Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
In today's world, being a teacher and educator can be empowering, inspiring, and rewarding. Educating the next generation can also be exhausting, frustrating, and disheartening. Teacher's Ed was created to motivate, encourage, and uplift teachers and educators to inspire you for the week ahead.
Teachers Ed is where the best and brightest in education come to be inspired, to learn, to connect, and to grow.
Teacher's Ed with Edward DeShazer
Dancing with Chaos: Finding Peace and Resilience in Education
Finding peace amidst chaos isn't about running away from challenges but navigating them with intention. By focusing on what you can control, creating small moments of calm, and reframing chaos as opportunities for growth, educators can maintain their wellbeing and effectiveness.
• Focusing on what you can control supports regaining peace amid chaos
• Creating micro moments of peace helps maintain balance during the day
• Reframing chaos leads to personal growth and learning opportunities
• Tips for morning reflection, pauses between tasks, and nighttime gratitude
• Investing in self-care is crucial for educators’ wellbeing and community strength
www.EdwardDeShazer.org
Welcome to Teachers Ed Podcast. I'm your host, everett Shazer. The Teachers Ed Podcast is the place where the best and brightest in education come to be inspired, to connect, to learn and to grow. Today we are talking about something that every teacher has faced at one time or another, and that is finding peace in the midst of chaos. Whether you are navigating new beginnings, whether you are dealing with unexpected changes or just trying to keep it all together, peace can sometimes feel out of reach. Can sometimes feel out of reach. But one thing I want us to know today is peace is not about eliminating chaos, but a lot of times it's about finding the calm within it. And in this episode, I will give you three tips to help you center yourself, help you regain focus and help you embrace peace even when life feels overwhelming. And what teacher is not feeling like life is overwhelming these days? Because being in education is just overwhelming in general. So let's dive right in the first one.
Speaker 1:Tip number one is focusing on what you can control. Yes, it is easier said than done when life feels chaotic. It's easy to get caught up in everything that's outside of our control, whether it's that unexpected schedule change, co-workers are missing from work, challenging student behavior or school policies that you just don't feel like are working for you. The key to finding peace is really shifting your focus to what you can control, and here's a couple ways that you can practice this. Number one is create a control list. Take a few minutes. Write down a list of what is in, what is within your power of influence and what is not. For example, you can't control your school's budget, but you can control how you use the resources you have within your classroom. Number two we have to start small. Once you've identified what you can control, I want you to pick. One small action that you can take today is rearranging your lesson plan to better suit your schedule, or maybe it's just taking a few moments before a difficult conversation or a difficult situation that you may be going through.
Speaker 1:And tip number three let go of the rest. Or step number three is let go of the rest. Practice accepting the things that you can't change. This does not mean you're giving up. It means acknowledging reality and choosing not to let reality steal your peace. So the reflective question that I would have for you is what's one thing in your life right now that is feeling overwhelming? How can you shift your focus on that one thing to what is in your control, what's within your control. So that's what I want you to reflect on right now and before we move into the next tip, I want to remind you about the Be Well Teacher Academy.
Speaker 1:The Be Well Teacher Academy is your space to recharge, connect and find balance, even when life feels chaotic. We have live events, there's workshops, there's courses, there's lessons, but, most importantly, there's a supportive community of educators who truly understand your journey. Our first live event is January 26th, so it is coming up. It is myself and three other speakers that are going to be pouring into you guys for two hours. It's a live event filled with strategies for self-care, strategies for balance. You don't want to miss it, and it's free to the members of the community. The memberships are $7.99 a month. The first seven days are free. Go to wwwbewellteachercom Almost knocked my mic over Register and learn more, and I want us to remember that peace starts by investing in yourself.
Speaker 1:Tip number two that we have today is create micro moments of peace and, as you guys notice over all of the episodes, I try to give you small, actionable things. I think one of the biggest mistakes as educators that we make is trying to make these big, massive changes. And big change starts with small micro steps. So peace doesn't have to be this big, elusive thing that you can only find on your two-week vacation you just came off. Sometimes it's about creating small, intentional moments of calm within your day. Here's how you can build in some micro moments of peace in your day.
Speaker 1:Number one start your day with intention. Before you check your phone or dive into all those to-do lists, I want you to take a moment for yourself. Just reflect, whether it's five minutes of journaling, deep breathing, maybe it's just sitting in the peace and quiet before the rest of the house gets up, or sipping your coffee. Mindfully, starting your day with calm will tend to set the tone for everything else. Number two is pausing between tasks. We get in this mode of just rushing, rushing, rushing. We rush from one thing to the next and I want us to just take 30 seconds of just rushing, rushing, rushing. We rush from one thing to the next and I want us to just take 30 seconds to just pause, breathe and reset. These tiny breaks are very good in helping stress to not build up. And number three this one is so important just ending your day with gratitude.
Speaker 1:Before you go to bed, I want you to reflect on one thing that went well or something that you're grateful for. It can help you shift your focus from the chaos to the good. And this is all just a mind shift. You know, we can always think about the crazy things that are going on, the bad things going on. This person did that. This happened at work, this happened outside of work. But before bed, just reflecting on one thing that went well. A lot of times, that will help you sleep better, because when we're thinking about the negative things, we go to sleep. Thinking about the negative things, which oftentimes does not allow us to go to sleep well, then we're stressed through the night, we don't sleep well, then it starts that waterfall cycle the next day. So the reflective question I have for you today is what is one micro moment of peace that you can create within your day? Because even just 30 seconds can really make a difference in how you feel when we're talking about taking micro moments and creating those micro moments of peace.
Speaker 1:Tip number three I want us to reframe chaos as growth, and this one might sound counterintuitive, but if you looked at chaos as, not as something to dread, but an opportunity to grow. When things feel out of control, it's often because we're stepping into something new or being stretched in ways that are going to help us evolve. For all my folks that work out, if you walked into the gym and say you were able to bench press 30-pound weights, if you walked in and 30-pound weights was easy for you and you walked in the gym every day and you're like, no, I'm going to bench press 10-pound weights and you did 10 reps and you walk back out, you're not going to see much change. Muscles are just like our lives. For us to grow, at times, we have to put ourselves under stress. So, again, we're going to be reframing chaos as an opportunity for growth. So here's a couple ways that you can do that.
Speaker 1:Number one is look for the lesson. Ask yourself what is this situation teaching me? It could be patience, it could be adaptability, it could be resistance, it could be gratefulness. You may be going through something where someone broke in your car and you lost your car, or you didn't lose your car, but it's damaged, and then your car goes to shop for a few days and you finally get your car back. You're like, no, I'm grateful for the car. I have the same car you were complaining about two weeks ago. When you go without it for three or four days, you're super grateful for it. So I want us to, as we're looking to reframe chaos into growth, look for the lesson amidst any problem that we're going through.
Speaker 1:Number two I want us to focus, and I've said this every week. You're probably like man, you just said this last week, but I want us to focus on progress, not perfection. Chaos can often feel overwhelming because we think we have to fix everything immediately Instead of focusing on small steps forward. I want us to just focus on and know that growth isn't all about getting it right. It's about moving in the right direction. There's a lot of people in this world that are moving fast, but they're moving fast in the wrong direction. So, growth, it is better to be moving in the right direction at a slow pace, with small steps, than it is to be moving fast in the wrong direction. And number three is I want you all to celebrate wins along the way. Even in chaos, there are moments of success. I want you to take a second to recognize them, take a second to celebrate them, no matter how small they may seem Like. You deserve to celebrate all the great things that are going on in your life, no matter how big or no matter how small they are.
Speaker 1:The reflective question I have for you, as we're talking about that, is where in your life can you shift your mindset to see chaos as an opportunity for growth? What is think back? You know 2020 vision. It's always easy, when you go through something down the road, to be like why did I go through that? And then you look back like that's exactly why I went through it. I want you to think back. Maybe it's recent, maybe it's a little while ago. Let's think back to 2024. What is one lesson you learned in 2024 from a challenging situation? I want you to think about one of those challenging situations that you went through and then think back. What did I learn from that? And we have to learn from these things. We have to learn from every challenging situation or we're going through challenges for absolutely no reason. So, again, we are trying to reframe our chaos and reframe our challenges as growth. So the reflective question is what's one lesson that happened in 2024 that you learned? And it was a challenge and now you've grown from. So I want you to think about that, reflect on that and again, as we get ready to wrap up, I want to remind you to join the BOL Teacher Academy.
Speaker 1:We have next week Saturday. Saturday the 18th is one of our first live events. It is Saturday morning coffees, 30-minute connection. It's live, all the recordings you're able to view even if you're not able to make it. But again, it is free for the first seven days. It is $7.99 per month. You get access to all of our events for free. I'm going to be bringing some super dynamic speakers to the community. You get the courses, you get the lessons, you get the modules, you get everything is included for $7.99 a month. It is about the same. You know all these inflation. It's about the same cost as a grande Starbucks coffee and you get all this information. You get all these live events.
Speaker 1:So I hope you join wwwbewellteachercom. Join today. I hope you join. I hope you join me next week Saturday and then two Sundays after that you join us for our first big live mini summit called Recharged. We're having those once a month.
Speaker 1:Saturday morning coffee is going to be once or twice a month, depending on the schedule, and I want us to remember, or first I want to thank you for joining. If you have not, I always ask and I hope you've made it this far please like, please subscribe, please share with a friend. If you haven't and you follow on Apple Podcasts or you're on Spotify, please leave a review. Let people know if you like it. Hey, if you don't like it, let me know, because this is not for me, this is for you. That's why it's called Teacher's Ed. It ain't Ed's Ed, it's Teacher's Ed. So let me know what you like. Let me know if there's other things that you want to hear more of, things you want to hear less of. I try to give you micro things that we can take, actionable things that we can take into the next week. But again, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1:Finding peace in the midst of chaos and new beginnings is not about avoiding our challenges. It's about navigating them with intention, with resilience and with grace. I want you to remember that when you take care of yourself and you take care of those around you, you are building a stronger and more connected community. I want you to remember that when you take care of yourself and you take care of those around you, you are building a stronger and more connected community. I want you to keep believing in your students, keep believing in your colleagues and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Until next time, stay inspired, stay connected and keep growing.