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Gather At The Well: The Power of the Pause - 3 R’s of Recovery - Lindsey Fuller
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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 y'. All. Welcome back in to Gather at the well, the podcast that teaches with the teaching well and I'm your host Lindsay Fuller. I am freshly off an eight week micro sabbatical and it's maybe not as fresh as one would like, but I am still feeling refreshed and I want to break it down today. Let me take you back and set the scene Right before I went out. This was back at the beginning of May and let me tell you, I got all the opinions from. I liken it to when folks touch your belly without consent when you're with child. Everyone and their mom thought eight weeks was too short. There were a ton of judgments around not taking an international solo trip, which evidently is what everyone considers to be a real sabbatical. And when I lifted my goals, especially the one about composting mom guilt, people told me that I was still engaging in labor. I had a whole lot of projected expectations on me, but I'm glad that I stayed in my own peace and held fast to the experience that I designed. The goals were simple and maybe uninspiring to some. I wanted to do nothing. That means be absolutely unproductive, but also do something with productivity every day. The hope was that I'd be 1% more in my wellness each day to microdose mindfully within a macro intervention. So today we're going to discuss a couple of my authentic AHAs. Explore the three Rs of recovery that accelerate a powerful professional pause and deep dive into the third R that I arrived at personally during my time away. So let's get on to it. These AHAs. First of all, micro sabbaticals are just as potent as 6 to 12 month leaves. When designed with intention, you can achieve recovery. And I'm going to say that multiple times today. An unpopular opinion here, but if you hate your job and plan to quit, a sabbatical might not be a viable intervention. I know I said the thing out loud, that quiet part that no one wants to bring forward, but Truly, micro sabbaticals and sabbaticals at large are really important human centered systems, but they're not going to address the root cause of individual, interpersonal or systemic issues if that's what's underneath your desire to transition out of your organization or role. A third Aha. I fell back in love with pto, y'. All. I forgot that I love it. And maybe you're like, that's basic Lyns. And it is. But I've realized so much that sometimes the things that really propped you up in parts of your career may no longer be for you. So as a teacher, I learned to hoard. And you're going to hear this theme of hoarding through this whole episode. So if you don't like it, you could dial out now. But stay with me, hang with me on this. When I think about teaching, I was in a resource strapped profession in a resource strapped school and every post it note was like gold. So I kept them. And I didn't realize the extent to which my hoarding behaviors had spread into all corners of my life. So if you're listening to this and you're an educator, you're an administrator, I'm like, girl, I promise we do not need 27 staplers. Okay? But I was still hoarding teacher clothes and gift cards for massages and withholding self care interventions that I deserved. And so I wanted to just say that through this sabbatical I fell back in love with caring for myself and taking time off. I've already taken three days of PTO since being back. Holler at your girl if you know, you know that's a big deal for me. And finally another aha, I want to lift. Is that vacation without the three Rs of recovery, especially if you are a parent, will not help you if you're burnt out. Take a few breaths with me. Getting comfortable in your seat? Let's drop in together because I'm already bringing some fire and I know it. Go ahead and roll your shoulders back three times, each one accompanied with a deep breath. So before you get in your feels, because I'm talking about your vacation, just let me clarify. All right, here's what I'm seeing. Across the country, people are relying on this structure of a mental health day. And bless it, sometimes you need to just release the pressure valve. But if you take a single day off and come back and are equally as fatigued, it's not a surprise to me. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying that that Microdose of wellness isn't addressing the larger issues. And if you're anything like me, when I see a three day weekend, I'm like, ooh, challenge accepted. I'm about to change my whole life, be the most rested version of my and also I'm going to set really ambitious, unrealistic goals for all the things I want to do in my personal and provider roles. Just me, clean every rug in your house. Come on baseboards. I'm like, why? Why did I start cleaning the refrigerator out? And then you return to work and you have four days. And a lot of folks are advocating for this system. For me, it is not my ministry. 4 day work weeks feel like 5 days with too little time. So these are important microdoses of wellness and maybe they work for you. But I've also heard bosses confused about why their staff reemerged from the holidays fatigued. And I'm like, yo, of course they are. Yeah, it's a long extended break, but folks are hosting, traveling, their finances are impacted and we're typically not practicing well being routines. We're drinking more, we're eating sweets, we're working out less. If any of these examples resonate for you personally or you're seeing them in your workplace, this podcast series is for you. Here's the deal. These are all forms of breaks from work, but not necessarily restorative or restful. We need to learn how to pause powerfully with an intentional plan. And sometimes your burnout isn't just about work. You may be overextending in your personal life too, and in desperate need of a recalibration. So when I think back to just before my micro sabbatical, I started to ask myself the big juicy questions that this opportunity invited me towards. I asked myself, what would it take to right size my relationship to work to actually rebalance my life in a more holistic way? If you've been rocking with Gather at the well since season one, I'd advocate for microdosing wellness. But again, this sabbatical, it felt different to me. I set out to design a macro intervention and I landed on a formula for a powerful pause, but one that doesn't dissipate the moment I log back into Zoom on that first day. Back to work. I'm talking about work life integration, not a 5050 split of work life balance. And I'm calling it the three R's of recovery. So the first R is rest. A couple of examples like napping, binge watching a show on Netflix, not rushing to and from throughout your day. The next is restoration. This is different and don't worry, I'll define them in a moment. But this might look like self care appointments, like going to the chiropractor, going on a hike with your best friends or for me, prayer. And the third, which is really the one that nobody talked to me about and I landed on it, hit my spirit about two months before I went out. It's right. Sizing the mental load might be getting your real ID or registration at the dmv, designing your holiday card, or getting organized around all of the extracurricular commitments for one kid or maybe the herd that I have. Right? So you probably heard those last examples and you were like wow, certainly don't want to do that on my time off lens. I feel you. But let me take a moment to actually define them before you write off my formula. Rest are periods of inaction. They help us relax, decelerate our nervous systems and return to energy baselines. That's why I said that binge watching has a place in the wellness world, whereas restoration is actually recharging your well being and vitality. For me, it feels like activities that return you to yourself after giving so much to your professional mission. And last, and I, I know, I believe this is actually the key though to a lasting restorative break from work. Right? Sizing the mental load is a productive recovery that tackles tasks that have been a source of stress, visualize this. If your brain is the browser, these are all of the tabs you feel you can't close, but you also don't have time to get to. Managing your mental load is a critical way to recharge your life battery. So the invitation is that if you can get all three of these R's into your intentionally designed break, you will actualize more holistic recovery. Before I break down these concepts even further and give you some personal testimony around how it played out during my sabbatical, I want to bring in some other voices from the teaching well team. First, we're going to have Selena May lead facilitator come through and sprinkle a little settling magic on your spirit.
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Wherever you are, whether that's sitting down, standing up, or even relaxing back on your couch. Wonderful. Let's turn inward and get cozy. So if it feels good, you might soften the eyes, maybe allow the shoulders to roll away from the ears, letting the feet make contact with the floor. And you might imagine a snow globe. You might remember those from your childhood where they had a vignette of a town or a house with little pieces of glitter as snow swirling around. When we shake that snow globe up, it feels chaotic. I know I feel that way in moments throughout my day with swirling thoughts, emotions, feelings. But when I put that snow globe down, eventually all those little pieces of glitter, they settle and they, one by one, drop to the floor. So let's hang out here for a moment, breathing in and out, imagining that our thoughts and feelings are settling to the floor. Breathing in and out, exhaling like you're blowing through a straw, Inhaling through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. Try two more on your own coming back. You know, sometimes as busy school leaders or non profit leaders, educators, it can be difficult to make those swirling thoughts go away. But we can slow them down. And sometimes all we need is a breath or two. It's so good to be with you. Thanks for joining me. See you next time.
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All right, we're diving back in. So that third R. Right, sizing the mental load is why I believe my micro sabbatical was so profound and nearly three months back to work. Yes, I've been back to work longer than I was out. I'm still experiencing the benefits and I want to share how I'm doing it. So let's get right. I built you an acronym because it's the podcast that teaches and I am a forever educator. So when we get right, we reflect. Identify mental load burdens, get organized, hire support, and tell somebody. Let's zoom in further. This is how you right. Size the mental load in the three Rs of recovery process. First, we reflect. This is really critical and I'm going to be very specific with the timeline. I mentioned earlier that about two months before, I would say no closer than a month out. We need to create space to mindfully reflect on what could be in the way of our most profound well being. What have other people lifted to you, even if it's hard to hear? Where are the places you consistently recognize in therapy that you don't feel you've prioritized? Or maybe there are life projects that you feel you can no longer punt down the path. Some of our most unpleasant or heavy emotions leave clues if we're willing to listen. I had to kick it with my amygdala. Let me tell you, mine's spicy. If you're not familiar with this part of your brain, it helps us navigate emotions, connects feelings to memories, and is basically your body's SimpliSafe or ADT alarm. It works to keep us safe by triggering the fight flight, freeze or fawn response. And ultimately, it informs our decisions. But because your amygdala wants to keep you safe, it may be a part of why you lean away from certain unpleasant feelings or actions. They just feel too high risk. For me, there were clear ways. My amygdala, while doing her best, was hating on my healing. So when I really started to sit down, I kind of visualize. And if this is woo woo for you, bear with me. I kind of visualized sitting down at a table in my mind and inviting the unpleasant emotions to come forward. I'm like, come take a seat, girl. We have conversations we need to have. So there were a couple that became really clear to me. Fear, guilt, anxiety, and shame. Maybe they'll be different for you once you're doing your mindful reflection. But for each of these, I'll just give a quick explanation. As someone whose parent got a serious diagnosis. When I was young, physical health appointments felt scary. I was worried about what I would learn, so I didn't really want to know. I didn't realize that then I was avoiding doctors and dental appointments. But I liked to say that I never had time because of my jobs. That wasn't true. I've had incredible benefits and opportunities and flexibility to be able to go and pursue those appointments, but I just didn't. And this process really helped unearth that. I love serving my community, and sometimes that means I'm also not sure if I can be a super mom for my kids. And that's where guilt was being stored in my soma. I had a little bit of anxiety around finances, and mostly it was about retirement, because if you're an educator, you already know that's not why we get into it. But I also want a long life, and I don't want to be scraping pennies or selling lemonade while I'm, like, 90 years old. I want to be able to, like, sit on a porch, watch my grandkids, and be in matching velour fits with my husband, because that's my business, and that's how I envision my incredible life moving forward. And then last was shame. Okay, I already told y' all about hoarding. Okay? I had my whole classroom still in boxes in my garage just in case. Okay, some of y' all doomsday prep with canned goods in your pantries. Well, I doomsday prep by keeping my credential live and keeping all of my curriculum and materials. But I also had clothing that didn't fit anymore. And it was something that every time I opened my closet's doors, I saw And I was like, not today. But the micro sabbatical presented me with the opportunity to think differently about what wasn't working anymore in my life. That is right. Sizing the mental load. So this two month buffer allowed me to sit with my shadow work to identify what was in the way of my recovery potential and to schedule strategically to course correct my mental load. So what's next? Do you want to identify mental load burden? So it's really because all I just said was a whole therapeutic journey. All right, you're like, dang, you got a lot going on. But I like to be transparent, so take it or leave it. For me though, I wanted to dial into where I had influence or control. And that's what you're going to do too. At this second stage, it's really about figuring out where your agency is. And what I found was those unpleasant feelings I just mentioned. Fear, guilt, anxiety and shame were telling signs that were accompanied by procrastination or avoidance. So I listened closely, kind of trying to cultivate more of a somatic mind, body, spirit awareness. And that avoidance pointed really clear arrows in the right direction. Here's where I landed after journaling. Picture me two months before the sabbatical in April, I needed to schedule medical and dental appointments. This was the time to get more involved with my kids schools. I focused my attention first on an overnight field trip. I needed to finally call CalSTRS to identify my past retirement account that I had left in a school district that I served for a decade. For real, y', all, I didn't even know what was in there. You can judge if you want, but for me, that just like wasn't what motivated me. I came to the teaching well and I got right to work and I left some things open that I needed to actually close. And Lord, it was time to purge the closets and garage. That scarcity and poverty mindset I'd been cultivating during my upbringing that was then reinforced in my teaching years no longer served me. So it was time to shed and evolve. And that's why I went to step three, getting organized. I I booked my appointments. And if you remember the COVID overload in the system, it was taking months to be able to get appointments when we first came out of the peak of the pandemic. That hasn't changed for a lot of people in the inundated systems that we're operating within. So this is why it's so critical to begin this process several months before you go on your planned pause. I scheduled all of my Appointments, but I also spaced them out. So I still had, remember my goal, that daily rest opportunity or restoration activity. And I wasn't overextending again, despite being off work. So I would book appointments in the mornings, and then in the afternoons, I would put placeholders for, like, girl nap after that dental appointment. I'm a scheduler, so, you know, but pro tip, if you're like me and you hoard, I already told you, I keep all those gift certificates. I made a clear intention that every week I was going to use one of them. I didn't care if it was like a Jamba Juice card or if it was actually a facial. I was going to use one a week during my eight weeks. And you're like, dang, you had eight cards. I have more than that. Okay. But again, I was waiting for the perfect time to use them. And that is that pattern of hoarding that I recognized, and it used to serve me. So I don't place judgment on myself at least. But I. I've worked through that, and I wanted to keep working through it. All right, so this brings us to H. We need to hire support. Whether you're keeping your kids in childcare, bribing a friend with cookies to sit with you while you purge your closet, or outsourcing an activity to a contractor, it's not about spending money. It's about allowing yourself to receive support that creates space for you to show up as designed. So what did this look like for me? Week one of the sabbatical. I planned it to overlap where all three of my kids were in school or care. That was the week I booked all of my medical and dental appointments, Eight of them. For the record, that might feel overwhelming to you, but again, remember, my afternoons were restorative and restful. And what it did was build sort of a strong momentum of productivity at the beginning. And my mental load felt so light. I felt so accomplished. I spent that first month really trying to do the things. And then I walked into the second month of sabbatical, where my family and I lived in Costa Rica for almost a full month. So I walked into that vacation feeling somatically lighter, but also I realized I didn't want to return to work with that story that everyone has. I need a vacation for my vacation. I need a sabbatical for my sabbatical. So we planned for our kids to be in summer camp for the third week of the vacation right before I went back. This was all by design. And last tell somebody this matters on the front and the back end. Of your well being accomplishments, you might need an accountability buddy like, yo, text me on Wednesday and ask me if I've started to declutter my junk drawer. But also, it's about spreading the good news. If you're trying to repattern like I was, you need to stop and pause and celebrate. Affirmation can be really, really motivating and meaningful for folks. So if you've been following my journey, you know, my husband is my rock. He is a living accommodation for me. He holds me down with a steadiness that is unmatched. But here's a little bit of tea. So I want you to visualize this. This is week three of my sabbatical. And I tell him I am finally ready. This is the week I have designed to purge the garage. And he calmly was like a word. And I was like, word. So I said, I have a crazy idea. I want to recreate a hoarder's episode. So I walk into the garage and he set up this nice chair for me, has a beverage of my choice. Yes, an adult beverage. Okay. Because my mother in law was there. And so again we hired for support, he made me a little charcuterie board, I kid you not. And there were three piles in the garage and he brought me box after box. What are you gonna donate, what are you gonna keep? And what are you gonna throw away? We got rid of a decade of nostalgia. We donated a classroom across three different schools. It was so much that we got rid of that we had to arrange a city trash pickup at our place. I feel proud and I felt relieved. And I know he did too. Yeah, it closes a door for me. Well, I guess it just says if ever I want to go back to the classroom, I'm going to have to invest from my own pocket, which is on brand for educators everywhere and also terrible in this country. But what it says is, I trust into my current career I have enough resource to not hold on to everything. And also a lot of that curriculum was outdated and needed to go anyway. So if you take anything away from the stories that I'm telling, I hope you hear that there's a shadow side of the work. It's not just a fluffy, magical, glitter filled time away from work. If you really want to right size your nervous system and recalibrate your work life integration. But it's so worth it. And now, three months later, I'm still in this buzz of my household, working more effectively. My relationships being stronger, my mental, spiritual, physical and emotional health being reinforced. I'm. I'M doing well and I want that for you too. Let's close out with a critical hope. Here's what I'm saying everybody. Don't wait for a grandiose opportunity. A fully funded year long sabbatical sounds dope. But if you keep waiting for the perfect moment, there's a darker side and that's spending your vacation at Kaiser. I was hospitalized for exhaustion in college and it wasn't a badge of honor. I didn't know how to take care of myself. I couldn't recognize the signs. I didn't know how to plan intentionally for a powerful pause. I do now. And you can learn too. If you're burnt out, recovery is possible. I know I'm giving you a roadmap, but this isn't a prescription. I hope you also heard that there's a necessity to really customize this plan for yourself. This is another case for the Teaching Wells model of microdosing wellness, but also self studying to design macro interventions when needed. You are both the teacher and the student and this is just the lesson plan. If you're down to design for recovery, what's possible on the other side is true healing and renewal. Join me for the next episode where I go deeper into a pre recovery window with concrete steps to set your rest up for success. I'll talk to you 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.