Teacher Wellbeing

In this episode I am sharing with you a clip from the Resilient Teacher Roadmap online course, and it’s really the metaphor that underpins the roadmap, about approaching our resilience and wellbeing the way an engineer builds a bridge: knowing and planning for it to flood and designing the bridge accordingly, not building a flimsy bridge and praying it doesn’t rain.
You can find the Resilient Teacher Roadmap course in my online shop at anytime https://selfcareforteachers.thinkific.com/courses/roadmap
But I also want to invite you to join the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching Program, which starts on 29th January or 1st February, depending which cohort you join. It’s a 6 month group coaching program for teachers wanting support, encouragement and community in building their resilience and wellbeing in 2022.
Enrolment is open now, head to selfcareforteachers.com.au/resilientteacher
You heard Emma share in the previous episode how being a part of the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching Program helped her make some changes in her life and improve her wellbeing as a person and as a teacher. And I’d love to support you this year to do the same.
So here’s a little snippet of my approach and my clients have found it a really valuable metaphor to help them reflect on their resilience and wellbeing, set goals and seek support when needed.

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Happy New Year teachers! In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing podcast I have a fantastic chat with one of my past teacher clients, Emma. Emma shares so generously about the challenges she’s experienced with perfectionism, people pleasing and the martyr culture getting in the way of wellbeing.
She’s spent a lot of time reflecting on this and unlearning these tendencies and shares some beautiful insights in this episode, including letting go of the need to be ‘super teacher’, recognising the difference between school-imposed deadlines and self-imposed deadlines, and the power of having trusted people to hold you accountable.
Emma also tells us how a supportive principal and 2 supportive colleagues saved her teaching career, so I think it’s an incredible lesson that no matter your position in a school you can and do make a difference to the people you work with. The question is will it be a positive difference or not?
There’s so much good stuff in this episode, including setting boundaries, the ancient Jewish practice of Sabbath, and giving yourself permission to do more things just for fun. Emma also shares a bit about her experience in the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching program, which is open for enrolment again right now.
The Resilient Teacher is a 6 month group coaching program for teachers building their resilience and wellbeing in 2022. It’s 1 individual coaching session with me, and 12 fortnightly group coaching calls to support you throughout Semester 1 this year, beginning with a welcome call on Saturday 29th January 2022. Calls are held on Zoom so you can join from anywhere in Australia, on Tuesday evenings or Saturday mornings.
You can go to www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/resilientteacher to find out more

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In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast I have a really interesting conversation with Gail Swift from Plans to Prosper Coaching. Gail is an educational guide and Kolbe Index Consultant who works with schools and teachers in the United States on bringing out their best when everybody is free to be themselves.
Gail shares with us about something called conation, which the dictionary says is ‘the mental faculty of purpose, desire, or will to perform an action’. Gail explains how conation is different to cognition and also personality, but how all three are needed for success. We talk about how this plays out in classrooms and staffroom, and how understanding our ways of working can help us get along better. Gail shares some advice for school leaders trying to motivated disengaged staff, and we have a great chat about rethinking the way we approach staff meetings to make them more effective, efficient and engaging, which I’m sure is something we all want. Ultimately this episode is about closing the distances between us and building understanding, and learning to get along better in our families, teams and communities and I hope you enjoy this conversation with Gail!
Reminder: now is a great time to put your name down on the waiting list to work with me when I come back from Maternity Leave in 2022. I’ll only be back part time so it will definitely be a case of first in best dressed and the waiting list for my 1:1 coaching or for the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching Program will be notified first when spots open up in my calendar: https://mailchi.mp/33f69a083043/work-with-ellen-waiting-list

There is also a waiting list for School Wellbeing Champions too. In 2020 and 2021 I’ve run a number of meetups and workshops for School Wellbeing Champions, who are the amazing educators and staff members who are driving wellbeing initiatives from the ground up in schools. And in 2022 I plan to run some more of these, with options for both PD relating to wellbeing initiatives you can run in your school, and opportunities for networking, connecting and learning from Wellbeing Champions around Australia. So if that sounds like you, pop your name on the interest list at selfcareforteachers.com.au/wellbeingchampions and of course the link will be in the show notes and the description of your podcast app!

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In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast I have a really valuable and vulnerable conversation with Laura, who you may know from Instagram as @educatinglaura or from her podcast, After the Bell. Laura is a high school teacher from Victoria and we recorded this while in lockdown so there is a little bit of background noise from her kids but we all know the realities of lockdowns these days, don’t we?
Laura tells us about her journey overcoming the martyr syndrome that exists in our education culture, and how that really played out for her in her first several years of teaching. For example she tells us about the problematic beliefs she had that made it such a struggle to make a change like taking work emails off her phone and feeling the pressure to be available 24/7, as well as the huge difference it makes to have a Principal who understands and actively supports teachers wellbeing as people first and teachers second. Laura also tells us about a couple of big personal wake up calls that started to really shift her focus on herself and what really matters in her life, and I do want to just share a content warning that we touch on pregnancy loss in this episode so just be aware of that as you listen. Laura also tells us about what wellbeing looks like for her these days and her top tips for early career teachers, and she has some really great tips to share.
Just before I get to the interview, I want to let you know that now is a great time to put your name down on the waiting list to work with me when I come back from Maternity Leave in 2022. I’ll only be back part time so it will definitely be a case of first in best dressed and the waiting list for my 1:1 coaching or for the Resilient Teacher Group Coaching Program will be notified first when spots open up in my calendar: https://mailchi.mp/33f69a083043/work-with-ellen-waiting-list
There is also a waiting list for School Wellbeing Champions too. In 2020 and 2021 I’ve run a number of meetups and workshops for School Wellbeing Champions, who are the amazing educators and staff members who are driving wellbeing initiatives from the ground up in schools. And in 2022 I plan to run some more of these, with options for both PD relating to wellbeing initiatives you can run in your school, and opportunities for networking, connecting and learning from Wellbeing Champions around Australia. So if that sounds like you, pop your name on the interest list at selfcareforteachers.com.au/wellbeingchampions

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In this episode we hear from a guest host, Ellie Huth, whose story you heard back in episode 2 of this season. If you haven’t yet listened to that I recommend you do so but Ellie does give a brief overview of her background here too. This episode is all about the power of knowing and using our character strengths for wellbeing. Ellie first tells us about her experience with her Employee Advisory Program, or EAP, which is where she was first introduced to the concept of Character Strengths, and then she went on to study them further as part of her Masters in Wellbeing. Ellie tells us what the character strengths are, the science behind using them for wellbeing and how we can find out about our strengths.
This episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast is brought to you by the30 Days of Self-Care Challenge private podcast audio course: https://selfcareforteachers.com.au/challenge

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In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast I speak with Lill from The Teacher Collection. Lill is a primary school teacher in Victoria and she founded the Teacher Collection about 2.5 years ago, which now has a series of wellbeing products for teachers. Lill tells us about her struggles in her early years of teaching that led her to creating the first set of wellbeing cards, and how they helped her just take small steps regularly to make some changes in her life. We talk about the importance of recognising and labelling our thoughts and feelings, being vulnerable and asking for help, and how wellbeing is different for everybody. Lill tells us what Wellbeing means to her and the power of focusing on the things we can control.
Connect with Lill on Instagram @the.teacher.collection or on the website https://theteachercollection.com
This episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast is brought to you by the Resilient Teacher Roadmap self-paced ecourse: https://selfcareforteachers.com.au/roadmap

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This episode of the Teacher Wellbeing podcast is a fantastic interview with Meg Durham from Open Mind Education. Depending how long you’ve been listening, you may remember Meg from way back in Season 3, Episode 7 and I’m so thrilled to have her back on the podcast. Meg also has just launched a podcast of her own called School of Wellbeing, so do a search for that in your favourite podcast app and get listening to it too.
In this episode Meg tells us about her journey over the last few years integrating wellbeing into her life, coming from a place of knowing a lot but having to learn to apply it in new and very challenging circumstances. We talk about the reality of the process of change being messy, how wellbeing plays out with teachers and schools, the importance of buy in from staff when you’re implementing school wellbeing programs and how long they really take to embed, plus the two approaches of proactiveness and learned helplessness that Meg and I have both observed. Meg then shares a framework that I’ve found so helpful and I hope you will too: she tells us about the 5 Ps that hold us back and the 5 Cs that help us change. It’s a brilliant conversation and I’m so excited to bring it to you.
Connect with Meg on Instagram @megdurham__ or on her website https://openmindeducation.com or find her new podcast ‘School of Wellbeing’ in your podcast app now!
This episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast is brought to you by the30 Days of Self-Care Challenge private podcast audio course: https://selfcareforteachers.com.au/challenge

Sign up for the Self-Care for Teachers newsletter here.

In this episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast I interview Ellie, a high school teacher who decided to take a break from teaching in 2021 after a particularly challenging year health wise in 2020. Ellie is a parent, a teacher and is also studying a Masters in Educational Leadership specialising in Wellbeing. We talk about her journey balancing teaching, parenting and studying, and the decision point that led her to taking a break from teaching after experiencing panic attacks and reaching the point of dreading going to work. Ellie tells us what she did to get support and support herself, as well as what she’s been learning about teacher wellbeing in her Masters. Ellie has also kindly agreed to do some specific episodes on some of those learnings later in the season as guest host while I’m off on Maternity leave, so stay tuned for those upcoming episodes.
This episode of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast is brought to you by the Resilient Teacher Roadmap self-paced ecourse: https://selfcareforteachers.com.au/roadmap

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Welcome to Season 9 of the Teacher Wellbeing Podcast! Self-care is so often sold to us by Instagram influencers and companies that want to sell us goop to put on our faces as some lovely indulgence. But that's rarely been my experience. It's also not the kind of self-care that I advocate for, or that underpins my work here at Self-Care for Teachers. My experience of self-care, the kind that I've found most revolutionary in my life, that I teach my clients and that I see making a difference for them is the kind of self-care that is a bit of a chore.
By the time you hear this, I will be on maternity leave, but this season of the Teacher Wellbeing podcast will be going out fortnightly while I’m in my baby bubble. I’ve recorded some great interviews for this season so I hope you enjoy them.
Resilient Teacher Roadmap self-paced eourse: https://selfcareforteachers.com.au/roadmap
My online shop: https://selfcareforteachers.thinkific.com/collections
Waiting list for working with me in 2022: https://mailchi.mp/33f69a083043/work-with-ellen-waiting-list

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Gentle reminder, dear teacher: You are NOT lazy, you are tired. There is a very real difference!
In challenging times, it's normal to have less energy than usual. Our capitalist culture has conditioned us to connect our worth to our productivity, but your worth is NOT determined by how much you can get done. It's ok if you feel that you have less capacity right now, that's to be expected.
You are NOT lazy, you are tired, and there is a very real difference. You are doing a good job in really tough circumstances AND it's ok if you're not as productive as usual.
Coming up in September: 30 Days of Self-Care Challenge (Workbook and Private Podcast Audio Course) Sign up at www.selfcareforteachers.com.au/challenge

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