Resilience Part 2

landscape photography green grass field beside dark foggy forest during golden hour — Photo by Ivars on Pexels.com

Unfortunately it didn’t take long before I started to crumble. That’s the thing with my job, you think you’re tough enough, but if like me, you’re actually not, it can send you spiralling. Fortunately I can say this now because I’ve saved myself. The great thing is that it is my daily exercise for RED January and Mind that has been my saviour.

The week started well with a productive Monday and good gym session but on Tuesday I woke up with disgusting red patches all over my chin. Impetigo. It’s an occupational hazard. I’m the master of catching disgusting skin conditions and this was not my first impetigo rodeo. But it was incredibly poor timing. So I had to adapt many of my plans and once again think about vain I actually am. I hated facing anyone with my face looking so gross and just wanted to hibernate. On Wednesday I did. I didn’t go to work as it’s incredibly contagious and that’s what I was advised to do. By Wednesday evening I was feeling enormously guilty and it became clear that I was expected to be at work. For someone like me this causes enormous anxiety. I hate missing work and the feeling that people might be cross with me was too much and I struggled to sleep.

So on Thursday I went to work with raging PMT, a disgusting crusty red face and very little sleep. It took one person to ask how I was and comment that I looked tired before I cried. I unravel quite quickly and hate that I often show how close to the edge I am. I spent the day hating my job and feeling shaky.

However, by Friday I was starting to care less about my face and was reminded why I do absolutely love my job. We had Art Day all day and I had the most wonderful, relaxing day with my class, who were just awesome. As I ran the Daily Mile with my class, one little boy, who always hold my hand commented that he knew why I was running so slowly. I looked down at my boots and smiled, “Ahh is it because I’m not wearing my trainers today?” I asked. He looked puzzled and replied, “No, it’s because you’re really old!” He couldn’t understand why I laughed out loud but looked very pleased with the reaction he got. Kids are brilliant.

All week I’ve continued with my daily activity. I’m pretty active anyway, but this has been really good for those days when I’m stuck in the classroom and get home late. Having to do something active, even if it’s just a dog walk round the block in the dark, has been a massive de-stressor. Today’s run in the beautiful winter sun after a frosty morning dog walk has really lifted me and I feel (just about) ready to take on the week ahead.

So, resilience….I don’t have enough yet, but I reckon that staying active is the key to a healthy mind, so I’m feeling optimistic

Resilience

Last week was long and tough. After 2 blissful weeks off, I came crashing back to reality with a bump. We have a new headteacher at work, so we had two days of INSET before the kids came back on Wednesday. I feel reinvigorated and motivated to teach after quite a long time of feeling pretty fed up with it. It doesn’t mean it’s going to get any easier, but the INSET gave me a few little reminders of why I chose to teach.

At home however I felt more at a loss. Both of my children’s teachers have set them the target of practising and learning their times tables. I feel pretty crap that I’m a primary school teacher and have basically failed to teach my kids quite a lot of crucial things. Anyway, this week I set about trying to get them to practise. My goodness what trauma! At one point we sat with both girls wailing at the table that they couldn’t/wouldn’t do it. My eldest (generally calmer) daughter was absolutely hysterical. She just lost her shit totally. Neither really knows their times tables, despite insisting they do and so both just cried every time they couldn’t do it. Which was often.

So all this got me thinking about resilience. We often talk at school about teaching children to be more resilient and I’m becoming increasingly aware that my own children are absolutely not. And they are absolutely not because neither am I! My girls can’t stand to fail, despite me repeatedly saying that that’s how we learn and that failure is actually important. The thing is, I don’t think I’m very good at it either. I’m incredibly over-sensitive and go to pieces when things don’t go my way. Not really the best example to set. So I guess the challenge in our house is to all toughen up a bit, become more resilient.

Another conversation that my husband and I have had after me having more behaviour training at work, was how we handle our youngest daughter. We continue to be very inconsistent in managing her behaviour, despite our expectations being fairly similar. The behaviour training reinforced what I already knew and what I believe in. That remaining calm to diffuse a situation is best. Understanding that the behaviour is usually triggered by something. Rewarding the good and being consistent in expectations and methods. Anyway, we’ve had this conversation many times and probably my hubby will continue to yell and I’ll continue to be seen to be too soft and let her get away with too much. I’d imagine it’ll continue to be a tricky one.

Finally my focus has been on daily activity for RED January. The idea is that you make the effort to get active every day, to raise money and awareness for Mind. Despite a really busy week, I’ve managed dog walks, runs, yoga, the gym and kettlebells every day so far. Not a bad start…we’ll see what this week holds.

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