It’s Wellness Month at The Worthy Educator! Check out the resources and activities on our Padlet and add your own to share the wellness wealth!
Wellness and self-care are priorities in today’s education circles. Of all the things we learned during the COVID-19 disruption, perhaps nothing hit home more than how neglecting ourselves in the service of others takes a toll, sometimes immediately and sometimes cumulatively. We are all more conscious of making time for our own mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. Good for us!
But leadership doesn’t happen in a vacuum and teaching isn’t a solo act, so why should our well-being be siloed? This is a plea to educators everywhere to mindfully consider the relationship of our wellness to everyone around us: a symbiotic relationship. Imagine how much more effective we can be at managing stress and anxiety and fear if our closest colleagues made our health a primary consideration right after their own!
In the same way, leadership isn’t a challenge to be won in a controlled virtual sandbox. Gamification may be popular for checking off skills or getting a free pizza, but health and wellness is worth more than a badge. In the real world, species form symbiotic relationships as a matter of survival. There are no hacks or cheat codes for that. Health and wellness isn't a competition, and the quality with which we experience life happens communally.
The good news is, we are all given the same opportunity to succeed and we all can win. Symbiotic relationships allow for everyone involved to have positive outcomes. This kind of self-care symbiosis (SCS) makes sense as the next step in making the most of our lives.
SCS doesn't put the wellbeing of others before our own. Our personal health and wellness is our priority. It simply puts into practice a kind of awareness of the people around us and the interdependency of all of our lives. Don’t see yourself as a nurse’s aid or physician’s assistant? No worries. That’s not what this is.
Symbiotic self-care starts with ourselves, and is as simple as:
- accepting our role in contributing to a healthy community
- creating a safe space for both candor and caring
- asking before assuming
- thinking before reacting, and
- at the very minimum, doing no harm
It’s not that we’re necessarily responsible for others’ health habits, but we are responsible for the climate of the environment in which we live and work. If you follow the five tenets mentioned above, it gives permission for others to exhale and internalize them, as well. Imagine what your place of work would be like if eventually everyone practiced SCS!
Every time you have an inner dialogue about a frustrating situation, a difficult colleague, or a toxic workplace, remember this supplication for symbiosis. We contribute to our work culture, with every thought, every gesture, every intention, spoken and unspoken as willing participants in a human ecosystem. Is this an appeal to self-interest? Perhaps, but for the greater good.
If you practice symbiotic self-scare:
you focus on your wellness in relationship to how it affects others
you practice a generosity of acceptance in how you treat yourself and colleagues
you give others space to test and learn from their beliefs and behaviors
you stop feeding negative thoughts and feelings that drive unhealthy coping mechanisms
you cultivate peace of mind that quells fight and flight responses
you redirect your energy to where you can make a positive difference
you find yourself feeling better with less effort compared to siloed self-care
Self-care symbiosis is a mindset. It’s where we need to start. It’s our biases and fears and resentments that affect our physical and emotional health. We know breaking these patterns on our own is an insurmountable ask. The landscape is replete with support groups and varieties of therapies to address all the maladaptive ways we learn to cope in response to trauma. Symbiotic self-care creates our very own support systems right where we spend the most time: at work and at home.
Already have a healthy work culture? Considering ways SCS can enhance your good thing? Consider these possibilities:
- form a workplace climate committee that supports a healthy work environment - work together to create workplace culture practices that promote wellness
- identify a team process for supporting safe, difficult conversations
- share self-care goals with teammates so they can support your efforts, and you can support theirs
- find and prepare healthy eats and drinks to share
in workspaces and at meetings
- make regular time and space for team recreation,
reflection and sharing
Feeling overwhelmed trying to wrap your mind around all this? Not sure where to start? We’re here to help. Request a free Worthy Educator consultation at your convenience and let’s talk. You’ll be amazed how much better you feel entering the new school year knowing you are not alone!
Together, we can take wellness and self-care to the next level through SCS: self-care symbiosis.
Joy is a critical part of wellness and self-care. It can boost your immune system, alleviate stress, and increase the quality and length of your life. Take our Joy Index Self-Assessment to reflect on the joy in your life.
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