S2: E12- The Power of Pause: Teachers, it's time to rest

Summer is here! Stop worrying about prepping for the next school year! This episode is to remind you to enjoy the summer break that you waited for during the school year. Rest, and don't forget to download the free "Sunshine and Serenity" teacher's summer companion resource guide.

Sunshine and Serenity PDF

How To Be Intentional During Conference Season Blog Post

 “Conferencing Intentionally” worksheets 

Join the waitlist for La Familia Loca PLC

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Join us this month for the all virtual Conference in the Cloud!  We would LOVE to have you! Check out the conference schedule and program here and click below to register!

5th Annual Conference in the Cloud 2024

Transcript:

Hi, there!

Hi there, would you like to learn with me or from me this summer? I'm only presenting at one conference this summer. And I'm presenting a lot, including showing videos of me teaching my classes, and I'll be doing some group coaching for a Conference in the Cloud. It's a completely virtual conference on Zoom. And all sessions are recorded, so that you don't have to miss a thing. There's even a 'recordings only' option if you aren't available the week of July 22 through 26th. And you know, if you still want to see and participate in all these incredible workshops and recordings. You can do that. If you do participate live, you have access to the recordings for six months afterwards. So, there's zero FOMO. I'm so excited to be participating. There are other huge names like Ben Tinsley, Bertha Delgadillo, Claudia Elliott, Diego and Erica Peplinski, Heidi Trude, John Bracey, John Sifert, John Cowart. There are so many people that you know and love joining us for this conference, and I'm so hopeful that you will be able to join us.  For info, go ahead and check the link in my bio or just search Conference in the Cloud 2024. We would love to see you there. 

Welcome back!

Welcome back to my podcast, teaching la vida loca for season two. I'm Annabelle, your Maestra loca, and I am ready to kick off season two with even more enthusiasm, magic, and tips and tricks for your classroom. Get set for a ride of inspiration, unapologetic authenticity, and ideas to spark more joy in your teaching journey. I'm turning up the excitement and elated to have you right here with me. I'm not just your host and your cheerleader, and I am thrilled you're tuning in, buckle up and let's do this. Let's tackle teaching la vida loca together. Hi there. Welcome to Episode 12 of teaching la vida loca season two. I am excited to be recording in my recording studio JK, it's just my office. But JK I didn't have an office a couple of years ago. So, yay. 

It’s Amazing!

We are in the middle of something amazing. Can I tell you what that amazing thing is? Yes, it is summer but there's also something else that's amazing happening right now. My son Memphis is asleep in bed upstairs. My daughter Isla is reading a book upstairs silently, quietly enjoying it. And Ophelia, who's my new daughter who joined us on May 24. This year. She is precious and magical and everything good in the world. And she smells so good. Oh, my goodness. She is napping in a swing in the living room, and I am here recording this for you. And successfully parenting three children. Can you even? I can't even. I can't. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Let's hope it lasts. Okay, my episodes aren't that long anyways, thank God. So. Okay. Hi. Happy Summer to you. I haven't recorded an episode in quite some time. And that's because I gave birth to a beautiful human. It was an all-natural birth, almost came in the car, almost came in the hospital parking garage. 15 minutes in a hospital bed, and she was here. And I'm grateful to my doula for putting up with me swearing and cursing and hating everybody around me. Even more grateful to my husband who puts up with me, and grateful to be the mom of just the most beautiful children. I am head over heels in love with Ophelia, and I can't wait for you to meet her. 

It’s Summer!

So, what I wanted to talk to you about today is simple. It is that other exciting thing that I mentioned right at the beginning, Summer, y'all it's summer, it's summer. I wanted to record an episode on the importance of rest and the urgency of rest. But then it became even more urgent and, and necessary for me to record this podcast when I went on social media for the first time in several weeks, the first week of July. And I had posted about Ophelia that she had arrived but you know, I haven't really wanted to be on social or needed to be and so I was just checking in and as I scrolled through I saw an alarming amount of teacher accounts, both teacher influencers and just teachers that I follow who follow me posting and talking about prepping for the next school year, posting about lesson planning, posting about scope and sequence planning, posting about going into school or asking if they could go into their classroom to start preparing for the next school year. Here's the thing. We talk all year about the need for summer break and how we are looking forward to summer break and how we are so excited about summer break. And now that it's here, why on earth? Are we talking about prepping? Or doing anything but lavishing every single second of our summer? I wrote an email to my email list about this yesterday. But I really wanted to put it into words on a podcast so that you could hear my voice saying, please stop working, press pause, there's so much power in pressing pause, and just stopping your routine of work because our routine of work is so much heavier, and more rigorous and more challenging and more tumultuous and more cortisol raising, and all of those things than most other professions other than, like medical field, right? We need the summer break, and you're not paid, if you didn't know that. Most teachers are paid through the summer, but you're only paid for 10 months at work. And you might choose to get your paycheck spread out over the whole summer, but you're paid for 10 months, why are you working? Stop? And when I say why are you working? Your brain should not be working. So, if you're like, Yeah, but I haven't acted on it. Annabelle don't worry. No, that's still... don't be thinking about the next school year, because your brain needs rest. And if you're struggling with this, I have an amazing resource for you that's free that you can download. It's in the show notes right now. But I want you to hear me out first. 

Your Mindset 

If you're struggling with this, one of the things that you can do is switch your mindset, change your mindset, to think and rethink rather summer as an important part of professional development. Summer is an essential part of your professional development. Rest is essential. If you aren't giving your brain the opportunity to rest. You can't come up with exciting new ideas. You can't even get excited because all you'll be doing is constantly thinking about school and then school comes and you'll just resentful that you didn't rest when you had the opportunity. Giving your brain the time to rest allows you to get reinvigorated, re excited. Think of new ideas and feel ready to return. Right? If you aren't resting, you won't be ready to return. So, I really, really, really, really, really want you to take a step back, breathe and relax and rest into the rest of your summer break. Press pause. I created a really cool 13 Page resource for you. During a miraculous nap like this yesterday, Isla wasn't here she was with her mommy. But I had Memphis nap and Ophelia for two hours together they napped at the same time. It was amazing. And I created a 13-page PDF called Sunshine and serenity, a teacher's summer companion. And it is a basically companion guide. With a note from me some journaling prompts we use, I use, some of the journaling prompts from a resource we created for la Familia, loca last month, our theme of the month was more than a teacher. And we talked about unexplored like how we can rediscover or discover for the first time who we are outside of our teacher selves and really like nourish that part of ourselves and build habits to where we can nurture habits and really start habits for 66 days. That's usually how long it takes to create a habit until the beginning of school starts so that we can continue to nurture ourselves and have the mental and emotional bandwidth to continue to look after our energy first, so that when stressful situations arrive and or arise in school, we're more mentally and emotionally able to deal with that. So, some journal prompts from the resource we created last month for La Familia. La Familia will be back open again this fall. So, if you're interested in joining the link is always in the show notes to join the waitlist. There are coloring pages in this resource. There are affirmations for the deserving teacher. Affirmations for those of you who might find yourself feeling guilty about taking rest, which is normal. I used to feel guilty when I would go online or on social media. It was always much later in July. I'm alarmed at how early it is in July that teachers are talking about working. But I used to feel guilty about not wanting to work. Like, oh, maybe if I start now, like I didn't work. I've always been good about taking my summer. But I used to feel guilty when I saw those posts. 

The Guilt 

Now I just find myself kind of enraged. Because I'm like, how dare you say I should start? And even if its people saying, not saying that I should start, even if it's people just talking about them doing it? I'm like, what are you doing? No, because I also know that there are teachers looking at that feeling guilt, and I don't want that for anybody. So, there's lots of affirmations in there. Find one that like fits for you and write it on your bathroom mirror. So, you see it every day. There's some of my favorite summer recipes. There are suggestions on trying something new, lots of different ideas to get you to try something new this summer. And just some tips for different kinds of self-care that you can start doing. And they're tiny things that you can like make a shift and create a habit for yourself, like I talked about earlier. So, I would love for you to download this. The link is in my bio. If you are already on my email list, and it's already in your email. You should have received it on Wednesday, the 10th of July. 

Be Intentional 

And I'm just really excited for you to really be intentional with the rest of your summer. intentional about your rest, intentional about doing the things that bring you joy that fill your cup, intentional about putting yourself first. Now having said all of that if you are a person who is conferencing, I know there are so many conferences in July, there's a John in France. One day, that's my goal. There's a conference going on in China that I was invited to and then had to cancel because I found out I was pregnant with my beautiful baby. There's a conference. There's the Fluency Matters conference in Denver. There's the CI summit in Philadelphia. And then of course Conference in the Cloud, the best conference. It's the only conference I'm doing this summer and I'm happy about it. The Virtual Conference is July 22 through 26th. We would still love to have you join us for that. I'm going to be showing recordings of my class. I'm going to be doing some group coaching which is powerful. And I'm presenting I think four or five times and the names presenting it's going to be an amazing, amazing conference. We even have Garcia from Australia presenting. We have been Ben Tinsley, Kia London. We have Andrea from Familia loca and Shane from Familia Loca and Kate from Familia Loca. And Heidi from Familia Loca and Morgan from Familia Loca. There are so many Familia Loca members presenting. And I'm just excited. So, if you're conferencing, then yes, you're thinking about work. 

Go To the Conference, but…  

But I want you to pour yourself instead into the joy of being at a conference and learning for yourself and not worrying so much about how it's going to apply. Does that make sense? Just enjoy it. Another thing I'm going to link to in the show notes is my conferencing intentionally. Work pages. They're free. It's another PDF you can download that helps you like go into the workshops or the learning labs and have some guiding questions to really help you know what to look for and what to listen for. And it helps you also be more intentional about your learning so that you can think about how it's going to, how you're going to hold yourself accountable to trying these things in the next school year. So, if you're conferencing then yeah, conference away, do it. But outside of that conference, you should just be summering, you should just be binge watching those favorite shows. Or binge watching a show that you've wanted to watch all year or the last three years and you haven't had time for. Sit on your couch and do nothing all day. God That sounds amazing. Find a babysitter so you can do that. If you have kids, you know, go to a park that you haven't been to in your city. Take a hike, get outside and just sit and be present and notice what you smell and what you see and what you hear. We're never slow enough to do that during the school year. I want you to just enjoy your summer. Look up some summer recipes. I've been doing a ton of fun things with my kids. I run mommy summer camp. My daughter Isla calls me that. I'm her stepmom and we have been doing so many fun things with summer camp and I was a mess thinking about it with a five-week-old. And then realized I can do this simply and I use chat GPT to help me really simplify what I'm doing and oh my god, we the kids don't even know. They're like, this is literally the best summer camp ever. Like, yay. So, we're having so much fun and, and I'm grateful for that. And I'm making memories with my kids and trying to remember to take some pictures. And I'm just so present in them forgetting to take pictures, which I love. Like, that's where we should all be, we should all be so present, that we're just getting lost in the moments because life is so short. And our summer is so, so fleeting. So please press pause. There's so much power in that and just lavish every moment of the rest of your summer. Make the most of it. If you are looking for this resource, again, it's in the show notes or just go to tinyurl.com/sunshineloca, tinyurl.com/sunshineloca to download this PDF guide. I'm so grateful for you. And the next time I'll be or until next time, see I don't even know how to record a podcast. It's been so long. Until next time, I will not be teaching the la vida loca. I will be making the most of every single moment of my summer as well you if you want to send me an email and let me know exactly how you're making the most of your summer, or what your favorite page of the guide the summer guide is. I would love to hear from you. I really, really would. I'm checking my email. It's just a little infrequent, but I will reply to you if you email me. Okay, sending you lots of love. Take care of yourself and enjoy your summer. Take care.