It’s almost the end of 2021 and we're just trying to get through it. I've got some great ideas for ya.

Links mentioned:
My Body Graph, Website
Episode 26 with Kristin Messegee, Podcast
Loving What Is by Byron Katie, Book
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, Audiobook

Transcript of the Episode:

Why is nobody talking about the fact that 2021 is crazier than 2020 was? I feel like something happened in like May, where we all hit this wall. And it's been this cascade of figuring out how not to be burned out how to stay not burned out, and how to possibly thrive in this crazy, new world? No, I thought we would be putting the pieces of the educational system back together and I was wrong. But even that would have taken a lot of upheaval, a lot of change, a lot of anarchy, a lot of cooks in the kitchen trying to put pieces back together. So maybe I was wrong with the whole idea that COVID was actually a good thing that was happening for us. I'm still gonna stick with my positivity but I've got a little bit more realistic view of our situation.

Now, by realistic, I mean like I’m still trying to stay positive. But I feel a little a little bit down from it all. And every time I connect with somebody, it's the same. And that's not good or bad. But there are ways that we can stay positive, stay dedicated, and avoid burnout that I'm going to share with you today. And honestly, I'm just going to talk. I'm going to get really vulnerable. Like we're sitting down and having a cup of coffee together, I will have a decaf Americano, please, you can have whatever you have. We're just going to sit down like friends. Because the truth of the matter is, this year has been crazy professionally. But it's also been wild for a lot of us personally. And the expectation, the external expectation that I think we put on ourselves is that we have to be perfect professionally, even when our personal lives are being upheaval and things are just not normal.

Personally, I've been through a lot like a crazy amount of growth lately. My personal community has shifted so much in the past few months, I ended a marriage and a serious relationship in the span of 14 months, technically, technically, in the span of two months. Yeah, so that was all interesting. My friend circle is ever evolving. And here an Allied, we've had people behind the scenes that we either needed to let go, or that got new jobs and loved them dearly, wished them absolutely all the best. Neither of those situations were easy for me. Still love my people. And now new people stepping up to fill those roles. So everything is going exactly as it's supposed to. But none of this was what I had planned. Actually, I found a picture because I was cleaning out all my junk in my phone found a picture of my March and April calendars from 2020. Why I decided to take a picture of this. It was like, Yeah, I must have taken the picture early March. And none of them, none of it, none of it happened. And that is… that is okay.

You know, the one thing that's remained constant in this whole experience is that our educational system, really everybody's trying their best, but it's changing so rapidly. That it's hard to keep heads or tails of it all. Everybody has a crazy caseload this year, some people are hybrid, some of us are in person. Some of us are mostly virtual still some of us are still in lockdown depends on where you live and what your case will look like before. And really what the situation is. And then coming into this school year, we thought, maybe I thought it would be a lot easier but that's not how it is actually become. And I think that part is really what's thrown us for a loop. And as always, it's only when we see how far we've come by looking back, that we can really appreciate how we got to where we are now. But when we're in the midst of it, it can be really hard.

I remember just a few years ago, when I was applying for ACVREP accreditation, I think I was still a full time employee. I remember working till 10 or 11 o'clock at night, not knowing what all these words meant exactly; feeling like the biggest fraud because I was doing this work in my pyjamas. I knew that I had a vision of what we could create. I knew that if we could make things more fun and more accessible to people, that we could change the lives of people with visual impairments all around the world. Now, it wasn't just me as thinking about and I love you but it wasn't just you that I was thinking about. It was really your students and their family members all around the world that deserve for all of us to be at our very best. And as I sat on my couch late at night with everybody asleep, fighting through yet another night of imposter syndrome, trying to figure out all of the things that you have to do for ACVREP accreditation, which are amazing and great standards. And I appreciate everybody there so much. And every all the work that's gone into that, because it really helps our professions day, as a profession professional, and keeps our standards really high. I remember feeling completely out of place, out of my element, imposter syndrome; as if there's somebody who's gonna find me and figure me out. And now, I just redid our accreditation, and I got to literally just write on a piece of paper, what we actually do as an organisation, and how things actually run and a lot of the pieces of paper that I had to turn in we already had. And I've been really reflecting on this community and how amazing it has been to watch you and everybody in it grow, and how that makes everything possible. What is possible when we all can get together. 

We’ve had an increase in our community of literally 3600%. We continue to have 400 plus people at the International O&M Online Symposium year after year, and we don't mark it to dollar store buyers. We are the Nordstrom, we give an impeccable experience. I want you to sit on your couch, with your cup of coffee or whatever you want to drink, a sparkling water, have your friends around. And literally click a button and enjoy. We've been able to simplify the process and make it a fun, exciting, very actionable experience. And I know we mark it to a higher and more dedicated personnel. I know we aren't for everybody. So the fact that we continue to have 400 people every year, I think shows such an accomplishment for those who do come. You all are amazing, and you're dedicated. And this is the work this is part of it. Our podcast episodes get from 100 to 300 downloads every episode within the first week, often. And that I will say like blows my mind. And I get to reach 1000s of people on social media. We're doing good work. Things have changed so much but the things that have not changed, our values, they stay the same and they have stayed the same to the core.

When you present at the symposium you get paid. Like not a little bit like a good amount. And that is something that I am very proud of. You get a free complimentary pass to the symposium. View our guests expert with us at all I'm going to pay you for your time and your energy. And I think that that is really something to be noted and to be notable. Because we lead within integrity, and I don't mean to integrity in like, we do what we say we're going to do, because yes, we do that, that's the bare minimum. But we show up all of us on the team to work every day as our whole full selves. Our whole selves show up for you every day. We are community driven. On the team, we have radical communication, which just means kind of straightforward communication within our team. And we lean into innovation. You've watched me fail more times, and I think you even understand. You've watched me take so much criticism, you've watched me go against the grain, you've watched me follow my intuition. You've watched me do things that not many people in our field are willing to do, because not many people are willing to fail forward. And that's what this podcast is all about. Everyday isn't going to be perfect. But if you are feeling like you just really aren't moving in the right direction, I've got you covered. Because this year has been wild for me, both personally, and professionally. And there are still times where I feel like an imposter where I’m… I'm a really good O&M Specialist, but I was still like scared, just to share my opinion.

Ways to Stay Positive:

A few things that I've really been diving into and learning about that are more personal and professional this time.

1. The Human Design

We've talked a little bit about it on social media, it's pretty woo, I will say that. And so if you're not into woo, don't worry about it, we'll get into more things in just a second. But one of the biggest things that has really impacted me is living into my truest self. And in order to do that, for me, I needed the words that made, how I was thinking and how I was feeling. Okay. That's what human design did for me. You can go to mybodygraph.com, we'll link it here. And you can put in your birthdate. If you have your birth time, put that in as well. And just start, just see if you can play with just understanding it comes to like a big chart a lot to understand. You don't need to master it all right away. But if say you're a projector like I am, you are kind of an oddball. So it might give you some ideas is the best way to go about things. You might be able to look back and say, oh, yeah, when I did that other thing, it didn't work out. So that's one thing that I've been diving into a lot during this whole year, year and a half that we’ve… I wouldn't say I've had extra time on my hands at all, but I was one of those people that their kids stayed home with them and make outdoor game full time. They had less time on their hands. But it really helped me to understand how my energy flows, what lights me up, and for me how they community really is. So we'll add that as the first one is just looking into your human design and figuring that out. And just looking at your strategy and authority.

2. Being Aware of the Difference Between Your Mind and the Reality

Now, if you're still with me, now we're going to get into some woo stuff here. Okay, so here's the deal. What we're going to do in this next step is notice that the mind is different from reality. Our minds are turbulent. They are monkey minds. Have you ever tried to sit in meditation or shavasana, which is core expose or in my book in ritualize, we call it relaxation pose. It's the hardest. It's literally the most difficult pose in the entire yoga sutra. Why? Because our mind our egos want to keep running. That's their job. How many times have you been trying to relax? Maybe it's even like with a bubble bath, right? Like, oh, self care. I'm gonna take a bubble bath. And your mind's like, what about groceries? Oh, you should be doing this. Oh, you should be doing that. Oh, you… there was that one weed outside? Oh, I saw a dandelion. You should go pick it or preserve it in pristineness or you need to mop the floor or whatever it wants to say. Mine is always chores. Whatever it wants to say. That's what it's supposed to do.

Inside of our mind, we basically have two personalities, we have our ego. That's very loud. It thinks what it wants is right all the time. And it has gotten you this far. But the other voice, we have a more quiet voice, it's our inner voice. And that's much softer. And a lot of times when we sit down to try to listen for it, we have to let the ego like say all the things that wants to say, and then the inner voice might come out. This is an inner voice that knows that everything is going to be okay. Not perfect, not happy all the time. Okay. But at some point, the turbulence will end and you will emerge as a better person. So when you're looking at this, and you're looking at the mind versus your inner voice, do you can get quiet enough to connect with your inner voice? Like your true self? Not your ego, not logic, true self. I wonder what the answers to these questions that I'm about to propose would be.

1. What are my values? Am I living within them?
   A lot of times when we feel really turbulent, or when we're having a hard time being positive, because we're living outside of our values. Let's give you a prime example. I stopped drinking a little while ago, a few months ago, whatever. And maybe I'll have a drink here or there. I went out with a friend. We went dancing, and we went drinking. The next day, I felt horrible. It was a Sunday, I had to prepare for work the next Monday. And I didn't want to I felt so much resistance about work coming up. And all the things I had to do. Why? Because the night before, on Saturday night, I had lived outside of my values. I love dancing, but probably the time the way to do it sober.

2. What is your energy saying? Do you have slumps throughout the day? And if so can you pinpoint what happens right before tha, right before your slump?
   I used to have a slump at three o'clock every day. No, sorry, one o'clock every day. And I would like... I always had I don't know how or why this happened so many times. Maybe you're just like felt it. But if I had a one to two o'clock student, like I'd be okay. But if I had a one to three o'clock student, by three o'clock, I was like, oh my god, like dragging my feet. From where we drop the students off to my office. I was like, Oh my gosh, how do I get through this every day? Now for me now I can tell you if I have a heavy lunch, I'm not going to have good energy. Are there certain times in my month because I'm a female. There are certain times and everybody's been females, it hits us particularly harder. That, you know, I'm just going to have less energy. Can I complain that and how can I honour this need without making myself wrong for it? Now you may not get to take a lunch break. That's not guaranteed in your job. And that's okay. Your job. Your profession doesn't need to be wrong for it either. For me, I noticed that I had fatty foods during the day, man, I was just exhausted. I can’t. I can't like… I can't bring a sausage to work. I can't bring beef. I had to have a salad every day. And now I eat chicken nuggets on the roads sometimes but they're gluten free at least. And even on those days, like I'm really tired.

And then another one that's been coming up for me is also money. Are you spending your money in association with your values? Yes or no. And either way, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just a thing to look at and see what's going on in my life here. Because a lot of times, burnout is happening because we're not living in our values in some way. We're not honouring ourselves. And work is something that other people take from us. They need us to show up and perform in a certain way. And we want to be able to do that for them. So we can ask ask ourselves these questions and be real and honest, make the choices from our inner voice. And then we can move forward, we can know what things are the best for us and our learners know, sometimes on all honesty, asking my inner voice sometimes puts me in a situation to do things that feel very uncomfortable. Sometimes it's that I know I need to talk to my boss and have a crucial conversation about the needs of my students. That's not fun. Sometimes, it's that I know I need to have a crucial conversation with a teacher about the needs of my students. Sometimes it means that I don't go to happy hour or the in person conference, or that I don't go be around a big group of people right now. Even though my ego really wants to, because I know my inner voice says no, it's not the right time. Just because the answer doesn't necessarily feel good. You're asking them in place of your inner voice. And that's typically the answer. And sometimes we just have to trust that everything will work out.

3. Meditation and/or Journaling

The biggest way that I like to ask myself these questions is by journaling. Meditation for me doesn't work. It just… I just doesn’t… I can't sit there. I just don’t, no. But I like to journal. If you like to meditate and you're good on it. Great. And I can do it sometimes. But, man, I don't know. That's an area I shamed myself like you're a yoga teacher, you should meditate like. I’m like nope. I don't have 15 minutes just to sit there. I need to meditate more, because it's very helpful to quiet my mind. But sometimes, so is journaling. And it just lets the ego run its course say whatever it wants to say. And then I can start having conversations with my inner voice, the real truth knowing is that person really a jerk? Hmm. Or am I being a jerk? Hmm. Could I have said that nicer? Is there a better way to do that? All those things. Once you've journaled or gotten all your thoughts out, and recognise that your mind is not reality, how can you honour yourself without making yourself wrong about it?

4. Honouring Yourself

That self compassion piece, for me is often like, the part where it jiggles it open. When things feel really, really tight, and I'm just angry, and I feel frustrated. having compassion for myself, and then practising having compassion for the other person as well, really helps to open up that tension. And just allowing it like, I don't agree with this person, I don't like what my admin is telling me. I don't XYZ. Whatever it might be. I feel scared because I don't know how to do these skills virtually. All of it feels like tension in the body. And if we can just start to have compassion for like, maybe you're not supposed to know, maybe that's okay. Maybe they aren't supposed to agree with you. And maybe that's okay. That release of the pressure to be right, or to be wrong, and make them right, allows things to start to simmer down. And for you to pick your head back up.

Here's some really good books or podcasts that I really like. The first I'm just going to start with Episode 26, Staying Happy in A Time of Uncertainty with my life coach Kristin Messege. This has been my personal biggest work is feeling self compassion. She breaks down what the model is. And she goes over how you can stay happy when things are just hitting the fan. If you're in impacting independence, it's also in there where she came on and taught the full model and how we can use it in our workday, or in our personal lives. For personal stuff. I also really like Loving What Is by Byron Katie, I've started reading that and although it feels a little gaslighty right now. No toxic positivity, I can see where she's going. And I will say that I do really like it. I'm just listening to an audio book on YouTube, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and getting into EFT tapping. All of those I think you can find for free on YouTube. Then once you're there, right, so this might take a minute and or you just pick up different pieces, wherever they lie, I don't do all of this in one day, oftentimes, because I just don't have time. But you can do different pieces at different times

5. Appreciation List

I like to make an appreciation list. Now, this is something that I do almost every day. And I just kind of start my day with it. It's not a gratitude list, because I don't want to feel like I owe something to these things or the universe, like I am grateful for them. But I appreciate that they're here for me. And I just write down what I appreciate right now. Sometimes it's just, it's my pen, and my couch. Sometimes it's the sun that's shining that day. Sometimes it's the fact that the sun isn't shining, because that's great, because I wanted to wear a sweater anyway. Whatever. And if things feel sticky, there, just go broader, just go more general, you don't have to say, you know, I'm appreciative of my partner for doing XYZ. If you're not appreciative of that, you could say you're appreciative of your partner, you could say you're appreciative of your students, you could say you're appreciative of your job, you could say you're appreciative of the water that you have to drink. If it feels sticky, don't stay there, go broader, make it more general, I'm happy that I have a place to live in. I appreciate the food that's in the fridge, and just see if you can hold that space for just a few minutes. Because that's all you really need are just few minutes to help get yourself up from a negative space, just one rung above, maybe you can just get to neutral, maybe you just go from sad, angry, you don't have to be positive all the time. Don't have to be perfect all the time. Your learners need you exactly where you are. Doing this work will allow you to pick your head up, push aside all those things in your head, really focus on them, like really focus on them, and be able to live your best life without burning out. We need you in this profession. Gotta keep making that impact, my friend.

Summary

So I know this has been really long, it feels like I've been talking for forever. I'm just gonna review what we talked about. Human design is an idea to look into. Noticing that your mind is different from your reality. Meditation and journaling. Honouring yourself without making yourself wrong about it and for the other person; and writing down an appreciation list. All powerful, wonderful tactics that will help move you from what I call a lower 50 emotion. So basically, that's just the you know, there are 22 emotions, the lower 50% of them, is probably how we're going to feel about 50% of the time. Life doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be positive all the time. The upper 50 happy and above something like that. Neutral, above neutral, above like just… everything's cool and really care about it. Right? Like how you would feel about something that doesn't really matter in your life. Think about like, my neighbor's door is beige. I don't care. I don't feel happy about it. I'm sad about it. I'm just neutral. From there and above, will be there about 50% of the time. And it's all good. Every place that you're at is totally fine. And we can take a step forward to lift ourselves up a little bit more work more towards neutral and above. So that way we can really be there for our learners.

Okay friends, hit me up on the DMs. Let me know what you think about this episode. Super vulnerable, really woo. But I like doing these every once in a while. Can you believe and November's coming up? November 9, we are having a free webinar that you definitely don't want to miss early bird pricing ends November 18. And then roll right into regular registration for the symposium. And in January we will have another webinar just to celebrate you. Fantastic, amazing community that just the absolute Bee's Knees. Alright friends send me a DM on Instagram, @alliedindependence; Facebook, same thing @alliedindependence, or shoot me an email and let me know what you think. I'll talk to you soon. I hope you can take these ideas and just take a step forward.

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