Recovering from Burnout & Unlearning Trauma
A flower one of my kindergarteners gave me
Recovering from burnout has been no easy task. First, it was just recognizing and acknowledging that I was burnt out and what that feels like in my body. At that point. I’d been used to cycles of burnout. As a teacher in New York City, I’d spend the bulk of my summer resting and recovering from how tumultuous the prior school year had been. Because even though I’d made it to the end of June, I’d been burnt out since December. Do you know what it’s like to keep pushing and pulling through when you’ve never been at 100% and most likely never will? It’s disheartening. Heartbreaking.
Teachers have a special way of gearing up for the school year, and that varies from person to person. What remains the same across the board though is how totally exhausted every teacher ends up being by the time the last day of school rolls around. How totally depleted of all reserves we are. There’s a reason why we get those holidays and breaks— you are on 100 from the time you step in on September until you leave for summer at the end of June. Everything in between can be a bit for a circus.
First, it’s important, I’ve learned, to have my own personal self-care plan for the school year. I couldn’t figure out why I kept finding myself getting burnt out over and over and over— this was one of the reasons why. I didn’t have a plan for self-care. Before it gets overwhelming, set a plan to engage in a number of activities that: bring you joy, bring you peace, refreshes the mind, feeds the spirit, and nurtures your soul. You need a plan that allows for rest and play, even if in small doses. Time may be limited, so a couple activities everyday will help. I realized that I wasn’t really taking time on a consistent basis to engage in self-care. I often felt too worn down or worried about something else that needed my attention. Life was a pressure cooker and I couldn’t find much relief outside of myself. What helped me, once I learned about proper self-care, were walks in the park, talking/venting to friends, writing, and singing. But what becomes tricky is being too tired at the end of the day to engage in self-care. Though it might be hard now, DO IT. Do the self care. Build in that time during your day. Tend to your body, mind, and spirit. Put in that effort and love because it will pay off. What was often difficult for me was feeling bone tired at the end of the day, then just crashing when I got home— waking up the next morning. While this felt like relief for a little while, I was still feeling drained and perpetually tired. I realized that I wasn’t doing anything on a consistent basis to fill my cup. I was just crashing and getting up the next day, possibly still burnt and worn out from the day before. Self care is key.
It’s taking the small moments in every day and saying “I matter.” I get to be taken care of. My wounds get to be tended to. We don’t have to push ourselves through life like we don’t get hurt on the way. Some things deserve our attention, especially the pain that we numb just to get through another day. We deserve to live at full attention & awareness to ourselves and our lives. Self-care gives us the opportunity to do that.
Another thing that has helped on the burnout recovery journey was learning how to be organized for myself. Teaching in New York, there is a certain chaos that you become used to, especially if you’re not in it long enough. But what no one tells you is that chaos should not be the norm. We should not be subjecting our teachers and students to thrive in chaos. But if the school makes no commitment to establishing systems of organization for admin, teachers, staff, and students, then you are being setup to be burnt out. I remember my first year — the day before the first day of school we had staff meetings and department meetings. I remember being so eager to and anxious to start. However, as the day went on, I received nothing that would help me organize and prepare for my first day of teaching, and found myself scrambling for materials and lessons. I was so scared but confused since I thought that my school would help more with preparations. It was every teacher for themselves, and on every teacher to decide how they want to teach. Such little guidance at such an early stage of teaching left me lost. I found myself spending most of my mornings spiraling into anxiety and dread as I had to come up with math lessons (although I had no training in math), and sort of wing it the rest of the day. Thankfully, all of my classes were co-taught so I had (most of the time) the support of a general education teacher in the class with me.
Everything about teaching now is non-traditional and simply different from what we may be used to growing up. We must acknowledge this and take it into account when teaching and designing curricula. This requires a certain level of planning, commitment, and of course, organization. There is no healthy school thriving right now without organization. Though I did not experience this environment in NY, I’d imagine the system as a whole would fare better with stronger organization across the board.
There can be many factors that contribute to burnout. As an educator, I have to be especially vigilant about work environment, workload, establishing rapport with students and parents, managing overcrowded classrooms and student behaviors… the list goes on. Be mindful of stress levels, have strong boundaries for work and communicate them often, make sure you’re managing your well-being by having a self-care plan, and, if it all becomes too overwhelming for far too long, it may be time to consider a new space. No job is worth compromising your health for. It is always worth it to step out on a limb to find the best fit for you.
Happy recovery friends!