The Truth About Self-Care for Teachers And Why You Deserve It

Have you found yourself lying in bed at night, exhausted but scrolling endlessly on your phone? 

We give all of our time and energy to our students, our families, and our endless to-do lists, leaving nothing for ourselves. So, instead of resting, we stay up late trying to reclaim just a little bit of “me time.” 

In this episode, I want to flip the script on self-care for teachers. It’s not something you need to “earn” or squeeze in on the weekends with a bubble bath or a massage (though those are great, too!). True self-care is about managing teacher stress in real time, creating small moments of mindfulness throughout the day, and learning how to increase self-awareness so you can recognize stress before it takes over. Taking care of yourself isn’t selfish, it’s necessary.

I’ll also share simple mindfulness exercises and a body scan meditation to help you increase your self-awareness and recognize stress before it takes over. Plus, I’ll guide you through breathing exercises for stress and practical strategies on how to prevent teacher burnout, so you can feel calmer, more in control, and actually enjoy your time without feeling guilty. 

It’s time to rethink self-care, create habits that truly restore your energy, and give yourself permission to put your well-being first. Tune in now!

Stay empowered,
Jen

Links mentioned: https://empowerededucator.com/meditations

empowerededucator.com/thrive

Empowered Educator Card Deck

Let’s keep the conversation going! Find me at:
empowerededucator.com/resources
Instagram: @jenrafferty_
Facebook: Empowered Educator Faculty Room

Stay empowered,
Jen

Let’s keep the conversation going! Find me at:

empowerededucator.com/resources

Instagram: @jenrafferty_

Facebook: Empowered Educator Faculty Room

Empowered Educator Card Deck

Transcript

Are you feeling exhausted by the constant demands of teaching? Do you find yourself wondering if there's a way to balance both your career and your well being without burning out? Welcome to Unlock Your Teaching Potential, your permission slip to hit the brakes, recharge, and reignite your joy for teaching and living. I'm Dr. Jen Rafferty, former music teacher, author, TEDx speaker, and founder of Empowered Educator. And I've been where you are, exhausted, overwhelmed and just trying to get through the day, making it all work. So each week, I'll bring you short, powerful episodes with actionable tools to help you reclaim your energy, set boundaries and step into your full potential, both in and out of your role as an educator. So take a breath and let's dive in. It's time to unlock your teaching potential, because the world needs you at your best. 

Hello and welcome back. It is so good to be here with you. I am joining you today drinking my delicious cup of cinnamon spiced tea as it's warming up my fingers on this cold, cold winter day. And I wanted to actually start today's episode with a comment that somebody shared on one of the feedback forms from our class, “Thrive”. And she mentioned that she realized that self care isn't completing a to do list or earning a mental health day or a fun activity. And I thought this was such a great takeaway and I wanted to take a moment to really dive into that and expand that thought a little bit before we dive into the question for today's episode.Because I think we've been given this story that self care is truly something that you have to earn. It becomes something that you need to sacrifice something else for in order to get your me time, which leads us to having these special self care day activities like going for a massage or getting a bubble bath or getting your nails done, or having a girls day. And don't get me wrong, all of those things are super fun. I love all of those things. However, you don't have to earn it in a way that we carve out the special time for self care, because what starts to happen is if you're going through your day without paying any attention to yourself, you end up spending some of those minutes before bed, almost like revenge time where you need to get your me time back. 

So instead of taking care of yourself and going to sleep when you know that you're feeling tired, you're spending hours, sometimes scrolling on Tiktok or Instagram because you need to get that me time back. But when you're doing that, you're not actually engaging in something that's filling your cup. In fact, you're activating more of your stress response, which is then going to continue the cycle of you not having a good night's sleep, and then you wake up the next day you're not feeling rested, and on and on and on and on, we go. And look, I've been there, you know, especially when my kids were younger, having that me time at the end of the night felt sacred, no matter how tired I was, because I felt like I couldn't get it all day, it was teaching all day, and then it was picking up the kids from school, doing whatever after school activities needed To get done, figuring out how to make dinner, because I did not plan ahead that day or many of the dates that I would need to make dinner in the end of the day, and then it would be bath time, bedtime stories. And by the time everyone was asleep, I was exhausted, but I felt so empty, like I needed something for me. 

So I would totally zone out and binge some reality TV on Netflix and scroll on my phone while I was in bed before I went to sleep, just to kind of have some control over my own time. But what that was doing was making it worse. And so what I love about this comment from the person who shared this on their feedback form from Thrive, it's true. Self care isn't a to do list. You don't have to earn it. There isn't like the special fun activity that is about self care. What self care is, is taking care of your basic human needs. That's really what the definition of self care is. Our society is turn it into something completely different that costs money and lots of time and is treated like some sort of treats. It's something. That you have access to all the time, and it is essential for you as a human being in our world, when we talk about taking care of your well being, we are talking about being self aware. We are talking about establishing a dialog, a relationship with your body, so you recognize when you're not feeling well. We're talking about setting boundaries, self care and caring for your own well being is about using your voice, creating safety and speaking up for yourself, being authentic, and visible, and honoring the time that you do have. 

Because I'm going to challenge you to notice all of the time that you actually have throughout the day, that you spend in ways that aren't aligned with actually who you want to be and what you say you want to do. So for example, you are in the car and you are heading to work, and the train comes by, and by me in central New York, the train can take anywhere from one to seven minutes. So here's an opportunity to either use that time to feel frustrated and choose to feel annoyed that now you're sitting in this traffic and you have to wait until this train passes by for you to get to where you want to go, or you can choose that this one to seven minutes is a gift that you get to have as a moment of reflection. What a perfect time to do a breathing exercise, or some tapping that you can do to regulate your nervous system, a little bit some gratitude of something that you're feeling particularly thankful for in that moment. We take these moments for granted that are given to us throughout the day. You know you're sitting waiting for your child to come out of school. You know, instead of scrolling on Instagram or checking your email, have that time to have your favorite book in the car and read a couple pages. These are choices that we get to make all of the time. 

And look, I know sometimes in our lives, it gets busy and we can feel really distracted by everything that's going on around us, that those minutes or moments of time that we could offer ourselves seemed to just slip through our fingers. But if you're really paying attention, there are so many of these moments throughout the day, so I appreciate this person sharing that on their feedback form from the class that they took with Thrive with Empowered Educator, because that is something that is essential for showing up as your best self, knowing that you're worthy of all of the time that you choose to invest in yourself. 

So thank you. I wanted to start with that before we dive into this week's question, which is from Jesse in Trenton, New Jersey. And Jesse asks, “I want to be more self aware, but I'm afraid of being too self aware. Is that a thing?” Oh, such a good question. So I want to make a difference right here between being self aware and self conscious, because I think sometimes there's a little bit of confusion here. Being self conscious is about placing your focus and attention on what other people might be thinking. So when you're speaking to somebody, you are worried or concerned what that other person might think about what you're saying, how it might be received, what are they going to do? How are they going to react? If you're wearing something that might be a little bit out of your comfort zone, but like, you really liked the hot pink jacket, and you really want to wear the hot pink jacket, so you're walking around in this gorgeous hot pink jacket, and you are feeling very self conscious. This is about other people, and being self aware is about knowing yourself. 

And one of the best ways to start your self awareness journey is, and this is something I will always come back to, is becoming aware of your body. Because your brain thinks 60,000 to 85,000 thoughts every single day. And most of these thoughts come from free places. It comes from fear. It comes from past experiences and ego. That's really it. We tend to think of the same things every single day, the same thoughts every single day. And unless you're learning something new and well, we can go into that another time. But in general, that's where the majority of our thoughts come from. And when we start the self awareness journey, we need to start with our body, because not every one of those 60,000 to 85,000 thoughts going through your mind every day is true, your thoughts are options. They are not facts. What's true is the sensations that your body is feeling, your nervous system is telling you something. And the self awareness journey needs to start there, and a really great exercise to do often as you're starting this is a body scan. 

So if you're listening right now and you're in the car, you can even do this in the car, although I recommend that you try this again when you're not in the car, so you can really pay attention to what's going on here in your body. But if you're sitting somewhere, even if you're on a walk, start to notice where are your feet, how do they feel in your socks, or if you're bare foot, how is it feeling on the floor? Know, where is your torso or your legs touching the chair? Or if you're walking, how do your legs feel moving? Or if you're walking, how do your legs feel as they move? How do your shoulders feel in your shirt, when you feel the fabric on your shoulders, where are your arms? You feel the weight of your arms at your sides or in your lap. Notice your neck. Is it loose? Is it tight? You don't need to shift anything. We're just noticing. Bring your attention to your forehead. Is it tight? Is your brow furrowed? Was there ease in your forehead? Now, bring your attention to the top of your head and see if you can notice how your hair feels, if you have hair, or if you don't have hair, how does the air feel on your head? And something as simple as doing this body scan gets your focus and attention to where the information is. And so when you harness this skill, when you start to become more appointed with the sensations of your body, your self awareness starts to increase. Because when something is off, or if something doesn't feel right, your body will tell you before your brain does. And that's really where self awareness gets to start, and that's where, when you harness this ability more and more, and it is a journey. 

You don't wake up one day with the, you know, full capacity of being self aware all of the time. This is a practice. The more that you practice this, the easier it's going to be to notice when you need to make a shift, when something doesn't feel aligned, and you need to make another choice, when things are feeling great, because your body is going to feel expansive and at ease, and calm, and relaxed, or fuzzy with energy and excitement. This all happens in the body, and I'm going to put a link here in the comment section, because this is really great tool. We have beginner guided meditations. And one of those meditations that I made is actually a body scan that you can listen to on the same podcast app that you're listening to this podcast on. And the more you practice that body scan, or other body scan meditations like that, the easier this is going to be. And just like everything else, it gets to be a priority for you, because self awareness unlocks the key to everything we're talking about, unlocking your teaching potential. This unlocks all of your potential. If you're not aware, you can't change it. You can't change something you don't notice. And so becoming aware, noticing the sensations that are happening in your body, will give you more information than anything coming from your brain. So being too self aware for our purposes, I don't think this is a thing, and I think when you continue on this journey, you will discover more doors you get to unlock, because, you know, we're like onions, like ogres, like Shrek, we have layers. 

So every time you kind of peel off a layer of self awareness, there's more stuff underneath. And this journey of discovery is, I think, one of the best parts of the human experience. And as teachers, as educators, when we show up with this level of self awareness, we become the best versions of ourselves for our students, and that's really what they need. Now, right now, our kids are living in a generation where everyone is stressed and activated, their nervous systems are just so jacked up, they're through the roof. And we know that our best, learning, our best, growing, our best evolving, can't happen with that kind of environment, and because the only person you have any agency in changing is yourself. This gets to start with you. So thank you, Jesse, so much for this question. It was fantastic. 

And if you're listening right now and you have a question that you want answered on the show, send it to hello@empowerededucator.com with a subject line “Podcast”. And just like last time and every episode in Season Four, I'm going to end the show by picking a card from the Empowered Educator card deck that has some of our most awesome catch phrases that serve as reminders throughout the week. So today's card is, ooh, “the most generous thing you can do for other people is take care of yourself”. And I know that this is a reminder that we all need all of the time, especially as teachers. We have this idea that selflessness and martyrdom is what's needed to get the job done, and the truth is that's not serving us anymore. It's not serving anybody anymore. It's not serving our kids. It's not serving our families at home. It's not serving our own kids. The most generous thing you can do for them is take care of yourself, because when you show up as your best self, it creates possibility for not just you, but everyone around you. 

And an Empowered Educator, we are looking for teachers who are feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. Teachers who are finding themselves counting down the days until Friday, the weeks until summer vacation, and the years until retirement. Because our self paced class Thrive starts up again on April 1st, and it is exactly the place to find the reset that you're looking for join the 1000s of teachers who have already taken this life changing course and have avoided burnout, reduced their stress, created a healthy work life, blend, and rediscovered their passion for teaching. Thrive will give you the tools for sustainable well being, so you can show up as your best self, both at work and at home.

Doors are open for registration at empowerededucator.com/thrive. Remember, the most generous thing that you can do for your students is take care of yourself. So if you found today's episode helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a moment of inspiration. And if you're loving the show, I'd love for you to leave a review. This helps more educators like you find the space to unlock their teaching potential too. Until next time, please remember that you are a gift to this world, so act accordingly. See you soon.