Episode 47: 5 Things you might need to hear!

Hey there my summer loving teacher!

I really enjoyed recording today's episode for you, and I hope that it resonates! If it does, make sure to send to another educator who needs to hear it!

Here are the links/people mentioned in this episode:

Lisa MCH's "Tame your Inbox" Course!
The #SunSationalSummerChallenge2023
Mr. Lyon on Instagram
La Familia Loca PLC- Join the Waitlist!

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Transcript

Welcome!

Welcome to Teaching la vida loca, a podcast for World Language Teachers seeking inspiration, unapologetic authenticity and guidance in centering joy, and facilitating language acquisition for the people who matter most, our students. I'm your host, Annabelle. Most people call me la maestra loca. And I'm an educator just like you and inspiring teachers is what I do. Hello there. Welcome to Episode 47 of teaching la vida loca.

My Summer Beginning

I actually intended to record this while I was in Florida. And I even brought microphones with me. I took all of June off and the last little week of June, I was invited to teach a workshop in Polk County, Florida. And the workshop paid for a one-week vacation for me and the kids to go to Florida. We flew there, we were able to get an Airbnb in the same condo complex as my parents, literally two minutes walk from them, we could wave at them from our porch, it was really special. And so, I brought my stuff to start working on July one. And then everything changed. My poor little buddy had a seizure, Memphis had a seizure. He's been diagnosed with something recently. And it's common and he's fine, but it's terrifying at the same time. And so that changed everything. And then I ended up in the ER with him for an entire day, only to find out that he had the worst case of hand, foot, and mouth that the doctors had ever seen. So, I decided to, you know, put it on a credit card and stay longer. I found another Airbnb in the same complex and paid for us to stay there and had to get one with lots of rooms so that he could quarantine separate from his sister. 

More Summer

We had to pay to fly Paul out to fly sister home so she could go to her mommy. And you know, my mom just finished chemo and it was really scary to have him around her, and he had 40 sores in his mouth. It was miserable. And so, everything changed. But here I am recording this now, for you. And I really just wanted to talk to you today about five things that I said to myself on repeat in June, that I think you might need to hear. And I know that not only did I need to hear them for myself, but I needed to repeat them in order to internalize it and help myself to believe it. Taking time off can feel really hard. Taking time off, I'm learning about myself is extra hard because I have ADHD, and I am a workaholic. And these are things I'm learning about myself. And I know that it's not good. And I know I want to change it but it is really hard to rest. And I thought about recording this to not just for me, but to give you, if you need permission, to continue to lavish and enjoy your summer; to do that for you. Because to be honest, one of the reasons I stepped away from Instagram for a while, which I didn't plan to this year, I was like, Oh, I'll take Instagram with me to Jamaica, and I'll take Instagram with me on the trip to Florida and I'll show people my trip. But I had to step away for two weeks because I was so bothered by the teachers, especially teachers who are teachers who teach in the classroom and sell online or maybe they've left the classroom and they're just selling online now. This pressure to start prepping and planning and getting excited for the next year. Oh my god, we just got to summer, we just got to summer. It is imperative that we allow our brains, our hearts, our bodies, our minds, our souls to rest and feel the joy of summer because we work more than any profession in my opinion.

Time to Rest

All year, like this is our time to just lavish and rest and be joyful about rest. So, I very intentionally take June off, but this year, I was intentional about also staying away from people who were choosing to work, and I know it's a personal choice thing. But when we share publicly about that personal choice, I feel pressure like, Am I doing the right thing? By taking off? Am I doing? Is it okay? That I'm taking, I know it's okay. But in case you also need to hear that it's okay to not do a single thing school related this summer. And to just feel joyful about your break, you should do that. So, and it's not to say that it's bad, I don't want to guilt anybody who's choosing to work, but I don't want to hear about it on my summer, I don't want to hear about other teachers, you know, working. Now, having said that, there's five things that I want you to repeat yourself in the same way that I did this past month if this is helpful for you. 

#1

The first is, it's okay to not, it is okay to not, and I'm not going to finish that because you can feel that in, it might be: it is okay to not feel like you have to get something done every day, even laundry or the dishes or whatever it is, it's okay to not want to play every single second with your child because your child is home too and you're off for the summer. And so, in order to be a good parent, you should do XYZ, it's okay to not, it's okay to not wake up at eight in the morning because that is when your partner is often headed to work. It's okay to not, I don't know, it's okay to not, fill in the blank. I already talked about it's okay to not work. Did I make that clear?

#2

Um, the next thing is what I already said. Your summer does not have to look like any other teacher's summer that you are seeing online. I am seeing some teachers like traveling abroad with students. And I missed that, and I've done it twice, and I loved it. But I also don't want that for myself right now. And when I fall into that comparison trap, remember, Comparison is the thief of joy. I find myself lacking in joy and starting to feel icky, right? So, your summer does not have to look like any other teacher online. The teachers that are choosing to work, the teachers that are choosing to already share about their angst and anxiety and worry about returning to school because there's some teachers that aren't necessarily working, but they're sharing about that deep anxiety, which is a real anxiety. But you don't have to watch those posts or look at those reels and sharing that, you know what I mean? If you need to take a social media break, take a social media break. But your summer doesn't have to look like any other teachers' summer online.

#3

Three, it's okay for your brain to be brilliant during your summer. And what I mean by that is that often when we give ourselves and our brains the opportunity to chill out for a minute and not work. They are often most active like, oh, wait, oh my God, that's a brilliant idea. I could do that. Oh my gosh, it's okay for your brain to be brilliant. Take a second to grab a journal, I have my planner. And at the back of my planner, there's blank pages, and I just jot those ideas down so that I know it's okay that they're written down somewhere, I'm not gonna lose those ideas, those brilliant ideas that come to me, when I'm resting during the summer. You can take notes on your phone, the Google Keep app, whatever. But don't dwell on those ideas, you can flash out the plans later, right? Not flash out, flush out. You can work all those plans out later for how it's going to be transformational for you and your students in your classroom. Do that in the fall when you go back. It's okay for your brain to be brilliant and to have great ideas. Jot it down and leave it.

#4

Here's number four. Save those emails for later in a different folder. So, let's say you are a person who does check their work email over the summer. I'm not going to shame you for it. I still think you should have an out of office on so that people know that you're going to take some time before you respond. But another thing you can do, I have my school email that I don't check at all until August. It says so, it says the day I'll return and then it says I need 48 hours to respond to you. Wish it was that, It'll probably be longer if there's a lot of emails, and then I have my work email Annabelle at La Maestra loca.com. During June, I had an out of office on there that said you won't hear from me until July. But now that I'm back, I am slowly going through these emails. And some of them can wait until August. So, I'm putting those in a folder that says respond in August. And it's then it's out of sight, out of mind. And it's keeping my inbox nice and neat, which is something I paid money to learn. And it wasn't a lot of money, but it was the best deal of my entire life. But I paid to learn about keeping my inbox nice and neat and anxiety free. From Lisa MCH, if you don't know her, she's phenomenal. I'll put an affiliate link to her class, if you're interested and if your inbox gives you anxiety. Take this course it changed my life. But you can put emails in a folder to handle later. You can also use that cool feature I use, feature, a lot. The schedule Send feature, rather than like sending an email now, you can schedule to send it. So, you can schedule send replies to people and you can also schedule send emails to yourself. So, I have one scheduled on August 1 to myself in the morning that says Don't forget to open the respond in August folder in your email. It's just a reminder for me to respond to such and so I had one that was sent to me yesterday that said send Nicole your address. And I was like who's Nicole, and why does she need my address? Why did I send myself this email? But all I did was in my email, I searched Nicole address and I found this person that I was supposed to update with my new address. And I was able to find it and then send it you know, so you can do things so that you don't forget and so that you do remember to prioritize what you wanted to prioritize, but you don't have to labor over it during your joyful, restful summer.

#5

So that's the fifth tip is like, give yourself permission to participate in that challenge. Even if you don't share publicly, even if you don't share online and you're just participating, to make sure that you are focusing on rest, joy and fun this summer. Do it, do it for yourself. I'm really excited for you. There's a quote that somebody I follow online shared that I wanted to share to wrap up this session. Mr. Lyon is a teacher that I have followed for a long time on Instagram. And it's where I bought my support LGBTQ plus students’ shirt, and you can get one too if you want. I have a hoodie and a shirt. But he shared yesterday a post that said: posts I absolutely don't want to see on any of my feeds in July; July is the Saturday of summer and how school drags and the summer flies by, tiktoks and reels lamenting how the Target dollar spot is already setting up for back to school. I beg of you to live in the moment, focus on finding joy now. And I immediately messaged him, and I said, hey, can I please share that and share a link to your account. So, I'll link to his profile for you too. But I want desperately for you to focus on finding the joy. And I'm not diminishing the anxiety that many of us feel with this impending and encroaching year, I go back in July, I go back this month. But I'm still living every day to its fullest, and I'm fully enjoying my summer. And I want that for you too. And I'm so grateful for you and I'm so grateful for the work that you do, and you so deserve some joy and genuine rest this summer. Everything else can wait. I promise you; it can wait. And I love you. If you have enjoyed this podcast and you can think of an educator or 10 who need to hear it and need the reminder that it's okay to just slow down. And by slowing down, you might just be impacting a friend who wants to slow down but sees the work you're doing and is worried that they can't. Right? So, remember, that's number two or three. I can't remember. Your summer doesn't have to look like what other people's does. You can do your own thing. You can find your joy, you can rest too, but send this podcast to them please.

The Challenge

And then the fifth thing is to participate in that SunSational summer challenge. Episode.... I think it was two episodes ago 45. Maybe. I talked about the sensational summer challenge, which is a challenge that I do every summer. I've done it for four summers in a row now. And it's on social media. And basically, you share for 14 days. There's a challenge each day, and each day has a different challenge to focus on, rest, fun and joy during your summer. And if you decide to participate and share on social, you get entered a huge prize drawing. And I know that when I shared a couple weeks ago on my podcast, I did not yet have that fleshed out so I can now share with you the incredible prizes that people are entering for right now in the sensational summer challenge and I want to share it with you now because the challenge isn't over. There's still a whole week left so you can decide to participate if you want to and if you decide to you can share on Instagram Facebook, Tik Tok, Twitter, wherever you want to. Just make sure that you tag me at La Maestra loca and use the hashtag sensational summer challenge 2023. So, the prizes are: the first prize is five different $5 Starbucks gift cards and if you're not a Starbucks person for one reason or another, don't worry, we can make that whatever coffee card you want when I contact you, I'm giving away three different classroom resource bundles valued between $15 and $45. I'm doing a classroom poster resource bundle, a community building resource bundle, and a classroom games resource bundles, so three different resource bundles. I'm also giving away the classroom jobs course that I did with John Seifert, giving away one of those courses valued at $69, another course that I did with Bertha Delgadillo called Music to My Ears on how to infuse music into your classroom and use music as authentic resources to inspire and engage your students. That's also valued at $69 and then I'm giving away three like really big prizes. One-on-one one hour, that's a lot of one's, a one-hour coaching session with me, just you and me. If you've never done that with me, it's super powerful especially because that's a lot of time one on one. It can really be powerful not just for you but for me, Two tickets to the Familia Loca PLC Summer Conference. Y'all know about La Familia Loca PLC? If you don't know about it, then you can go and listen to the last Episode 46. I talked way more about what La Familia Loca PLC is and why it is so impactful. And honestly, the best thing I've ever done professionally. But this summer, we're having our first conference and it's virtual. So, I'm giving away two tickets to our PLC conference. And all of the presenters are Familia loca members, which is so fun. And then the final prize is a one-year annual membership to La Familia Loca, PLC, Familia Loca members, you can totally participate. In fact, most of the people participating right now in this sensational summer challenge are our Familia local members. So, if one of you win, then woohoo, we just extend your annual membership, and you don't have to pay this next year. Oh, sweet. Um, if you're not in La Familia Loca and you're interested in participating and maybe winning that membership, that's a perfect way to accomplish a lot of things. One, get joy, fun and rest out of your summer, and get entered to win a year membership with us and be part of the conference. But to be part of it, and to witness how incredible and magical it's going to be.

Thank You!

And while you're at it. I know Michelle Whaley was the last person. Yes, the Michelle Whaley. One of my idols was the last person to review my podcast on Apple to write a review. But I would love if you could take the second to review my podcast on Apple podcasts. It really does impact my growth and this podcast's growth. And it helps other teachers find me, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Michelle said this podcast and accompanying materials has improved my life a number of times the school year. First off Annabelle is as a student pointed out relentlessly cheerful even if she's going through difficult times. She doesn't try and hide those but her positive attitude makes anyone feel better and more able to cope. Two of the most recent podcasts, recent times, the podcast, or blog connection have helped me lately where the teacher appreciation week ideas. I love this. My colleagues were absolutely delighted, as well as being shocked that I wrote to each one of them and now I have the perfect way to survey students of all levels to find out what I'm doing right. Every teacher should connect with Annabelle, language acquisition or astrophysics. She helps make Joy an intrinsic part of the day Hey, thank you, Michelle. And thank you for listening. If you can take time to write a little review. It doesn't have to be as long as Michelle's, it really does go a long way and it surely makes my day. Sending you lots of love. And wishing nothing more but rest! Enjoy this summer. I hope to see you in the summer challenge, SunSational summer challenge, this week on Instagram or Twitter, or Facebook wherever you wish. Or you could just send me an email and say, hey, I'm doing it. I'll link to it in the show notes. And I love you teacher. Have I said that enough? I'll talk to you later.