Friday, September 06, 2024
When Teaching Feels Messy
Promoting Teacher Wellbeing when Life in the Classroom Feels Hard
Among the post powerful teacher wellbeing practices is the skill of allowing difficult or uncomfortable emotions.
Whether it’s frustration over lost instructional time or anxiety about disrupted routines, or disappointment with delayed schedules, negative emotions are normal for any classroom teacher.
The key to managing these challenging teacher moments is allowing and processing your feelings without adding unnecessary layers of negative emotions and suffering.
Read on to Learn:
- The difference between "clean pain" and "dirty pain."
- How resisting uncomfortable emotions makes them feel worse!
- The best teacher self-care tip I can offer you
Teachers and the Unexpected
Living in SW Michigan comes with its share of winter challenges, from subzero temperatures to snow days that can completely disrupt your routine. Recently, as schools closed for four consecutive days due to a snowstorm, I was able to chat with teachers from all grade levels. Their reactions varied widely—some cherished the unexpected time at home, while others, especially high school teachers, felt stressed about the lost instructional time as finals week loomed.
This situation perfectly illustrates a crucial point: our emotions aren’t shaped by circumstances themselves but by our thoughts about those circumstances. If the circumstance caused our emotions, all those teachers would have felt the same!
Clean Pain vs. Dirty Pain
For many teachers, feeling frustrated by school closures or any other circumstance that disrupts the routine is a natural emotional response, something we call "clean pain." Clean pain is unavoidable and normal. It’s the disappointment we feel when things don’t go as planned. It's the grief we feel when we experience a loss.
Every human being will experience clean pain throughout their lives. When we do, it is important to lean into that uncomfortable emotion and truly feel and process it. Although this feels counter-intuitive, allowing a difficult emotion is the way through it.
However, instead of allowing and processing those emotions, many of us resist feeling it and the resistance of an emotion is so much worse than simply feeling it! We inadvertently add layers of uncomfortable emotion on top of what we are already experiencing. We call this "dirty pain"—the unnecessary suffering that arises when we resist or judge our clean pain. Resisting an uncomfortable emotion can feel intolerable. For example, this might look like feeling frustrated about being frustrated or having anxiety about our anxiety!
Not only is this emotionally painful, it’s just not useful because it doesn't address the initial cause of our emotional pain.
An Important Skill for Teacher Wellbeing
So how can teachers navigate these emotions when life throws them a curveball? The first step is awareness. Recognize when you're spiraling into dirty pain and pause to ask yourself what clean pain you're avoiding. Allow yourself to feel those emotions—disappointment, annoyance, or frustration—fully and without judgment. This process, while simple, is not easy, but it’s essential for breaking the cycle of unnecessary suffering.
Remember, it’s okay to feel whatever you are feeling when teacher life gets messy. By allowing and processing your emotions, you can move through them and return to being the teacher you strive to be. This is one of the best teacher self-care tips I can offer you: Feel those emotions!
For more information on this topic, tune into the full podcast episode linked HERE.
Hi There, Teacher Friend!
Maybe you're like me and didn't learn how to allow and process an emotion! If so, I can help you! One of the skills we learn and practice in coaching sessions is allowing and processing an emotion.
Like any new skill, it takes time, practice, and a little outside help! For a limited time, I am offering free 1:1 coaching sessions for teachers!
Click the button below to schedule your complimentary session!
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Brenna Nelson
Long-time Educator turned Certified Life Coach
Welcome to The Strength of Teachers Blog! Here we share real-life skills and practical applications that you can implement in your teacher life today!
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