Teachers in Transition

Teachers in Transition - Episode 60 - Self-Care During and After the Pandemic

May 18, 2020 Kitty Boitnott Season 1 Episode 60
Teachers in Transition
Teachers in Transition - Episode 60 - Self-Care During and After the Pandemic
Show Notes Transcript

During this time of high stress and uncertainty, everyone is experiencing a difficult time. We are all stressed out and in need of some extra TLC. This episode is about the need for us to tend to our self-care and that pertains to during the pandemic and after it is behind us. We need to tend to self-care in four categories:  physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. You can afford to ignore any of those areas in your life.

Take care of yourself by eating well, exercising, managing your emotions, and staying connected with your higher power.

For more, listen to this episode. And to download the article that is referenced in the episode, click here:  https://kittyboitnott.coachesconsole.com/show_client_newsletter/?id=5ec018cefbb581550c2535cd&modify=1&coach_preview=1



Transcript:  https://www.temi.com/editor/t/x3mw6Q0IuUiXVtTRGymx00VFubqD8tQPjV_WnUTYCCscA0eKIlc1MqZOcb2rG38qrVz2UNmFMNxuw1ex2SffH7c5Eu4?loadFrom=SharedLink 

Kitty Boitnott:

Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed? Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do? You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is Kitty Boitnott. I'm a career transition and job search coach and I specialize in helping burnt out teachers just like you deal not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day-to-day job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for"Teachers in Transition." In some episodes I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes I'll be talking about career transition. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track? These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is Kitty Boitnott. Welcome to"Teachers in Transition." Welcome back to Episode 60 of"Teachers in Transition," the Podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is Kitty Boitnott, the owner of Teachers in Transition and Boitnott Coaching. If you've been listening to this podcast or YouTube channel, whichever platform you've chosen to take a look at or listen in on, you know that I alternate topics. One week I t alk about a career transition strategy or strategies because I am a heart-centered career transition and job search coach. I specialize in working with teachers who are burnt out and ready to look for a new career direction. I'm also a certified stress management coach and sleep science coach. however. And so on alternating weeks I talk about a stress management, u m, self care related subject and this week the topic is stress management and self-care. Now. I wrote an article just a few days ago entitled self-care during and after the pandemic and I will share the link to the article for you at the, at the end of the show notes, but I wanted to share some thoughts from that article so that I could make the point with you all as opposed to just the readers of my newsletter that self-care is not a luxury. It's not an option. It's not something that other people get to engage in or indulge in. Too often we equate self care with going for a massage or going to get your nails and toes done or taking a spa day. That is not what self care. I mean those are good things to do for self care, but there are not the basic things to do. When I'm talking about self care, I'm talking about the requirements that are fundamental to your overall health and wellbeing and they're not optional. Things like eating well for good nutrition, not gorging on overly sugary, overly salty snacks as opposed to eating nutritious meals, getting to sleep that you need in the quantity that you need it, getting the water that you need, being hydrated as opposed to allowing yourself to get dehydrated, getting the exercise that you need. All of these are things that are not optional. They are requirements if you want to stay healthy and well and especially during periods of high stress, we need to be taking extra care of ourselves and not letting ourself care what reps now, I'm not going to kid you. These last two going on two and a half months since everything closed down. You know it started out one state here and then another state and then suddenly practically overnight, or at least it felt like overnight the entire country ground to a halt. That is stressful. That has never happened in the history of since we've started recording history, maybe we've had pandemics before that it's the first time everything just shut down and shuttered in an effort to save as many lives from the virus as possible. If the scientist are telling us that this is a novel, core Corona virus, that novel needs, it's unique, it's not like anything they've ever seen before and they're trying to figure out how to deal with it medically as far as helping to relieve the stress and strain on the patients, ways to protect ourselves from passing it so easily and there's so much we don't yet know about the virus. And so this is a particularly stressful period in all of our lives and none of us have been spared. We're all going to have residual effects for a long time, whether it's financial or emotional or physical. I was just watching on the news this morning, a young woman in her thirties who is a runner, otherwise perfectly healthy and she lives in New York City. She somehow picked up the virus. She was in the hospital. She said her doctor looked at her and said, I wish there was something I could do for you. All the patients around her were being intubated. She was the only one in her immediate area, not on a ventilator. And thankfully she's well enough now that she's come home and she's recuperating. But apparently it is a vicious, vicious illness that can deplete you and make you feel utterly exhausted and that that makes it really hard to take care of yourself. So you want to avoid getting the virus. And in the meantime you want to do whatever you need to do to stay well and to take care of yourself. So I'm thinking in terms of self care right now, and in terms of four categories, there's the physical, there's the mental, there's the emotional, and then there's the spiritual and none. No one of them is any important than the other. Although if you do let your physical body go and you're not taking care of your physical being, it makes it more difficult to take care of those other things. So perhaps physical is more important to start. It's the most basic. You only get one body. You know, we come into this world, we are one body and we often abuse it. I know for myself, I was a smoker for 15 years. I've been, I stopped smoking longer ago than I ever smoked. I've probably, let me think, I stopped 33 years ago, but for 15 years I smoked and I was a relatively heavy smoker, which puts me in a high risk category for certainly I don't want to pick up the virus because I don't think it would do me any good. Certainly I would have a struggle with it because I think my lungs have been compromised even though it's been 33 years since I stopped smoking. So our physical bodies, we tend to abuse because we, when we're young, we think we're invincible and then when we start to get older we realize they're not quite as invincible as we thought we were. So take good care of your body by getting the sleep that you need. Sleep is critical and it's one of those things that so many of us think we can defer or delay. You cannot. And if you've been on a weird schedule during the pandemic because you haven't had to get up to go to work because either you're working from home or you don't have a job to go to anymore, it's easy to stay up late. It's easy to be awake in the middle of the night worrying about finances, worrying about where the rent is going to come from. All of those are natural and normal reactions, but doesn't negate your need to get the sleep that you need. So do the best you can to get the sleep that you need so that you can do well during the day. Managing irritability and grumpiness that goes along with not getting the sleep that you need and be sure that you eat well for good nutrition, that you stay hydrated, that you get that walk in. Even if it's, you know, late in the afternoon when everybody else is inside. Take a walk, walk the dog and get some physical exercise. As far as taking care of your mental wellbeing. You need to be mindful of the thoughts that you allow yourself to think that you may think you may be at the mindset that, are you kidding me? Control my thoughts out in the world. Do I do that? You can do that. It is possible. I started studying how to manage my thoughts years ago and I'm certainly not an expert at it, but I'm better at it now than I was back when I first started. If you are mindful of the thoughts that you are generating, you can catch yourself thinking a negative thought and stop it in its tracks. Reframe it. It's not possible for you to turn off your thoughts, but it is possible to redirect your thoughts. So consider are you a glass half empty person or a glass half full person? Are you the one who always find something good in every situation or do you always find something to complain about? Are you complaining because you have to wear a mask outside. If you are, think about how when you're wearing your mask, that is an indication that you care about the people around you. It's designed to protect other people from you and for you to be protecting yourself as well. So don't be fearful about wearing the mask. There's so many weird things going on in the Twitter versus Facebook universe about negative things about the math. You don't have to wear the mask all the time. You don't have to wear it at home, you don't have to wear it in your car, you just wear it when you're going to be around other people. You want to try to minimize the times that you're with other people, but when you are going to be in contact with other people, please wear your mask and don't make it something that you're complaining about. Think of it in terms of your being a good citizen, doing your part to help protect others. You can think about ways to control your thoughts and keep them on a positive trajectory. So do that. We also need to take care of our mental and emotional health and part of that goes along with our need for socializing, which let's face it, we're not getting what we need as far as socializing right now. I mean when you're asked to socially distance yourself, that is the exact opposite of socializing, but let's just hope and pray that this is a relatively temporary situation. It's not going to last forever. There are lots of smart people who are working on getting a vaccine done as quickly as possible. There's some good news this week about some possible remedies that can help to speed up the cure, not the cure, but speed up the process and help people to feel better or to recover more quickly. And all of that's good news. People who are experts in those areas are working as hard as they can, as fast as they can to try to make sure that we can come through this is as unscathed as possible. And that even sounds silly to say, thinking about the number of people who've already passed away because of this stupid virus, but we honor the people who've passed by doing our part and socially distancing ourselves so that we protect one another. Same thing about wearing the mask, so your socialization, you can, you can socialize. Still using virtual means. I've hosted a birthday party, a mother's day event with my brother and sister. This today I'm having my third happy hour virtually. I've attended more Toastmasters meetings where truly than I probably would have attended if I'd had to get in the car to go to every meeting. So it is possible for you to stay in touch with people and important too that you reach out to people that you maybe have to use the good old fashioned phone to call somebody or barring that, send them a card or an email, let them know that you're thinking about them because that's going to lift them up too. So try to remember that will help your attitude as well as to lift up the people that you are thinking about. Don't neglect your spiritual health as well. We're not allowed to go to church yet. And some places, I think some of the rules have been relaxed around church services, but you can always find a church service online to take a look at to get comfort, fun to share in the information with the individuals who are putting on the service and nurture your spiritual self to the extent that you can right now and don't neglect your spiritual health because you need to be able to um, observe and, and be thankful for your spiritual self. You know, whether you are a Christian or Jewish or Buddhist. Uh, there are lots of denominations within each religion I guess. And part of the reason for that is nobody can agree on the same set of beliefs and doctrines, but in all of the major religions, the one thing that they all have in common is a belief in a higher power. And unless you are a self self assessed atheist, you probably have a sense that there is a higher power out there somewhere that you on occasion at least feel a connection with. So try to build up those connections, make them more frequent rather than less frequent so that you maintain your spiritual self care as well as your physical, mental, and emotional self care. Just remember that self care is not a luxury. It's not something meant for other people. It is meant for each one of us to take care of ourselves. If we don't take care of ourselves, we can't take care of anybody else and it's important that we each do our part to take care of ourselves so that we could continue to be contributing members of our society doing the right thing for all the right reasons to help protect one another and ourselves from getting sick. Take care of yourself. Stay well, stay home until it's safe to go back out. Stay on the lookout for the remedies that are going to be coming along because they will. We will get through this. It's just a matter of time. Until then, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week. If you have thoughts, comments, suggestions, please send them to me@kittyboitnottatgmail.com if you would like to download the article that I wrote this week about self care during and after the pandemic, do download it and take advantage of it and if you don't mind reviewing this podcast so that other people can find it. If you find it useful at all, other people might find it useful. Until next week, be safe, be well, be happy. This is getting bought. Note teachers in transition. Bye for now. So there you have it, an episode of"Teachers in Transition." I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to"Teachers in Transition" so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to specifically cover in a future episode. I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at KittyBoitnott@BoitnottCoaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. Hi, I'm Kitty Boitnott and this is"Teachers in Transition."