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Caring with Intention: Navigating Compassion Fatigue through Emotional Intelligence
51 Plays1 day ago
Special Guests Corey H. Cassidy, PhD, CCC-SLP & Patricia Eitemiller, M.Ed., QMRP
Compassion fatigue affects how we show up at work, at home, and in our relationships. In this episode, we explore what compassion fatigue is, how it differs from burnout, and how strengthening our emotional intelligence helps us care with intention. Through reflection and practical strategies, we discuss boundaries, capacity, and agency, empowering us to protect our empathy, make intentional choices, and stay connected without losing ourselves in the process.
Find strategies that work for you. Consider the following:
- Practice self-awareness and reflection (e.g., journaling to express gratitude and acknowledge accomplishments).
- Build healthy coping strategies (e.g., physical activity, creative outlets, deep-breathing exercises, or spending time outdoors).
- Cultivate a support network—friends, family, peers, and colleagues—and connect with intention.
- Reframe negative thoughts and celebrate small wins, sharing progress and successes with others.
Resources:
Brené Brown book – Atlas of the Heart
Feelings Wheel - https://www.gottman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/The-Gottman-Institute_The-Feeling-Wheel.pdf
Everyday Leadership: Redefining Leadership in Lollipop Moments Blog - https://www.veipd.org/earlyintervention/2019/01/08/everyday-leadership-redefining-leadership-in-lollipop-moments/
Meredith, G.R., Rakow, D.A., Eldermire, E.R.B., Madsen, C.G., Shelley, S.P., & Sachs, N.A. (2020). Minimum Time Dose in Nature to Positively Impact the Mental Health of College-Aged Students, and How to Measure It: A Scoping Review. Front. Psychol. 10:2942. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02942
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Meaningful Moments' Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome everyone to another episode of Meaningful Moments, connecting infant mental health to early intervention. My name is Lisa Terry. I am your host today. i am also an early intervention professional development consultant. with the Virginia Early Intervention Professional Development Center at Virginia Commonwealth University with the Partnership for People with Disabilities. It's a lot. I know. and I'm so excited to be here today.
00:00:39
Speaker
I wanted to let everyone know that this podcast is a collaborative effort from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, and that is through a contract with the Partnership for People with Disabilities at Virginia Commonwealth
Meet the Guests: Kori Cassidy and Patty Geit-Miller
00:00:52
Speaker
University. and I'm going to have both of my guests introduce themselves. I'm so excited to finally get with them and have them here on this podcast today. And so, Kori, I'm going to go ahead and let you introduce yourself first, and then, Patty, if you want to follow.
00:01:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having us here today, Lisa. My name is Kori Cassidy, and I'm a professor at Radford University in Southwest Virginia. um I have been at Radford for, this is my 19th year, for almost 20 years, and I am a speech-language pathologist who focuses on birth to three and and a little bit dabbles into birth to five.
00:01:25
Speaker
um And so I run clinical programs on campus and in the community, and I teach courses across the pediatric span, as well as courses on interprofessional education and practice and healthcare leadership and all of those good things. And I am thrilled to be here today. So thank you so much.
00:01:45
Speaker
Excellent. I'll go next. Thank you, Lisa. Like Corey said, we are honored to be here. I'm really happy that you invited us to talk about these topics today. um My name is Patty Geit-Miller. I am and early childhood professional, early interventionist and trainer for the city of Alexandria. I hit my milestone, 25 year milestone with the city of Alexandria, but I've actually been in this field about going on 30 years, which is crazy when I think about it. I spent 15 years as a developmental therapist and early interventionist for our early intervention program, working with babies birth to three with developmental disabilities and their families. And for the last going on eight years, I have been developing, designing and facilitating training and professional development and activities for our early childhood programs in the city of Alexandria. I'm really honored to talk about these topics today. So I'll let Lisa go ahead and get us started.
00:02:36
Speaker
Perfect. Thank you. I love how much experience you both have too, and that you're bringing here with us. And so this will be a really good topic.
Emotional Challenges in Early Intervention
00:02:44
Speaker
you know As early interventionists, I think we are always supporting families every day, right? We're listening to their worries. We're helping them to navigate all of the challenges that they bring, but we're also holding a lot of space for their emotions that come with some of those challenges, right?
00:02:59
Speaker
And I wonder lately, you know, if any of this resonates with any of our listeners, if they've ever noticed feeling kind of tired, right? Maybe before your day even starts, you're already starting to feel emotionally drained. Maybe during visits, it might be harder for you to stay fully present and in the moment.
00:03:19
Speaker
Maybe you find yourself getting more irritated quickly and that can even happen at home. Right. I think we can all probably resonate with that one. When a parent kind of shares their worries with you, right, too, it might start to feel a lot heavier than it used to feel for you. and a story that maybe once moved you, it might now start to feel very overwhelming or you might not even feel anything at all. And maybe you still want to help, but it feels like you just have nothing left to give.
00:03:48
Speaker
Or maybe you've started pulling back from your friends or your family because you're just too tired to talk. And if any of that sounds familiar, you might be experiencing compassion fatigue, and that can show up in so many parts of our lives.
Understanding Compassion Fatigue vs. Burnout
00:04:03
Speaker
And in this specific episode, Corey and Patty, they're going to talk about what compassion fatigue is, how it differs from burnout and how emotional intelligence can really help us to recognize our limits and the intentional choices that are going to protect our own well-being. So I'm so excited to have both of you here with us today. You have been presenting on this topic across Virginia and even nationally, and I know that our listeners are going to be very eager to learn from your experience. And really to kind of start us off, I would just love to hear a little bit more about what drew you to this topic. like What made you gravitate toward the topic of compassion fatigue?
Interest in Compassion Fatigue: Personal Stories
00:04:44
Speaker
or Absolutely. i think it goes back. It's kind of a funny story how we started talking about self-care, but we were coming out of the pandemic and we started to realize that we were not taking care of ourselves, which also made me start to think about why are we not taking care of ourselves? Why is everything suddenly feel so draining to us? And as I was working with a lot of family childcare providers and a lot of other early childhood individuals, I'm noticing the same trends with them as well. And Corey and I just started having these conversations about what is compassion fatigue? What does it look like? How do we prepare ourselves for it? And how we how do we combat it so that we can still be the best professionals that we can be to serve our families and be able to support our families and the children that we're working with? Yeah, so I'll jump off from that. So Patty and I were having these conversations um really about how how poorly we were taking care of ourselves.
00:05:38
Speaker
um And if we were aware of that, you know, if our self-awareness was high, but we still weren't doing it, what was everybody else doing? And and how is that impacting not only their personal lives, but their professional lives as well? Because we know throughout the pandemic,
00:05:53
Speaker
we didn't stop, right? We didn't stop serving families. We didn't stop connecting with the children who we serve. And if anything, we were putting even more into it. And so we were asked by a colleague if we would perhaps want to take some of those conversations and share those and maybe do a little bit of research about how to take better care of ourselves. And from that, um as hypocritical as we felt like we were and sometimes still are, we started finding out a little bit more about um Making connections and being intentional with our behaviors and also how that can impact um our work and our personal lives in in a way that um and where compassion fatigue and and burnout really fall
Role of Emotional Intelligence in Managing Stress
00:06:36
Speaker
into that. We don't didn't want to lose any more people in the field. We didn't want to leave our fields. But what did that mean for us and how did we dive a little bit more deeply? And that's where we started putting these pieces together over the last six years or so. as we've done the research, as we've attended a lot of professional development ourselves, as we've practiced some of you these um strategies, the connection between emotional intelligence um with self-compassion, compassion fatigue, burnout, and even self-care. And that's sort of where all of these things came together for us and where we are now.
00:07:07
Speaker
Still being hypocrites, by the way, but at least having the knowledge and the awareness to move forward and make some intentional changes for ourselves and to help others do the same. I was going to say, i am fully guilty of being a hypocrite myself as well. So I'm going to just join that hypocrite club because I think that it's really hard sometimes like when we say self-care and taking care of ourselves, which we're going to get into, I know. But I think maybe we'll just start with compassion fatigue and like
00:07:38
Speaker
the terminology for that, because that might be something that a lot of our listeners maybe haven't heard of before. So I would love it if you would just kind of describe like, what does that mean exactly?
00:07:49
Speaker
Absolutely, Lisa. So compassion fatigue is also known as secondary traumatic stress, which is sometimes maybe a term that people will would be more familiar with. It's very common of service providers, early interventionists, teachers, anyone in those caring professions that are really giving a lot of themselves to take care of others and spend a significant amount of time that are working with individuals that are also experiencing trauma,
00:08:15
Speaker
other stressors that come about in daily life. And we all have stressors that come about in our daily lives. And as empathetic people that we generally are in this profession, we're often hearing a lot of things and a lot of stressors from those that we work with. So it also shares a lot of lot of different traits and symptoms with burnout, which you've heard us mention before, but they're actually two different things. And burnout is also very common among many of us in this field. We often feel like we're doing too much. We get to the point that our candle has burnt down to the very bottom and we have nothing left to give. Though burnout generally indicates the loss of the ability to empathize. So when we're burnt out, we just don't care anymore. Like there is nothing that we, we just don't care if what happens, happens.
00:09:03
Speaker
Where victims of compassion fatigue on the other hand, become very overwhelmed by their emotional connection with and compassion for those they support and serve. And one of the things I wanna note here, even though this podcast is particularly for early interventionists, a lot of our listeners, all of us have personal lives as well. So we could be taking care of a family member or a loved one that is going through something or a friend that's going through something. And that can also drain us as well, because that compassion fatigue can come at us from multiple different angles. So it's not just those that are working in these helping professions, but we will that have any kind of compassion and empathy for other people. And we're here to provide that support for them.
00:09:48
Speaker
So those of us that support people in our personal professional lives, again, they tend to be very empathetic. and generous and caring, and it heightens our vulnerability to get that compassion fatigue. And we might be especially vulnerable if we've experienced some unresolved trauma in our own lives or are going through an emotional or traumatic event at the same time as the people that we're working with
Building Emotional Intelligence and Resilience
00:10:11
Speaker
are as well. And you touched on that a little bit, Lisa. I can think back to times where I was going on with something was going on in my life and then I had to go and show up for four or five different families and, you know, talk to them about what was going on with them. And it is hard to separate them and make sure that you're still taking care of yourself at the same time. So the nice thing to know about compassion fatigue, and we'll get into some strategies hopefully later, but it can come on slowly over time or it can come on suddenly. So when it's coming on slowly, you can start to recognize the signs of what's happening so that you can start to be in a place where you can recognize what you need to do to combat it as well.
00:10:52
Speaker
Well, so I had a couple of follow-up questions I think I'm going to throw at you, Patty. um So really thinking about like compassion of fatigue and like how, you know, that makes, you know, someone feel and the difference with the burnout. I mean, it sounds a lot like compassion fatigue, you still care, right? Absolutely. have that desire to help, but you just don't have the capacity to do it. and But I wonder too, like, is this something that is short term or long term? Like, can I feel it for like one day this week? And maybe like the next week, I'm okay? Or is it something that's really continuous over a certain period of time? and then it you can get it addressed and, and really um use some of the strategies to help yourself with that. But
00:11:40
Speaker
that's what I'm really curious about. Is it something, you know, short term, or is it something long term, something that can happen? consistently every time. Thanks for that question, Lisa. That's great. That's a really good question. And I think it's really going to depend on the person in the situation and they're also their ability to understand themselves and what their capacity is.
00:11:58
Speaker
I know as I've grown in this profession, my capacity when I was much younger, maybe when my life was a lot easier, when things just seemed like they were not that kind complicated on the back on the backside, things were easier to manage. I was able to take on more. And as you grow older, as we all know, we have other different stressors in our lives personally and professionally, as we plan for what's coming next, that ability to be able to take that compassion fatigue may be a little bit less, but again, it's going to bury on the person. Also it's probably going to work, depend on their work style. How much do they take on? I know Corey and I, and I can probably speak for you too, Lisa, we all do all the things all the time, which makes us, because we care about what we do. We want to be able to do a good job and we want to do everything well. And it's really, least in you and I were just talking about that, setting those boundaries of what we can do, what we can't do. And that's something that as you grow older, I think as you're younger, you don't necessarily have that ability to set those boundaries or know how to set those boundaries before that compassion fatigue sets in. So yes, it could impact you suddenly if you're not aware of it or when you're maybe younger, earlier in your field, or it can come on more gradually as you get um more involved in your work.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah, i just I just wanted to add, um you know, one of the things I know we're going to talk about next is emotional intelligence. And Patty mentioned that already, as have you, Lisa. But I think, um you know, in response to the question of can it ebb and flow, can compassion fatigue ebb and flow before we hit that point of burnout? and i And I think it depends on how much we're able to um monitor our own and ah be aware of our own needs and monitor our own um capacity, as Patty has said. And it really does tie directly into that emotional intelligence that we're going to talk about. So I think your question leads us right into that really well. And that if we can strengthen that emotional intelligence, which I'll be happy to define in a minute, um then then we have the opportunity to say, oh, my compassion fatigue is really picking up here. I really need to do some things and take care of myself in order to bring that level back down again. And so it really comes back to the awareness. And Patty said to the capacity in the rest of your life, right?
00:14:20
Speaker
Some of us have children, we have aging parents, so we have partners who need us. um We have other obligations in life. Some of us put more into work, some of us separate more easily. And so, you know, there's never going to be a true balance, but helping us ah help becoming more aware. and And that's kind of what we want to do today is help us think about where we're going with that in order to combat that compassion fatigue.
00:14:44
Speaker
And this could be a completely off question, but kind of like listening to how you're kind of describing it to you. Like, I wonder how much resilience plays into it. Right. Yeah, absolutely. I agree, Lisa. And I think, you know, and Corey just kind of touched on it and we kind of went into that already. Early on in your career, you're excited, you're wanting to do things, you're wanting to support these families. As you get older, i think you do build up a little bit more resilience. You do learn what your boundaries are. you do learn what your capacity ah cityy was.
00:15:17
Speaker
I think as a new person in this field, somebody say, what's your capacity? I would look at them and say, i have absolutely no idea what I can and can't do As you get older, as you start to juggle all the things in life, both personally and professionally, you learn what you can do and what your capacity is. i think we build resilience over time based on the experiences we have, but I think we also have to be intentional about that. And we also have to take intent. I'm going to use that word again, intentional action. to make that happen.
00:15:49
Speaker
And so again, I know I'm going to keep harping on emotional intelligence and we haven't even really gotten taken a deep dive into that yet. But that's part of that process. And and I think when we're young and new and excited and engaged um and maybe don't have all of the other obligations in our lives, we are resilient in a different way. um But then we build upon that with our awareness, with our experiences, um,
00:16:13
Speaker
with with our recognition of how intentional we might need to be as we get older, as we as we become more seasoned in these fields that we're all engaged in. Yeah, and our priorities shift too, right? So it's not only the sense that we're more resilient, but our priorities when we're younger are a lot different as we start growing older. We also might be in jobs where the demands are greater. The more we learn, the more we work, the more experienced we become, we then become more in need. There's more need for us to be able to do things because we have that experience and that background to be able to support people. And I think, you know, I'm i'm looking at some of the notes that we made on things when we had this conversation to prepare for this podcast is, we talked a little bit about empathy and with compassion fatigue, we don't want to lose the empathy because you can work when you're still fatigued, but you can't connect if you're burnt out.
00:17:12
Speaker
So, and I think for me, that whole idea, and I'm a huge, and I think you both know this, I'm a huge connection person. I love connecting with people. i love connecting with families. It's what drew me to early intervention. It's one of the things that I loved about working with families. and children and particularly my area from all over the world and all walks of life, it's it's really important to me to be able to connect with people because we're also doing something in early intervention that's very personal and serving their children. So being able to connect and not lose that empathy is a really big, important part of compassion fatigue to be able to recognize.
00:17:51
Speaker
go ahead, Lisa. Yeah, and I would say, I mean, I definitely feel like I am a very like empathetic person and I still go out and I'm still providing developmental services to families that I'm seeing. And there are times where I just feel, i guess, this emotional exhaustion.
00:18:09
Speaker
and And I know it. I think I'm aware of it. So I'm really excited to get into this next part, Corey, with you on emotional intelligence, because I really do truly like want to learn myself. like What do I do when I'm feeling this in those moments? And how do I help myself? Because I think that intentionality piece of it is that we have to be intentional to help ourselves, right, too. um And so I would just love to know a little bit more about emotional intelligence and when we're feeling overwhelmed and we don't have that capacity to do it, how do we bridge that gap? What do we do then in those moments?
00:18:53
Speaker
Yeah, sure. and you know i'm I'm just excited to get into this. So thank you for asking, Alisa. Thank you for prepping me to ask that, to answer that question. um You know, I also have been, I've been at Radford for almost 20 years, but I've been an SLP, a speech language pathologist, working with families with young children for almost 30. And just like both of you, I still work directly in the field. I work with families every day um in both um community agencies, as well as, like I said, on campus, teaching students how to work with families and young children. And so absolutely, I mean, I think we need strategies. We need strategies to bridge that gap, to make that connection, to make sure that we continue to not only build our own capacity, but maintain it sometimes, right? And so um that's where I think, you know, the concept of emotional intelligence has always been something sort of in the back of my mind, like that makes sense to me um versus um just, you know, intelligence. There's this emotional level to it that really is important when working and connecting, as Patty said, on a day-to-day basis with other individuals, even when we crave it, even when we desire it, even when it's in our own nature to connect. We still need to have the skills and the strategies to continue to be able to do so effectively.
00:20:05
Speaker
So the concept of emotional intelligence or what we sometimes call emotional quotient or EQ was introduced in the early nineteen ninety s So it's actually been around for quite a while. um And of course, a group of psychologists came up with this, but there's a significant amount of research now to support the concept in this and the implementation. to make sure that we continue to strengthen emotional intelligence over time. And a lot of the graduate programs, my own graduate program included, are now embedding these concepts that I'm going to talk about in their curricula because we realize that we need to get started right away to make sure that future providers, future um ah SLPs and OTs and service providers and and anybody who's working in these fields and on a day-to-day basis have these abilities, this knowledge and this awareness. So emotional intelligence or EQ is the ability to perceive emotions, um to accurately recognize emotions, and not only ourselves, which is really, truly important, but also in others um as they're occurring. So to be able to connect, as Patty said, we need to be able to recognize and perceive emotions. We need to be able to utilize or use the emotions to facilitate how we think, to guide us through issues that need our attention. um Emotional intelligence also focuses on the ability not only to understand emotions, their causes, their meaning, their relationships to the behaviors um of our families, or of the children we serve, but also of ourselves, and then also the ability to manage um the emotions, to attain specific skills. So we not only need to be self-aware, but also able to self-regulate and to teach others um and to work with others, our families, the parents, the caregivers, and even the young children, how to regulate some of those emotions. We talk a lot now in our fields about regulation, self-regulation, and that goes back to what the emotion means and how we behave in response to it.
00:21:58
Speaker
And then a few other layers of emotional intelligence include motivation, ah motivation to connect, motivation to be continue to be compassionate and to use that compassion in a positive way. um Patty mentioned empathy. That's a significant part of EQ or emotional intelligence. And then finally, to take all of that and to engage in social or relationship skills, to continue to strengthen our skills. So it's not just being aware and regulating our own emotions, but again, connecting with others through those um through that awareness and through those skills that we've continued to hone, that we continue to be aware of.
00:22:35
Speaker
So the last consideration in sort of defining EQ that I want to share is that it's important to keep in mind that our level of emotional intelligence is not fixed genetically and nor does it develop only in early childhood. So unlike IQ or intelligent our intelligence quotient, right, how smart we think we are or we know we are, which changes very little after our teenage years, emotional intelligence seems to be largely learned.
00:23:00
Speaker
um And it continues to develop as we go through life and learn from our experiences. So that's one of the reasons that Patty and I have had so much fun and have had such a positive response, a huge response. We were going to do one session six years ago, and we've just continued to be asked to you know expand on this and to do more each year. And I think the reason for that is because We know now that there are things we can do to strengthen our emotional intelligence, and this is gonna strengthen the services we provide. This is gonna strengthen our own self-awareness and our own um ability to continue to give, continue to serve, um and continue to thrive in our personal and professional worlds.
00:23:40
Speaker
Thanks, Kori. When I think about some of the things that you were talking about, especially recognizing emotions, I feel like sometimes that is even really hard for a lot of people. I mean, even when we're working with families, we're talking about teaching children how to recognize their emotions and and label those different emotions. And I know when i talk to parents friends about, okay, well, what are the different types of emotions? and feelings, it's very limited, right? It's like happy, sad, scared. And so I think, you know, even understanding all of the different types of emotions, I love a good feeling wheel. I know we've all seen those out there. I'll try to add one to our resources as well. ah But I love a good feeling wheel to really look at those emotions because you're right.
00:24:25
Speaker
like when you we're thinking about it, it is a learned skill that we have to do. When you were talking about emotions and kind of the feeling wheel, I think the other thing that's really, really important that we've learned as we've talked about this is being able to define what those feelings are. Like how many times do you have a moment where you're like, I feel off, but I have no idea what it is and how to define it and how it's impacting me. That's all part of emotional intelligence as well. And I don't think those of us early in our fields or as we're starting out in our field really understand what some of these emotions and feelings are for ourselves, but also to be help able to help the parents and the families that we're working with to be able to understand what those emotions are as well.
00:25:06
Speaker
I was just going to give an example of that, Patty, because I think a lot of times people will say, I feel tired. And I think they're feeling tired because there's another emotion that's kind of like draining or a weighing on them or overwhelming them. And it's harder for them to identify that particular emotion that is making them feel tired, right? Yeah.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, Lisa. I have ah a 10-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. They just went back to school today. They had a few extra days off. But my daughter kept saying today, I'm so tired this morning. I'm so tired. And and we've been practicing getting up early again. So she probably is a little bit tired because she's been sleeping in. But also, i think what you said is spot on. She's not necessarily tired. She's nervous about going back to school. She's scared about having to jump back into the learning mode, right? She's um
00:25:59
Speaker
excited to see her friends, but that's a different level of engagement than she's had to put forth, a different level of energy. And so I think all of those things come back to being able to, as Patty said, define the emotion. um And, you know, there's a, I don't know if I can throw this out there, but there's a Brene Brown, many of you probably are fans of Brene Brown. She has this book that came out a few years ago, Atlas of the Heart, where she defines a set set of emotions and how to talk about them. Because we really, we kind of throw words out there without really knowing what or without really realizing what we're trying to say to one another. So I am going to jump into strategies, but I want to give Patty a chance to jump in first.
00:26:35
Speaker
Yeah, I was just going to say one more thing related to that. I just was reminded when we came out of the pandemic and you started socializing again, i remember feeling so tired and I was joking that it was my introvert side was suddenly screaming at me because suddenly I was peopling again, right? I was peopling and interacting with people in ways that I used to do before we were kind of isolated in a sense and then suddenly was thrown back in there. And it was, it was going, why am I so tired tired when I went out and did things that I was doing
00:27:05
Speaker
all the time, and then you shift because what was going on in our environment was causing those shifts. So I think that's important to remember when we work with our families, and this is hopefully good lead-in for Corey to talk about strategies, is when they have a new baby that potentially has a lot of disabilities, their world has shifted. so Their energies and their emotions and what's going on with them is going to shift in a way that when they feel tired, they are going to have to sit there and figure out why am I tired? Is it because the baby kept me up all night or is it because there's so many other things that are coming along with having a new baby, potentially with you know some medical challenges or other traumas that are going on as well? So hopefully, Corey can jump us right in with some strategies to talk about how we can help those families.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yes, I'm happy to do that. there are There are so many things that we could talk about. We could spend all day diving into this. But I'm just going to try to give you a few little things that not only hopefully we can use for ourselves, but also perhaps can share with some of those families, some of the the parents and caregivers that maybe they can take you know a strategy here or there and and flow with it. um because they're experiencing compassion fatigue as well, um right? With the situations with their own children, with their own families, with the the dynamics in which they're engaged.
00:28:19
Speaker
um The key though, is to find strategies that are gonna work for you. And so I'm just gonna throw out a few different ideas, but recognize you might be like, yeah, that's not for me, or I've tried that, or I can't jump into that. And and I'll be honest, again, that's where our hypocrisy comes in. They all sound great, but we really need to figure out what we can embrace, what we can hold onto and and really work through on a regular basis. So the first one, if we think of some of those levels of emotional intelligence, because that's what it really comes back down to is thinking through some of that um and the strategies to build upon that, the emotional intelligence that we each already have within us.
Strategies for Self-Awareness and Coping Mechanisms
00:28:52
Speaker
is to engage in some self-awareness and reflection.
00:28:55
Speaker
um One way to do this, of course, the obvious way is some journaling. um I've had families and I myself have tried journaling in the morning. I'm not as good at that. I like to just kind of process slowly in the morning, but some people really say journaling in the morning and saying, these are the things I want to accomplish or these are the things that I'm grateful for. Gratitude is a huge component of reflection.
00:29:14
Speaker
um I have tried and I have gotten in and out of it journaling in the evenings. And again, no pressure, um just spending a few minutes. um This year, I just said to my son the other day, I think I'm going to journal this year. I think I'm going to write down every night, maybe four or five things that I'm grateful for. And it could be as simple as the fact that I didn't, you know, that my dog had a really good poop. I know that sounds gross, but we're always excited when my dog has a really good poop. We're like, okay, he's healthy. um Or, you know, i my student said, thank you for something that happened today. Or I saw a child say, a word you know, a parent shared that their child said their first word. So it could be a huge thing or it could be a tiny little thing. um Or I really enjoyed um the food that I had at lunch or a connection I made with a friend. The other thing um that I'm going to write down though every night is it's just a few things that I feel like I accomplished.
00:30:07
Speaker
And again, that could be, you know, I checked off a few things on my to-do list or I enjoyed the podcast. So not only gratitude for this podcast, but also that like, okay, I checked that off my list, right? We'd been planning for it and now it's checked.
00:30:19
Speaker
um So, you know, noting not only what, um, I feel grateful for, but also what I've accomplished. And those little things really mean a lot. So I think we have to be grateful for ourselves and for what we're accomplishing each and every day, even if it's just waking up, making it to work and getting back home, right? Sometimes it doesn't have to be anything that's outstanding, just the everyday things. Another piece um to build upon emotional intelligence, in addition to some of that self-awareness and recognizing the gifts that you're bringing to the world every day and that you're that gifts that the world is bringing to is developing some healthy coping mechanisms. And we all know this, this is where our self-care really comes in.
00:30:58
Speaker
Any kind of physical activity, any kind of creative outlet, even simple deep breathing exercises, taking a minute, and recognizing where your shoulders are at any given point, right? And saying, oh my gosh, my shoulders are up at my ears. I need to pull them down. Yes, we tend to do that.
00:31:12
Speaker
um Or I'm just going to stop and take five breaths. And we have a lot of different strategies that we can share with folks about breathing, um but just remembering to do so is so integral. I also just read a study and I can't give you the resource right now, but I can get it to Lisa later if anybody's interested. I just read a study that spending five to 10 minutes every morning, but ah ultimately before 10 a.m. outside is huge for your well-being. um You not only get some vitamin D if it's sunny outside, but just getting that fresh air, listening to the birds chirp, um those kinds of things are huge. and And my son and I have started walking 10 to 15 minutes. That's it. really early in the morning, but just getting out and breathing in the fresh air and, um you know, recognizing that the world is still going on around us no matter what and starting our day that way is um really an evidence-based strategy, even if you're not working out every day for an hour or two, which I am absolutely not. But walking those 10 or 15 minutes every morning makes me feel like I've also accomplished something.
00:32:15
Speaker
I think another big thing, Lisa and Patty, and feel free to jump in with any of these, is developing a support network. And that network can be with friends. It can be with families. It can be with professional peers or mentors. So really choosing, and here comes the intentional piece again, choosing on an intentional level to connect and spend time with people.
Support Networks and Self-Care Accountability
00:32:36
Speaker
um That might mean you know trying not to, and I'm the worst at this, trying not to sit at your desk to have lunch, but maybe go to the conference room. or sit outside on a bench or you know walk down the hall and just say hi to somebody on your way to the microwave, you know or whatever that might look like, if that's the only time you really have that opportunity to do so. But connecting with people outside of the work that you're doing with the families, with the students, with the children. And you can even be talking about them, but connecting intentionally and making that a part of your day, even for a few minutes here and there. I think we, I'm such a taskmaster for myself. I wanna get things done. you know, I'll have a student or a colleague, or I'll be working with a client come to the door of my office and I'll keep clicking on the keyboard. Like as if I'm telling them, no, I'm still busy.
00:33:21
Speaker
But I realized if I just pause for a few minutes, it really, when I look back on what I'm grateful for that day, those are the things that really made the difference. um I think the last thing I'm going to share right now is um just recognizing how and learning how to reframe some of our negative thoughts and celebrate our own small wins. So I shared this in the journaling. you know When we journal, what are we grateful for? What have we accomplished?
00:33:43
Speaker
But I think we also need to begin to recognize and maybe even share our everyday accomplishments with others. So not just putting them in our own little journal or our own little list and saying, wow, good for me, patting myself on the back, which we absolutely need to do more of. But getting in the habit of sending a text to a friend and saying, let me just tell you something that I did today that I'm proud of. Or you know shooting an email to our colleagues and say, this thing happened. Or I saw this thing happen with another colleague and recognizing them.
00:34:12
Speaker
i think we need to start shouting doing some shout outs for ourselves and for others when we finish a task or accomplish a simple goal that we've set for ourselves. And I don't think we tend to do that on a really, again, intentional level. I think we're like, OK, well, that's good. Check. But what if, you know, Patty and I have done this a little bit. What if we just send it out in something in a text and say, I just don't, you don't even need to respond or give me a little heart emoji, but I did this and I'm proud of myself and you should be. And until we kind of put it out there, we forget how important those things are. And those are all, again, going back to the reflection and the self-awareness and the opportunity to celebrate, um
00:34:49
Speaker
the connections that we're making, because that's really what it all comes down to. So again, I could go on and on and on. But those are just a few little ideas that we can incorporate into our everyday routines, I think, just like we tell our families to do, right? We coach our families, we need to coach ourselves a little bit more as well.
00:35:04
Speaker
Thanks, Corey. As you're talking about the strategies, I love all of those strategies. And some of the things that kind of like came up for me, like when you're talking about even like journaling, right? And really thinking about writing all of that information down and recognizing it and and that gratitude journal. I think a lot of that kind of helps build our confidence a lot too and like our self-esteem, right? And like when we feel good, then it makes us happier. It puts us in a more positive mood or we might have a more positive outlook in life happiness. might tend to do more of those shout outs, right, of other colleagues. And one of the, and there's a TED talk that I will add here too that I love. It's called Lollipop Moments. But it's about um really just when you are recognizing other people, you don't understand how small that moment might even mean to them.
00:36:03
Speaker
And so it's really about how you're kind of like unintentionally being a leader in those moments. And so I will make sure I also add that because I think it's a great little TED talk for anyone that's listening to it.
00:36:16
Speaker
and But I also like when i what I was hearing a lot was like the words that came up were like meaningful value, right? Giving value to others and really showing them how much it matters. And I think We all come into this field because we care. We care about people in general. And I think all of those things are great strategies to help build us up. When you're talking about journaling, I've tried that before too as well. And I think one of the things I'm going to try to do is do like a talk to techs because sometimes I just don't like to write yeah things down. I'm more like a tech personnel. And so that might be like a whole nother way or like my coping mechanism for me sometimes is just listening to music. and putting you know myself in a better mood. like that's I hate cleaning. like I really hate cleaning. So that's always my go-to when like my kids my whole family knows if music's on, it's cleaning time. Yeah. Same here, Mason. Same here.
00:37:15
Speaker
but So I appreciate those strategies a lot. um So thank you for that. And as we kind of close, I really want to just kind of give you both like your final, like last word ah wrap up after today's session and this discussion. and So Patty, if you want to go first and then Corey, if you want to follow.
00:37:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I love all the strategies um that Corey shared as well. And it kind of went every time we present or talk about these topics, I always take away something that is maybe just a reminder or something like that. But one of the conversations we had when we were talking about this podcast podcast a couple weeks ago was the whole idea of accountability. Corey's just given us a ton of strategies how do we make sure we actually follow through do them? Which is huge, right? It's huge to say, oh, I'm going to do this every morning. But if you don't, who's going to know? Who is sitting there checking in? and I love how Corey ended with this whole idea of, hey, I might text her to say, Listen, I just did this awesome podcast with like some colleagues today and I'm really proud of it. Right. And just telling somebody that you did something that you're proud of is a way of being accountable. It's a way of sitting there and saying, hey, listen. I did something good and and they're going to check in and they're probably going to come back and give me those heart emojis and things like that. But it also could be something simple. I remember again, back during the pandemic, I was walking theme. I was walking all the time because I wasn't driving anywhere or wasn't driving nearly what I used to. And I had a friend that I checked in with. She lives on the other side of the country almost every day. And she was checking in just to make sure, Hey, how much did you want today? You know, and it wasn't even a competition thing. It was just a good for you. Good for you for keeping at it and staying with it. And then I was checking in with her about other things that she was doing as well. So it can be just simple ways of just not only just being accountable, but you're also continuing to connect with people on those intentional levels. and making it a part of your daily routine, something that you're doing every day that doesn't feel like a task, but something that is making you feel good so that you are in charge of how you're taking care of yourself.
00:39:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's great, Patty. um and And I think you're right. Like, how do we, you know, we don't want to put more pressure on ourselves to hold ourselves accountable, but how do we do so in a way that's going to facilitate um you know drive down or address the compassion fatigue, flex our emotional intelligence and engage in self-care. um you know We need to follow through with some of these things. So I guess my final um call for action this year for myself, but I'm also going to throw this out there for everybody here. have one final strategy that combines all of these concepts we've talked today about is to it is to do your best to act from agency. instead of out of obligation. And this is not something, I think the fact that we're doing this podcast with Lisa is a testament that this is not something we're good at because of course we said yes. um But I think too many of us underestimate how many times a week or how many times a day we say yes to something that we didn't necessarily want to say yes to. And don't get me wrong. We absolutely wanted to do this podcast.
00:40:28
Speaker
but i but But I think we're also, we feel obligated a lot to our friends, to our colleagues, to the families we serve that, oh, we have to do these things, whether this is a social plan or a work task or a family obligation, maybe even a favor um or even a compromise, right? Within a compromise within a partnership. um And not because we want to, but maybe because it's easier than the discomfort of being honest. The problem is though that the cost is cumulative, right? And so that's where we start to feel that compassion fatigue when we just keep saying yes to everything, even beyond those things um that we really want to engage in, that we want to participate in. And so the shift for me in 2026, and I'm hoping to encourage all of you to do the same as simple. It's not to say no all the time. That would be crazy. I'm not going to start doing that either, but it's just to pause and
00:41:18
Speaker
to take a pause, to take a breath. So you're also doing some of that self-care before the yes. So ask one question of yourself. Am I agreeing because I want to or because I'm afraid of the discomfort of saying no?
00:41:31
Speaker
And I think when we stop performing for approval and start ah acting from agency, right, from being able to make our own decisions, our own intentions, considering what we really want, what we really want to be doing and what we feel like we need to versus want to do. Our relationships with others, I think, become more solid. Our commitment becomes clear and our compassion for others equates to more healthy connections, which we've talked a lot today. And we begin to live more with intention on an everyday level. So that's my call for action to everyone this year is just to pause before the yes. You can still say yes, but pause and think about why you're saying yes and if that's truly what you want to do. And maybe make some, you know, provide ourselves with some opportunity to keep that compassion fatigue at bay.
00:42:20
Speaker
Thank you. I think one of the things that I am definitely leaving with, and i feel like the intentionality piece probably spoke to me like a lot because even when people ask you, like we've all been to those webinars when they're like, okay, well, how are you feeling today? Or like, what did you do for yourself today? And I'm like, I don't know. And so I think I think for me, like I have to be intentional and I have to be accountable, but I need to just set time to even like kind of reflect a little bit on that. Right. Like what are the strategies that really work well for me? I'm thinking about some of these strategies that you said today, like how could I realistically incorporate it into my life? How can I recognize where my bound boundaries are and what they are and really and make sure that I'm also filling my cup? Right. Because I feel like a lot of these strategies are really filling our cups and our soul. And so I would just ask everyone to like, how are you going to fill your cup? Right. What are you going to do? and
00:43:19
Speaker
write some action plan down for yourself. But I appreciate both of you for being here today talking about this topic, because honestly, this is actually a really hard topic to talk about. I know a lot of people talk about it, but it's hard, as we've all mentioned, that we have a hard time with it, because it's just a struggle, right? And so so I appreciate you being here, sharing your expertise and knowledge. I hope you continue to go out and share this information. i will put a plugin for creating connections to shining stars because they will be our pre-conference session for the birth to five session there. So we hope you will join us at our creating connections to shining stars conference. this year in July.
00:44:03
Speaker
um But that's all for today's episode of Meaningful Moments. Make sure that you subscribe to our podcast. We are on iTunes and Spotify. You can also subscribe to our YouTube channel. For more information, visit the EIPD's website for resources, tools, and archived webinars. And I hope you all have a great day. Thank you so much.
00:44:24
Speaker
Thank you, Lisa.