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Gather At The Well: How to Plan Your Pause - Frameworks + Practices for Stepping Away - Lindsey Fuller
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- [00:00]
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Foreign I'm Lindsay and it's time to gather at the well. We're on a mission to microdose wellness, create human centered systems and retain our greatest asset, our people. We believe it's time for podcasts that teach moving beyond thought leadership and towards change leadership. Join us and our friends at We Are For Good as we model the way with concrete examples from the field and gain tangible tools because it's possible to build adult work cultures we we don't need to heal from. Let's get into it. Hey you. Welcome in. You know, the other night I was talking to my husband and as we reminisced some thoughts connected to today's topic. Remember in college when you couldn't wait for breaks between quarters? I don't know about you, but for me I was like let me make some money because the bank account was depleted. See friends from back home. But there was always a huge obstacle between me and my freedom and that was finals. You had to study, get organized, overcome anxiety provoking exams, and Lord, for me it was the essays and for you educators, the same is true with grading leading up to summer break. I remember the seemingly never ending scoring of summative assessments breaking down my classroom. I don't know why we do that if we're coming back to it, by the way, but I digress. And also those report cards. All you want to do is sleep without an alarm or drink your coffee while it's hot. Imagine and not make a thousand decisions each day. Or maybe even leaving your house without 12 bags. That's the dream. ICU educators. We love summer for you, by the way, and for our friends in the nonprofit world, especially those in development roles. Giving Tuesday an end of year fundraising is the final push before the holidays. It's for a great cause. You're likely bought into the mission if you're motivated to do this work. But there's duality because you're also depleted. This is a cross sector phenomenon. The universe is playing games with our emotions because anticipatory energy visits at least once a year, regardless of your role. At least that's what I'm seeing. So gearing up for a powerful pause, including sabbaticals, mirrors this reality. You need the break so badly, and yet a never ending to do list is either glaring at you from the corner of your desk or you have hella open tabs on your computer that are a constant reminder of the tasks you work hard not to lose sight of. It can feel like pushing a boulder up a mountain. I've realized that half the battle is getting you to the starting line of your time away. There's so much that can come up somatically, mentally, physically and spiritually, and that's just on the personal level, much less the money questions, team preparedness and program lines that all require your attention and care. Today, my aim is to plant some seeds and lift the veil on a few strategies that can make your downward descent just a little bit more containing in this episode, we'll discuss some key reflection areas to reveal whether your organization can sustain a staff member's extended break, as well as exploring two key practices that the Teaching Wells directors leverage to get ready ourselves. Before my leave, I already know some of y' all have heard me talking about a sabbatical and it's low key, a professional turnoff because you don't yet have a sabbatical policy or access to something structured and and intensive like that within your company or your role. Or maybe you are a solo consultant who doesn't see shutting down as possible. But everything that I'm talking about also applies to extended breaks like five days plus right? Some of these tools really help to get you grounded, to get you to be able to decelerate effectively and and to be able to return to work feeling both recharged but also ready to resume. So don't check out rock with me and just cause you hear sabbatical, maybe put vacation in there mentally and practice swapping that so that somatically you don't shut down an idea that could be liberatory for you until you're able to design a sabbatical policy. Before we jump into the main teaching concepts today, let's just get into the space. Whether you are wrapping a busy day plugging me into your lunchtime learning, or listening as you drive during your commute, let's take three deep breaths here. In through the nose and out through the mouth, seeing if you can access that audible exhale. I'm all too familiar with the bracing behaviors as you even begin to imagine taking time off. But get in your body. We'll figure this out together. You know, leading up to my own sabbatical, I met people who were fascinating because some of them, it seemed like, always take long breaks. Maybe it's the unlimited PTO of the world, I'm not really sure. But some of them kind of reminded me of the dog meme where it's sitting inside of a room on fire saying it's fine. Google it if you don't know what I mean. It's epic and is applicable in most team check ins. And still there were others who were doomsday prepping despite absolute success, and those ones were the most resistant to taking time away. It's gotten me curious. What's the middle path for a thriving organization or a company on fire? What's up with the common thread of people struggling to objectively look at their org status and make a grounded, informed decision on whether or not it's feasible and wise in this season to step away? I want to be clear. I'm going to share three indicators and they represent one way to look at things, not the only way. I'm sure each of you can name a few consideration areas based on your unique context. Trust into that your intuition is an essential tool in leadership. This topic isn't shared from a place of judgment either, but rather to illuminate some look fors that can either encourage you imparting some validation I know it's much needed and security in your decision to rest. Or on the flip side, you might hear what I'm saying and it could bring awareness to areas of focus that, once stabilized, will lay the foundation for an even more powerful pause. So back to these readiness reflections. It was hard to narrow, but I'm going to start sharing some non negotiable categories that I think are easy to spot that you might want to check out. Finance People and Program look, if you have an $800,000 deficit, that's a rough time to lean out. I don't know who needs to hear that, but it hit my soul and I just wanted to bring it through. Some of you may be thinking this is an every year reality and that, my friend, is a longer conversation, one that may be my ministry or you may need to talk about with somebody else. But in the social sector, for many nuanced reasons, there are some orgs having a really hard time accepting when it's time to fold down. Whether it's a school that has become unsafe and no learning is happening, or a non profit that has let go of its entire staff and still doesn't have a viable program offering, there may be a bigger decision to make. But in this instance, if your financial picture reveals an outlier period of hardship because of a funder unexpectedly pulling out or a major client dropping, it's a rough time to lean out. That's finance. But similarly, when you think about people, if you already have numerous team vacancies and critical roles, the next season may be a better look. I don't know, you might want to step back and say when Are we fully hired? When has onboarding settled? Can I go then? While you have significantly less agency in a parental leave, when it comes to these planned breaks like Sabbatic, it's really critical to reflect on the magnitude of that month. Help your crew launch the program, and then find a way to schedule a break at the end of the day. If you dip out and your teammates are left juggling burdens, burning out themselves, you potentially open the org to risk, but also to a culture of resentment. If you reflect on the areas I lifted and you find you are ready. Let me say the quiet part out loud. Two things that may seem obvious but are and were invaluable for me as the leader of the teaching well one, it never seems like the right time to go out. You're not crazy. That's real. Your job is to find the right ish time at the teaching well. It's June, program is lighter, we have less travel, a lot of people already want to take time off because of family events, and it's the ideal opportunity to recharge after we've been helping to retain educators all school year. The second is a solid co leader. Bless the Marisols of the world, y'. All. Sure, you can hire an interim or fractional leader, but my personal strong preference is an internal staffer to cover your absence if you have one. A highly effective internal candidate, one with strong communication, the ability to force rank priorities. They're familiar with your systems, your policies, your program lines, and most importantly, they hold the magic key, the relational trust and expertise to hold down key stakeholders. You need them to hold down your internal staff, your school or nonprofit board, key clients and funders. A solid co leader, this blessing of a human, is the game changer. They are the glue that allows you to rest without the pieces of your company falling apart. Because there are few worse things than finally getting to take a break and coming back to chaos. Go get you a Marisol. Just not ours. We need her to stay, actually, so that's real. But speaking of that queen, I would love to invite Marisol Pineda Conde, deputy director of the teaching. Well, former interim Ed, while I took some time away to facilitate a little somatic for you.
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Hi everybody, this is Marisol Pineda Conde, and I'm delighted to share one of my favorite somatic practices with you. This one is called Breathe and Bloom and it is a great practice when we're trying to settle the body and are having a really hard time quieting the mind. And so this practice invites us to sync our breath to Hand motion of a blooming flower. So I'm going to invite you to join me in this practice by first getting just 1% more comfortable. You might wiggle in your seat. You might even roll your shoulders back, inviting you to just find a little bit more ease. And when you're ready, on the next inhale, I'm going to invite you to bloom. I'm going to close my eyes and invite you to either do the same or perhaps lower your gaze. And again, as we inhale, you will bloom the hands of open stretching so that we feel the webbing in between the fingers. Holding that stretch and exhaling, closing that bloom and pinching the fingertips together, almost as if they can fuse into one. One more time, inhaling and blooming the palms, feeling the stretch and holding that breath and exhaling, closing the bloom, pinching the fingertips. I invite you to now take two more breaths at your own pace as you round out that second breath, inviting you to slowly make your way back again, bringing just 1% more comfort. Maybe fluttering the eyes open, rolling the shoulders back, or bringing a little bit of a stretch. Thank you so much for practicing with me.
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Welcome back. Welcome back. Hope that brought some relaxation and peace to you. Marisol's voice is like a lullaby. All right, so I'm keeping it real, but also practical in this episode. As usual, I want to now lift two tactical practices that not only reduced anxiety, but increased alignment. The first is an emergency checklist. And then there is a start. Stop. Continue. All right, so let's first start with the emergency checklist. This allows all parties in your organization. Your boss, you, your team, your board. To have real certainty around the short list of topics that you would be contacted about during your leave. You may just have had a guttural eye roll. Like, hold on. Wait a minute. I thought when I'm out, people should completely honor my boundaries and leave me alone. That would be your business friend for me. I just know when you sit in the number one seat. So I'm talking to you leaders. There are always moments, especially in crisis moments, where you're gonna need to be contacted. And so to me, it feels more empowering to articulate those on the front end than feel like I am being intervened upon, like something is happening to me while I am in my rest window. These three areas were actually the same as during my maternity leaves. You could have more or less. Those areas are staffing, finance, and then legal and compliance issues. So let me break these down just a little bit. I want to be contacted. Yes. Even on a sabbatical if an employee quits, or if there's a major HR issue. I'm fortunate because I've never been contacted for one of these issues on any of my three maternity leaves or during my sabbatical. Bless that. Thank you for holding it down and keeping it classy. Teaching well team, but it's real if an essential person gives their two week notice and you're out for three months, you may want to be looped in when it comes to finance. If a major funder were to drop or a major client were to drop, this can change your staffing model. Have your interim needing to make the decision of dipping into your reserve if you have one, it might restructure caseloads inside of a school if a major funder, or if a state or federal grant is pulled, or maybe you have a huge enrollment shift, it can change everything around your budget and especially for small companies or schools. This can be like an earthquake inside of your organization. And the last bit is legal and compliance issues. Think being sued or learning your team cannot be paid for services rendered because of contract issues, but you're already months into the work. Again, this doesn't just impact your budget, it can hit your reputation, require expensive investments in support like hiring a lawyer, and it typically requires leadership consulting with board members. You might want to be present for that. Maybe you heard all three of my areas and you were like, nah, it's good. I'll deal with it when I'm back again. You have agency and I would also say you can list out very clear examples together, especially if you're feeling really anxious or this is your first time stepping away. That might support calibration across you and your interim or leadership team, and if that makes you feel better, I love that. Or you can leave them really broad and trust your interim to discern when to loop you in. That was more of my approach. Here are one or two examples, but really I just trusted that Marisol had the strong enough discernment to hit me up if needed. And it's worked multiple times. Again, thanks Sol. You know yourself though, so be honest if you're going to come back overwhelmed, saying things like why didn't you call me? That is a somatic cue that the topic should be added to your list. Overall, I recommend this practice because it can enhance your internal peace. Plus added bonus is increasing external reassurance that dispels worries like am I bothering her or am I a burden to him? But it also prevents you returning to the org in crisis because that could really Lock you into an internal story that stepping away isn't possible in the future, and we don't want that for you. The next activity that Rebecca and Marisol and I really prioritize was what we call start, continue, Stop, or some people call it a keep, stop, start. Whatever you want to call it, you want to think across those three strategic domains. I remember wrapping up the session of our leadership step back and there was a collective exhale. And I even remember someone said something like, okay, we have a plan, we're all good. Like, it was just such a relief. We'll drop a template in the blog. You can modify if this is an exercise you want to try on. But the idea is really simple. You build a table and you externalize what the person heading out holds. You can use the JD to support as a scaffold, but it's not necessary. I want to share just a couple of examples with you from the teaching. Well, in terms of start, Marisol took my place in any funder check ins. Another start was that we trained two new teammates to field sales calls because I am the primary sales leader and I didn't want all of that to fall on directors. So shout out to Lina and to Lupe for fielding so many sales calls while I was out. In terms of continue, of course we want supervision to stay steady for the team, especially when someone who is in leadership has stepped away from the Org. But we did change the cadence. So instead of weekly supervision, Marisol held my supervisees three times or four times in the eight weeks. And of course, if they needed an extra check in, they could access her, and they knew that. But I wanted to design it to be more sustainable. Another continue was board stewardship because they're an extension of our team and we rock with them. Now, stop is critical and a lot of people pass over stop. You cannot continue to do all parts of that person's job while they're out. That's my opinion. Right. Again, we want to reduce risk and resentment. So for us, that meant canceling all of the internal pds, which y' all know, every Tuesday three hours for the month of June. That encouraged other teammates to take time off, but it also reduced the planning and facilitation load. We also stopped any working committees. I lead the curricular team. I also lead the supervision sync, which is for all supervisors in the Org. We just paused those for the eight weeks that work needed to stop because I was out and it wasn't the highest leverage lift for Marisol to prioritize. So I hope that these concrete activities make you feel just a little bit more like this is accessible. We can do this. I know I've given you a lot to consider, but I believe in you. So let's take an opportunity for a somatic while you integrate what I've shared. This is a quick exercise that's going to involve both visualization and intention setting. So you find out. Or maybe you planned for a leave and an extended one. It could be that two week vacation, a multi month sabbatical, or patting your holidays to make it an even deeper experience with restoration. If you haven't explored visualization, it is a powerful tool. It activates the parasympathetic nervous system, what some refer to as the rest and digest response. Both your adrenaline and cortisol levels lower when you engage with visualization. It's good for your cardiovascular health, lowering your blood pressure. It can support with anxiety management. We've seen that with a ton of our clients and for folks with chronic pain, research has found this practice can even help reduce that pain. You get the point. It's a healing centered intervention. So I was hoping to guide you through a visualization exercise that has you returning from your period of recovery. Some essential questions to consider before we drop in who are you rejuvenated and what actions or activities got you there? If it feels good to you, you might drop into your seats or if you're standing, root your feet directly into the ground and let the earth hold you. Let's take a couple of deep breaths here. In through the nose and out through the mouth. I'm always prompting you to release that pressure valve with an audible exhale. Join me again. I want to walk you through a progression of imagining what you see, hear, feel and need to bring to life a bit of a picture of you fully recharged. So let's picture it. Imagine you are returning from an extended break and for me, I know I see myself with a huge smile on my face. I look poppin, rejuvenated, relaxed, restored. I'm energized to participate and collaborate with my colleagues and clients. What does it look like for you? How are you communicating, behaving, moving through interactions or engaging in sustainable work? What does it sound like when you're in your period of restoration? Are you able to articulate balanced boundaries? Are you clear and concise in your communication? Are there cackles in your team meeting? More gratitude and appreciation because you can see what's working. You're no longer just seeing challenges from a place of depletion and Now a layer of exploration around feelings. And this is both emotional but also sensational. Bringing the Soma into the space how does it feel to be in your body in this moment, restored? Is there less tension, deeper exhales? Do you feel like you could run a mile? Or maybe actually you're moving with more intention in a slower fashion? Are your nerves dissipating? Or that pit in your stomach before difficult conversations, maybe that's left and you feel assured, connected. And now in this visualization, I want you to get to the place of need, pulling you up through your body, back to your mental space. If you were to sustain how good it feels to come back rested, what do you need to do? So, for example, if I see myself active yet rested, if I hear laughter and creativity flowing around me, if I feel whole, healed and balanced, I need to hold on to sleep and weekly yoga classes to stay this resource. If that's your truth, if you saw yourself as well as you are, how did you get there? So awakening and coming back into the space, inviting in two more deep breaths. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Let's have this final breath be the deepest and longest of your day. So in the example where I narrated clarity, somatic clarity, that someone needed to really center sleep and moving their body in healthy ways, then their intentions might sound like if sleep is the need, I intend to reflect and recommit to my sleep hygiene practices. Sleep is sacred, y'. All. Or another intention based on your known well being after yoga and movement could be to experiment with evening sustainability systems. Maybe meal prepping, or you and your partner swapping gym nights, or a grandparent joining dinner while you head to the class. My point is this. As you envision and plan for your restoration, or if you're already in a period of rest and you visualize the experience of recovery, you want to explore these areas during your time away because those reps increase the likelihood of you sustaining more work Life integration When you return to work, I hope this experience has been nourishing and also that you see the ways that visualization can enhance intention setting. See your favorite self, know yourself well enough to articulate the activities and actions you took to get there, and then set intentions around systems, habits or commitments that'll help you stay in that window of resilience. Let me lay down some affirmations real quick that might aid as you prepare for your pause. I can focus on my preparation and trust the process. Every step of prep brings me closer to recovery. I am resilient as I approach my restoration Gearing up for homework because you already know it's the podcast that teaches I've got three reflection questions for you connected to readiness. The first is how is our organization doing when it comes to finance people and program? What data might suggest we can withstand some needed time away now the second question is key. Succession planning isn't just for leaving a role entirely. So who, internally or externally, can I trust, cultivate and align with to prepare for a powerful pause? And finally, what are the pieces of my role that can't be dropped? And similarly, what types of emergencies warrant a quick call while I'm away, if any? At the start of this episode, we discussed a common experience with the bracing and overwhelm leading up to an employment pause. I'm not immune to those feelings. There were days I told myself, maybe it's easier to just stay, or maybe I should postpone this sabbatical. But here's the thing and my critical hope for you all. What's on the other side of this discomfort of the overwhelm of the to do's is the rest you desire. And an added bonus is your staff experiences you modeling workplace well being. They get to flex leadership muscles. You return with greater clarity and for me, creativity, a renewed spirit towards the work. Ultimately, you get to press the reset button on parts of your life that are no longer serving you. A powerful pause is also a case for collectivism. Your team holds you down now and you have their back when they need time away. This is is a true culture of reciprocal care. And if you know me, I am only here for reciprocal relationships at this point in my life. So I'm asking you not to say no and deny yourself the opportunity to secure an extended leave. Don't say no before you get prepared. Try on some practices from today and hit us up at the teaching well if you need sabbatical coaching or thought partnership. We'll also again drop you some tools in the blog. I'm grateful you listened in. I'd love to swap some musings on LinkedIn. So follow me. Hit me up or the crew at the teaching well too. Join me for the next episode where I'll share practical tips to try on during your sabbatical or powerful pause. We'll talk soon. All right y', all, thanks for coming to play at Gather at the well, the podcast that teaches. If you like this conversation, come visit us online@theteachingwell.org and hit us up on our socials. We're always looking for supporters to replenish the well, if you want this podcast to stay in the game, you or your company can donate on our website. Remember to visit the podcast page to download a couple of useful tools to get your life and heal up your org.