7 Steps Toward Healing
As a teacher, have you been impacted by fear and overwhelm from the global pandemic? Have COVID restrictions, mandates, the media, vaccination rollout programmes and lockdowns affected your thoughts, feelings and emotions? Have you suffered some form of trauma in the past which you felt you’d overcome, yet suddenly a wound has reopened? Worldwide, we are experiencing not just a pandemic but a dramatic decline in mental health. As COVID has brought social isolation, financial worry, fear, overwhelm and uncertainty, we are seeing a marked increase in teachers suffering anxiety, depression, panic attacks, addiction and relationship conflict.
The associated feelings and emotions are not only affecting teachers but also their students and the wider school community. In addition, they are triggering an opening of old wounds and unresolved trauma from the past (PTSD). Suddenly and unexpectedly, the sense of control teachers once had has gone, classrooms manifest the scars of fear and security has been rocked to the core. Add into the equation an unprecedented increase in work pressure – online teaching, social distancing, masks and increased parental
demands. It is clear that without adequate professional support, teachers will not survive. We must begin to accept: TEACHERS NEED HELP!
Understanding Trauma
Trauma can be identified as an emotional response to an unexpected or frightening event, like an accident, natural disaster or pandemic. While trauma may cause an immediate impact, such as shock and denial, longer- term reactions are also common. These may include unpredictable emotions, anxiety, panic attacks, irrational thinking, flashbacks, strained relationships and even physical symptoms like headaches, autoimmune disorders and chronic fatigue. Let’s face it, none of these are conducive to teaching nor creating a healthy classroom atmosphere!
How Can Teachers Heal?
1. Take Action
Teachers cannot wait for therapy, healing tools or psychological support to come their way. Those supports won’t – teachers must actively seek ongoing professional help or supervision. Yes, it costs money, but survival is dependent on it!
Today teachers cannot afford to risk their psychological or physical health through having a lack of support in place. The onus is on teachers to actively search it out, book it and make time to put themselves first!
2. Safety is Key
There are many therapists, counsellors, energy healers, supervisors and registered practitioners out there. What works for one person does not work for all. Make sure the fit is right for you. Will you feel emotionally and psychologically safe with the therapist? Do you think
they will give you adequate tools to apply to create change? What reviews have you heard? The developing relationship between you and your therapist is based on TRUST and must be two-way. Follow your gut instinct, and if the fit isn’t right, find someone else. No guilt. No shame. No sense of failure – just move on!
3. Think Multidimensional
Talking therapy is traditionally understood as a valuable tool for working through the impact of trauma on healing the mind. Science, psychology and medicine are now pointing extensively to healing the body and nervous system, too – not just the brain. Therefore, in
searching for a therapist, make sure you find a fit that can not only work towards your goals, but help you identify what they are. Many clients attend sessions frustrated that previous therapy hasn’t worked. In truth, it has often worked, but only when seen in the context
of a multidimensional healing approach. It has been effective in one area of their life!
4. Introduce
Build in a range of complementary therapy processes. If you perceive yourself as mind, body and spirit, then all three aspects of your ‘self’ need to be healed: Talking therapy for the mind, physical healing for the body and sensory healing for the spirit. Check out whether therapists are pluralistic in their approach to counselling, with an openness to integrative and diverse perspectives. For example, does a therapist have an open mind that different clients have varying expectations from a session and therefore offer more than one prescriptive form of therapy? Compare therapists and have a conversation on the phone to sense whether their philosophy matches your expectations before you meet.
5. Timetable
We all know teachers have limited time. We also understand that without timetabling ‘me time,’ it won’t happen. When did you last schedule a weekly Monday evening walk on the beach or in an open space? Get out that 2022 calendar and mark out a therapy session once a week. Also, block an additional hour or two hours for quiet time, exercise, meditation, relaxation, yoga, prayer, energy work or sensory-motor healing. If you don’t prioritise it before the beginning of the next academic year, it likely won’t happen! Use the summer vacation to do your research and book therapy sessions ahead. Most counsellors and therapists have waitlists!
6. Prioritise
Most teachers sacrifice themselves for their students – rightly so because they enter into the teaching profession because they are passionate about people and they care enough to impact lives. However, putting others before yourself isn’t the most healthy or productive philosophy. Putting yourself first is a selfless act. It says I care enough about me so that I can offer you the best version of me – not the left-over bits. The instructions on an airline safety talk are, “Put your own life jacket on before you try and help someone else.” The same is true for looking after yourself. You are not much use in the classroom if you feel stressed, overwhelmed, undermined or unsupported. Seek help first!
7. Be Open to Online Sessions
When lockdown first closed the doors to personal and face-to-face contact, many clients declined an online session. However, as desperation for support grew, many clients soon realised there were many benefits to talking online. Saved travel time in an already busy schedule. No hassle with parking, an absence of petrol costs and the exclusion of childcare needs. More importantly, individuals soon expressed the comfort of having a session in their own home — with a cup of tea in hand, slippers on, dinner in the oven and the chance to even lie down!
I like to see my own healing as an ongoing journey. Having spent over 25 years teaching in schools and prisons, I learned to find adequate support and supervision at a very early age – an essential tool I feel too few teachers grab hold of today.
That journey involved a DESTINATION – Where did I want to go?
TASKS – The road I chose to take (fast or slow, winding or direct).
And finally METHODS – Which were the vehicles I used to travel (aeroplane, bus, car, bicycle)? When my mother passed away in my young adult life, I embarked on a journey through TA (transactional analysis). It was followed by many years of psychotherapy – equipping me with powerful tools to regulate grief and loss and understand concepts around my behaviour, emotional response and life choices. These were some of the best foundational resources that empowered me, as well as my teaching career. Later, when facing complex PTSD following the sudden loss of my three small children, I travelled on a journey through CBT and DBT. But it wasn’t until I embarked on EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming) at the renowned
Priory Hospital in London, did I begin to understand that in addition to my mind, my physical body, required tools to release nervous tension, bodily stress and diagnosed autoimmune sickness. EMDR also led me more recently to an exciting journey through somatic experiencing and sensorimotor modulation, releasing years of nervous pain and tension and bringing me to an increased state of consciousness, peace and freedom.
What are you doing to develop a sense of groundedness, presence and orientation through COVID, stress and trauma? What strategies do you use as a teacher to provide ‘emotional release’ from day-to-day uncertainty and change? How have you equipped yourself with emotional
and psychological resources to support your students through COVID fear, uncertainty and change? COVID is not going away quickly.
Rather than feeling disempowered and helpless in the classroom, take action now! Use the holiday break to do some healing work. Listen to podcasts, purchase some mindfulness books, practise the 333 sensory motor rule. Walk bare feet on the beach, talk to a friend, have dates with yourself. Pick flowers, smell the roses, listen to the dawn chorus and be out in nature as the sun rises.