Mental Health Time

So, today we talked about teacher resiliency and renewal. This is not usually a topic in schools as most schools don't have time or believe that people can work it out on their own. The truth is that teaching is a very challenging profession and often attracts people who are perfectionists and hold themselves to very high standards, so a lot of time the work is never really done. So, we brainstormed things we are going to do to stay resilient. We were supposed to brainstorm something in each quadrant of emotional (I), behavioral (it), cultural (we), and systems (its). I don't remember who came up with these quadrants... Anyway, it was a valuable exercise to talk with other teachers and then reflect on our goals for ourselves. Jason and I talked on the quick ride home (11 minute commute!) about my primary and secondary activities and what I want to make a priority for my happiness (I think that's the gist),

What I'm currently doing:
Farmers market browsing on Saturday
Lots of cooking on the weekends
Inviting people over for dinner, hanging out, etc.
Keeping up the blog (it's a kind of therapy, right)
Getting out for walks sometimes
Listening to good music

What I want to do more of:
Write more letters
Read more
Go for more walks (neighborhood and in nature)
Get on the bike
Catch up with long distance friends and family on the phone more regularly
Pipe dream: have time to row during the week
Go out on the weekends? I'm not sure I can pull it off.

So, obviously I really want to limit the amount of electricity in my life, which is always appealing to me. So, for now, I think I'm going to try to commit to one or two of these for the fall. We'll see...tonight instead of going for a walk I went to Kinko's to make my plan book. It had to be done...I was going crazy without it.