The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive – Empowering Educators Through Self-Care

We tell other people to give themselves grace—but how often do we offer that same grace to ourselves?

In this solo episode, Aimée explores the grace teachers need, too: the inner critic, perfectionism, the pressure to do everything, accepting our limits, boundaries, accountability, and compassion for the people we are still becoming.

Grace isn't about lowering our standards or pretending our choices don't matter. It's about learning to take responsibility without turning every mistake into evidence that something is wrong with us. Pasted markdown

What if we could be accountable for who we are becoming without being cruel to who we are today?

Visit The Ripple Effect for episode resources and the accompanying Professional Development Reflection Guide:

The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive

The way we care for ourselves creates ripples far beyond us.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

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The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

with Dr. Scott Cohen

What if the behavior we see is only part of the story?

In this episode of The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive, Aimée Donoho is joined by Dr. Scott Cohen, a physician who spent more than three decades caring for children and families and whose work now focuses on ADHD and lifestyle health.

Together, they explore Awareness from both sides of the classroom: what may be happening beneath a student's behavior—and what may be happening within the educator who is responding to it.

Scott shares how challenging behavior can sometimes reflect an unsolved problem a young person may not yet understand or know how to communicate. The conversation then turns toward the educator: What happens to our patience, attention, and ability to remain curious when we are tired, hungry, stressed, or overwhelmed?

Aimée and Scott explore the space between reaction and response, along with the often-overlooked roles of sleep, nourishment, movement, and restorative practices in educator well-being.

This isn't about asking teachers to diagnose their students—or giving educators another wellness checklist.

It's an invitation to notice: what is happening within us, what we may not see in someone else, and what becomes possible when we create just a little more space before we respond.

And the conversation closes with a question at the heart of The Ripple Effect:

Who was the teacher who made you feel seen?

Dr. Scott Cohen is a physician with more than three decades of experience in pediatrics. His current work focuses on ADHD and lifestyle health, supporting children, teens, and families through everyday foundations of well-being including nutrition, restorative sleep, physical activity, meditation, and other lifestyle practices. In your conversation, he describes his current work as coaching families of children and teenagers with ADHD.

For teachers who are also parents, Scott's work may offer additional resources for understanding and supporting children and teens with ADHD.

Learn more about Dr. Cohen and his work:

Lifestyle Health Consultants

Visit The Ripple Effect for episode resources and the accompanying Professional Development Reflection Guide:

The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive

The way we care for ourselves creates ripples far beyond us.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

Welcome to Season Two of The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive.

We begin with Awareness—and one simple question:

How am I showing up?

Educators are extraordinary at noticing others. We notice the student who is unusually quiet, the colleague who seems overwhelmed, and the subtle shifts in a classroom before anyone says a word. But how often do we turn that same attention toward ourselves?

In this solo episode, Aimée explores awareness as the place where growth begins. She reflects on the difference between functioning and truly being well, the signals our bodies and emotions give us, and the small space awareness can create between reaction and response.

And within that space is something powerful: choice.

We may not be able to choose what happens around us, but greater awareness can help us become more intentional about how we respond—and how we want to show up.

As a new school year begins, this episode is an invitation to notice without judgment, listen with curiosity, and consider two questions:

How am I showing up?

How do I want to show up?

Because awareness isn’t something we simply teach our students. It’s something we can practice alongside them.

That’s the ripple.

Tammy Helfrich - “How You Show Up”

A reflection on intentionality and how we choose to show up in our lives.

Read “How You Show Up”

Daniel J. Siegel - Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

Awareness, reflection, and our capacity to observe our internal experiences.

Richard J. Davidson & Sharon Begley - The Emotional Life of Your Brain

Emotional patterns and the brain’s capacity for change.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

As the school year comes to a close, this episode offers a moment to pause, reflect, and honor what we’ve carried.

This is not a recap.

It’s a space to acknowledge the time, energy, and care we’ve given—often in ways that go unseen.

Together, we reflect on:

• the moments that mattered

• the emotional labor educators carry

• self-regulation and repair

• releasing what no longer needs to be held

• and stepping into summer with intention, restoration, and care

This episode also explores the importance of unplugging from productivity, reconnecting with joy, and remembering that rest is not something we earn—it is something we need.

Because maybe the goal is not to return in August more efficient…

but more connected to ourselves.

Thank you for showing up this season.

And thank you for the work you continue to do with such care.

📚 Resources Mentioned:

• My Wellness Verse
• Truth for Teachers by Angela Watson

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

April can be a complex time for educators. The energy of the beginning of the year has faded, and the end is not quite in reach.

In this episode of The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive, Aimee is joined by therapist, educator, and author Dr. Lorraine Freedle for a conversation on sustaining meaning in helping professions.

Together, they explore:

• What it means to take the long view of care
• How creativity and identity evolve over time
• The connection between exhaustion and transformation
• The powerful idea that creation and destruction can exist at the same time

Through the story of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, Lorraine offers a powerful reframe: that even in moments of fatigue, uncertainty, and disruption, something meaningful may still be unfolding.

This episode is an invitation to pause, reflect, and reconnect with what sustains you.

Resources & Links

• 📖 When a Goddess Erupts by Lorraine Freedle
• 🎥 Fire and Sand: Healing in the Wake of the 2018 Kīlauea Eruptio
• 🌐 Lorraine Freedle Website

What is being born in your life right now?

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

In this deeply personal episode of The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive, Aimee Donoho sits down with Dr. Gordon Bryson—educator, coach, administrator, and mentor whose influence spans generations.

For Aimee, this conversation is especially meaningful. Dr. Bryson not only taught and mentored her family—he was also the person who helped her find her place in teaching during her earliest years in the classroom.

His impact is not measured in years alone, but in the lives he has shaped. His presence continues to live through students, colleagues, athletes, and families who carry his influence forward.

Together, they explore what it means to sustain a meaningful life in education:

• Not just passion, but purpose
• Not just energy, but relationships
• Not just impact, but meaning over time

This conversation offers a powerful reminder:

Inspiration in teaching is not always loud.

Sometimes it grows quietly over time.

Sometimes it arrives as wisdom.

In this episode, we explore:

• What first calls someone into teaching
• How to sustain inspiration across decades
• The human side of leadership in schools
• Staying creative and curious in the classroom
• Wisdom for educators navigating fatigue and uncertainty

This is a conversation for educators who are still showing up—especially when the year feels long.

Because when educators feel seen and supported, the ripple extends far beyond what we can measure.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

April invites a quieter kind of reflection.

As the school year continues, many educators are still showing up—but with a different kind of energy. This episode is an invitation to pause, reconnect, and return to what still feels meaningful.

Rather than pushing forward, this is a moment to notice:

What still matters?

What still brings you back to life in your work?

• Inspiration as something you remember, not chase
• Culture as something you carry into how you teach and connect
• The power of small, everyday moments
• Letting go of the idea that your story needs struggle to matter
• Pathways to inspiration: connection, meaning, beauty, rest, and curiosity

Inspiration is already here—found in small moments of connection, presence, and care.

• What is bringing you meaning right now?
• Which pathway feels most available to you?
• What is one small step you can take this week?

Teaching is continuity.

We carry what shaped us and pass it forward through presence.

And when you reconnect to what inspires you,

you change the experience of every student in front of you.

That is the ripple.

This is exactly the right length and format for Alitu—clean sections, easy to skim, and still emotionally resonant.

If you want, I can also create:

• a one-line subtitle/tagline
• or a social caption to match this release

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

In this episode, Aimee Donoho speaks with Pualani Lincoln Maielua, kumu of Hawaiian Studies at Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy, about the power of shared rhythm, strong leadership, collective care, and responsibility.

Drawing from her experience in voyaging and paddling communities, including work with the Polynesian Voyaging Society and leadership aboard Makaliʻi, Pua offers a grounded perspective on what it means to move through demanding seasons with intention and connection.

As educators enter the final stretch of the school year, this conversation invites a shift - from pushing through alone to moving together with steadiness and alignment.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Identity, lineage, and place as foundations for leadership
• Learning through lived, embodied experience
• The deeper meaning of the waʻa beyond recreation
• Leadership, Shared responsibility and interdependence in community
• Sustaining energy through collective care

Why This Conversation Matters

During high-demand times of the year, sustainability comes not from doing more, but from staying connected to ourselves, to each other, and to the work we share.

About the Podcast

The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive — Empowering Educators Through Self-Care explores educator well-being, nervous system awareness, and sustainable leadership. Because when teachers thrive, the ripple extends to classrooms, communities, and beyond.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

In this episode of The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive, host Aimee Donoho speaks with Angelica Cardenas, LMFT, about the connection between identity, belonging, and nervous system safety in schools.

Angelica’s work sits at the intersection of healing justice, somatic awareness, and culturally responsive wellness. Together, we explore how identity and lived experience shape the way students and educators show up in classrooms—and why belonging is not just a social idea, but something the body experiences.

As educators approach the final stretch of the school year, this conversation invites us to consider what reconnection looks like when people are tired but still deeply committed to their students and communities.

• What it means for identity to feel safe in the body

• How belonging supports nervous system regulation

• Identity fatigue and the emotional labor educators carry

• The role of repair and shared care in school communities

• Reconnecting to purpose, dignity, and collective well-being

Because when educators feel seen and supported, the ripple extends far beyond the classroom.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.

March often marks the beginning of the final stretch of the school year. The end is visible, but the work is not finished — assessments, performances, transitions, and the emotional energy of graduation season are still ahead.

In this opening episode of the March Reconnect series, Aimee invites educators to pause and reflect on how we move forward without disconnecting from ourselves.

This conversation explores how the nervous system responds during demanding seasons in education and why sustainable pacing matters as the year intensifies.

Rather than sprinting toward the finish line, this episode encourages teachers to reconnect with their breath, their purpose, and the steady rhythm that supports endurance.

Because meaningful work is rarely sustained by urgency.

It is sustained by rhythm.

🌐 Connect with Us

Website: www.therippleeffect.io

Instagram: @rippleeffect.teachers

Facebook: The Ripple Effect Podcast

Linktree: linktr.ee/rippleeffect.teachers

The content shared on The Ripple Effect: Helping Teachers Thrive is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for therapy, counseling, medical advice, or mental health treatment.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact a licensed mental health professional or call 911 immediately. Always seek the guidance of a qualified provider with any questions you may have regarding your mental or emotional health.