Unlock Your Teaching Potential

Teaching While Human: Permission to Breathe When Your Brain is Maxed Out

• Jen Rafferty • Season 4 • Episode 5

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Teaching while carrying a heavy mental load is exhausting, but there are simple, powerful ways to restore your energy and reconnect with yourself. If you’re an educator feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or emotionally drained, this podcast is your space to breathe, reflect, and reignite your passion for teaching.

Many teachers struggle with stress, anxiety, and work-life balance, especially those juggling lesson planning, parent meetings, student accommodations, and caregiving responsibilities at home. But self-care isn’t selfish—it’s the key to being the best educator you can be.

In each episode, you'll discover:
✔️ Mindfulness practices to ease stress in seconds
✔️ Strategies to quiet your inner critic and embrace self-compassion
✔️ The power of affirmations to shift your mindset
✔️ Small but impactful daily habits for emotional resilience
✔️ Why prioritizing your well-being makes you a stronger teacher and role model

The most generous thing you can do for your students is take care of yourself. Let this podcast be your weekly reminder to recharge, refocus, and step into your power as an educator and human first.

Subscribe now so you never miss an episode, and if this show resonates with you, please leave a review—it helps more teachers find the support they deserve!




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

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

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. So I was having brunch this morning with two dear friends who I used to work with at when I was teaching at a school in central New York, and we were talking about this underlying buzz of anxiety that everybody's feeling, that sometimes it's easy to ignore, but especially recently, with everything that's been going on, particularly in our politics, it has become just louder and louder and it's making all of the things that used to seem small, much bigger, and moving through your day like that is exhausting. We talked about just the mental load that we carry with us, particularly if you are a teacher and you're also a parent or you're somebody who's caring for your own aging parents. There's a lot to hold and it feels heavy and exhausting. You know, when you're in a class we were talking about being an elementary school teacher with one of my friends and all of the different accommodations that needs to be made, and this person has a lesson and this person needs to take their medication and we need to have this conversation with this parent by the end of the day. And there's this meeting that popped up that we didn't know about, plus the things that are going on at home, reminding your kids to take their instruments to school, because it's an A day and you still have all these papers to grade, but you're not sure how to do it in the timely fashion that you need to, and it just keeps getting heavier and the brain fog can feel very real, can feel very real. And if you're resonating with this overload of just mental resources, or you're out of mental resources for this cognitive load that you feel that you are carrying, do yourself a favor and just stop. Just stop for a minute, for 30 seconds, for 10 seconds. Just stop for a minute for 30 seconds, for 10 seconds, and put your hand to your heart and take a couple breaths, and that might feel wildly uncomfortable, but if you continue to go at that pace of continuing to add things to your mental load and not ever stopping to take an intentional breath, your body is going to stop it all for you.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

I read recently just this beautiful poem by Andrea Gibson, and if you haven't listened or read to any of Andrea Gibson's stuff, I highly recommend you do. It's quite beautiful and, if I'm being honest, I can't read through any of it without sobbing myself. But one of the educators we've been working with, laura I'm going to give you a shout out right now introduced me to Andrea and their poem about goosebumps and I absolutely fell in love with it and I've been reading their stuff ever since. But this poem caught me because it was so poignant. The poem is called diagnosis. It goes I suffer from unrequited self-love.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

I love myself but I don't love myself back. Oof, that speaks to my soul, you know, and when we talk about self-love, I think sometimes people feel it's too ooey gooey or the emotions are too much, or it's a little cheesy or corny. But self love is recognizing that cognitive load. In this example, recognizing that you don't feel okay, recognizing and giving yourself grace that it's okay to not feel okay and then doing something about it. Feel okay and then doing something about it. The doing something about it is an act of self-love. And when you do something about it, the act of self-love is not just for you. It is about everyone else in your sphere. It's about everyone else that you come into contact with. It's about your students, it's about your own kids, your partner, your own parents, your friends, because you are the variable in all of those situations and while there's so much out of our control, your choices and how you show up is the only thing that's in your control. That's an act of radical self-love. That's your agency and that's truly where empowerment comes in. We so often forget that we even have a choice. We just go on feeling tired and we complain about it and we get up and we do it again the next day. But what is that costing you? And particularly in an environment where our students are learning how to be humans from us, we get to show them what it looks like to love ourselves. You know, what's true is, if we want our students to know their self-worth, we need to know ours.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

And something like this just stopping for a few seconds, hand to heart, bringing your energy back to you, becoming aware of where your body is, feeling the stress, breathing into that space it can be really that simple, and so often we undervalue that simple act of breathing. You take about 23,000 breaths every single day. How many of those are intentional? What would happen if you stopped just a few times throughout the day, hand to heart, took some intentional breaths, really got connected with your body? Where are you feeling the stress and breathing into that space? What a gift you're giving to yourself. I talked on the podcast a few weeks ago about refusing to become distracted from your important work, and all of the stressors are distractions and, of course, some of them have very real implications. But the stress that you feel inside of your body becomes the distraction, because it's how you show up to the external stressors. I could do a whole series about self-love. But besides the awareness, besides the reconnection to self, besides the act of choosing, which is all an act of self-love, another aspect of this is understanding what your inner monologue is saying, your inner voice, about what you're experiencing matters, and so, while paying attention to your body, paying attention to the stress and the tension breathing into, that is one piece of it.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

Another piece I want to talk about today are what we call, here at Empowered Educator, your inner bully or your inner bestie. And when you consider the voice that is going on inside of your head, the words that you use about yourself, ask yourself is this the voice of my inner bully or is this the voice of my inner bestie? Your inner bully says you're not good enough. Your inner bully says this is too hard, this is too much, you'll never get through this. Your inner bully says everything sucks anyway, so why bother? Your voice doesn't matter. Nothing you're doing matters. And what's true about your inner bully is actually the same as every other bully they just want to be loved, they want to be heard, they want to be healed.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

And while we're not going into that piece in this particular episode, it is important that you recognize who's at the microphone, because on the other side is your inner bestie, who is your best friend, who loves you so hard, who wants you to be amazing, because they know that you already are amazing. They say things like you can do this. You are so capable, you've got this. Remember who you are. You're incredible. Your voice matters. You are enough. What you have to say matters. You're doing great work. I love you, no matter what.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

Recognize when your inner bestie isn't at the microphone and make an active choice, because it's so easy to become distracted by the stressors that your inner bully is the one that takes the microphone more often. So, as another act of self-love, as another exercise in self-love, start paying attention to your inner monologue. How do you speak to yourself? And one of the things we love to practice here at Empowered Educator is take a marker and write on your mirror you are amazing, you are enough, you've got this. Whatever message speaks to you, but that way, you see that message every single time you look in the mirror. And if there are other people who are looking in that mirror too, you get to say to them you're welcome, because everyone's got an inner bully. Love yourself enough to remember that you can consciously choose who's at the microphone. Love yourself enough to give yourself grace when you fall short, because this type of work is the journey. This is how we show up and be the best educator that we can be for the kids in front of us who are looking to us, especially during these difficult times.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

So we're going to end the podcast today with a card from the Empowered Educator card deck, and this card says oh, what if you took care of your well being the same way you take care of your teeth? That is a great question. You know. You think about how much time, energy, money, we spend on our teeth. Oh, my gosh, you probably have a particular toothpaste that you like, particular toothbrushes that you get. Hopefully, you change out your toothbrushes every once in a while. You floss, you make appointments to go to the dentist, you get x-rays.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

What if we paid that much attention to our mental health, to your well-being? What would change for you? What would change? The answer is everything, literally everything, and you can start right now. You don't have to wait. Start now.

Dr. Jen Rafferty:

Start by using even just one of these exercises that I've shared over the last few minutes as you're listening, because everything you do creates a ripple effect, whether it's subconsciously, whether it's through your default or through your intention, and Empowered Educator is about intentionality. It's about creating more conscious awareness of what used to be subconscious autopilot. So you get to start today. 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 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.