How to Become Your Best Self by Loving Yourself Exactly as You Are

January is often associated with a new, improved self. So, today special guest Dr. Susannah Coaston joins me to chat about self-improvement and how we can use self-compassion to counteract self-criticism.

A certified wellness counselor and independently licensed professional counselor and supervisor, Dr. Coaston has 15+ years of experience working with a wide-range of clinical concerns. She currently serves as Associate Professor of Counseling & Human Services at Northern Kentucky University.

Learn about:

• Achieving self-improvement through self-compassion
• Our spiritual dimension of wellness – finding purpose, values, and meaning in life
• The paradox of being present and accepting what is in order to clearly see areas that need some work or practice

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Visit our website: https://scsmh.education.uiowa.edu

Transcript

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(gentle music)- Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health Educator Wellness Podcast. This is episode four of our very first podcast series. We're so excited to have you back with us tonight, and we have a very special expert guest tonight, Dr. Susannah, do you say Coaston our Coaston?- Thank you. Coaston.- Coaston, yeah. I meant to ask you that earlier. I think I've been saying it correctly, but Dr. Susannah Coaston, and she's gonna share some really great information with us and we're gonna engage with her in a little bit of a chat, mostly around self-compassion. That's kind of her area of expertise, so we're gonna get into that with her in just a little bit. But before we get started, I know there's a whole group of you who are taking this entire series for some course credit, so I'm gonna make some direct connections and some direct links around our 8 Dimensions of Wellness, and around the Castle 5, so that you can make those connections then when you're working in our course, and I also think it's just a good reminder for all of us who are engaged in this, in this particular series to kind of revisit some of these things as well. So tonight, as it kind of says in the title and the description, we're gonna focus on our spiritual dimension of wellness. And as a reminder, our spiritual dimension of wellness involves possessing a set of guiding beliefs, principles and values that help give us direction in life. It requires a high level of hope and commitment to your individual beliefs and values that provide an overall sense of meaning and purpose to your life, which should start like kind of ringing some bells, or maybe making you think of New Year's resolutions.'Cause we're gonna talk a little bit about that. And as educators, I know many of you are implementing SEL competencies and practices into your instruction, and today's episode directly relates to self-awareness. However, it wouldn't be hard to make connections to all five competencies, but today we're going to unpack in order for us to really fully understand self-compassion, and practice that self-awareness and how critical it is for us to have the ability to be aware of the present moment, and you must know how to take kind of a meta-perspective on one's own experiences in life and just kind of have an overall general sense of self-awareness and how we practice that. So we're gonna unpack that a little bit more with Dr. Susannah. And I'm gonna just officially introduce her though right now so we can kind of get going and get into tonight's programming. So Dr. Susannah Coaston is an associate professor of counseling, human services and addictions at Northern Kentucky University. She is an independently licensed professional counselor and supervisor. Dr. has more than 15 years of experience working with a wide range of clinical concerns. She is also a certified wellness counselor in the state of Ohio. Dr. Coaston's research interests include wellness, specifically wellness in the workplace, counselor development and creative teaching and counseling interventions. Her most recent publications focus on self-compassion and ways to counteract self-criticism. Dr. Coaston welcome, and thank you for taking the time to join us this evening.- Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, we're gonna have a lot of fun. So I like, as I was kind of reading through that, so I brought up New Year's resolutions, so that's when I was planning this series, over the summer, I run in the morning, and then as soon as the weather starts to get a little bit warmer, then I go on these evening walks, and once I decided that I was gonna do a podcast this year, I was kind of starting to,'cause I was a elementary school teacher for about 10 years. So I'm like, okay, let's think through like what teachers are going through in each of the months when they're teaching, right? And I get to January and so like naturally I'm like, okay, everybody starts to talk about like New Year's resolutions in January and like what we're gonna do to like improve our lives or improve ourselves in January. And I'm like totally into that, right? Because I also am like a big follower of like James Clear and Jim Collins and we talk about behavior and habits and how to build positive habits and deconstruct negative habits. But like I was sharing with you in one of our meetings and discussions, I was also reminded when I was reading some literature over the summer, and it kind of came to me actually later in the day when I was on my walk, of this quote, and it's by Shunryo Suzuki, and he wrote or said,"You're perfect as you are, and there is always room for improvement." And then it kind of like messed me up a little bit, because I was like, okay, I'm thinking about this episode and New Year's resolutions and how to improve. And then I'm like, oh my God, do I hate myself? (laughs) And then I start like having like-- Existential crisis.- Yeah, and then I'm like, well, maybe I'm not, maybe that's why like I don't always have my together is because I like actually do like hate talk and I don't have a lot of self-compassion. (laughs) And so then I kind of, I kind of shifted, right? And that's when that's when I connected with you. I'm like, Hey, I think instead of, we need to back it up, right? Because before we can start to talk about self-improvement, I think the literature would tell us, and you're here with us, right, is that we need to first think about self-compassion. Is that correct?- Yes. I love that that as a like... Because I think that is really important to have the, rather than just going right into like, we just need to get better, self compassion is a really nice way to kind of meet ourselves where we are.- Yeah, and how does that work?- It's a big question. The first part honestly is mindfulness, and that can be as broad as just kind of a checking in or actually, you know, making an effort to do a mindfulness practice, but just that self-awareness you were talking about is so valuable. So really being able to kind of check in with ourselves and say like, okay, what do I need right now? And then being willing not to say, well, what's wrong with you? Why do you need that right now? Like, why do you need to go for a walk in the evening? Like, shouldn't you do other things? Why aren't you being more productive? So rather than going down that path than going into the kind of self-criticism and all of that, we can offer ourselves compassion and say, well, this is a way to be able to still have movements, still be able to, you know, take advantage of, even if it's cold, it's still good to be able to get out and move our bodies. It's a nice way to be kind to ourselves.- So I love this because I think we're so focused, particularly right now in January, at least you know, in let's talk about in the United States, because there are people who use different calendars and different traditions and so forth and so on. But the culture, the United States or American culture, in January, we do this thing to ourselves that's like, you're not good enough. You need to lose weight. And which by the way, I did look this up today. And that's like the number one, that is the number one resolution is losing weight, and the second one is to save more money.- Oh, okay.- And I thought it was interesting too, because I think the third one was like physical health, which I thought was like.- Yeah, I would've thought money would be the third one, but.- Yeah, no, no, no, no. So anyway, it was really interesting. And so I thought it... So I was looking that up today and I was like, so basically what we're saying to ourselves is you're not good enough, so you have to... But at the same time, right, we wanna be real with ourselves. Like we also wanna be like self-aware enough to know like where are areas of growth lie. So it's like living in that paradox, right, of like, we know we need to improve, but we also want to show ourself kindness and compassion and love. Okay, so when we say that though, this is something we were talking about before the podcast started, which I think is such a great conversation. So there's like a clear definition of self-compassion, right? Can you talk us through that? What is it?- Yeah, so self-compassion has three components. The first one is mindfulness. And I guess they don't necessarily have to go in order, but I think about them in order. So I think about it starting with mindfulness and just that present awareness. It doesn't necessarily have to mean mindfulness like a meditation, it's more of just a checking in, tuning in and being aware of ourselves. The second is common humanity, and that's sort of our connection to the world around us. And the fact that like, you know, in whatever that particular moment is, other people have probably experienced what we're going through, and we're really not alone in it. Oftentimes when we're suffering or something, we make a mistake or do something really dumb, we feel like, oh my gosh, like how did I do this? Everyone else seems like they have it together, and I'm the one who's making, you know, I'm messing up. And common humanity reminds us like, nope, we're all imperfect humans, so all of us make mistakes. And then the third part is that self-kindness and being able to offer ourselves compassion, and offering ourselves the kind of compassion that we need in that moment. Whether it is a kind word or it's doing something to kind of, you know, set a boundary, protect our space to be able to kind of show up for ourselves. So self-compassion really kind of encompasses those three things.- So when I was reading your literature to prep for this podcast, I really got fixated on the kindness piece of this definition. I have a dear friend and I actually, she is a dear friend by the way, but she doesn't listen to the podcast, which I'm totally gonna, I'm gonna keep criticizing her.- I mean, I guess you can keep her around, but.- She's a great friend.- Right. (laughs)(Kari laughs)- She's actually my best friend to be honest. And I mean, so it just reminded me of Thane, because she is like the dearest, kindest soul on the face of the earth, and I wasn't gonna use her name, but I think she'd be, I know she'd be okay with that, actually, and she can be so unkind to herself, and I got so fixated, you know, in what was written about being kind to yourself and how easily that is to do, but here's the trick with that, right? And this goes back to self-awareness. I don't think half the time she even understands the stress she's in, or she's even like, she's aware of the pain that she's in or the anxiety that she's feeling, she's not identifying it. So then she's unable then to practice that self-kindness. Does that make sense? Have you seen that?- Well, I've definitely seen that, where it's sort of like the person, it's sort of like the stress is just sort of bubbling there and they kind of know that there's something.- There's something.- There's something, but they're just not... And so it's sort of like the trigger doesn't go off, because it's just bubbling under the surface. They're miserable. They're maybe even saying like, you know, making really these comments about themselves, whether they're jokes but not really jokes, those kinds of things, but it's sort of like that they're the idea of,"Well, I need to offer myself compassion because I'm suffering" isn't going to come, because they're just like,"Oh, everything's fine. It's fine." Actually I have a mug one of my students gave to me that says like, "It's fine, everything's fine," because I banned this person from being able to use that. They are literally not allowed to use the word fine in my classroom.- Oh, I like that, actually. No, you can't use that.- I took it away.- You have to articulate, what is that feeling? Because isn't there like 30,000 different emotions or something like that?- There's so many different emotions and fine? And this person was never fine. There was no fine when they were said this. It was never like, oh, things are... They'd say things are pretty good if they were good. Otherwise they'd say "It's fine."- It's fine. Or I'm okay.- Exactly.- (laughs) No. Okay.- And they're anything but.- Well, tell me about that "Okay."(Kari laughs)- Exactly.- Yeah, so then I'm wondering, okay, so if we're gonna teach people how to practice self-compassion, and we talked through, like you have to have this certain level of self-awareness in order to engage in different kinds of like mindfulness strategies and to engage in acts of self-kindness. And so if somebody is so unaware of themselves, what should they do?- Honestly, it's figuring out whatever they need to do to start the mindfulness portion, and to check in and ask like, what do I need right now? How am am I feeling? If I were talking to your friend, I would probably, you know, try to figure out what if they're someone who's on a laptop all the time, I might encourage them to have a Post-It that's like permanently stuck to their computer that just says like, how are you feeling right now?- Oh, that's a good one.- To remind them to check in,'cause it's sitting right there. They're looking, you know, they could be looking right at it and then being like, oh, I should probably check in.- Check in. I think there's apps for this too.- Absolutely. So some will like ding at you at like random occasions. There's a mindfulness app that does that where it reminds you to, I don't know, do a (indistinct).- I have one on my phone that I don't use and I can't even remember the name of it. (laughs)- I have the same thing. I have the same one that I don't even use.- I don't remember what it is, yeah. But yeah, there are some. I like that suggestion though. If you don't wanna use an app, because I've worked with a lot of teachers, too, who are like, you know, kind of adverse to having stuff like that on their phones, which I get, totally, if they don't want it.- Oh, absolutely.- Just to do that Post-It thing like on a mirror or something, that might be really helpful.- Or even have something that's almost like a, you know, having a, something that's sort of a symbol of you need to check in. So it's something that no one else will look at and say like, oh what is that Post-It for? But it could be a little stone that says compassion on it.- Oh, that's good.- Or something like that. I use that as an example'cause I literally have a little rock in my office that says compassion on it.- Oh, that's a really good idea, actually. You know, my friend, one of my other best friends just gave me a bracelet for... So it's been doing this, and I just realized that that's kind of what it's doing. So the holidays are really, can be really hard for me. My mom passed away about six years ago and she was like, she was one of these people that made holidays so unbelievably magical. Like since we were little, they were just like a big deal, right? And so sometimes when the holidays kind of roll around, and I do the same thing, but I still really miss my mom. So she gave me the bracelet over the holidays and it has a little saying on it, but I've been wearing it every day and I can't tell you, like, every time I look down at it, I don't just think of Leslie and my mom, but I oftentimes will think, how are you feeling? Because there's a a saying on it that I'm like, oh, like how am I feeling right now? So I think that's a really good idea.- Exactly.- Basically what I'm telling you folks is go by yourself a piece of jewelry.- That's it. It's on the podcast. I'm an expert.- It's just, that's what you have to do. (laughs) Okay, so let's take this one step further,'cause I do kind of wanna try to like weave this back into like how we can use this as a strategy for self-improvement. Even though we also wanna like live in the moment and love ourselves no matter what. Which, I just said the word love, it's something we talked about earlier. So we both wondered this, right? We kind of did some literature digging just a little bit. We didn't dive too deep. So any of you who are like doc students right now, or you're interested in doing research (laughs), or maybe you're an expert in this area too, you can maybe chime in. But we were doing some digging in terms of like the definitions of self-compassion and self-love, and if they're the same or if they're different. What did you find? We found the same thing.- Sorry, you're asking me?- Yeah. Yeah.- Okay, so I found nothing. I found like everyone is coming to me about self-compassion and like, they're like self-love and, you know, self-compassion similar. They're similar but they're different. And then they would just tell me all about self-compassion and not really say much of anything about self-love. Just the fact that it's different, which helped me in very few ways. Like I had a definition for myself, but the literature was not particularly helpful, so doc students please get to work.- We just gave you something. That's your thesis. (laughs) But I did think that was interesting, because I think before I was prepping for this podcast, I used those words interchangeably and now I'm kind of like, no, I don't think we can. I think they might, I think the literature, I think there must be something different about them, but I'm just not quite sure what it is, which I think is really interesting. The other interesting thing about this, right, is that there's all kinds of literature and you have done an amazing job of mapping this out through several articles that you've written. One of the articles we're gonna address, that has to do with burnout and self-care, in a little bit, because I think it's perfect for educators. But all of this is to say is there is so much evidence that practicing these three different components of what makes up self-compassion, there are so many benefits to it in your life, right? But what I've noticed is that like we know we're supposed to do better, right? We know we're supposed to take care of our bodies and eat healthy foods and move our bodies and get seven to nine hours of sleep and limit consumption of alcohol and surround ourselves with positive people, so on and so on and so forth, right? And every year we make these commitments to do this, but every year we seem to fail to follow through with making these changes to my life. So I guess my question to you is like, can you unpack this a little bit more for us? Like, in what ways, if we practice this consistently, in what ways can self-compassion really help us in our daily lives?- So self-compassion can really, can it influence kind of what our intention is in the first place, and how we relate to ourselves? So we can, some of us might relate, like your friends you were saying could be really critical and then we can have that focus that we've gotta do better. We've gotta push, we've gotta keep going, and it can really push ourselves into kind of should-ing on ourselves. We're just, everything's a should, and like you should be this, you should be that, you should... And that self-compassion can allow us to take a step back and meet ourselves where we are and then be able to say, okay, like what's working, what's not? How can you pay attention to, not the shoulds, but like what do you actually want and what do you need? And self-compassion can be a kind way of being able to respond to that and not in a way that you just need to do better, but in a way to like just kind of meet yourself where you are.- Yeah, you just said something that reminded me of this ask of Patti Digh, which is what do you wanna create in this year, and what do you wanna let go of? And I actually think that like that's the best New Year's resolution is to try to figure that out. Like, who am I, and what am I trying to create, and what do I need to let go of to kind of, like, love myself fully and to move forward in like a positive way and to make this creation happen? So-- And actually that actually reminds me, I mean, back to kind of looping back to the self-love thing, I guess when I think about it, I think about there's like self-compassion and there's self-love, and the more that you practice self-compassion, the more it's almost like a Venn diagram where, like, they're still not gonna be the same thing, but there's probably be a lot more overlap. Like, we offer ourselves compassion because we care about ourselves deeply, and the more that we're able to meet ourselves where we are, the more we're able to accept ourselves, the more we can love ourselves.- Love ourselves. That's it.- And a way that we show that we love ourselves is by offering ourselves compassion, so then they like work together. That is the best I've come up with. I still can't tell you exactly what self-love is, I mean, that you're a worthy and deserving person, I assume. Like I think that's the idea.- No, but I think you just did it right. You like, it's like the act, like you have to do that. Like love is a verb, so like you have to do that act of self-compassion to get to this space of feeling love.- Yes.- For yourself.- Yes, yes. Yeah, and so it's like, and I don't think it's something like, you don't have to, like, you can only practice compassion if you love your... I don't think that-- No.- 'Cause most of us aren't quite there, honestly.- Exactly.- But we can often... And compassion is really more about like how we meet ourselves when we're struggling, when things are hard, when things are painful. And self-love can be, you know, something that's during good times and not so good times.- Yeah. That's perfect. See, so now, team, we need you to collect some data on this.(Kari laughs)- Yeah.- Where are our graduate students?- Run with it.- (laughing) Go. Okay. Okay, so that kind of leads me to something that I wanna talk about with you about this article that I read of yours. That I've, by the way, I mean, I have like tore this article up of yours. Like I have, I have two copies of it. I have one in my bedroom, I have one in my office. This one has moved from my office to my living room multiple times. I've highlighted things, I've taken notes. (laughs) So I mean, I-- You probably know it better than I do at this point. (laughs)- I do. (laughs)- That's like 100% true.- No, it's really, really good, and those of you who are taking this for credit, then I, of course, dropped it in Canvas so you can download it. It's a PDF in Canvas and you can read it, and anybody who's interested in learning more about practicing self-care and burnout in our profession. You specifically talk about it in the counseling profession, but I went ahead and just said we can like apply this to educators like across the board.- Absolutely. Absolutely.- Yeah. So let's talk about burnout because this is January. We just are coming off of a break. I understand that, but we also know that, particularly in certain parts of this country, I mean we're getting like an ice storm right now, like I told you, here in Iowa. And so, you know, it's dark, it's gloomy, it's cold. Even the students feel it and-- Oh absolutely.- You know, there's all kinds of legislation that's coming up that's triggering people in different ways, and so it's just, it can be a lot for educators, as we know, over the past few years in particular. So you wrote this article,

"Self-Care through Self-Compassion: 23:30

A Balm for Burnout." And I love this article so much and you talk about how counselors in particular, but like I said, it's fair for us to generalize some of your thoughts and findings in this article to educators as a whole."Counselors depend heavily upon compassion as a key component of the therapeutic relationship that, paradoxically, counselors may seldom apply to themselves." Yikes. That kind of hurt when I read it. I mean, I had to read that a few times and it was like,(grunting) because I think, not just educators, but like I think parents do this a lot of times, too.- Absolutely.- Like anybody who's in a caring profession, it's like we're just in this care mode, care mode, care mode. But then we just don't apply it to ourselves at all. So first, why is it that people who work to serve and care for others often fail to practice self-care for themselves? What's going on?- So I have a few thoughts on it. I'm sure this is probably another really great opportunity for a dissertation or something.- (laughs) We are doing God's work today.- We really are. We really are. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is that self-care and kind of offering like self-compassion, a lot of that is a learned practice. We learn a lot from what's been modeled to us. And so some of that modeling could come from our parents. Some of that can come from what we noticed from like mentors or other people who've been influential in our growth. I had lunch with someone earlier today and we were talking about sort of the modeling that we can get, for better or for worse, like as we're around other professionals who are further along in the field, we start picking up some of their habits. And so sometimes some of that self-care, it almost feels like it's, oh, okay, well we're really here to do this job. And so we're really focused on caring for other people. And so almost like it doesn't feel like maybe it's just, oh, I'll get to me later. It's, we're really here for something else. So society reinforces a lot of that, particularly for women. There's a lot of expectations, particularly for women about being kind of kind and caring for other people, and it would be selfish otherwise, is kind of the thinking.- Yep.- Lots of people see self-care as an extra, and so it's like, well, I don't have time to do anything extra. I like to think about self-care as, it's like a fundamental way of caring for yourself, and you're the one who's in the best position to do it, because who's else is going to do it for you? Particularly in the ways that you really need it.- Right.- Lots of people don't know what would work for them, or they don't know how to address how they're feeling. Maybe they're aware of something's going on, but they don't even know what would help.- Yeah. I also, do you come across this a lot too?'Cause when I'm in and out of schools and doing some of this work, I think some people don't understand what self-care is.- Yes. Yes, I think (drowned out by Kari).- I think we're getting better. I think we're getting better, but like, I think for a long time people thought, oh, I'm taking care of myself by laying on the couch after work.- And scrolling through my phone.- Which I get. Like, trust me, I'm not criticizing. No judgment. Like I get that sometimes you just need to zone out. But also it's self-care is like building a life for yourself that is healthy and that also means like taking care of your body and making sure you get enough rest. And I get, I understand it's not easy, and nobody's perfect at it, but I think that that's like a component that was lost for a long time in self-care. Did you see that a lot in your practice?- I've definitely noticed that, and people, even if you say it, like, I was like,"Oh yeah, I'm writing an article in self-care," and they're sort of like, they either think sort of the, oh, bubble baths. I'm writing a whole article based on bubble baths and it's like, no, just bath bombs too.- (laughs) Yeah, exactly. Shower gel.- Exactly. Yes. All it is is just smell good.- That's all, right?- Or sort of kind of that push... I feel like there, the last couple years there's been that pushback about like what self-care is, and self-care is not like, you know, that self-care isn't going to fix these other kind of issues when it's really in the system and those kinds of things, and so I feel like that that's something there's just a lot of... Self-care is sometimes misunderstood or gets a bad rap, when in fact it really is just, it's caring for yourself.- Yes, okay, this is such a good topic, right? Because I agree with both. I don't think it's one or the other, right? So I think that we definitely can find ourselves in like really unhealthy systems and no matter how much self-care you practice, like you're not gonna-- You're not self-care your way out of it.- Nope. You're not gonna self-care your way out of that system. And so then you come to like a really hard decision. You come to a crossroad at some point, like, do I continue to stay in a system that I know does not support my health, and is this tolerable? Is this this actually doable for me? Or do I remove myself from that system and find a new system that is going to actually care as much about my health as I do. And and I do think that we're seeing, looking at the way people are shifting jobs, I do think we're seeing this right now. I think we're seeing people who are like, you know what? If you've created a system that is totally unhealthy and there's no amount of self-care that I can practice that is gonna support my health needs, I'm out. Do you feel like we're you're seeing that too?- I'm seeing that a lot. I'm seeing it everywhere. And so like the kind of the great resignation is, I mean, it's been kind of coming for a while, but I just feel like over the last year or two, people are just like, no, I'm just not doing it anymore. That's not gonna do it anymore.- Yeah.- I think it's-- Here's the thing. I think that in order for us to change systems, that you do have to kind of like, you know, lock arms with people and march forward and say like, we have to create a system that's gonna support everybody's wellbeing.- Yes.- Everybody's. But in the meantime, I mean, there are lots of organizations or systems that are not that toxic, and so we still do have to always, no matter what system you're in, you have to practice a certain level of self-care. But so can you describe what's the difference between self-care and self-compassion?- Well, and so from my perspective, like self-compassion can be a way of practicing self-care. So offering yourself self-compassion can be a way of practicing self-care. But self-care can be so much more than just self-compassion. So self-care is something that you're able to, it can be a kind of a response to, whether it's stress or whatever's going on, so something where, you know, if you wake up and you're feeling just like, oh, I can drag myself out of bed and it's gray outside, and it's cold and it's gross and there's an ice storm, you need to get your energy back up, we can have self-care activities or practices that help us kind of rejuvenate and kind of get back kind of feeling, get our life back kind of feeling more like ourselves.- Yeah.- We can have a really rough day and be, you know, wanna throw something at someone, and we know that that's not a helpful way, probably not a good self-care practice. So something that can cool us off. Self-care can also be a way, and this is usually where our self-compassion comes in, is a way to offer our self like comfort and support, and kinda that warm hug that we may need at the end of the day.- Yeah.- And then the final part where, I don't know, I kind of talk about like self-care and kind of the rest of your life. Some of it can be more like practical and preventative. So like I get gas in my car every Sunday. I drive enough that I usually can't make it like a full, like I don't really need it on Sunday. I'll probably need it on Wednesday when I'm running late to a meeting.- Sure.- And so, you know, I will never tell someone like, oh, you're having a hard time, have you put gas in your car? Like, (laughs) that doesn't make any sense, but it's one of the things, if I do it on Sunday, I will not find myself in a more stressed out situation later in the week. If I set out my clothes on Sunday, if I... You know, there's so many different things I can do preventatively. Not avoid some of the things like making sure to attend to my student loan stuff. And so get like, okay, rather than just thinking about it and ruminating about when are they finally going to let me know how many payments I have, maybe I should check so that it's not constantly running through the back of my head.- Yeah.- And so it's sometimes it's taking care of some of the like nitty gritties of life so that you can relax and not have to worry about them. But I can't say just focusing on like the nitty gritty stuff, or the prevention stuff is all of what self-care is.- Right. It's about (indistinct)- It's individualized. It's kind of all of those, it's really, it's what you need.- Yeah, what you were talking about though and describing was like creating this environment or a personal system of wellness that support your wellbeing.- Exactly.- And that aligns with a lot of James Clear, his work, and like creating these systems of wellness. And so he says something to the effect... I think he's the one who said this in some of the literature that I've read from him. He says something to the effect of,"You shouldn't use your weekends to escape your life. You should use your weekends to build the life that you want to have." Or something to that. I'm like kind of misquoting it. Something to that effect.- I'm terrible with quotes. It's fine.- Yeah, and I'm pretty sure it's... If somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but... And basically what he is getting at, right, is what you just said. Like create these little systems that support where you wanna go in the life that you wanna have. And if you think about all the systems that you create in a day, and then start to analyze those systems and think about how that's serving you and how it's not serving you.- Absolutely. And I think that that's a really great way to start thinking about like the little different, all the little, the tiny changes that you can change in your daily system to support your wellness. You know, and you were talking about like setting out your clothes. I do the same thing. You know, I have this system that supports this workout habit that I have in the morning, and it starts the night before, where I get my coffee prepped, I have my workout clothes set out, I have the remote to my fan. I mean, there's like these certain things that create this behavior loop that just makes it happen again and again and again and again, and it becomes really fluent. And that's exactly what you're talking about. It staves off burnout in the long run, and it's a protective factor.- It really is.- Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. But creating, like deconstructing old systems and habits and creating new systems, it's so much easier to talk about than in actuality. You know, you just have to take like these baby steps to doing it.- Well and oftentimes, and I think that's one of the challenges with sort of the New Year's resolution and everything, is that we decide that we're gonna be like whole new people in the new year that like, you know, a whole new, new year, new me, and suddenly you're gonna be eating like carrot sticks and running every day, and you're like...- No.- Did you buy carrots?(Kari laughs)- Can you run a mile?- Yeah.- You know, and so where are you hoping to start? Maybe some of it is okay, maybe I do some grocery shopping and pick up more healthy food, you know, foods that I'd like to eat and munch on rather than the other things I had been eating. So you can makes things a smaller change.- So true. You know, one of my other best friends, Will (indistinct), he hates it actually when I say this, so if Will, if you're on tonight, I'm sure you're like saying, Kari, stop saying that to people. It's so annoying. But you have annoying things that you say, too, Will. But it goes along with what you just said. And when I'm giving some of these workshops, I'll say to people, what is the heaviest weight at the gym? And then they like start calculating, like actual like bars and plates, and I'm like, oh no no no, and it's the front door. Like just those of you who are wanting to get a habit around going to the gym, like maybe that's something you want to do, maybe not, but if it is, and it can be applied to other things, too, something that you wanna do, like, just show up. Like, just start showing up. Like, you don't even have to work out. Like, if you just get in the habit of just being present and showing up and opening that front door, like, that's the first step. Like you said, just go grocery shopping. Like just start with going grocery shopping and maybe changing a couple things on your list, because that's a success, and the more you experience success, right-- Absolutely.- The more you're going to keep doing it. But then you have to have some self-compassion, too, because you're gonna make mistakes.- Yeah, and it's not gonna happen overnight.- No, no. And you're gonna get sick and not be able to go for a few days, or you're gonna have somebody's birthday party and decide to eat a whole cake, and you know what? That happens. That's okay.- It happens to all of us.- (indistinct) to all of us. I ate a whole bunch of Starburst today. It's fine. I'll work out in the morning.- I literally have candy sitting next to next to my computer right now, just in case I get hungry.- Well, talking about creating systems, I did something really not smart. I created this like really cute little Valentine candy display (laughs) in the hallway going back into my office. What was I thinking?- Just every time you go back. (laughs)- Every time, every time. (laughs)- I literally have ginger candies next to my bed. So like don't judge me.- Do you really?- I do. I do. I have a little, my friend Elizabeth made this lovely little, like, dish that I'm sure she hoped I'd put something different in, but instead it's filled with these lovely ginger candies that I love.- I love ginger candy. Are they the chew ones?- Yeah, they're the chewy ones, the (indistinct) or whatever.- Oh my gosh. They're so good.- Yes. Have you had the lemon ones? If you haven't had the lemon ginger-- No.- And I hadn't, they didn't come in the normal like share pack, so I had to order them and just trust. I hoped that they'd be good. They're amazing.- I'm ordering them.(indistinct)- You should. Get a pound. They're amazing.- You know what? They often help when you have an upset stomach.- They do. But I, you know, just eat them preventatively to start, you know, make sure I just don't have.- It's a good practice.- Before bed.(Kari laughs)- Okay. Do you think it would be really weird if I read you something from your article? Like would that weird you out a little bit?- It would not weird me out.- Okay, I'm gonna read it,'cause I think it's really beautiful, and then I just want like a natural response to what I read, okay? And then I'll tell you why I love it so much. But I just, I love this what you wrote, okay? So you wrote in this article that we're talking about right now, about burnout and using self-care to stave off burnout and live a healthy life. You wrote, "Although self-care is widely promoted within the counseling literature, this author," and I can't remember what author you were referencing. I think, actually, this author is me.- It was you. You were actually referencing yourself.(laughs) Of course it was.- Because I think at the time that's how you did it. I don't know how. Like now I'm allowed to say"I" in APA, I don't know.- Yeah. Oh, I think you're right.- Yeah.- I think that changed. So I think I had to refer myself in third person before.- That's so weird.- It is weird. So "this author contends that inherent in many self-care plans and workplace improvement efforts is the idea that overwhelming work-related stress reflects adequacy of the individual." So they're like taking it all on themselves."The message in the literature often reflects the view that a counselor's distress hinges upon inadequate coping resources, poor health practices or other kinds of personal failings, such as lacking assertiveness or not taking enough time off from work, and as a result, self-care plans tend to take on the air of a New year's resolution, a strategy to get better. This narrow focus reflects the historical view of the organizational, interpersonal or societal perspectives. When self-care plans are written like self-improvement plans, the opportunities for criticism and judgment abound, particularly for new counselors who struggle with anxiety and self-doubt," or particularly for new teachers who struggle with anxiety and self-doubt. I loved what you talk about, because not only are we not practicing self-care, but then when self-care is brought up, we blame ourselves.- Mm-hmm. Yeah, and the literature does it, too.- Can you talk to us more about it?- So since you kinda give me me a little bit of a heads up that this was going to come up, I'm going to read something to you.- Okay, good.- From my favorite. So Drs. Leiter and Maslach are my like burnout guru people. And so they wrote, "There are both philosophical and pragmatic reasons underlying the predominant focus on the individual, including notions of individual causality and responsibility and the assumption that it is easier and cheaper to change people rather than the organization.- Oh my.- Yes.- Oh, let's get into it. (laughs)- So that, I read that and I was like, "Oh my, like wow." Like, 'cause that's the problem.- I mean I'm like getting hot thinking about this. I mean it's true. It's the problem, right? And then it's almost like gaslighting.- It is.- Because then we like, we blame ourselves.- And then it's like, oh, I'm not doing it right. I'm the problem. But that's not fair. We do need to take care of ourselves, and we need to have good coping and all blah blah blah, blah, blah. But that's not why many workplaces are challenging.- Exactly. Because you're right. I mean think about the time, effort, cost, even like at the leadership level, like the different kinds of training and changes that would have to be made in order to create a completely different system that maybe is in response to or reflects the needs of our current workforce.- Right. That sounds very expensive. It's easier to blame you.- Oh yeah. And to send all kinds of signals that it's your problem.- Yes.- Yeah.- And there's so many of those efforts where, I mean, I appreciate that there's more focus on workplace wellness, and that they have different programs to offer, like, oh we'll have yoga on Thursdays or those kinds of things. Like those are great. It's nice to be able to have those in the workplace. And yet it's still, if we're not making any of the other changes within the workplace itself, then we're leaving out a significant portion of where a lot of work-related stress comes from.- Mm-hmm.- It's not just 'cause we're bad at this.- Yeah. It's not just that we're bad at this. Yeah. And also like, let's talk about like actually having explicit modeling and practice. Actually, my dean does a pretty good job of this actually. He does a really good job of encouraging taking time off and self-care, and modeling it to us, too. And like not being afraid to tell us like, I'm going fishing.- Yes.- Maybe you should do something like that, too. And I think that that's a really, instead of like hiding that you're taking the day off and feeling ashamed of it, but like, like modeling to people that you're leading on a team, like no, I'm actually like shutting down my email for two days, and, you know, you can do that too.- Right, and even setting boundaries around when you're answering messages, and even the awareness of like, okay, my working hours aren't your working hours, you know, you have to respond when you're ready. And so I try to be really transparent with my students. Sometimes where they're like, "Are you okay?" It's like, no, yes "I am okay." But I'm also trying to practice what I preach, and I want them to see that I'm also working on this. So I've thank, thanks to kind of all the changes with COVID. I teach in a graduate program primarily. So my in-person classes,

many of them are from 6:00 to 9: 43:52

00 PM, so that's later in the evening.- That's late.- And so I've changed my schedule. I've made it so I can I come in a little bit later

so I'm not doing a 9: 44:04

00 AM meeting.

Certainly not a regular 9: 44:06

00 AM meeting, because that ensures that it's a 12-hour day, and if I have multiple 12-hour days, which is what I had before COVID, I'm exhausted. I'm not able to take care of myself. When am I going to work out in that? It's not going to happen.- No.- And so, or I can sacrifice more sleep, but that's not really fair. So I made a lot of adjustments and I really kind of talked to students around finding what works. And sometimes, I mean, and you know, life of a professor. We work a lot of hours, but we get to get to pick many of them, and so I'm lucky to have that, and I acknowledge that that's not how it is in many of our other workplaces, but there are some things that we can do to make kind of adjustments that fit our lives better, or even looking at expectations differently.- I am so happy that you pointed it out, 'cause it's true. Like we do work a lot of hours and sometimes on weekends and on Sundays and I worked all over, you know, the holiday, I did take a week off or whatever, but I will say this, the schedule of the K through 12 teacher, I have worked that before, and I know you've been in schools before too. There is nothing like that.- No.- It is unbelievably exhausting.'Cause like you said, I can build my, even though I'm working more than 40 hours a week, I'm still building it. You know, sometimes I work at 4:30 in the morning. Sometimes I work in the evening, like I am right now. They can't do that. And so like I just wanna like say to all of our K through 12 audience, like acknowledge that you don't have that kind of flexibility a lot of the time, and so like practicing self-care and working as a group collectively to create a system of wellness with your leadership team is so unbelievably important because of that bell schedule.- Oh, absolutely.- Yeah.- And I feel for educators, because it really is, there's so many things, and there are so many parallels between kind of being, you know, a full-time counselor, but even like, it's kind of a little easier for counselors to even get a bathroom break during the day, because nobody has to like watch your client. You can drop them off and use the restroom before coming back, and you don't necessarily have like...- No.- I really do feel for them.- Yeah, I still... I mean, it took me at least three years. I mean, every time, I remember like when I left K through 12 and I went to higher ed, particularly that first year, but even into the second, third year, I remember thinking, every once in a while, why are you holding? Like you can go to the bathroom, Kari. Like (laughs) get up and just go to the bathroom. But for so many years it just wasn't an option. It just like became... Yeah, it's not...- Right. Or you realize that like the moment that you put your key in the lock and you're like, oh.(Susannah laughs)- Yeah.- It's like suddenly it's an emergency,'cause you've been holding it for so long.- For so long, yep. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about, one of the things before we leave tonight, because we're getting close to needing to wind down, but I'm trying to think how we wanna go, where we wanna go from here. So let's maybe talk about interventions for the spirit. So you, 'cause, you know, we're focusing a little bit on our spiritual dimension of wellness. So I'm gonna kind of skip down to some of my notes here at the end, and you talk about interventions for the spirit, and we outlined kind of what the spiritual dimension of a person's wellbeing is, and how it's often defined. And let's see here, you addressed this in your article, too, in terms of like conducting like a moral inventory, prayer, connecting with nature. Can you maybe you say four different things, basically: conducting a moral inventory, prayer, connecting with nature and engaging in creative activities. Do you wanna elaborate on any of those?- So one of the things, so I think, whether it's the moral inventory or just getting in touch with your values, a friend of mine, I'd gone through a divorce years ago and I had just finished my doctoral program and I was just sort of like, I've now accomplished everything. And now I'm at this like kind of personal and professional crossroads, and I didn't know what to do with myself because like suddenly I had no more goals left. I done all the things and I was like, "Oh, what do I do?" And so what he talked to me about was the idea that I'd been living a goal-directed life, rather than sort of a more a value-driven life. And because my whole life was up in the air, like, will I have children? Who knows? Will I wanna teach? Do I wanna be a counselor? What do I wanna do? And I was like, I don't know. I'm dying. And so what he's talked to me about, the benefit of having counselors as friends is, ah.- Beautiful.- So it was the idea that, like, rather than continuing to live kind of goal to goal to goal, I can just focus on my values and living out my values. And that was something that kind of looking at what's been maybe working in my life, what has maybe not been working, what am I not doing enough of? And so whether it is kind of a moral inventory or just getting a sense of your own personal values and how you're living them out, can be a really valuable way of making sense of who you are in the workplace, the kind of person you wanna be with your family, who you are with your friends. And that can involve, you know, your spiritual life. It can involve a higher power. It doesn't have to. And so I think that's a really helpful way of just kind of getting in touch with yourself and kind of saying what's working, what's not working. How do I feel more connected and grounded?- Yeah. I really, really love that. You know, like thinking through, I think what you just said, and correct me if I'm wrong, like thinking really critically and intentionally about your lived values and your aspirational values, and are you living into those aspirational values or are they different?- Yeah.- Something that-- And I-- No, go ahead.- No, no, no. Go for it.- I was gonna say someone had made, and I'd have no idea who it is. I think I saw it on social media at some point, but it's kinda the idea of the things that are important to you and the the things you spend time doing.- Yes.- And like, do they line up? And most of the time it doesn't. And so kind of like how do you put those things that are really important to you, how would those end up back on your list? And for some people, the kind of like attending to kind of the aspects of their spirit, if it's not something that's already built in as a routine, it's so easy to set aside and not do anything with it, where it feels like it's a lot because maybe, I don't know, maybe it's it's unknown and maybe I grew up this way, but it doesn't fit for me now, but it feels, another thing, it feels like it's extra.- It does, yes.- But it can give life so much more kind of purpose and meaning, whether or not it's a religious practice or anything like that, but just being able to just have that awareness that of kind of a connectedness among all of us and that, you know, maybe there's some meaning and purpose to things that doesn't have to be, but just being able to, I don't know, kind of think about some of these topics and how we wanna live our lives differently. Not necessarily as a way to like be better people, but just to be better versions of ourselves.- Yeah, I like that too, because that's like living, you know, you're living in the moment of like, I love who I am, or I like who I am. I'm working on practicing self-love and loving myself. And also like realizing that maybe some of my life doesn't align with my values, and so, like, how do I create that? Like, how do I make that happen? So it's not like necessarily changing myself because I don't like myself, but creating this life that aligns with my values.- Exactly. Exactly.- Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your time. I love talking to you. I think the first time that we talked, like we just started like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, (laughs) and so it felt so natural. So hopefully we can stay connected and keep these conversations going and keep partnering. If anybody has any questions right now, then feel free to like pop those questions in the chat. Otherwise, our next podcast is February 22nd, and we are gonna be talking with Joanne Cobb. She is the executive director, I can't remember her exact title at the ISEA, so the Iowa State Education Association. We are gonna be talking about teacher attrition, teacher pay, all kinds of teacher, teacher, teacher talks. So we hope that you join us on February 22nd. Yes, February 22nd for that live podcast. Otherwise, thank you, Dr. Coaston. We really appreciate you coming, and we will be in touch.- All right. That sounds great. Thank you so much.- Have a great evening. Bye everyone.