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💆🏼‍♀️Self-Care Series: Hope vs Hopelessness 🤞🏼 · ✨️Aligned and Thriving: For Teachers🌿

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  Hey guys, and welcome back to another episode of Aligned and
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  Thriving for Teachers. Now today, I want to have a
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  really honest conversation with you about something that every
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  single one of us, every human in the world wrestles with, and
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  that's hope. Hope and hopelessness, because
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  both of these are real and both shape how you show up every
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  single day. Well, we're going to talk about
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  how hope isn't just a feeling, it's a practise, a choice, and
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  why our emotional intelligence is our ability to understand and
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  manage our emotions, and it's at the very heart of it.
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  So let's dive in. I want to start by talking to
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  you a little bit about your emotional intelligence and why
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  it really matters. Now, when people talk about
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  emotional intelligence, it can sound like one of those, you
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  know, really cool buzzwords here.
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  It gets thrown around in professional development.
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  But look, here's the thing. It is actually a skill set that
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  can change your relationships, your well being, and your whole
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  ability to hold on to hope when things get hard.
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  There are 4 domains of emotional intelligence.
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  There's self awareness, self management, social awareness,
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  and relationship management. These four areas all build on
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  each other and they're all deeply connected to wherever we
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  live in hope or slip into hopelessness.
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  I'm going to start with the first one.
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  So self awareness, that's knowing what's really going on
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  inside. It's the foundation, it's your
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  ability to notice what you're feeling in that moment and
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  understand where those emotions are coming from.
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  Do you recognise your emotional triggers?
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  Do you understand how emotions affect your decisions and
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  actions? Do you know your strengths and
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  areas where you tend to struggle?
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  Self awareness is your personal competence.
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  It's what you know about yourself.
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  Our emotions are only temporary. Did you know that they're like
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  signals, not facts, and yet they help to shape what we think, how
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  we behave, and how we interpret what's actually happening around
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  us. So little teacher moment.
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  Maybe a student rolls their eyes at you when you're teaching.
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  Your immediate feeling might be irritation or frustration, or
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  you're like, seriously, what have I done?
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  But self awareness is catching that thought.
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  Wow, that pushed my button. Why?
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  Why do I think that? Push my button?
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  What story am I telling myself right now?
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  That they don't respect me? That I'm not in control of my
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  class? That they're bored?
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  Oh my goodness, that pause right there.
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  It gives you power. It gives you the power to
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  respond instead of to react. So how do you strengthen your
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  own self awareness? You need to slow down and
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  observe your emotions in real time.
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  So like what I just said, when they're actually happening, you
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  need to notice the physical sensations.
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  Are you holding tension? Is your breathing getting
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  shallow? Is your heart racing?
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  Those types of physical sensations you need to reflect.
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  What's myself talk right now? Is it helping or is it hurting?
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  It's metacognition, thinking about your thinking.
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  Really you need to cross reference your emotions with
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  your values and your strengths. And if you don't know your
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  values and your strengths, now would be a really good time to
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  go and do some deep diving into yourself and think about what
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  your core values and beliefs are.
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  And make a list of them if you need to, to refer back to and to
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  think about your strengths, what you are good at, and even your
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  weaknesses. Because sometimes your
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  weaknesses can be turned into strengths.
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  So you need to have awareness of that and the connection to your
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  emotions. You need to seek feedback.
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  Now when I say seek feedback, I mean ask trusted people.
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  OK, is this how I see myself? This is how I see myself.
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  So how do you see me? How do you see my reactions to
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  XYZ? You need to challenge your
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  unhelpful narratives. Now, this one's a hard one
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  because it's like the story you're telling yourself in your
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  head. Is this story actually true, or
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  is this my fear talking or my prior experiences shaping my
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  thinking? It's it's like that scenario
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  with the students that's rolling their eyes.
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  You might have been that person at high school and that was the
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  cue that showed that you were bored and that you were trying
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  to be disrespectful. But that might not be the same
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  for that student, or it might be the same, but your reaction, you
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  need to process how you're going to react to that.
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  Now, it's a really good quote by Deepak Chopra.
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  And they said awareness is the birth place of possibility.
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  Everything you want to do, everything you want to be starts
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  here. And just let that sink in.
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  Like awareness is the birth place of possibility.
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  Everything you want to do, everything you want to be, it
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  starts there when you're being aware.
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  So self awareness opens up the door to change and to hope.
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  Then we move into self management.
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  This is where we are responding instead of reacting.
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  So the second pillar, self management, the other half of
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  your personal competence. OK, so this is about what you do
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  with the emotions that you have recognised.
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  It's learning the strategies to help you regulate impulses,
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  handle stress and choose behaviours that align with the
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  person you want to be or you want to be known for.
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  This is where self care comes in and doing all those practises so
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  you have the strategies in place that you know how to regulate
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  your impulses and to de stress all those things.
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  Viktor Frankel, who is a Holocaust survivor and the
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  author of Man's Search for Meaning, famously said between
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  stimulus and response, there is a space.
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  In that space is our power to choose our response.
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  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
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  Now that one line, well I should say a couple of lines, really
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  sums up self management. No matter what happens around
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  us, we always have a chance to pause a moment where you get to
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  choose your next move. And within that pause right
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  there leaves hope. He did all this research on how
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  certain Holocaust survivors who may not have been fit and
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  healthy like others were, how they survived and why he thinks.
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  And and look, there was scientific research behind it,
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  but why they actually survived. And it's because they had hope.
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  They believed that things were going to get better.
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  They were going to get through this.
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  And there was a life outside of that space.
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  They had hope. And I know there is so much
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  research around that with people who have sickness, that if you
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  have the willpower that most of the time you can will yourself
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  out of things. And you need to have that hope
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  and that faith, belief that things are going to get better.
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  And Nyla would just like to agree.
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  She'd like to reinforce that. That is very true.
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  So how do you you strengthen yourself management?
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  What does that look like? Well, you can visualise how you
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  want to respond in difficult situations.
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  Take a bit of time to stop and focus and go, OK, if this
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  happened, how would I react? And play it out in your head.
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  You can practise responding rather than reacting.
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  And gosh, if you're a parent, this is a big one.
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  You really need to learn to take a breath.
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  This is probably me teaching myself here, but take a breath
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  before you start to respond because otherwise you are just
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  reacting straight in the moment. You need to take a pause.
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  It's that little window of time that you've got before you have
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  your response. You make your choice.
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  You need to take responsibility for your feelings and actions.
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  That's all on you. You control those.
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  You need to celebrate your positive emotions, joy,
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  gratitude, connection. Celebrate them, love them, bring
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  them, bring them out more. Like let's get a little bit more
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  happy people and acknowledge your negative emotions, but
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  don't let them take over. So yes, I'm feeling really
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  guilty and This is why, but I'm not going to dwell in it.
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  Or yeah, I'm feeling a bit angry, frustrated, whatever it
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  might be, but I'm not going to stay there.
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  I'm going to go and get back into a high vibe and do a few
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  self care things to get myself back to where I need to be.
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  I'll give you an example. So imagine that you're running
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  really light and you get to work and then the photocopy gems old.
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  You might mutter something very rude under your breath and storm
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  into your class, frazzled and not prepared.
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  Self managed you hits pause, takes a deep breath, counts to
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  three and decides OK that was annoying but it doesn't have to
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  ruin my day. Things will get better.
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  Think of self management like you're holding a remote control.
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  You have a choice to pause, so take a breath, have a sip of
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  water, take a step back. You can rewind, reflect on what
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  happened and what you can learn from that situation.
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  You could Fast forward and imagine how you might want to
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  respond next time and play that out.
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  Or you can even turn off. So disconnect, recharge, and
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  come back grounded. Oscar Wilde once said, I don't
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  want to be at the mercy of my emotions, I want to use them, to
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  enjoy them and to dominate them. So self management means not
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  letting every emotion hijack your day.
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  It's choosing hope over hopelessness in real time.
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  OK, next section, social awareness.
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  This is the feeling with others part.
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  Moving on to the more social side of our emotional
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  intelligence. Social awareness is your
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  capacity for empathy. It's what we're really good at
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  in the teacher educator space. It's truly seeing and
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  understanding what someone else is experiencing.
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  It's reading the emotional tone of a room, recognising how your
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  behaviour impacts others and being mindful of what we would
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  like to say. Your emotional wake, the ripple
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  that your emotions leave behind as you're charging forward.
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  Give you an example. Think you're walking?
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  Think OK, just imagine you're walking into the staff room.
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  You can feel the tension before anyone speaks.
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  Social awareness allows you to pick up on all of that and
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  adjust your approach. It is not sympathy, it's
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  empathy. It is seeing people as they are,
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  not as we expect them to be. So it's reading the room and
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  seeing what people need and trying not to feed into the
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  toxic energy that might already be in that space.
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  If you can't remember much about toxic energy, flip on back to
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  one of my other episodes where I talk more on that topic.
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  But social awareness is that feeling with others sharing it
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  all but not dwelling in it again.
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  Then you've got relationship management that's about building
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  trust and connection. So relationship management is
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  where your emotional intelligence becomes relational.
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  It's about using your awareness and empathy to build trust,
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  repair relationships, and communicate in ways that
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  strengthen connection. It means giving and receiving
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  feedback graciously, not getting angry and upset when people are
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  just trying to give you the support, rewriting some of your
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  narratives about others when it's necessary to do so.
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  You might have painted a really different picture of someone in
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  your head by the way they talk to you or respond to you or the
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  way they look at you. I know I'm guilty of that.
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  I've done that before with some people thinking wow, and excuse
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  my language, but they have a really good resting bee face.
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  They must really not like me because every time I talk to
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  them, they just look like that. But then you actually start to
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  get to know them and realise they just have a, that's their
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  harsh exterior. They're actually a really nice
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  person. They're just either really shy
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  or they don't know how to talk to you because they think that
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  you're something else. So both of your perceptions were
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  really off. So you've got to get past that.
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  So try not to think too much about the narrative you're
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  creating of someone else before you even know them.
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  You need to choose your words and your actions that foster
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  hope and safety in our relationships.
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  It's what our kids need too. Hope is contagious.
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  When you're modelling how to be a hopeful human, it gives
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  permission for other people to do the same.
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  So it's that whole, I want to jump back to the hope versus
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  hopelessness. The lessons from Viktor Frankel,
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  I've talked about him just earlier, but I talked about how
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  he observed that profound thing during the Holocaust, that
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  people who maintained their hope even in those horrific
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  conditions survived even when the physically stronger people
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  did not. It wasn't a passive feeling.
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  It was an intentional choice. They had the belief that this
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  isn't the end of my story. Hopelessness, on the other hand,
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  it closes every door. It like slams it in your face.
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  It says there is all there is and nothing's going to change.
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  And it drains us of all of our energy too, because we're and we
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  don't have the energy to try to open those doors again.
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  You just have the hopelessness and it's just all gone.
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  So what are some practical ways that we can choose hope?
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  How do we intentionally cultivate it?
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  We'll start by monitoring yourself.
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  Talk, Ask yourself, is the story I'm telling myself fueling hope
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  or hopelessness? Rewrite those unhelpful
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  narratives like I just touched on.
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  Rewrite those pictures, those images, I should say #2 pause
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  before you react. And that is a big one.
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  You've got to remember, between the trigger and response, you
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  always have a choice. So try and make a choice filled
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  with hope #3 practise gratitude. Gratitude is an absolute magnet
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  for hope. Reflect, reflect, reflect.
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  Couldn't talk daily on what's working, what have you overcome
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  and what is still possible. You have hope.
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  You have things that you can be grateful for, for every single
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  day. Even if it is just running water
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  and electricity, that is something.
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  OK. So pick something, be grateful,
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  choose hope #4 forgive and release.
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  If you haven't heard of the Hawaiian practise of I think I'm
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  trying to say this right, but it's like hopo, hopo.
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  Oh no, I don't know. You'd have to Google it.
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  I can't say it properly, but it's basically like a
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  forgiveness prayer. So I'm sorry, please forgive me.
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  Thank you and I love you, but you write some more information
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  in that space. So like I'm sorry for XYZ,
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  please forgive me for and thank you for all the things you've
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  done and I love you. And you're basically giving just
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  peace and releasing all of that out into the universe.
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  Which means that forgiveness can then free up all that mental and
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  emotional energy that we need to have hope #5 Build yourself a
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  self care bank. We should know this by now.
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  I've given you lots of ideas on how to deal with yourself care.
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  There's a whole series on that. This is part of it.
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  Looking after you. Sleep, movement, nature,
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  meditation, time with the people who lift up your vibe.
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  All of these build resilience. When your reserves are low,
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  hope's harder to hold on to and you start dwelling in that
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  hopelessness space. So why not build yourself care
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  bank? Do some self care strategies and
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  you will start getting that hope back and start cultivating hope.
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  Because hope matters people. Hope doesn't ignore reality, it
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  acknowledges the present whilst we still believe in a better
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  future. It's not wishful thinking, it is
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  intentional. It is an active choice to
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  believe that things can get better, things can improve.
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  And here's the thing, Hope is social.
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  It spreads. It's just like a smile.
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  If you smile at someone, then they smile and they might smile
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  at someone else and you've passed it around everywhere.
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  Hope is the same. If you start turning up every
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  day at work as the hopeful human, it'll start rubbing off
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  on other people and all that negative talk will start
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  dwindling down because you will start to hear a more hopeful,
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  grateful type of language in your, whether it's your staff
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  room or in your classroom space is when you choose hope you
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  change the whole emotional tone of your classroom, your family,
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  your community. Hope changes everything.
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  So I want you to do a little bit of time on reflecting.
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  So some questions for you if you wanna, if you have a journal and
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  you wanna journal, these would be great to journal on, but
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  otherwise just have a think and keep them in the back of your
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  mind. OK, What narrative are you
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  living in right now? Does IT support hope or
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  hopelessness? When was the last time you hit
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  pause before reacting? How do you know or how sorry?
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  How do your emotions affect the people around you?
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  What do you think your emotional wake sort of is, if that makes
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  sense? And what is one small step that
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  you can take today to nurture hope in yourself and others?
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  I know you can't always control what happens to you, the same as
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  I can't control my dog. I love her dearly.
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  She's just run back in. I now have the equivalent to
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  about 6 toys behind me. Yeah, sorry, off topic, but you
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  love a good Nyla story. She just pops in.
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  So she's saying hi. She's very hopeful.
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  She's hopeful that Mummy has more treats, but I don't.
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  Sorry. But yeah, we can always control
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  the story that we tell, OK? We can't always control what
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  happens to us, but we can control the story we tell
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  ourselves about that. So today, just pause.
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  Breathe, choose hope because it's not just for you, it is for
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  everyone that your life touches. So thank you guys for listening
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  to another episode of Aligned and Thriving for Teachers.
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  And if this has resonated with you, please share it with a
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  friend who just needs a reminder that hope is still alive.
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  Follow me on Instagram or Facebook for some more pep
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  talks. DM me.
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  Tell me, what are you hopeful for today?
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  Well, clearly my dog is hopeful that she doesn't choke on the
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  treat that she's just attempted to eat whole.
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  I'm sorry about that, but I'm finishing.
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  On that note, what are you hopeful for today?
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  Tell me about it, share about it.
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  I would love to know. But until next time, I hope that
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  you stay aligned and thriving and spread a bit of hope in the
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  world. So I'll talk to you guys next
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  time. Bye.