About a month ago, I facilitated some workshops at the INTO Conference for Primary Principals and Deputy Principals. These workshops were based on self-care and well-being for the school leader. As always, I go in as the facilitator but come out as the student. I have been giving workshops for nearly 6 years now in this area and I have never once come away from a workshop without learning something new from a teacher or school leader.
Well there is no point in me learning without sharing to other teachers so here goes. As I spoke to this rather large and very stressed out group of school leaders about self-care, something became apparent that I had not realised before this.
I became aware that this notion; this concept of self-care that we are all talking about now… (that has become the new ‘buzz’ word) is so much more than just ‘minding yourself’ or ‘taking care of yourself.’ Firstly, we say that to each other but what does it mean? As it stands, we know it generally means:
- Eating well
- Exercising
- Taking a moment to pause and breathe when you can
- Spending time with people who make you feel good
- Being aware of those who bring you down and making attempts to limit your time with those people where you can
- Spending time in nature
- Laughing
- Listening to music you love
- Meditating
- Practicing gratitude every day
And we know that there is much more that we can add to this list. This is what I teach every week and yet at this particular workshop with these school leaders, I realised that ‘self-care’ goes deeper than that.
Self-care is not a luxury. We know this. Self-care is a necessity. We know this too. But surely as a school leader or indeed as a teacher, self-care is much more. Self-care is our duty; it is our responsibility as an educator to practice self-care is it not? It is our duty and responsibility to our pupils and students and to those who work with us as well as ourselves!
As I spoke to these school leaders in this particular workshop, I heard a voice within me that came out of nowhere; like I was tuning into something that needed to be said and yet was so very real and relevant. Self-care isn’t just for us and those we love. It is our duty as people who spend our hours and minutes educating and working with young people, that we are as well as we can be. It is as simple as that.
It’s not just a fancy phrase ‘when we are well, they will be well’ that we can ignore and say to ourselves ‘well that’s great for those who have the time to do it.’ It is our duty; our responsibility to those pupils and students we teach to be well for them. And yes on reading this, some teachers will pull at this thread and say that this is yet another pressure on us as teachers and it’s all about the pupils or students… again. No not at all.
I fight the corner for teacher well-being every day and I know it to be the truth that when you are well in yourself, you not only ‘get the job done,’ you actually, dare I say it, maybe start enjoying your job? I am not suggesting that we all hop, skip and jump into school every day clicking our heels in the air, but maybe if we are not burned out and exhausted, we can actually enjoy parts of our day and feel some sense of accomplishment. So it’s a win/win then?
So if it’s a win/win, why are we all not doing this? What is our greatest obstacle? Time? Busy schedule? No. The biggest obstacle is… YOU. You are your own obstacle. Let me give you a list of what I hear from teachers in relation to self-care:
- I don’t have time
- I have too many responsibilities inside and outside of work
- I don’t fancy all this ‘Buddhist breathing malarkey!’
- Too much on my list – I have to put myself last
- I have too many duties/responsibilities to even think of myself
These are but to name a few and yes they are ALL viable reasons but the fact is you DO have time to pause and breathe a couple, if not a few times a day. You can do it whilst you are working, planning, teaching, eating, drinking, walking, driving… during any activity. You DO have time to check-in with yourself for 2/3 minutes in your day; as they say in panto ‘oh yes you do’ (because I can already hear you say you don’t and that I wouldn’t understand your schedule etc.). But the reality is that you do.
Self-care does not need to be a big long list of luxurious activities like a spa break and a posh meal. We can do those when we find the time (and money!). Self-care is about taking your lunch break in school… sorry but who exactly wants to be taught by a hungry cranky teacher or deal with a hungry cranky principal? No one! Take your breaks! If there is something that has to be done (extra-curricular maybe), then if absolutely necessary shorten your break, but do take it. Self-care is about enjoying your break too, enjoy your cuppa and your food. Notice what you are drinking and eating, taste it, enjoy each bite. This simple act will help to calm you and if done every day, will make a real difference.
Self-care is about recognising that you are ONE person with only a certain amount of energy, time and resources and accepting that. No, you are not going to get everything done and that is a fact. Self-care is about you creating tiny (or larger) spaces in your day to pause and breathe; for example in your car before you go into school, pause and breathe for 30 seconds (3 conscious breaths) and then go into school.
And again, I hear your protest but yes you do have the time! Self-care is about being organised enough in your week that you actually plan something nice for yourself; a walk, an exercise class, time with a good friend, a nice meal planned at home on a Tuesday… whatever it is that gives you even a small breather and time for yourself. Self-care isn’t actually a big deal at all, it’s just something that we have forgotten to include and that we push to one side because of a frozen belief we created within ourselves that we don’t deserve it or we don’t have time for it. But the great thing about thoughts is you can change them any time, starting now!
And so back to my school leaders in Mullingar that morning… as I stood there with about 70 school leaders saying all of the above, I realised that I had gone a little ‘Martin Luther King’ on them! I had raised my voice and was verging on giving them a lecture which I would never wish to do, after all they are the people on the ground working so hard endeavoring to improve the lives of children around the country. And so I apologised that I had raised my voice but did ask them; ‘what do you think of this?’ And so came the nodding of heads, the reluctant admittance that this was the truth of the matter, and principals coming to me afterward saying that they felt they really needed to hear it.
I guess in a way it gave them ‘permission’ to look after themselves as they now saw it as their duty to the school, and deep down they knew that this was the truth. No one wants a tired, burned out principal in their school so self-care then MUST be a priority as it is their duty to everyone around them. Because, we are a community in a school… when one link is exhausted and not well, it will inevitably in some way, affect the rest of the community.
So please remember to add self-care (no matter how small) to your list this week. It won’t just be benefiting you and your family and friends, it will directly affect the pupils and students you teach or work with and it will be directly affecting your professional relationships too. When we don’t look after ourselves, we do end up feeling agitated, irritated by small things and less well in ourselves and let’s face it; it’s not just the children – who wants a cranky teacher in the staff room either?! Stay well everyone.
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