Burnout: A Journey Towards Resilience with Amy Schamberg 4

What if a simple shift in mindset could transform your teaching career and restore peace to your life? Join me, Melissa Lefort, as I unravel the profound impact of self-compassion in tackling educator burnout, a subject close to my heart. On this journey, I’m accompanied by Amy Schamberg, who brings her invaluable experience as a former school psychologist and certified functional medicine health coach. Together, we address the common misconceptions surrounding self-compassion, distinguishing it from self-indulgence, and exploring how genuine self-care can serve as a lifeline for those overwhelmed by stress and criticism.

See our blog for a breakdown of Amy's steps!

https://self-compassion.org/

Chapters

• 0:02 Educators and Self-Compassion
• 5:04 The Importance of Self-Compassion
• 14:10 Embracing Strength Through Self-Kindness
• 19:37 Writing Self-Compassionate Letters and Affirmations

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

and it's interesting too, because I often have heard well, that doesn't work for me, self-compassion doesn't work for me, and when I dig a little deeper, and so I'm thinking right now about my private clients that I work with, it's it's not necessarily that it doesn't work, it's that it hasn't been um, haven't, haven't done it long, we haven't given it a real try. It's like. It's like an intervention for kids, right, like if they need a reading intervention. We need to complete this reading intervention for, you know, four to six weeks and we need to implement that with fidelity and making sure all those things are right, and then, at the end of that period of time, then we can say if the intervention worked or not. Right, but we need to implement it first, regularly, consistently, take data on it. And if we're only practicing self-compassion, like once or twice, because we forget about it, because it's not a habit and we're not trying to remind ourselves and we're not actively taking steps, we can't really say that it didn't work. How much I miss, not knowing that we're all screwed.

Speaker 2: 1:10

A few years ago, I started writing a fictitious story based on my time as an educator. It is called Taught, and the story was partially inspired out of anger and frustration fueled by burnout Okay, actually, it was more than partially inspired by anger and frustration fueled by burnout Okay, actually, it was more than partially inspired by anger and frustration. But taught has also become a vehicle for me to tell what I thought at the time and in some ways continue to think was and is the real story of teaching. I now realize that my perspective is not everyone's perspective, but there are some pieces of taught that resonated with many educators perspective, but there are some pieces of taught that resonated with many educators. This podcast is an extension of that story and I, a former teacher, will interview other educators, asking them to share how they really feel about the current state of education. Why are so many teachers burnout? Why are so many like me leaving the field? We likely won't solve any problems or come up with any solutions, but we can create a community of voices that maybe begin the conversation around how educators can take back teaching.

Speaker 2: 2:17

I'm Melissa LaFleur Welcome to Ta educated, but I'm so frustrated she's back, and if you are listening and thought it must be Amy Schamberg. You are right. Amy is back to chat with us about burnout and what we can do to take back the education careers that many of us spent a lot of time and a lot of money to attain. She has our back and is willing to share her strategies for success when we find ourselves being drugged down by chronic stress and or burnout. How do I know? Because this is her jam. Amy earned her graduate degree in school psychology from the University of Colorado and worked as a school psychologist in the Denver metro area for over a decade. Now, as a certified functional medicine health coach, amy continues to work in wellness consultancy roles within educational programs throughout Colorado. She specializes in mental health, burnout recovery and holistic well-being. So she has our back, educators, and we are ready this week to jump in. Amy, thank you for being here.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to jump into this next conversation today.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Our topic this week is something that is near and dear to your heart, amy self-compassion. But this one is so hard for many of us. I personally feel I need to keep myself in check. My whole existence could be watching Love is Blind and eating donuts. To me, that could be self-compassion. And while this feels like self-compassion, I think you're going to tell me that maybe Love is Blind and eating donuts all day doesn't meet the definition. I also am fabulous at feeling super sorry for myself. So when I was going through transition syndrome after moving here, I tried to get everyone I knew to jump on the pity train I had created for myself, and they willingly did, and I found that to be a very comforting space and it was a very depressing ride, but also satisfying. In this weird way, I also think you're going to tell me that this probably isn't self-compassion either. So what is self-compassion?

Speaker 1: 4:42

Yeah, great question. And let me put out the disclaimer that if you hear self-compassion yeah, great question. And let me put out the disclaimer that if you hear self-compassion and your stomach turns a little bit, that's okay, You're not alone. I used to feel that way too. When I put workshops on and I start talking about this, I get so many eye rolls in the beginning and I don't know. Compassion just has this like kind of woo woo, like ooh, what is that? You know ooey gooey connotation, but truly it's just being nice, it's just being nice, Compassion is being nice and self-compassion is being nice to yourself.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Maybe all my stuff did fit then.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Yeah, it's like it's treating yourself the way you treat a good friend, right? It's instead of being self-critical, instead of beating yourself up, instead of you know, all of that negative self-talk. It's truly being supportive and kind and nice and understanding. In the exact same way you would be toward your best friend if they came to you and said here's how I'm feeling. This is what happened. These are my thoughts. That's really what it is I like that.

Speaker 2: 5:55

So my things probably don't fit, because I would not want my friends to do things that could have long-term negative effects for them. Want my friends to do things that could have long-term negative effects for them like eating 20 donuts, so Well, and I think it's all like, right.

Speaker 1: 6:15

Like, if we need and eat some donuts and watch our favorite movie, that's okay, right, as long as self-compassion has to do with, like, what's going on behind the scenes too, though, like those thoughts. It's, it's the um, the thoughts we're having. It's not necessarily it is actions, like we can take self-compassionate actions, but a big part of it is the inner dialogue, um, and that's kind of a way to look at it. So if your inner dialogue is, hey, you've had a rough day, you, you know, you need to decompress a little bit and binge watch a few things, cool. If the inner dialogue is you are a terrible person and life sucks, and so you should do nothing but sit on the couch and eat donuts, that's very different, right? So it depends on what's going on behind the scenes, yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Ooh, I've never thought about that that way, honestly. I mean the eating donuts and love is blind is about escape. So perhaps a moment to to be aware and think what is going on that I need to escape from, and how can I be compassionate to myself? So why is self-compassion important, Like an umbrella of why it's important, and then why is it important for each of us as individuals?

Speaker 1: 7:32

Self-compassion and let me preface this by there's so much research out there. Dr Kristen Neff is one of the world's leading researchers on self-compassion. Maybe we can link her website in the show notes? Absolutely, we can.

Speaker 2: 7:49

Have you heard of Kristen Neff before? I haven't, but we'll link the-. Yeah, she's incredible.

Speaker 1: 7:54

She's written a lot of books. We'll link the. Yeah, she's incredible, she's written a lot of books, she's done a ton of talks, she's just she's and. But she's, more importantly, completed a lot of research that shows that self-compassion improves mental health and improves emotional well-being and builds resilience and allows us to have a balanced perspective. All of these things that really allow us to kind of accept our flaws and our mistakes, which then allows us to, instead of like going down this spiral of feeling bad about ourselves, it kind of empowers us to take action to make the thing happen or just kind of have a happier, healthier life. So it's really important for just overall well-being.

Speaker 2: 8:44

I love that. I mean, I love the idea of it, because the reason we even started talking about self-compassion many episodes ago was because it was part of what we talked about being essential for combating burnout. And when you say it is that ability to look at things that have happened or things that we have done and forgive ourselves, or to say that this thing was okay or I am still a good person, I do think for myself personally that this was a big piece of what got me to the burnout. I do feel like educators are under this microscope, this scrutiny from multiple different places, from society at large, from politicians, from their administrators, from parents, whoever their superiors are, and it is really hard to dip into that if you feel like you're being criticized all the time.

Speaker 1: 10:02

Yes, I 100% agree, and I think that when we feel like we're being criticized all the time, we often start to criticize ourselves, right ourselves, right, like you start to feel like I mean, when we feel attacked, we often start to kind of attack ourselves in some way and burnout feels isolating, burnout feels shameful, and we often don't talk about being burnt out. Like how many people are really talking about their experience of being burnt out when they are burnt out? Not many, not many, right, Right, yeah. So if we're able to be nice to ourself in that moment with self-compassion, just like being aware of what we're going through and reminding ourselves that we're actually not alone, and we could probably talk to someone about this and there would be some shared experience there, and then like what is the next nice thing you could say to yourself, I think that would help tremendously.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah, you know, I I listen uh, because you mentioned it to the Mel Robbins podcast, and one of the things that she talked about, which I'm beginning to think maybe is a sign of of self-compassion, a physical sign is. She recommends I think it's for seven days, to give yourself a high five in the mirror when you brush your teeth, and I was shocked at how challenging that was for me just to give myself that high five in the mirror, and I think it speaks to exactly what you're saying. This is something for some of us not all of us, but for some of us it's really hard to kind of again dip into that well and say, hey, you're worth this, you need to be nice to you today, and then the high five is like that you're doing all right. It is an affirmation of you're okay, you're, you're great, you got this.

Speaker 1: 12:17

So and it's interesting too, because I often have heard well, that doesn't work for me, self-compassion doesn't work for me. And when I dig a little deeper, I'm thinking right now about my private clients that I work with. It's it's not necessarily that it doesn't work, it's that it hasn't been, haven't done it long enough, we haven't given it a real try. It's like. It's like an intervention for kids, right, like if they need a reading intervention, we need to complete this reading intervention for, you know, four to six weeks and we need to implement that with fidelity and making sure all these things are right. And then, at the end of that period of time, then we can say if the intervention worked or not. Right, but we need to implement it first, regularly, consistently, take data on it. And if we're only practicing self-compassion, like once or twice, because we forget about it, because it's not a habit and we're not trying to remind ourselves and we're not actively taking steps, we can't really say that it didn't work if we didn't actually give it a chance.

Speaker 2: 13:20

And I find so I have been guilty, I have been one of your clients, not literally, but I have been one of them. That is like, yeah, that's a great idea and I'm never going to do it. And it is always the things that do make me uncomfortable internally and I think sometimes it is. I think for myself, I think, oh, I don't need that. I think oh, but that probably comes from a place of thinking. I don't want to say that I'm not worth it, because I do think I'm worth it. I just I don't know, I guess I feel that vulnerability again.

Speaker 1: 14:08

Yeah, there's resistance. It's interesting I was working with a male client not too long ago and he was beating himself up about something. And I'm trying to remember he was a younger gentleman, he was 22, trying to get into business school and I can't exactly remember why he was beating himself up. But I started talking about the self-compassion stuff with him and he he really enjoyed like what I was explaining. But the word self-compassion he couldn't get past it and he was like, do you have anything more masculine? Like is there a different way to phrase that? And so if it's the word that's triggering, let's find a new word. Like just be nice to yourself, right? Like what would it look like if you were nice to yourself today?

Speaker 2: 14:57

Everybody. You heard her in the comments. What can we call this self-compassion stuff that doesn't make all of us I think you hit the nail on the head right there, or your client did it feels a little bit weak. Yeah, I think we are all wanting. We don't want to feel like we are so weak that we need to be compassionate to ourselves. We're stronger than that. Ooh, I think that's it for me.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Yeah, yes, I love that, ooh, I think that's it for me.

Speaker 2: 15:30

Yeah, yes, I love that. But what you're saying is that it takes strength to do this and it adds to our strength reservoirs to have self-compassion.

Speaker 1: 15:45

It does anyone listening to? Consider two things how do you feel when someone gives you positive feedback or you know compliments, you says something kind to you? How does that? How does that feel Like?

Speaker 1: 16:04

I feel, like my you know chest kind of puffs up. You feel like this warmth right. It feels like, oh yeah, I got this right A little bit more confident, a little bit more in control. And then, on the flip side, how does it feel when someone speaks to you in a way that is more negative? You know, I think about critical right, like, does that make you want to try harder? Does that make you feel good? Does that make you hold your head high or do you kind of like you know, move within yourself.

Speaker 2: 16:41

That's a really good point, amy, because you're right, I mean even you. I don't know if we'll I'll. I'm trying to get these interviews up on YouTube. This one may go up. We'll find out if I can ever get all this figured out. But even as you're talking about it, and in case it doesn't get up or people are just listening when you talk about the compliments you open up, you know you know you yourself, your chest puffs out and your heart goes out, um, and then, when you talk about criticizing, there's a closing.

Speaker 2: 17:17

That happens.

Speaker 1: 17:19

That's very powerful and the same thing happens when we, you know, have it to ourselves. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:27

Yeah, okay, okay, I am going to bring more of this into my practice for sure. You know I had a follow-up question here, but I really feel like you've kind of answered this for us, which is how does self-compassion differ from self-indulgence and self-pity, which is kind of the examples that I gave at the beginning, but it is quite different, isn't it? It is that filling up of our internal spaces that need that it's kind of just like responding with empathy.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Just like responding with empathy, it encourages us to have a more balanced perspective.

Speaker 1: 18:22

I feel like self-pity often is like dwelling on our problems. Yes, it is, and self-pity for me. Self-pity because I mean we're all humans and we kind of experience these things. So like when I'm in a state of self-pity, I feel helpless. We're all humans and we kind of experience these things. So like, when I'm in a state of self-pity, I feel helpless, I feel like a victim, I don't feel empowered, I feel like this thing has been done to me and, like you know, I just feel bad for myself and it just creates a cycle of negativity and like it takes away my motivation to do anything else to make it better and it just kind of makes me feel stuck in my problems, whereas, you know, it's like the opposite when I'm nice to myself.

Speaker 2: 18:56

Yeah. So what I again, what I'm hearing, is the difference is self-pity is stuck and self-compassion again is filling us up. Self-indulgence is not necessarily something that is really making us feel better long-term, maybe short-term, but not long-term. So what are some things we can start doing today to give ourselves self-compassion? I mean, is there a roadmap that we little things that we can practice? I already this is not ours, but Mel Robbins does suggest that high five and I do think that's a. It's good for me anyway, I like giving myself a high five now.

Speaker 1: 19:37

Yes, there is one practice that I think is very powerful and I was. I participated in a training many, many years ago and the facilitator had us complete this activity and now I use this activity with my clients, which is writing a self-compassion letter to yourself. And so it's like you sit down, maybe you're journaling, maybe you're writing, and you remove yourself from yourself and you write a letter to yourself in a very kind and supportive way. And when I did this activity years ago, the facilitator then had us put the letters in envelopes and write our names on them and she collected them all and then she sent them all to us like a month later, and getting that in my school mailbox and opening that up and reading it was just like so powerful. I was like wait, that's me saying that to me, like wait what? And it was like the most I don't know. It just felt really supportive.

Speaker 1: 20:45

And I have clients do this as a journaling activity because oftentimes self-compassionate thoughts are hard in the moment. So when we talk about building that muscle and learning how to become more self-compassionate, it can be tricky at first. So spending some time writing something to yourself as a way to kind of practice that, and then even like more simplified version, is a positive affirmation. So even just having this affirmation of I am doing my best can reinforce a compassionate mindset. I had another client recently who wrote a couple of positive affirmations on sticky notes and she put some of them on her computer and she's put some of them in her bathroom on her bathroom mirror so that she could be reminded of them. I think she also told me that she was going to put them on her phone as her background as well, because we have to be reminded of these things.

Speaker 1: 21:43

It's like anything right, like it's not natural, it's not something we're used to, and so if it's not something that we are intentionally reminding ourselves about, then then it can be hard to do. Just notice your thoughts, like just notice them and just start paying attention to are these supportive or not, are these self-critical or are they, you know, empowering and just start paying attention to that.

Speaker 2: 22:23

I'm going to put all this in the show notes. These suggestions, as I do each time we meet, have a couple of tips in there, because I know for myself sometimes it's hard for me to get started writing something like this, so maybe with some writing prompts, for those of us that have a little harder time thinking of okay, well, now I've got the pencil and paper, what am I going to say?

Speaker 2: 22:57

So we'll have some stuff in there for you folks that want to give this a try. I mean, why not, why not, why not? Yeah, okay, amy, thank you once again for being here with us.

Speaker 1: 23:15

My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 23:24

Today's episode was produced and edited by me. The theme music is by Otis McDonald featuring Joni Enez. If you know someone who might enjoy these conversations, please share the podcast episodes as much and as often as you can. It's as simple as copying the link you use to access today's episode and sending it in a message or sharing it on social media. I'm a small, independent operation and your shares broaden our audience. Perhaps you or someone you know will be inspired to talk about teacher burnout. If you would like to get your voice on my podcast, contact me via the link on my webpage taughtbuzzsproutcom. Coach, speaker and author Rashid Ogunlaro said it may take many voices for people to hear the same message. Join me in being one of the many voices rising up to get the message out around educator burnout.

Speaker 2: 24:19

This is Melissa LaFleur. Thank you for listening to Taught the podcast. I have an important reminder. Slash disclaimer to share. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer or company. Content provided on this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice. We encourage you to do your own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any decisions based on the information discussed in this or any other episode. Additionally, any opinions or statements made during the podcast are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company or individual Listener. Discretion is advised. Thank you for tuning in.