do, like, multiple lessons in a day. And do you think that works very well? Any of you who’ve been teaching? Not so much. Right? And that is when, you know, I was student teaching, so I had a mentor teacher who was like, you know what? We don’t always get through all of it, and that’s okay. And I was like, oh, okay. That’s fine. Right? But, again, a lot of times we try to fix these issues, right, rather than really like, we just try to get into that fix it energy rather rather than really just thinking about what we want to do and first checking in with ourselves, checking in with our internal experience so we’re not in that panic fix it mode. Because when we try to fix anything, doesn’t matter what it is from a panic, fix it, scarcity feeling, it’s not going to serve us in actually solving the problem. We don’t want to solve problems from from our, like, irrational part of our brain. We want to be able to tap into that rational part of our brain and solve problems from there. And in order to do that, we need to check-in with ourselves. We need to observe, you know, our feelings, our thoughts, make sure our nervous system is regulated. And we talk about all of this in the first first five chapters of educate and rejuvenate. So what I want to do is I also I got a clip that I want to share because, again, the thing that a lot of us are telling ourselves right now is that I need to fix this thing at the end of the year. Right? Like, the field trip no. Field trips or, you know, the getting the long term subposition, all the things I’ve seen in the comments. Right? The the testing, assessments, behaviors, wishing we were in the outside weather. Right? And we think, again, just when we just envision the outside weather, summer is going to be perfect. I want to share a coaching clip that is from, again, a couple years ago, when we did an event called the three day teacher transformation. Now those of you who have been in the educate and rejuvenate community for a bit, you might have heard this clip before. But even so, if you have, it’s going to be helpful to hear it again because you’re going to see that, oh, do you do do you ever do this during the summer, what this client I’m coaching does? Because it shows that that tendency to fix and to try to do everything perfect doesn’t go away during the summer. So if we want to not do that during our summer, if we don’t wanna give ourselves grief over whether we got all of our summer to do list done, we need to start now by not giving ourselves grief about the end of the school year to do list. Right? Or we’re just going to keep it’s going to keep repeating itself no matter what. Right? So I’m going to share this coaching clip. And while you listen to it, I want you to see, what we are doing to tap into her internal experience and understand she’s in that fix it mode. Right? And what do we do to kinda shift that a little bit? So I’m going to play the clip, and then we’ll talk about it. Like coaching on today? Okay. Well, this is silly. Maybe people can or can’t relate. I don’t even know. It’s just I wanna be able to enjoy the rest of the summer, and I think I’m having a hard time doing that. There’s about, for me, it’s two and a half weeks left until school starts. And there’s I put, like, a lot of pressure on what I wanna get done in the summer. And now all of a sudden, you know, school’s starting, and I think I’m also struggling just because I I wanted to have fun in the summer, but I do struggle when there’s not that structure of, like, here’s the routine and here’s how it goes. Yeah. I’m so thankful because I know so many people, like, they just live for the summers, but yeah. We’ve got some different thoughts in different directions we could go here. So our circumstance we can tell is summer. There are two weeks of summer left. Yes. We can all agree everybody here, can we all agree on this that we have two weeks of summer left for Tori here? Might be different for everyone else, but for her that is when school starts again. Okay. And then we have thoughts about the summer. So what is the bigger problem for you? Is it that you want because you mentioned a few things, like wanting to enjoy this summer, but also struggling with the lack of structure. Like, what is, like, the biggest problem with there being two weeks left? I think it’s just on my expectations because at the beginning of summer, it’s like, yes. I’m gonna get all this done, and then it’s gone almost. And, how do I process that? Okay. So you think the summer like, two weeks left this summer, you’re thinking it’s gone or you didn’t get all these things done? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn’t get all the things done I wanted to or the summer’s gone. I think the bigger thing is the problem that the summer’s gone or that you didn’t get the things done. The problem is definitely just not getting the things done. Okay. Sometimes bases, like, what I get done, I kind of I thrive off of that. Mhmm. Okay. So we have two weeks left this summer. I didn’t get what I wanted to done. And and you’re thinking you don’t have time in that two weeks. So, like, like right? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how do you feel when you think that? I think anxious would be a good word. Let me think if I can see a better one. Writing it down here. So is it looks like that’s what you’re doing. Right? Thank you, Kristin. Do that for each other. Yeah. I think anxious, maybe. Okay. I’m maybe a little disappointed. I think there’s a little anxiety, but also a little disappointment. Anxious with a twinge of disappointment in there. I like the word twinge. That was good. Yes. Okay. And when you’re feeling that way, what are you doing when you are feeling anxious with this little twinge of disappointment in there about not getting those things? It’s hilarious. I’m laughing now because they think it’s preventing me from actually enjoying the last two weeks. It’s because I’m being disappointed about what I didn’t do in the past few couple months, and so I’m not taking advantage of the time right now. So oh, yeah. So you are, like, already jumping ahead a little bit. So you are not you’re not enjoying the last two weeks, this one thing you said. You’re so we’re you’re not enjoying it. But, also, you said it’s preventing you from getting those things done in these last two weeks? Or Yeah. It’s like preventing stuff because instead of, I don’t know, just focusing on what I want to do or, or doing the things that I want to enjoy, giving myself some leisure instead of doing that, I’m getting anxious and disappointed, which yeah. And what do you do when you’re anxious and disappointed? Let’s look at, like, if I were an outside observer, and I’m just, like, watching Tory while she’s feeling anxious. What are you doing? Did today was I hopped on this call, but I think sometimes what I also do is I, ruminate. I ruminate a lot. Oh, yeah. So you’re in your head. What are you ruminating about? It’s just different things. I’m a like, when I say I’m a ruminator, just meaning that there’s a lot of, it’s kind of like thought cascades. They’re just all the thoughts coming, you know, and they just circle. And so it kinda leads to inaction maybe because I just think I’m a thinker, so just off my toes. Going on is in your head. So if I watch you as an outside observer, I wouldn’t actually see you taking action. I would see because they wouldn’t see what’s going on in your head. Yeah. You might just see me, like, doing the dishes or walking around or doing a workout, whatever I’m doing, but it’s more just what’s going on in my head that’s causing the, disappointment and the anxiety. Yeah. And this is exactly what Chrissy was talking about yesterday with those thoughts. What was it you called it, Chrissy? Well, I think sometimes we have yeah. I think sometimes we also have these, like, sort of thought villages. Like, I call them the bouncing castle. Like, the bouncing room. Yeah. And just, Tori, as you’re doing and because you have such an amazing culture right here in Kelsey, isn’t it so cool? I’m just watching you and your awareness story, like, your face just, like, opened up and you’re like, I realized because I’m ruminating. I realized because I’m not taking advantage of leisure. I’m anxious, and I’m just so excited about my anxiety that I’m not in the last two weeks of summer, and it was like an for you. Yeah. Like, we jumped to that. Like, you came up like, usually, as a coach, I’ll offer you a result line, and you just kind of had that moment yourself, which was so powerful that you were kind of like, oh, wait. This is what is happening. I see it now as we started working through this model, which it Yeah. And that’s why I love this model. Yeah. Yeah. But the other thing you mentioned too, so you are in your head. We’re watching you. You aren’t enjoying your any leisure you’re not enjoying leisure. You’re also in your head about the things, so it’s kind of like a lose lose potentially there. And then if you’re in your head, I want to ask you, are you processing that emotion, that anxiety with the twinge of disappointment? Are you just in your head about it? I would say I’m not processing it because even if you think of processing, processing means it’s leading somewhere. Like, if you think about your computer processing, like, it’s moving towards a result, any kind of process. And I would say that it’s not processing because it’s literally just stuck in a loop. Right? Yeah. So I would yeah. It’s not productive processing even if it’s trying to process. Yeah. Because one thing I wanna point out, when we’re in our heads, and I do this all the time. When we’re in our heads, it prevents us from getting into our body and processing strong emotions like anxiety or, disappointment. And that is when we are resisting the emotions. We’re pushing them away, which actually then makes us continue in those thought loops instead of just like, oh, okay. I’m feeling this. It’s okay to feel this emotion. Let it pass through. Acknowledge, like, where it is in your body. Like, okay. Anxious. What does that feel like? I’m feeling tight in my chest. Like, how does it feel for you, Tori? I actually kinda feel it in the in the back of my shoulders and my neck a little bit, I think. But this is the first time I’ve actually stopped to consider that, because before, I guess, I wasn’t even noticing the anxiety. I was only noticing that I was feeling some kind of like, there was something off. Like, I was feeling in a funk. I didn’t even really know what that was. Yes. And you can see in the chat, like, so many like, this is so relatable. Like, this happens to, like, so many teachers who were talking about the same thing in the comments. But feeling in that funk when you’re in your head, you’re not getting in your body or processing it, that could help you to, like you said, process. I love your analogy of the computer. I’m like, Tori, you get up here. But, when we’re processing, we are kinda moving through it. And so this is just kind of noticing where, where you might be stuck if you’re not again, there’s nothing has even gone wrong here. Because you could sit here in anxiety and frustration. You can resist it. You can, you know, not get the things done. You want you cannot enjoy your summer, and there’s not, like, a problem with that per se at all. But it’s just what do you want in your life? Is that what you want right now? And if it’s not, then this is where we can kind of start to look at. Yeah. And I think I wanna change. I think I I mean, I don’t know exactly all about the model, but I think maybe there is some stuff in there that I could change because I don’t think it’s productive or helpful to sit in anxiety for, the rest of the two weeks. Like, I’d rather I’d rather just enjoy it, I guess. So what where where would you go from there? Yeah. So I guess my thing for you would be, like, if you’re want to enjoy your summer more, those are like the words you said. I would ask, like, what does it mean to enjoy your summer more? And you can answer that right now, or you can think on it. Yeah. I think it means not doing the things that I wanna do, and, also, I think not being I don’t wanna say impatient, but not focusing on the impending deadline. I think just kind of letting it be what it is. Okay. So you’ve got some clarity on that. So, like, okay. I don’t want to have this impending deadline be like, prevent me from enjoying my summer or whatever. So then you need to kinda think about, okay. How do I want to think about this so I can, you know, maybe not put all that pressure. You mentioned all this pressure you’re putting on yourself. What is it you’re doing to put on that pressure, and what can you let go of so you’re not feeling that pressure? And what just came to me too is that pressure could possibly be coming from not sitting in those feelings because resisting, that is pressure. Mhmm. So maybe it’s even just taking some time to, like, acknowledge those feelings, notice they’re there, and then that might leave you some more space to think on what you just said, what it is you really do want. And when you process that and when you think on that, that will give you the space to be able to try on a new thought that’ll work for you about this deadline, about your summer. I really like that because, oh, sorry. Are you still going? No. I just said, how does that feel? So yeah. I just I really actually, that’s perfect because, I think even if I just sit here and think about it, what if I wouldn’t have come on this call and then I just wasted two weeks being in that space? But I think even just acknowledging, hey. I’m in this space right now. Maybe, like, I noticed some people in the comments saying things about, like, thought dumps or downloads and stuff and maybe just doing doing that so I can, process it instead of staying in a loop. And once I process it, being able to do some of those things that I enjoy, for for the last of the summer. Yes. I love that, Tori. That sounds like you have some great clarity, and you are well on your way to figuring out what it is that you want for your summer and processing these emotions that are not a problem. They’re your normal human emotions that are coming up. So thank you so much for being with us. I was gonna say thank you both so much. I really appreciate your time on it. Okay. So I see a lot of you in the comments, like, for those who are here live in the studio saying this is me. Yes. I’m the thinker. I do this all the time. I get frustrated. I procrastinate. I worry about what I didn’t do and then not do anything. Chris also says that breaks tend to make you more anxious than the rest of the year. So, again, a lot of us were thinking, like, oh, if I just get to the end of the year, if I fix these end of the year things, then the summer is gonna be wonderful. And then you get to the summer, and you’re like, wait. Now I’m worried about this. So, again, it shows that it’s not. And what I do wanna mention too is that in that video, we were going through at the beginning, we were going through this self coaching model. Right? And that is what we talk about we talk about it in the book, educate and rejuvenate. We We talk about it at the event that I hope you’ll come to. We talk about it in the educate and rejuvenate club as well. And with that, we talk about that the circumstance isn’t necessarily actually, it isn’t, according to cognitive behavioral therapy, what causes your feelings. Right? There’s something that happens in between, and that’s what our thought. Right? So when we think like, oh, I need to fix these test scores, or, oh, there’s all these different things I need to do for the field trip, or, oh, if I just make it until summer. But then in the summer, you’re like, oh, I gotta do all these things on my to do list. And what a lot of us tend to do, so many of us I’ve heard this from teacher, after educator, after, you know, even just people I know in my life. Like, we tie our value to what we get done so often, and that’s what we saw with Tory here too. So what she truly wanted, if she were to check-in with herself, she wanted to enjoy her summer. But what she was doing was tying herself to this to do list of all these things that she wanted to get done, and she only had two weeks left to do it. And so then that led to a lot of ruminating, which led to a lot of not doing it, which led to not getting the things done and not enjoying her summer. It’s just, like, no fun. Right? And so, there’s nothing wrong with her. In fact, I have done that same thing many times. Many of you in the comments are saying you’ve done that too. But what can help with that is when we do, what we started to do in that video clip, which is and I hadn’t even penned the framework yet. And what I loved is I’m watching baby coach Kelsey here, and it’s funny because in my head, I’m like, oh, I, like, I I feel like I’ve grown as a coach since then, and there are things where I’m like, oh, like, I should have stopped there or, like, whatever. It’s kinda funny. But the basic thing we did is I was like, if you were to what I mentioned even before I came with the framework, if you were to be an outside observer and that is what we want to do. That is the first step of when you again, this is my book, educate and rejuvenate, and the framework, is right here on this page. And we want to observe ourselves. Oh, and it’s mirrored. So want to observe ourselves and see what are we thinking, what are we feeling. Again, we don’t wanna be just stuck in our head in what thoughts are coming up subconsciously. Right? We want to kind of step out and become that outside observer where we’re able to see our thoughts and actually notice them, not just have them be subconsciously. And then tune into our bodies and what is our internal sensation. What are we feeling? And even just noticing that. And we’re going to do more of this in a future episode because, again, I am trying to keep these under an hour. But maybe I I wanted to do a guided practice together. I don’t know. We’ll see if we get to that. Do you all want that? But, again, what we really want maybe we can do, like, a super fast version. And then, again, for those who are in the educate and rejuvenate club, I actually, I’m going to be recording tonight. I’ve scripted five new meditations that go along with this ease into summer series that will drop in the educate and rejuvenate app for club members. And, also, anybody who has purchased the educate and rejuvenate book unlocks a full, a full course inside the educate and rejuvenate app, which includes the full guided practice for processing emotions that I wrote about in the book. So that is going to help you to observe yourself so you can really understand that internal experience, what’s going on, And then you get to choose your direction. And that’s where we kind of we observed. We saw what is it that you’re currently thinking, feeling, doing, what’s coming up. We saw that there was this, like, fix it part of her that was like, I need to get all these things done, but then it’s like, oh, what is it you actually want? I actually want to enjoy my summer. Where is the disconnect? And then once we see and actually understand the situation that’s going on, that is when we get to choose our direction. That is when she can be like, okay. Well, I’ve got two weeks left. I’m now in this grounded place. I’ve meditated. I’ve processed the emotions. I’ve done all the things. And now I get to consciously, not subconsciously, but consciously choose what I want to do with the rest of my summer. And I want to enjoy it, and this is what that’s going to look like. And maybe I’m going to look at my to do list and see these are the things that are actually important, and I can do those. And I’m not going to be ruminating about it, so I’m not going to be so stressed I can’t get those things done. And when we do that, it just really is taking our power back. It’s allowing us to, to create the life we want, and we can do this at the end of the school year. We can do this during the summer. We can do this as we start a new school year. It is really game changing. We can take that time to just follow the framework, to observe yourself, choose your direction, and align yourself. And, again, none of us are perfect, and that is why part of aligning yourself is to continue to observe and choose again. Right? To increase that comeback rate or to decrease that comeback rate. Right? We want to decrease the amount of time it takes us to go from, like, dysregulated or from being in that ruminating cycle or from tying our worth to our to do list and how much we’ve gotten done. We want to notice that sooner and observe and then choose consciously. And the more we do it, the quicker we’ll be able to redirect when that happens. We’re never going to be perfect. Right? That’s not the goal of life. Right? Oh, I love Brenda says the two of you are entertaining. I love hearing both of you so so far. I I love I love being able to share some of your comments. Hannah says, I actually remember having a similar situation last summer. I believe I submitted to your Ask a Coach portal in the club. Yes. That is in for those who are club members, in our app, we have a portal where you can submit a question, and every week, I go through and answer them. So I believe I submitted to your ask a coach portal in the club. Thank you for your support. You provide all of us at educating rejuvenate, and your book is like a survival guide. Oh, that’s backwards. It’s like a survival guide for teachers. Yes. It really is. Like, I am I’ve been so thrilled, with how it has been supporting teachers. And, again, it’s not because of me. Right? It is because these things just work. I’ve done the research, and I’ve worked with a lot of teachers. And I’ve been able to see the patterns, right, that, are really able to help teachers of all kinds with all of this stuff. Okay. So what I would encourage you to do and, again, we don’t have a ton of time, but we can, like, just take a few minutes to start doing that, to start observing yourself. So what I want you to do, whether you’re here live, whether you’re watching or listening to this later, if you’re driving, please be mindful of that. We’re not going to do, like, a full meditation or anything. I’m just going to ask you a couple of questions. You can just kind of get into that observing yourself mode because that is the most important step. Once you observe, the choosing kind of happens naturally because, again, it’s kind of like when we were talking with Tory in that clip. When we were talking about it, we’re like, oh, wait. What I actually want is to enjoy my summer, and this is what I’m doing. Like, then when you know that, it’s kind of a lot easier to be, oh, and with that information, what do I want to do with that? Right? It really just comes naturally. So that’s why we spend five chapters in the book on observe yourself and only three on choose your direction and three on align yourself, because the observe yourself is really the foundation for all of it, and you continue it as you get into the other steps. So what we want to do is we want to just start observing. I would encourage you to notice any sensations going on in your body right now. Like, what are you feeling? Is your pulse fast? Is it slow? Do you feel tense anywhere? Is your jaw tight? That tends to be the thing for me, is my jaw, or, again, whatever might be for you. Right? What are you feeling? What emotions are you feeling? Are you feeling anxious, tired, stressed, excited, nervous, happy? Maybe you’re feeling grounded. Maybe listening to this has helped you feel seen or heard. Hannah says neck and shoulders today. Yeah. So it’s different for everybody, and it is different every day. Right? What it might be for you. Just notice it, and there’s nothing wrong with it. If you notice anywhere that’s tight, like your neck or shoulders or jaw or legs, whatever, just send some love there. Like, okay. I see you. I feel you. Just send some love. And, again, as you notice these, are these thoughts, are these feelings, these sensations, are they tied into any worry or any needing to fix or any overwhelm? What are they tied into? Notice that. What thoughts are you thinking? Like, when you take the time to really check-in, what are some thoughts that you’ve been repeating to yourself all day today? Shoulders are tense. Anna Stone says shoulders are tense. Yes. And that that is such a common one, I feel like. So such good observations. And, again, you can think about this in your head. You can share in the chat. We’ll be picking the Starbucks winner here soon. The next thing you can do that I would invite you to do anytime that you really wanna tune in to your body is to just do a body scan. And if you many of you probably know what that is, but if you don’t, then that’s okay. Every we all learn at some point. That’s kinda just going from the top of your head and slowly going all the way down, just like being like, oh, what does my head feel like? What do my eyes feel like? What does my forehead feel like? My ears. Really work your way all the way down and just check-in. Notice where you’re tense. Notice where you’re tight. Notice where you’re loose. Notice what feels good. Notice what doesn’t. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re just observing. And by doing that, we are becoming an observer. Right? We are not so tied in with those feelings, and it does allow them to settle a little bit. Just the process of doing that, usually, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, if you’re feeling anxiety, if you’re feeling worried, just doing that alone is going to help it settle down. And I talk about a lot of research in the book, educate and rejuvenate, actually, but naming an emotion alone, that name and entertainment phrase is real because naming the emotion is actually proved to slow down the amygdala, which is the part of our brain, that’s connected, like, with our nervous system, right, that causes us to go into fight, flight, freeze, spawn, all of that, which, again, we talk about more extensively in the book. But just naming the emotion makes a huge difference. So that helps us with processing the emotions. And, again, if you grab a copy of the book, you’ll get the full guided practice that’s to music and everything that is going to help you do that. You can use it over and over and over and over again. This book, I believe it’s I believe it’s $27 on Amazon for a physical copy or, like, I don’t know. There’s a Kindle copy you can get too. It’s also on Kindle Unlimited if you have that. But with it, you’re not just getting a book. You’re also getting a full PDF workbook, that will allow you to not just, like, consume the content, but really apply what you learn. And then you get the full modules inside the educate in Virginia app where I have videos that I go over each exercise in the workbook. They’re all most of them are only about five minutes. There are only a few where they’re a bit more extensive, and I talk a bit longer. You can always speed it up if you want. So it really is like a full course. And, again, you don’t have to feel rushed to get through it. It’s at your own pace. But the end of the school year might be a great time to, just start it. And then during the summer, you could really dive in. So I would highly recommend if you have not yet, snag your copy of educate and rejuvenate. It’s going to really support you. If you are still listening to this podcast, if you enjoyed this podcast, we barely scraped the surface of everything that I go through in the book. Okay. I wanna I love checking in with the comments. So, let me see. I’ve been repeating that I have done my best to help my students and let it go. Yes. Exactly. Because we can only control so much. And control is something I’ve been really focusing on because I feel like it’s something that comes up so much in our coaching. We want to try to control everything, but a lot of the things we’re trying to control are circumstances that are out of our control. There’s only so much that is in our control. And when we focus on let like, again, we’re doing a book club with the book Let Them by or by Mel Robbins in the Educate and Rejuvenate Club right now. So a big thing, like, with students is, like, you are doing the best you can. You are teaching them, and then your students let them like, they’re going to do what they do too. Right? Okay. Let’s see. And I love seeing you chatting with each other. Hannah says, I feel this in my being. I 100% allow my feelings about returning to school service and settle in quite comfortably before summer is even over. Yes. Yes. Grief manifests in physical pain as well. Yes. Emotions manifest with physical pain. It does happen. So, again, I’m I’m not somebody who’s, like, you know, only, like, like, natural medicine or whatever. Only, like what do you call? Oh my gosh. Traditional medicine. Right? I believe they work together. And, like, again, there are sometimes physical reasons for pain. Sometimes there are also emotional reasons for it too. So it’s important to just ask yourself that. Like, is is any of this pain possibly for an emotional reason? Yes. The title of this podcast is a good reminder for us in all areas of life. Yes. This is true for teaching. It is also true for everything else in your life. It is true for, relationships, for parenting, for, navigating things with your neighbors or whatever. Right? Whatever is happening in your life, this can definitely apply. Okay. So the main takeaway today is that you are not broken, and you don’t need to fix it all today. And in fact, if you try to fix it while you’re in that fix it energy, you might just sabotage yourself, like we saw in Tori’s clip that we watched where it was like, I really wanna get all these things done, and I’m so worried about it that I’m not doing any of it. Right? And we so often do that. So we really want to get out of that fix it mode and into a more conscious, grounded place where we ease into summer, right, the name of this series. And we can just start noticing with curiosity with ourselves. No judgment. No need to judge anything we’ve done. We wanna have so much self compassion, so much self love. Okay. So we’ve got a Starbucks gift card winner. So Brenda Stewart, you are the winner of the $5 Starbucks gift card this time. So email hello@educateandrejuvenate.com, and we will send that to you. Again, that’s just a little fun thing we’re doing because I really like to see these as our little coffee chats where we’re getting together. We’re going to be doing these podcasts way more often, going forward. And I will have the full, ease into summer series, planned and scheduled soon. For now, the next call we will be doing, though, is on, April 22. And then after that, it will likely go to a weekly pace. April 22 is our reveal party for the educate and rejuvenate event. So if you have not yet signed up for this reveal party, the link should be right around where you’re watching I’ll drop it in the comments here quick as well. I can literally just copy paste right where I’m at. So I’m dropping it in the comments too. When you go to this page, you’ll want to opt in so you get on the list to find out about the educate and rejuvenate event. If you enjoyed this podcast, you’re going to enjoy the event even more. And you can come to the reveal party to learn about the speaker lineup, and all of that. There are freebies just for signing up for this. There’s giveaways. You’ll see a lot more about it on this page and in the emails that come once you sign up. So sign up for that. It’s going to be a great time. You’re going to hear from not just me, but many of the teacher goals authors at the event. They have so many great authors that talk about a variety of teaching subjects. So if you’re here, you’re a teacher who maybe you wanna learn about the science of reading, or maybe you wanna learn about project based learning or co teaching. Like, they have so many great authors, and you’re going to get to hear from so many of them. Okay. And the last thing I want to mention, just literally as we’re doing this podcast, as I hear some of you talking about, the summer and transitioning into it and already having that to do list and anxious energy around the structure. I’m wondering now, like because I I have this kinda planned out, but now I’m like, I think that needs to be the final episode. I really do. So let me know if any of you again, I’m still planning the series. So pop in the comments now if you’re live. Or if you’re listening later, email hello@educateandrejuvenate.com or DM on Instagram at educate and rejuvenate. If you’re like, this is one what I want to hear about in the ease into summer series, Let me know, and I will work it in because we’re going to have another four to five episodes where we really dive into getting through not only the end of the school year, but also that transition into summer so you can have your best summer yet. Okay. So excited. We are going to end under an hour barely, so I’m I’m happy with myself for that because I know when podcasts, like, they show up over an hour, it sound like, oh, that’s so long. You know? So I like to end at under an hour. So thank you everybody for being here tonight. For those of you who are here live and also any of you at any time for being here and listening, these will show up on, all the podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, under educate and rejuvenate the podcast as well as live, on the educate and rejuvenate and teach your goals platforms. I hope you all have an incredible day or night, wherever it is, when you’re listening, and we will chat soon at the educate and rejuvenate event reveal party. Thank you. If you loved what you heard in this episode, don’t forget to hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you’re listening or watching. And, hey, if you’re ready to take this work even deeper beyond just a podcast episode, you’ll love the book that I wrote with teacher goals. It’s called Educate and Rejuvenate, a three step guide to revitalize your teaching, renew your spirit, and reignite your passion for life. This isn’t just a book you read, it’s a whole experience. With your copy, you’ll also get access to a full PDF workbook and exclusive reader only course modules in our mobile app designed to help you not just consume the content, but actually apply it to your life even if you only have a few minutes at a time. So if you’re ready to make Educate and Rejuvenate not just something you listen to, but a lifestyle you live and a mantra you carry with you every day, grab your copy on Amazon and head to educateandrejuvenate.com/book to claim your bonuses. | 00:00:00.240 – 00:58:35.710