Wellness

The Ruth and Scott Podcast Educator, whether you work in a school, a church, or a nontraditional setting, we’re here for you. This is your connection point to The Ruth and Scott Podcast and to content, tools, and resources that will help you navigate cultural competence in a changing world. Together, we’ll navigate this landscape with conversations about communication, relationships, technology, race, food, and current events. Welcome. Sign up for our newsletter now to stay up to date with episode releases, content drops, and more! Sign up now! Meet Ruth Jefferson A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse, Ruth has a wealth of experience encompassing education, digital marketing strategy, and being a member of a military household. Growing up primarily in the South, including Mississippi and Texas, Ruth’s diversity of experiences brings a wealth of knowledge and a real-life approach to conversations and to helping others grow in the area of cultural competence.   Meet Dr. Scott Gostchock In his over 31 years of educational and community service, Scott has served in cross-cultural, inner-city, and urban education settings as a teacher, administrator, and community activist. He has also served as a full-time professor of education and as an adjunct professor for a number of universities and colleges. These unique settings and wealth of experiences have provided a tremendous backdrop for Scott’s educational presentations on CliftonStrengths (formerly StrengthsFinder), transformative leadership work, executive coaching, global leadership, and more. Dr. Scott Gostchock is also the co-founder of Partner2Learn, LLC, and co-author of the book POISED® for Results: Amplify Your Strengths and Lead Your Team and Organization to Sustained, Elevated Results. Join us as we dive into education and leadership discussions to help you on your journey.Never miss a beat with updates delivered to your inbox! Don’t Miss A Beat Dr. Scott Gostchock is the author of POISED For Results. You can find this book listed on Amazon. Click here to open a new tab and access the listing. As an Amazon Associate, The Ruth and Scott Podcast earns from qualifying purchases. Listen Now In this episode of The Ruth and Scott Podcast, Ruth Jefferson and Dr. Scott Gostchock talk about how change affects the school environment and what you as an educator can learn from the principles of urban planning to help you navigate this impact. They also explore: Temporary Protected Status, its potential effects on school communities, and how educators can help The role of empathy in building understandingUrban planning and how insights from the history and practice can help educators and administrators build responsive community How Fall activities can help to build a sense of community and connection

3 Breathing Exercises to Help with Emotional Regulation By: Ruth Jefferson You’ve heard of mindfulness. It sounds like a nice idea, but in the rush of expectations from emails to meetings to conferences, is this something that can work for your life? This article covers 3 breathing exercises that you can bring into your schedule to help you take a couple of steps back from the noise, and retreat, recharge, and re-engage so you can approach your role from a position of emotional regulation and authenticity. How Are Breathing Exercises Not a Waste of My Time? Who you are is just as important, if not more important, than what you do. But this can be difficult to believe when the 24 hours in a day and mounting expectations and responsibilities leave you asking, “Am I enough?” That question is a key sign that you might be experiencing burnout. Your sense of emotional regulation might be tilting off-center because of central questions of identity and worth. It’s also why mindfulness, or practicing presence, might be more important for you than you realize. Breathing exercises help you to step back from the stresses of your current responsibilities so you can bring your best self into them. It’s stepping back to step forward. Here are 3 strategies that can help you do it. Breathing exercises help you to stepback from the stresses of your currentresponsibilities so you can bring yourbest self into them. Diaphragmatic Breathing When stress results in shallower breathing, deeper breathing can counter the messages this shallower breathing sends to the brain and send alternate messages that help you to feel like you will be ok. Slow and controlled breaths first in through the nose and then out through the mouth also encourage relaxation by allowing you to mentally step away from stressors, even if only for a few moments. Diaphragmatic breathing is able to do this because it interrupts the fight-or-flight reflex that happens as a result of stress. Find out more about this relationship and see more of a deep dive into the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing. Click here to open a new tab and explore this article about the subject, published by Springer Nature and found in the National Library of Medicine. Showing Yourself Grace While Practicing Diaphragmatic Breathing You need to be prepared for two things when you’re first starting to integrate diaphragmatic breathing into your lifestyle. The first is that you might feel bored at first. The second is that you might feel more stressed the first few times you practice. This is because you might not be experiencing what you feel like you should be or making the kind of progress you feel like you should. Identity and autonomy aren’t talked about enough when it comes to breathwork. Experiencing stress to the point where you want to do something about it can mean that you’re at a point where you’re questioning your sense of agency, that what you can do in terms of emotional regulation might not be enough, forgetting about challenges like burnout that can complicate things. You try something different. Something that might even be outside of your comfort zone. It’s different, so it might make you feel out of control, especially when you’re used to not giving yourself the space to process thoughts and feelings in this way. Here you are. And, if you know from the outset that something could take time to work through, you might question whether it could work. You might question if there’s something wrong with you because breathing exercises seem to work for others so easily. Different strategies work in different ways and at different times for different people. Remember to give yourself the same grace you give your students when you’re at your best. Allow yourself the grace to be a student, a continual learner with a growth mindset. Walking as a Tool to Facilitate Diaphragmatic Breathing Practicing mindful, diaphragmatic breathing while walking is a pro tip for your tool bag. It enables you to tap into the part of yourself that drives you toward achievement while still removing yourself mentally from your stressors. When you do this, it’s important for you to do it in a predetermined area so that if your mind starts to wander, you’re able to lessen the possibility of physical harm from your environment. Because lessening physical harm is the goal, it’s important to make sure that the path you’ll be walking is clear of things that could cause harm, like sharp edges, piles of boxes, and other things that you recognize could cause harm. Practicing mindful, diaphragmaticbreathing enables you to tap into the part of yourself that drivesyou toward achievement whileremoving yourself mentallyfrom your stressor. Once you’ve cleared the space of potential harms, do another quick sweep of the space just to make sure. Then, start walking in the spaces. As you do so, mark each step. Take your first step. Breathe in deeply through your nose. With the next step, exhale through your mouth. Remember that in diaphragmatic breathing, the aim is slow and controlled breaths. With each step, repeat this process. Take a step and breathe in through your nose. Take another step and breathe out through your mouth. It might take more conscious effort at first to remember the steps and to breathe diaphragmatically, but eventually it may become more natural. 4-7-8 Breathing Exercise The 4-7-8 method of breathing builds on diaphragmatic breathing principles by encouraging slow and intentional breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. Between these points is a holding period. The full count for this exercise is in for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, and out for a count of 8 for a total of 6 repetitions for the set each time. For this exercise, it’s recommended that it be done sitting with your back against the wall or lying down flat on your back. The inclusion of measures, or counts, can be helpful

12 Mindset Shifts to Help You Overcome the Symptoms of Burnout By: Ruth Jefferson The secret to recovering from burnout starts with saying no. Before burnout becomes wiped out, here are 12 mindset shifts you can make to reverse course and say yes to a healthier you. What are the Symptoms of Burnout? Burnout is defined as what happens when repeated stress leads to exhaustion. This exhaustion stretches into physical, mental, and emotional aspects of the self. The term burnout was coined by German-American psychologist Herbert Freundberger back in the 1970s and has become popularized in conversations about work and work environment, even resulting in the coining of the phrase occupational burnout. There are 12 stages, Freundberger identifies as symptoms of burnout: Burnout is what happens when repeated stress leads to exhaustion.  Motivation, the First Step into Burnout You start out at this stage with the best of intentions. You’re driven and dedicated. The problem? The problem is when you start to believe that you are what you do and base your assessment of who you are on what you think are failures. The Lie: You Are What You Do The Shift: Your Identity Isn’t Locked into What You are, but Instead It’s Who You Are. Stop. Take an inventory of yourself. Look at your failures and challenges as opportunities to grow and to build on your strengths. Before we even recorded the first episode of The Ruth and Scott Podcast, this inventory was something that we did. We knew that there was a task ahead of us, and that we each have different strengths. We knew that there would be other areas for both of us where we’d need to lean more into the strengths present through partnership. This is a delicate balance that we’re both still learning to navigate. And, this is why I say, the importance of partnership is something that can’t be underestimated when it comes to burnout and burnout recovery. Teachers’ associations can provide you with access to communities of others facing similar professional challenges. A Symptom of Chronic Burnout A symptom of chronic burnout is not even being able to recognize anymore when the lines are blurred between your personal and professional lives. This can result in a constant blurring from one role to the next. The Lie: You’ll Just Do One More Thing. The Shift: Your Boundary is Your Greater Yes. Remember. Your no isn’t laziness. It’s your greater yes. Yes to yourself. Yes to authentic service to others. I remember the first time I flew from Arizona to Milwaukee. I’d been on a plane before. But the feeling of my feet against the floor as I clenched my body, trying to keep it from rocking with the turbulence we were experiencing, was something I hadn’t gone through before. Maybe it was because of that, that, as I sat there on that plane, I started to see the possibilities for what could happen that day. One possibility was that the plane could go down. I’m actually not sure how likely that was. But, in that moment, it felt as real as any other possibility. The other possibility was that everything would be ok and I’d land in Milwaukee, ready for the first-ever Voice of the Middle Ground Conference. There are times for me, even today, when setting personal and professional boundaries feels like that plane ride. It’s helpful for me to do in those times what I did on that plane ride. I looked out of the window. Perspective is a game-changer. When I looked out of the plane window, I saw the clouds, and I saw the sun. Ironically, from my position on that plane, these things helped to keep me grounded. Establishing personal and professional boundaries helps me to approach both from a place of freedom. Accountability partners I can be vulnerable with, help me to hold those boundaries and challenge me to grow in ways I might not otherwise. I let them know what’s happening in my life, and they have permission to call me out because I know they’ll do so in love. As we’re thinking about these mindset shifts, I encourage you to think about this: Who are 2-3 people in your personal life, and also 2-3 people in your professional life, you can trust to be vulnerable with? Ask them to be your accountability partners as you take this journey to overcome burnout. Make sure that in this process, you’re setting clear objectives and rules of engagement so that everyone knows what the goals and expectations are on both sides of the relationship. When Situational Avoidance Makes Burnout Worse It’s often said, “Avoiding a situation doesn’t make it go away”. You may know this and have the fact memorized. Unfortunately, emotional reality is often different from objective vision. The result is that, even when your friends and loved ones are sending signals that something is wrong and conflict happens with those you care about, if you’re at this point in burnout, you might choose to walk away from conflict rather than face it and take it for what it is—an opportunity to self-correct not only for the benefit of others, but also for your own benefit. The Lie: Admitting There’s Conflict Means That You’re a Bad Person. The Shift: Embrace A Growth Mindset. There’s Always Space for Growth Even When You’re At Your Best. Grow. Give yourself permission to be in a constant state of growth. This will help you to embrace constructive criticism in a healthy way, as an opportunity to facilitate that growth. Self-Care is Vital for Positive Outcomes At this stage of burnout, you stop taking time for self-care and doing things like sleeping, eating, and working out. Unfortunately, this takes you further away from having an effective mindset for anything other than maintenance of a self-decaying orbit. The Lie: Taking Time for Yourself Takes Time Away From Things That Matter. The Shift: Taking Time for Yourself Means You Have More of Yourself