It has been a blessing to have walk this self-care journey with all of you. Having a group to journey with, sit with, chat with, be blessed by the diversity of perspectives has been a gift. I recommended it to a few of my friends. I have seen the value of reading the book on my own first and going back a second time with a group. The benefits of zoom is that we come together from different time zones.
Thank you Dr. Chanequa for writing it, sharing your story and inviting us along this journey in 2024.
Sandra, such an absolute pleasure, thank you for sharing and for your diligence!! I look forward to continuing to hear about your sacred self care journey!!
I agree that working through it again has been so good! Going through this with a group helped me to engage with the chapters and prompts more deeply rather than allowing my discomfort with some topics or practices to keep me at a shallow, performative level. One of the things I loved reading and going through the book alone was how the prompts felt “easy” — completely doable and not burdensome — but it also allowed me to quickly count certain days as “done” instead of looking more closely at my assumptions, behavior, or need for change.
I feel my head swirling a bit from the reading today as I reflect on it as a leader in my work context. My school is in major financial difficulties and we decided this term instead of cutting salaries we would expect more of all teaching staff. All staff seemed to agree to this but in reality there are many hard decisions to make about what is ‘fair’ and/or ‘equitable’. Like many jobs, so many aspects of teaching and teacher leadership work are not quantifiable like the classroom hours are. In the past, my ‘caring’ has perhaps been in modeling my own willingness to go above and beyond and pick up responsibilities from others so they wouldn’t need to. I am consciously moving away from this approach but it’s hard to juggle the realities of the school with being a supportive colleague and a caring leader. I understand that I can be supportive and caring but still hold true to the higher expectations/performance demands. But it’s often uncomfortable. I think I’m still pining for a “quick fix” that doesn’t exist and I need to accept the messiness of advocating for others and trying to keep the school going.
I’ve noticed that I’m softening my language as much as possible to keep from laying unnecessary “shoulds” on other people — for example, sending someone a book that I thought they would enjoy, but also telling them I had no expectation of them liking it as much as I did or even reading it if they didn’t want to. Or sending a question in my work chat (we all work remotely) and qualifying if it isn’t urgent so they don’t feel obligated to drop everything.
It has been a blessing to have walk this self-care journey with all of you. Having a group to journey with, sit with, chat with, be blessed by the diversity of perspectives has been a gift. I recommended it to a few of my friends. I have seen the value of reading the book on my own first and going back a second time with a group. The benefits of zoom is that we come together from different time zones.
Thank you Dr. Chanequa for writing it, sharing your story and inviting us along this journey in 2024.
Sandra, such an absolute pleasure, thank you for sharing and for your diligence!! I look forward to continuing to hear about your sacred self care journey!!
Thank you Tiffany for all your contributions as well, and support.
I agree that working through it again has been so good! Going through this with a group helped me to engage with the chapters and prompts more deeply rather than allowing my discomfort with some topics or practices to keep me at a shallow, performative level. One of the things I loved reading and going through the book alone was how the prompts felt “easy” — completely doable and not burdensome — but it also allowed me to quickly count certain days as “done” instead of looking more closely at my assumptions, behavior, or need for change.
Thank you Corrie for the gift of creativity with the images you shared.
I feel my head swirling a bit from the reading today as I reflect on it as a leader in my work context. My school is in major financial difficulties and we decided this term instead of cutting salaries we would expect more of all teaching staff. All staff seemed to agree to this but in reality there are many hard decisions to make about what is ‘fair’ and/or ‘equitable’. Like many jobs, so many aspects of teaching and teacher leadership work are not quantifiable like the classroom hours are. In the past, my ‘caring’ has perhaps been in modeling my own willingness to go above and beyond and pick up responsibilities from others so they wouldn’t need to. I am consciously moving away from this approach but it’s hard to juggle the realities of the school with being a supportive colleague and a caring leader. I understand that I can be supportive and caring but still hold true to the higher expectations/performance demands. But it’s often uncomfortable. I think I’m still pining for a “quick fix” that doesn’t exist and I need to accept the messiness of advocating for others and trying to keep the school going.
I’ve noticed that I’m softening my language as much as possible to keep from laying unnecessary “shoulds” on other people — for example, sending someone a book that I thought they would enjoy, but also telling them I had no expectation of them liking it as much as I did or even reading it if they didn’t want to. Or sending a question in my work chat (we all work remotely) and qualifying if it isn’t urgent so they don’t feel obligated to drop everything.