041 - Pit Pony Kitty White - Classroom to Holiday Cottages Business Manager

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Kitty White never imagined she’d leave teaching - she was in it for life. 

But after years of battling anxiety, disillusionment, and a crushing sense of being lost, she made a brave leap out of the classroom and into something completely different. 

In this powerful episode, Kitty reflects on the emotional toll teaching took on her, how she slowly rebuilt herself, and how she found new purpose (and peace) as the Business Development Manager of Cozy Holiday Cottages in the Yorkshire Dales.

Her story is full of raw honesty, gentle humour, and hope - and reminds us that it’s never too late to choose yourself.

Useful links :

Website - https://cozyholidaycottages.co.uk/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cozyholidaycottages/

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💚 This episode is proudly sponsored by the National Teaching and Advisory Service (NTAS) a brilliant organisation supporting children and young people not in mainstream education through one-to-one teaching. If you’re a teacher looking for a more flexible, meaningful way to use your skills outside the classroom, NTAS are always looking for passionate professionals to join them.

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Edited with finesse by our Podcast Super Producer, Mike Roberts of Making Digital Real

Transcript

I'd like to thank our sponsors, the National Teaching and Advisory Service. They work with children and young people who are not in an educational setting on a one-to-one basis. So it's perfect for teachers who are looking to move away from the classroom.

They work with both primary and secondary age children to support them through their education. And they're always looking for committed and passionate teachers to join them. I worked for them.

Those guys are great. So have a look in the show notes, and get in touch. Hello, and welcome to the Pit Pony Podcast with myself, Sharon Cawley.

And me, Sarah Dunwood. In which we talk to teachers from all walks of life who exited the classroom from what they thought was a job for life and thrived on the other side of teaching. Coming up in this episode.

So when I look back at it, I don't really recognise myself, if that makes sense. I've become a shell of my former self. I think a lot of people said I'd sort of lost my little spark.

I couldn't take jokes. I know that sounds really strange, but like, I just, they're just, you know, my mum said like she realised that she hadn't heard me laugh, properly laugh for a little while till obviously I'd left sort of the environment. Hello listeners, and welcome to another episode of the Pit Pony Podcast.

And today we are talking to Kitty White. Kitty White entered teaching at the age of 30, having done a range of jobs. Now, by her own admission, she'd rebelled until the age of 30 and finally gave in to the wise words and advice of her mum, who told her to go into teaching.

And when she did go into teaching, Kitty loved it. She started in 2014. She didn't want to be that five-year statistic who came out of teaching after five years.

She genuinely believed she was a lifer. But by 2020, she was gone. She realised in her last school, in her own words, she had become thoroughly disillusioned with teaching.

And it's great to invite Kitty to the podcast today to talk us through her experience and more importantly, her thrival outside of the classroom. So welcome Kitty White to our podcast. And can you tell our listeners what it is you do today? I am the business development manager at Cozy Holiday Cottages.

Oh, it sounds idyllic. Even the word cozy and cottage, it just sounds absolutely delightful, Kitty. And before we get into that, what I'd like you to do is I'd like you to take us back to that period in your life when you talked about that disillusionment and what had happened over that five-year period.

So let's start at the end, Kitty. How was leaving teaching for you? I suppose it was quite painful. I think when we've sort of had our little discussions, I think by the time I left teaching, I was in a very heightened state of anxiety, probably a little bit of depression there as well.

I think with everything that had gone, that was going on in the world as well, I was finding it incredibly difficult coping day-to-day. In terms of, I suppose, with the last placement, I think by autumn term too, I knew I was sort of struggling internally. There was, as you know, teaching that there is a lot of demands on the role.

I think it can be difficult, again, if you're sort of sharing your classroom and everything like that. And I think I just sort of, I suppose I was lost. I felt a bit trapped as well.

Like I felt very trapped. I think I didn't really know where to go. I knew I wasn't happy.

I was, you know, I'd basically get up in the, you'd go through the motions. You'd get up, I'd walk Hallie very early in the morning, get back, have my breakfast, go. But the moment I was leaving to go to work, I was sort of already in that heightened state, very anxious.

You know, I wanted to get back home. I felt safe at home. It was my safe space.

And I think just, you know, I just felt lost, really. Just really, really, really, really lost. And sort of when I look back at it, I don't really recognize myself, if that makes sense.

I'd become a shell of my former self. I think a lot of people said I'd sort of lost my little spark. I couldn't take jokes.

I know that sounds really strange, but like, I just, they're just, you know, my mum said like she realized that she hadn't heard me laugh, properly laugh for a little while till obviously I'd left sort of the environment. You know, I loved my children, loved my classroom, you know, and I worked with some, you know, some lovely people. But I think just the demands felt being pulled around to pillar to post.

I did some CBT mindfulness sessions and I remembered speaking to my therapist and I described teaching. She said it was very vivid that I felt like I was a corpse and that the teaching, like the birds were like picking at me. And that's like how I felt that it was just constant, a robot on that wheel.

I just didn't, that's how I felt. And she was just like, wow. What do you think it was? If you could try and quantify that for somebody who is listening to this, this is a job.

Fundamentally, what we're talking about is a job. We're talking about a vocation that people go into. So you've said, I felt like a corpse, a shell, I was lost.

What was it? Was it the workload? Was it the senior leadership team? If you could try and capture, what do you think it actually was that was doing that to you? I suppose it was the demands of the job. If you could take everything out and you could just focus on the children in your classroom and you in some ways could be left to work with your children. I think that is what I feel fundamentally, it's about the child.

And it's that child, it's that the child approach of think you're doing it for the child and you might have to adapt how you teach to that child depending on everybody's circumstances. So I feel sometimes everybody you're narrowed and you're put into that box and you've got to meet the demands of your statistics, your targets. You have to get the child everywhere to that point.

And if you haven't got it to that point, why didn't you? And you're like, but actually let's celebrate where they have got to. And I feel sometimes that that's missed in, that's just missed generally. And I think so really in a nutshell, it is the demands of teaching.

I think I felt very much pulled pillar to post. I never felt I was doing a good enough job. I always felt that there was something that I hadn't done correctly or I'd missed something and it wasn't intentional.

And I suppose I just found it very, very hard. I didn't feel sometimes the positives like the things that were done properly were not commended. I mean, maybe that's not the right word to use, but you want to try and say it in the right way.

But I suppose they're always focusing on what you hadn't done, what you needed to do next rather than going, right, this is what I have done. And it was just very, very difficult. It's interesting listening to your language, listening to what you're saying about how education is in relation to the children and the achievement isn't celebrated unless it's hitting that nominal target that somebody has set based on some statistics.

And then listen to how you translated that to you as a teacher. Anything that I was doing right wasn't being celebrated because it wasn't the thing that they wanted me to do right and I think that's right at the heart of what people are struggling with. The acknowledgement of success isn't happening consistently.

And you're so right in terms of children that every child will have some sort of little success every day, but if it's not the big target, it doesn't count. It's frustrating. It's heartbreaking, I think, really, because I find you're helping, you're nurturing.

In effect, we're being role models for these children. And I think for anybody to thrive, you have to be in a safe space. That's important.

Everybody has to feel happy. There's the acknowledgement. Children, they're little.

Sometimes they don't understand their feelings, which is why it's very important to have that check-in. And I think sometimes those moments are forgotten that actually you can't do any learning. You can't do anything until everybody feels safe, happy, secure.

I agree and I almost think, Kitty, there's like a two-tier system. Throughout my many years as a teacher, I have been involved in so many reward systems and a whole host of how we're gonna reward our children, how we're going to praise that, because it was always linked with behavior. A good reward system means children behave better.

But reward was all about the children. It's never about the staff. In the schools I worked in, there was a light touch.

So I've worked for a head teacher who may, in a briefing on a Monday morning, have decided to spotlight good practice that he'd seen throughout the week. Or there'd be a thank you card that randomly went into your pigeonhole. But these were like little one-offs.

It wasn't embedded in a culture of praise. And as a result, when you're absolutely right in what you say, if you don't feel safe, then your body starts to react in a certain way. And when we've talked previously, you talked about feeling sick, crying, anxious, that bend in the road.

All of those behaviors are as a result of fundamentally feeling unsafe. What do you think your school could have done in order to make you feel safe? So I suppose it was very difficult because I'm trying to pinpoint, really, when I start, I suppose I was very apprehensive about starting a new role because it was a new classroom, new role. But there was obviously that excitement.

But then I think by autumn turn two, I knew deep down that I wasn't feeling right, that something wasn't right. I think when you look back, you know, I was very much in a heightened state. But I felt like when I tried to open up and talk about things, because I do remember having conversations, and I felt like maybe people weren't listening to me, maybe I wasn't articulating it correctly in the right way.

But I felt like it was starting to be possibly used against me. Now, I'm not saying that that was because this is my opinion, it's my perception of it, but that's how I sort of felt. And I think, I remember talking, and then, you know, when you've got your positive and your negative voice, and when you're in that really bad state, you're hearing your negative, you're not hearing your positive.

I remember saying, oh, you know, like, hey, like the voices and like the voices. And I'm like, no, I don't mean it like that. I just mean like, I'm not, I am in such, I'm so anxious, I'm so scared and worried.

Like, I feel like I'm focusing on that negativity rather than trying to look at it in a positive light and looking at it from a different perspective, I suppose, really. So I suppose in that respect, I felt, I think I've mentioned it before, feeling lost and trapped, feeling very trapped. I felt like I was sort of trapped in this corner.

And, you know, when you keep poking somebody, like, you know, they say like, if you look at it like from an animal, like, oh, I'll say a dog, but you know, when they say, oh, that dog's aggressive, you know, but it's not, it's fear. They're scared, they don't feel safe. And I think that that's what it is.

I just felt I'd been put into that corner. I didn't know how to get out of that situation. So you're being reactive and yeah.

Yeah, I understand. So you're in that corner. So how did you leave? Straightforward resignation? Had you got anything to go to? So how did you actually leave the job? So it was during lockdown.

So I was struggling and I basically, during lockdown, you know, we were remote teaching, et cetera, but I unfortunately found out that I wouldn't be going back to my classroom. So for me, that moment, it crushed me. Like I was struggling anyway at that point.

And I just felt my world had completely fallen apart. And I felt really, I told you back to that corner, I had no choice. So I handed in my resignation and was obviously gonna continue and then go.

But then obviously, because I'd been feeling very anxious, very upset, obviously communicating that, and I felt that then that was, I suppose, again, I feel like it was used against me. And unfortunately, because of that, it sent a massive trigger. And I unfortunately then got signed off and then I didn't go back.

And the doctor said I probably should have gone to see them earlier because of obviously how I was feeling. And that basically, I sort of burnt myself out really. So whilst we're talking, our listeners don't get the benefit of the visual.

We will do that one day. We will do video one day, but I can see the physical reaction in you while you're talking about this, Kitty. In the moment right now, you are safe.

You've got this wonderful life that we're going to talk about. But when you're talking about that period, how are you reacting right now in the moment? Talking about something that happened five years ago, how are you feeling right now? I wanna vomit everywhere. Like I am feeling really sick.

My tummy's all sort of like bubbling. Because I think there's still an element of being scared. Like I'm scared that I might say something wrong, that somebody's gonna go, oh, oh, why have you said, and just misinterpret everything.

And I just, yeah. So no, and that's real because what we found with our Pit Pony guests, they're reliving a part of their life that they've packed away, they've boxed. They're talking about these great thrival stories.

But what's coming out more and more is you're back in that moment, aren't you, with that anxiety, the stomach churning, feeling sick, and the fear of getting in trouble. Even though you're sat in this wonderful world, it is the most, it's the saddest thing ever about this job, isn't it, Kitty? Yeah, I think it is. And when I was invited to come and talk, I was like really excited about it, but then it was suddenly like feeling really scared about talking about it as well.

And I want to be obviously talking about how I've got where I've got to. And I felt or feel, I've done CBT, mindfulness, I've done a lot of restorative, but I've done a lot of self-guided help to help me. And maybe actually talking to you guys today, there's still some unresolved issues here.

Clearly, clearly there is because I'm watching you and I can see when you're retelling how you're feeling, it's like stilted and that is a fear of getting it wrong when it's your story, when there can't be a right and a wrong because it is your lens through which you've seen. And I think if you think about our group, Sarah, very often we'll see posts come on and they'll say, when will this end? I've left, I'm out. When will it end how I'm feeling? We get that quite a bit, don't we, Sarah? Yeah, and when do the nightmares stop? That's a very frequent one.

And there isn't an answer to that question. There really isn't an answer to that question because you can think that you've done the work, in terms of the self-guided, and that's a beautiful way to phrase it, Kitty, that self-guided, restorative, let me do the work on myself to reprogram my head to not sit in that because that's fundamentally what CBT is and all of those sorts of things. But then something really insignificant could happen or something significant, and up it comes again.

Up it comes, and that's true of any trauma, that things that happened years and years and years and years ago, decades ago, can come back in the flick of a finger. They really can. And there isn't an answer to the question, when does it stop? When does it go away? I agree, I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat and I've had that nightmare and I don't know where it's come from.

I do find, when we talk about what I'm doing now, it's exciting, it's wonderful, still a bit pressured. And sometimes when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, I can feel myself starting to bubble a little bit. But what's great about it, I say, is I can feel it, I understand it, I acknowledge it because while we've just been talking, I've written a word down, suppression.

Now I feel you suppress everything sometimes, particularly when you're in the classroom, because you basically, I don't know if you've had it, you've just got to pull yourself together, you've got to get on with it and you go in. So you'd be this graceful swan, but your legs underneath are kicking just to get through your day. But you suppressed everything just to get through that day and you'd get home and everything would just be like, blah.

And what you've just said there is, and that can still happen. And it can happen even if you're outside of the classroom. It's a trigger, it is a trigger.

And it was so powerful to watch and listen to you in the beginning and feel your discomfort about talking about that period. Because sometimes you're talking about things and you're trying to make sense of something that didn't make sense. And I'm pushing you going on, what do you think this wasn't? The answer is, I don't know.

The only thing I know is it wasn't right. And I wasn't the version of myself I wanted to be. And it was within my job, within my life circumstances.

I was unhappy, I was unhappy, I was unaligned, I was on the wrong path, but yet it was in teaching. And that's where I think the conflict comes with so many people, especially those who wanted to teach from the earliest of ages. We've interviewed Kitty, Pit Pony, podcast guests.

We've had one who applied for a teacher training prospectus at the age of 11, okay? She's up and coming. People who were teaching their teddy bears at the age of eight and set up their own classrooms and then find themselves living their dream. And it's a nightmare.

What are your thoughts on that? Well, again, I remember being, I wanted to be an archeologist and teaching, teaching was very, I remember being in primary school. And I think, because my mum and her best friend were always like, oh, you have the right attributes, you're lovely. She said, you just have this gift, this aura, I suppose.

And because obviously your mum telling you, you're like, nah, nah. And when I say rebelled, I just was like, no, no, I don't want to do that. And I actually worked in some schools, like in the office.

So I've had perspective. So I felt I was quite grounded. I was a rounded individual.

So I did see it from all the prospectus, different angles. And I remember one of the head teachers saying, oh, I'll put you through. Do you remember, it was the GTP, the graduate training programme.

And he was saying, I'll put you through that. I think it'd be really good. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll think about it.

But I was like, no, I don't want to do that. But then I reflect back and I think, well, would things have been different? Like if I had have done that, if I had entered into teaching earlier, would it have been a different experience for me? Or, you know, I don't know. But I think like from our discussions and listening to other pit ponies talking, you know, a lot of us, it was something we wanted to do quite early on.

And I wouldn't say you go in with, you know, your sort of, yeah, rose tinted glasses. I think you learn very early on it's hard work. And obviously your first year, junior teacher training, and then really the first year of then, and now obviously it's two years, which I think probably good to give you that bit of extra support.

You know, it is tough. And I remember people saying, don't worry, it will get easier, it'll get easier. But I don't know if it did.

I think possibly in a sense of you did a year. So you sort of got that idea of how things might go. But then if you move to a different classroom, a different year group, things were all different again.

So it was, you know, you still had that workload. But I feel actually over the years, the demands just got more and more, which again are probably stemmed from higher up. And I suspect they have demands on themselves as well.

And probably they're not happy. So it's sort of, it comes down, doesn't it? It comes down the food chain, so to speak. Brief interlude, dear listener, couple of questions.

Are you a tutor or even a pit pony considering tutoring? And do you fancy getting in the room with myself and Sarah Dunwood, learning about the wonderful world of tuition? Then why not join us at the National Tutors Conference hosted by Conexus Tuition on the 29th of July, 2025. It's at Chesford Grange, Kenilworth. Links to the tickets are in the show notes below.

And we will both see you on the other side. Going back to that kind of conflict, I don't know if you felt like this, Sarah. But I first, I got my first job in 1994 in a school in Runcolm.

And I can honestly say it, oh my God, it'll be over 30 years ago. I have never felt such a sense of pride, love. I was, I can still picture now my mum and dad me and our Alison and my mum and dad all went out for a meal to celebrate.

And it was like, you're a teacher, you're a teacher. And that rush I got within me, knowing I was a teacher, the ease with which over the next 20 years, somebody said, what'd you do for a living? I'm a teacher. It opened a door to a conversation immediately.

People could resonate and connect with me because I was a teacher. I'd even put that title sometimes, possibly before parent or wife or friend. It really did give me such this sense of achievement and pride.

And the other night, me and Sarah went to watch Greg Davis in concert. He was doing a standup, it was brilliant. And just before he came on, I didn't share this one with you, Sarah.

I thought, I hope he doesn't ask if there's any teachers in the audience. I really hope he doesn't ask because I don't feel I can say, yes, I'm a teacher. And that really upset me.

Irrespective of everything that we do in our business world, we do in the world of tuition, I am still at the chalk face with kids four times a week. I'm no longer a teacher. And that brought me a sense of real sadness in the event of not being able to clap and be part of the teaching community and leaving the classroom.

Yes, you might leave in a certain state. Yes, you're in this possibly having had a nervous breakdown to use old fashioned language, but you're also sat in grief. And I think the grief of losing your identity, irrespective of how awful it's been, it is a relationship and a job that you fundamentally didn't want to leave.

Am I talking absolute? Careful there, Sarah, or can you relate to what I'm saying in that respect? I can relate to an extent, but I slipped very easily into the past tense with teaching once I left. But I do wanna go to something that it'll get easier, which is bandied about when you're training. I remember having a conversation with a very dear friend of mine who is six years older than me.

Him and his now wife had already qualified. They were teaching in schools and I wanted to abandon on my second teaching practice because I had to do three, two year B.Ed. And I really wanted to abandon. No, no, no, it'll get easier.

Get it done, get it done, see it through. At least if you've got your qualification, it'll all be fine. And actually it was.

Third teaching practice was an absolute, it was brilliant. It was everything that you could have wanted it to be. And again, first 10 years, absolutely golden.

It did get easier in some respects because they were good times, 95 to 2005. But I think now saying it'll get easier isn't the case necessarily. I think it just becomes different.

And each time it becomes different, actually it's just a different kind of, oh, this is difficult. And it becomes a, for some, for not all, but for some it becomes a perpetual cycle of, oh God, what have I got to sort out now? What have I got to learn how to do now? When is this bit going to end? And it's that cycle of, as a teacher, and I genuinely don't notice it now, you live your life in chunks of time or chunks of task. I've got to get my reports done, tick, done.

I've got to get my mocks marked, tick, done. And your life goes in chunks of time because you are constantly sat in that state of what's next, what's to do? Why is this so difficult? When is this going to get easier? You can't live your working life like that. And it's one of those as well.

You know when you front load, because it's a new job so you're learning new skills, and you go, well, now I've cracked this. I'm just on wash, rinse, repeat. I've done the hard yards, I've done the training, and I've done my induction.

I can now almost rest back on my laurels because it's like driving. We drive unconsciously because we've learned that skill, we do it, we benefit from it. But imagine if every time you got in your car, they changed the position of the steering wheel and where your indicators were, and you were constantly relearning every single day how to drive.

That's how it felt for me. Just when I've nailed something, scheme of work I knew off the top of my head, and back on my shoulder, we're golden. This is the marking policy.

I've done it, I've learned it, now it's changed. I never could coast that, and I don't mean coast in a lazy sense. I mean, I could never just appreciate the fact I'd got my craft, I'd got my skill, I could get on with it and just unconsciously do my job because something was always changing.

Coming over the hill, I couldn't manage my time because I was working to other people's timelines and timescales and demands. So, and I think that was one of the things like what you've just said, Kitty. It never just settled, it was one thing after another.

So, we've had a good old moan, we've had a good old chin wag about everything that's wrong, but you find yourself out. And you find yourself out of that classroom, and we've gone from, and this is gonna be the interesting switch, I think. We've gone from a corpse being picked up, animals picking at you, feeling trapped, feeling lost.

And we're going to talk about cozy, holiday, cottage. I don't think you could be more polar opposite in terms of the semantic field of this. So, walk us through the next movement from that place to where you are now.

Okay, so I left teaching very much, as you say, a shell. I then, again, did a lot of work looking after myself when I could, because obviously I was very anxious and upset, so it was just sort of rebuilding. And then I actually worked for an education platform for a little while.

So, when I left teaching, I went there, and I was working there until quite recently. And actually, I was very open, honest, talked about my experience, and they were very supportive. And I suppose, for me, that helped me start building up my confidence, like I started feeling more me again.

And I suppose I had that bit of a safety net. It was something I knew, education. It was, you know, I suppose fundamentally it was something I was good at.

And then, I suppose this is then when you look at everything, you suppose when you look at your environment, and I had to make some life-changing decisions. And, oh, wow, where are we now? So, it would have been 2022. So, basically, I used to visit the Yorkshire Dales.

It was my safe and wonderful safe space, my little haven. And I used to come up here a lot for walking with Kelly. And it's where I did a lot of reflection time.

And literally, I had been doing some of my personal circumstances. I was making some changes, was gonna go back to a family home. And then an opportunity arose for me to be able to move up here, and it's what I call the flick of my coin.

I flicked, and it landed. And seeking some advice from my godmum, I decided that I'd move up to the Yorkshire Dales. And sort of in that time, I met John, who runs Cozy Holiday Cottages.

And I started getting a bit involved with it, really. And I suppose things evolved. And basically, here I am.

It's not easy, but I'm very much enjoying it. And I suppose, really, I started just helping him out, because he had two holiday cottages. And sort of I got involved, helping him in all that, helping him out.

And then he sort of talked about his aspirations, about how he wanted to build sort of a management portfolio. And that's sort of, I suppose, how I came on board, started working for him. I now work full-time with the holiday cottages business.

And we actually now have five holiday cottages, with hopefully a couple more joining us in, hopefully by the summer, like late spring, early summer. So we've really started to just sort of work together and build that business up together, really. And if you'd sort of said to me, like two, three years ago, I'd be here, I would have said, no, because I've actually gone through quite a few, a very personal journey.

And then I think when you sort of reflect the affirmations, when you write down what you'd like, when I look back on what I've written, I think, wow, actually, I've started to achieve those things. And I never went out looking for it. It sort of, I suppose I dreamt about what I'd like, and for me, what I was hoping to achieve for me personally.

And then obviously, this opportunity has come about. And actually, I would never have thought I would have been working for myself, building up this. I didn't think I would have been, I don't know if confidence is the right word, but feel like I could do it.

And I love it that I'm still meeting people. There's that face to face. You can see there's my teacher side of things coming in with certain things like my little add-ons, as I call them in the cottages.

And it's just, I just can't really explain it. It's such a, that I sort of talk about that, there is a bit of hope there as well. Like it is scary, I hit rock bottom really, and I have slowly built myself back up.

And don't get me wrong, that times can be difficult. It's still hard work. But I feel that I have that achievement, that I'm working towards something.

I feel I can own it. Like it's my livelihood, I'm building a future for me. And fundamentally, I'm looking at things that are making me feel happy.

Hello, loyal listeners. It's that time in the episode when me and Sarah put out our little begging bowl and ask you to help fund our podcast. Because it's coming out of our pockets, and our kids have been living on beans on toast for months, while we've been messing about pretending we're live on Loose Women.

There's going to be a link in the episode notes, and it's called Buy Us a Coffee. This is your chance to help fund the podcast, give a little something back. Thank you.

When I was listening to you, I thought, she feels safe. She feels safe and secure, even in the uncertainty of business, because let's face it, one of the flip sides is, yes, you will be paid on the 15th of the month if you are a teacher, including the 15th of August, which is the sweetest of paychecks ever. And there isn't that necessarily in business.

So it is taking the rough with the smooth, but there is more control. You are in control to a certain extent, and you are your own boss. You're allowed to be more creative.

Give me an example of what one of these add-ons are. Come on, tell me about an add-on. Oh, an add-on.

So it's just like the garden, we have one of our cottages, and I've put like little, so I've put a little fairy door. And so going back to my EYFS, and like, so making my little steps, and then some of the children that have stayed, they've like painted some of the stones, so I've put them down. So again, you can use them as your storytelling.

You can tell your story with them. So I've sort of done that, really. Obviously, there's also like my educational sort of games in the cottage.

You know, so I've got my name on them, some of them, you know, so you know where they've come from, the classroom. But it's just sort of just doing those little sort of touches, really. And obviously, we're dog-friendly as well.

So obviously, the fur babies, as I called them, they're all looked after with their little dog toy bowl, sorry, box. But it's just sort of like, you get, oh, and we've got, wow, I'm going off now, and we've got a woodland area. So again, it's just sort of trying to, you know, we've got beautiful snowdrops in there at the moment.

You can see the daffodils coming up, the bluebells will be here soon. But it's just sort of having that space as well. So it's going back to that purposeful learning, and sort of having, being very natural, and going back to wildlife, really, and Mother Nature, really, because I feel she's a wonderful person, you know? And I think that's what we've all got to come back to, that actually, it's good grounding as well.

Well, you've mentioned your own mother, you've mentioned your godmother, and you've mentioned Mother Nature. So there's clearly a theme running through this. What I would ask you now is, with everything that's happened, and even in light of the difficult nature of our conversation today, and what it's brought up, share with us, give us a wonderful sliding doors moment, Kitty.

Tell us something wonderful. For me, my sliding door moment is just being able to open up the front door in the morning, and to be able to walk through my beautiful woodland. You know, I look at it, I walk through there with Kelly, I have a play with her in the morning, and just to be able to do that, and not actually have to think, I'm on a time schedule, I'm on a time schedule, I've got to get back, I've got to get back, and I'm able to just have a few minutes and reflect, and just take it all in.

I have a beautiful view of Buckden Pike, so I can walk up through the woodland, and I can just look through there, up, look through there, I can look through the woods, and I've got that landscape in front of me, and it's just sort of being able to reflect back, and just think, wow, like, I'm here, and I feel I wasn't able really to do that sometimes, you weren't able to just have that moment, and just appreciate the present, like you were always worrying about something, and I am still a bit of a worrier, everybody will say that, but it's just being able to sort of have that, sort of that reflection time, and just appreciate everything around you, and I see the robin in the morning, and I always think, oh, that's my nan saying hello, because she passed away last year, so again, I was able to have that time with my family, and if I'd been in teaching, I wouldn't have got that, and so for me, that's another sort of moment, that actually I was able to spend that time with them, whereas I don't think I wouldn't have had that opportunity, but again, I see this robin, so I always think I see her, and the other day, there was this beautiful rainbow, when we got our new cottage, and I was just like, it's just, you know, it's just everything, you go through these hardships, and everybody's different, and everything's different for people, but actually, you know, there is light, and I think it's just now, I'm able to just appreciate things a bit more, and I have that mindset, and I have that headspace to be able to do it. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, well, Kitty, thank you, thank you for sharing what was a difficult look back on your life, but a very typical and common one, and on behalf of Sarah, myself, and our listeners, who will have taken a great deal from that, and your links, we'll put them in the show notes underneath, so you might get some visitors knocking on your door, asking for the little fairy door, and can we meet Callie, and can we see the bluebells, and that would be wonderful, so thank you for giving your time today for us, Kitty, it has been greatly appreciated, thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Hi, friend. Hello. That was an interesting one, wasn't it, because in an air of transparency, we paused, Kitty, didn't we? Yeah.

We paused midway through that, because she was struggling. She couldn't get it out. She couldn't make it make sense.

Yeah, she'd had, and it'll be interesting to see on the edit, whether we edit out the bit where we say, we paused, because we did say, can we pause for a minute? It'll be interesting whether we do that or not. And we could see she was struggling. We could see she was struggling, and I think that's perhaps one of the things that doesn't necessarily come across, because we don't share the video of the recording, so you don't see me waving my hands around frantically and gesticulating, but we see that, and we've mentioned it before now, the number of times where there's almost some sort of morphing of the physicality of somebody from when they're talking about that time in it coming out of the classroom to what they're doing now.

They physically, there's a term for that. There's a term for it, and it comes from something to do with the weird world of Victorian psychic seances, you know, like when somebody transformed, but you can see it, and it was, bless her, it was really apparent for Kitty. And I wrote something down, because she said to us, it really has triggered me.

And I want to go to something with that, because there's a lot of words that I don't like anymore, because they were overused in teaching. Resilience is one of them. And the word trigger has been in social media and is massively overused and diminishes the impact that a trigger can actually have on somebody.

We see it so often with guests that they're talking about it does trigger that response. And I think it's acknowledging the fact, because I've spoken to people about it, and that word's come up, and there's a little silent roll of the eyes and all the rest of it. No, it's real.

It doesn't take much of something to bring something back up that is really, really potent and causes a physical response. You're right. If Kitty had have said to us, and what she said was, yeah, it's triggering me, and it's triggering me.

And you're right, that word washes over us. If she'd have said, this is traumatizing me. Re-traumatizing.

Yeah, which is what the trigger is. This is traumatizing me. This story is traumatizing me.

We just stop, right? We'll hold you in a safe space, do some kind of supervision, that kind of thing. But when you're absolutely right, when you say this is triggering me, it almost feels like it's just flicking her. This is just flicking me at the minute.

No, this is reopening a traumatic experience. She was becoming flushed. She couldn't get her words out.

And when she talked about why, because she disabled herself with fear of saying the wrong thing. This is a grown woman who is, who's now at the helm of a property of portfolio, of a portfolio of property. A portfolio of properties.

Ironic, I'm talking about her not being able to get her words out. And she's now putting add-ons and touches and she's building this world for her and her partner, John. It's brilliant.

But for that moment in time, she was right back there again. And it does come up in the group. People think they are going to leave teaching.

I have a post that I copy and paste all the time. You do not leave in a sedan chair where you float from this horrible period of your life to the thrival. It is that period in between where there's so much emotion taking place.

There is grief, there is loss, there is anger, there's resentment, there's shame, there's disappointment. It is like, we've talked about it so many times. It's like leaving a toxic relationship.

It's like having a divorce. It's like a death. Now, I can't believe, and I'm not generalising, I can't believe that somebody who say, for example, is trained as an accountant, has worked for 10 years as an accountant, suddenly goes, I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm going to leave. I'm not happy. My boss isn't great.

I feel overworked, I feel undervalued. I'm going to go and retrain and become a software engineer. I don't know if they would have that level of grief when it came to that career.

I don't think we can draw any conclusions. I don't think we can generalise. We sit in a bubble.

Sorry, the bird just attacked the window again. We sit in a bubble in our group, which is in an echo chamber of the thoughts and feelings of some very desperate souls at times. And I don't think it's our position to sit and say whether somebody else in a different profession might or might not feel that.

We don't know. It's not, I can categorically, I'd put my house on this. It is not solely teaching.

It's not, and the pit pony mentality that is the underpinning of what we do, that is not solely teaching. The nursing, medical profession, not even just public sector, there will be people who are in professions that they've always wanted to do and then have found themselves not wanting to do it anymore for a variety of reasons. And some toxicity might sit under that or it might be that they've fallen out of love with it.

But I don't think it's fair of us to ask. I don't believe that, do you know what I'm saying? But I think no matter what you walk of life, you can hit rock bottom. And rock bottom is a phrase that has come up time and time again.

I've got a little picture somewhere that somebody sketched for me. It's only when you're on your back at rock bottom that you can look up and see the sky. And I think that for me is the critical bit.

She said that, I hit rock bottom and times can still be hard. And I think that's important. No matter what social media says, no matter what the surface says, people are not walking through life on candy floss and it all being light and airy and fairy.

That's not life. That is not life. So you do go through hard times.

You do come past things and you move on and then something will come up and you'll recognise it and you'll go, ooh, this feels the same or it feels similar or something else will come and sideswipe you. That is life. But what struck me with Kitty is that she talked about what she does and what she has done to take the steps to recognise that.

She used that word, I recognise it now when it happens. I do this, I do that. And I go back to the importance of finding the person or the support mechanisms or whatever that allow you to talk that out and making sure that they are the right person on the right support mechanism.

And actually, if you try something, I tried CBT, it wasn't for me. And then I found a registered qualified coach with really strong credentials and she worked for me. But I think Kitty found her own strategies and has got herself to a place where when she is having a tough day or a tough period, she knows how to move on.

And I think don't be, because she's so unassuming and she's so quiet and gentle. But actually, I firmly believe there's quite a feisty, driven woman who's been sat on screen with us today. I think women have been a big influence in her life.

It takes a certain kind of person to just, she said she flicked a coin up in the air, didn't she? And it landed on the Yorkshire Dales. She entered into a new relationship. She's building a business.

You're absolutely right. There was some real spark of inner strength. And I've enjoyed that episode thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed the process of that episode with Kitty.

And I hope for many of our listeners, as do all of our podcasts, there was something to take away from that. Even if it is, some things just don't go away and that's okay if they don't go away. It is normal and it's natural and there's nothing wrong with you.

Life is life. Right, my friend, it's Sunday afternoon. It's time for me to go and get that chicken, the big chicken, go and get the big chicken sorted.

And I'll see you on the other side, my friend. Ciao. Thanks for staying with us during another great episode of the Pit Pony podcast.

And on behalf of myself, Sarah Dunwood, Mike Roberts at Making Digital Real, we wish you all the very best and we'll see you soon. If you wish to contact me directly for a support session or a clarity call for your next steps, please find my link in the comments below. See you soon.