Ep #136: What Is Emotional Resiliency?

Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to episode 136.

Welcome to The Empowered Principal Podcast. A not-so-typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host, Certified Life Coach, Angela Kelly Robeck.

Wow you guys, first of all, hello. I’m so happy to be here, and welcome. I just have to say wow, it is the first week of August. What is happening to 2020? I cannot believe that we are at the end of summer, at the beginning of the end of summer, and that we are at the beginning of another school year.

I know many of you are ramping up to start the year and others of you have probably been working all throughout your summer, especially with all of the redesigns and new plans and then the new plan and then the new plan of trying to figure out what this school year is going to look like.

So I’m actually recording this on July 1st, so happy Fourth of July late. Belated Fourth of July. And as I’m recording this, every podcast that I record, I’m sitting here thinking I’m recording these one month in advance, what’s it going to be like a month from now? Nobody knows. Nobody knows what’s going to happen tomorrow, let alone what’s happening in a month from now.

So I hope that you have been able, over the summer, to take some time off for yourself and to rest and to fill your bucket with things that you love to do, other than just work. I know y’all love your jobs out there. Hey, I love being a coach. I know you love being school leaders, but there has to be more than just work.

And I’ve really been pushing this agenda hard with my clients and my audience this summer because there is no time, especially this year, when you are going to feel like work has less to do or is less important than taking time to refuel yourself and to replenish your energy and your mind and your creativity and your excitement for the job.

We have all been conditioned that to be a good leader, we must be on top of all the things, all the time. Always in communication, always in the know, always hustling to handle the problem of the day. And we want to impress others with our swift replies and our major accomplishments and be on top of the hill every single day.

And we want people to see us as being engaged and effective and responsive and compassionate and caring, and we do this to the point of complete exhaustion and it really compels us to stay plugged in. Even when it feels like we’re so against our own will.

And the hit of pleasure we receive when we’re complimented or acknowledged for all thus hustle that we’re doing, it kind of has us addicted to staying on top of things for as long as possible. We want people to like us and to respect us and to believe we’re doing a good job, so we hustle and hustle and hustle and try to keep up, and then we get that one person who’s like, “You know what, I see you, I see what you’re doing, thank you so much.” You’re like, yeah, that’s the addiction, and then we keep working even when our bodies are telling us otherwise.

I remember getting to a point in my principal career where I couldn’t remember what it felt like not to have work as my top priority. We did not take vacations. My poor child. We never took vacations. The little vacations we took were things like a long weekend to a friend’s house or we would fly to Iowa to see my family, which was a vacation, but it wasn’t a vacation.

I mean, it was fun, but you know what I’m saying. There are other places to visit in the world. But we did not plan and take vacations. I would answer emails while my son swam in the pool. My neighbor’s pool during the summer. We would go over there; she would let us and all the kids would play all day.

I was on my computer working, versus being in the pool with him, swimming around. I completely lost myself in the chase to be seen as a competent and productive and effective school principal. I completely lost myself. And I am begging you, I’m imploring you not to lose yourself in this job.

You can fall in so deep that you don’t even see what you’re not doing. You don’t even see that you’re not living or that you’re missing out on your kids’ events, or that you’re missing out just on their life, or that you’re not taking vacations with them and creating fun and lasting memories.

You have to live, school leaders. You cannot just be consumed by this job and the addiction that comes with the hit of dopamine you get every once in a while, when somebody compliments you or tells you you’re doing a good job.

I can remember not even knowing what it felt like to have fun or to really be disconnected from the job. The only thing I knew how to do was work. I didn’t know what to do with myself if I were to even take a day off. That felt super awkward and uncomfortable to think about what would I do if I couldn’t work, if work wasn’t an option, what would I be doing? And I didn’t know the answer. I couldn’t fill in the blank.

That’s a scary moment. Eventually, what I did, what my brain did was I thought it was the job’s fault and the superintendent’s fault and the institution of education’s fault. And if only I could leave the job, then I would have a life, then my life would be fun, then it would be easier.

And when I started my business, guess what, I created the business so that I could live a location-independent lifestyle and build a more authentic and fun and pleasurable part of my life. And yet I have found myself leaning into those same high-hour work tendencies, and I finally had to get in check with myself and ask myself, first of all, who wants to hire a coach who’s not happy with her own life? Nobody.

I can’t sell you possibility if I’m not examining my own possibilities, what my life, my business, my career can look like and be like and be the example of that for you. So what I’m deciding to do for myself is what will I think of my lifestyle, this lifestyle, this moment, 10 years from now? Am I going to be proud that I missed out on vacations and yoga classes and morning walks and conversations with my child?

No, I do not want that at all. I did not create this lifestyle so that I could just enjoy work and nothing else. I created the lifestyle so that I could enjoy my life, have the business I want, be passionate about my work, be with my family, create legacy and impact, and help school leaders do the same. That’s why I’m here.

Listen up, work is going to be challenging this year. It’s going to consume you as much as you allow it to. It always has and it always will. I’m taking a program with Susan Hyatt, who is the most magical – she’s the Beyoncé of life coaches. She’s doing a program called Summer of Yes, and she’s teaching us how fun and pleasure is what builds the business.

It attracts clients who want more fun and pleasure in their lives. This is you. School leader, I’m talking to you. The person who wants the job to not consume them. The person who wants to be engaged and be enthusiastic and love the job and be willing to go through the hard times and the learning curve, and also live a life outside of education, outside of being a school principal or a district leader, whatever it is that you’re doing.

If you can learn how to manage your schedule and prioritize fun and pleasure and self-care this year, during the hardest time ever, then you’re going to be able to do it for the rest of your life, for every year to come. I’m committing to working on this now for myself and I invite you to do the work on yourself, on your life also.

And I am asking you to consider doing it with me. Because the clients who have signed with me for this year are going to learn how to manage their workload, prioritize their wellness, we’re going to coach on the hard stuff, we’re going to coach on fun and pleasure and self-care, and we’re going to show my clients, so everybody who’s signed up already, congratulations. Because guess what, you just bought yourself a lifetime of more fun and more pleasure and more joy in your job. You’re welcome.

So if you want to master this as well, sign up to coach with me. I’m only taking 12 people. Three people are already in. I’ve got nine spots left. If you want to be on this roller coaster ride with me and you want the support you need for this coming year, I know it’s going to be hard, you guys. And we’re going to talk about it today.

Please consider hiring a coach and investing in yourself. It’s the hardest decision you’ll ever make and it’s the most productive decision you’ll ever make because you’ll learn how to manage your mind, navigate the demands of the job, and not let it consume you and eat you alive.

So I promise, you’re going to have fun, it’s going to be amazing, I’m going to teach you how to do it because I know how to do it, I am practicing how to do it, I am becoming the coach who builds her business out of fun and pleasure. There you have it. Okay, let’s do this.

Alright, speaking of fun and pleasure, we’re going to talk about emotional resiliency. Not for your students, not for your staff, but for you. So first of all, what is emotional resiliency? And I’m sorry to say this is not the fun and pleasure part.

Well, it is actually. It’s both. Because the capacity to which you can feel positive emotion is the capacity to which you’ll have to feel negative emotion. So if I flip that around, basically what I’m saying is if you’re not willing to feel the negative feels, then you shorten your capacity to feel the positive feels.

So emotional resiliency really is allowing yourself to feel the whole spectrum. All of the feels. It is the ability to feel emotion, to acknowledge it first if all, to process it, to let it be present. The trauma tsunami is coming to education.

It started with the pandemic. That’s the first wave of trauma coming and all the things associated with students, staff members, families, yourself, and the fear and the panic and the worry and the stress and the depression, all of the feelings we’ve been feeling by being away from our family and friends, not being able to go out, not being able to travel, not being able to have the plans that we had planned, to be worried about being sick, to having to teach our kids about what this looks like and means and why they can’t be with their friends, to having to grieve the loss of somebody who’s passed away that you can’t say goodbye to.

All of those things. That tsunami of emotion and trauma is coming towards our schools. The first hit was basically the medical profession and it’s still coming in waves for them. And now it’s coming towards us and we are going to have to learn what emotional resiliency is for us so we can help each other and our staff members and our students and our families and our communities learn to build up their emotional resiliency.

But they can’t do it unless we learn how to do it first. We can’t teach them unless we know. So on top of the high emotions and the traumas that are coming to the surface with Black Lives Matter, injustice, murder, inequities, all of it, that trauma is coming towards us as well.

As a school leader, you might be feeling a lot of fear and stress about the possibilities and the conversations that could ensue and should ensue this coming year. There’s going to be a lot for you to process.

So the question becomes are we equipped to handle it all? And I don’t mean equipped in terms of do you have enough masks or thermometers or Purell. I mean are you mentally and emotionally equipped to handle it all. We cannot solely rely on school counselors or therapists or psychologists outside of our schools to have a plan in place.

The district’s just trying to figure out the logistics of how to get kids back and how we’re going to teach and engage with them for next year. They’re busy doing that. So as a school leader, you have to get into the mindset of hey, wait a minute, where am I? How am I equipped to handle this, to lead people through this trauma? We have to prepare ourselves.

And your brain might be freaking out like, where do we all start? It starts with us learning how to build emotional stamina. It’s not something we’ve ever been taught. If you don’t know how or you feel like you’re sensitive or you’re weak in that area, in terms of not taking things personally or feeling a lot of big emotions, or you feel that rush of fear when somebody calls you out or is angry at you or something, those, you haven’t been taught how to do this.

And I’m not saying that when you have emotional resiliency, you don’t feel. That’s the trick. No. What it means is that you’re willing to feel. You will allow emotion. You will process the emotion. You’re going to acknowledge it, that you’re not going to avoid it or resist it.

So instead of this old approach to our emotions, which is stuff them down, don’t let them see you sweat, fake it until you make it, avoid, resist, compartmentalize. I love that one. Compartmentalize your feelings. Just leave them outside the door when you walk in and then just be the amazing leader you need to be.

No, our brains have thoughts that create emotion, and that brain comes with us to work. You don’t leave your brain at the door. Please don’t leave your brain at the door when you go into work. No, you have to learn how to bring those emotions with you and feel them and still show up and do the work. That’s emotional resiliency.

It’s the ability to decide what actions you want to take in spite of feeling a certain way. I want you to consider this; what would it feel like to allow your body to experience an emotion without avoiding it, without resisting it, without rushing through it, or without reacting to it?

What would that feel like? What would that be? That, my friends, is the core of social and emotional learning. It’s the ability to feel emotion in the body, that intense vibration, and to allow it, to acknowledge it, have it be there, not try to rush it away.

And no, it feels terrible, but it’s not going to hurt you. It’s not going to kill you unless you take action and react to your emotion by killing yourself. But the emotion itself, the pain from emotion can be allowed and it will not kill you. Now, the stress of chronic emotion, we can get into all of that later, but the vibration of feeling sad can’t hurt you other than the emotional and mental suffering that it causes.

So why don’t we avoid or allow or process emotion? Why are we told not to do that? Especially as school leaders. And ladies, especially as women school leaders. Why not? It’s going to make you look weak. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle the emotion, I won’t be able to take it.

Or I just don’t want to have to feel it. I just want things to be happy and I want to feel good, I want people to like me. That’s all, right? Isn’t that what we think? So for me personally, and this is why I feel like I’m such a great coach, emotional resiliency for a school leader also equals integrity because you have to know it in order to teach it.

Just like your teachers need to know how to teach math. In order to teach it, they have to know how to do it. And we have to practice it on the regular, as part of who we are, and we have to practice it if we expect it of others. We have to believe that we are capable if we expect others to be capable.

High expectations, high levels of support. High levels of modeling, I might add too. So why would you want to lean into feeling awful? Why would I want to go there? Why can’t I just – if you know and understand the STEAR cycle, what your brain wants to do is just like, let me think a better thought that makes me feel better.

But the problem with that is that you don’t build up the resiliency. You don’t have the awareness that I can handle feeling bad, I can handle when parents are angry at me, I can handle when I don’t know how to do something, I can handle the frustration of learning something new that’s difficult for me, I can handle this. I might have to take a break, I might have to come back to it a couple times, but I can handle it.

So the benefits of emotional resiliency are important for your brain to hear directly so that when you get into having to practice the emotional resiliency that you’re facing, you can tell yourself this is a benefit, this is basically an investment in my learning.

So, what are the benefits? Number one, full on empowerment. You become capable of handling any emotion ever. And that is the ultimate benefit because when you’re not afraid of emotion, then you’re willing to feel fear. You’re willing to be courageous, you’re willing to be rejected, you’re willing to feel embarrassed, you’re willing to anything, regret, you’re willing to feel grief, sadness, loss, frustration, anger, all of the feels. You’re willing to feel them. Disappointment. All of it.

And once you know like, oh, I can handle this, I know how to process emotion and here I am in it and it feels terrible but I’m with you, I’m here with you, got your own back, right? You also create confidence in yourself as a leader because you can lead through the most uncertain times and uncertain situations. Kind of like 2020. But you will build up confidence by allowing yourself to experience emotion.

Three, influence. You gain influence because you’re able to hold space for other people to process their emotions. And when you can do that and you can hold space for other people’s anger, other people’s grief, sadness, loss, disappointment, frustration, failures, you can hold that space. They will trust in you. They will allow you to be there for them, to lead them, to have influence, to have impact.

Number four, you will feel centered. You’ll create a sense of stability, not just for yourself, but for other people. So when you are centered, you can create that same stability for other people. And lastly, impact. You help others gain emotional resiliency. And is that not what you want for your staff and your students?

This is where it’s at. So say it with me, people. There is no emotion I cannot handle. And emotion is a vibration in your body, and it feels horrible. But you can learn to allow it, which ultimately decreases its intensity.

So there’s something that I’ve kind of dubbed the emotional triad. I have a couple of triads. My leadership triad and my emotional triad. And what I think of – and it’s not really a triad actually as it is kind of like a Venn diagram of three parts.

So, it actually is a Venn diagram. I should call it the emotional Venn diagram. It is our set of emotions and then other people’s emotions, and then how we feel about other people’s emotions. Do you see that? So, you have your – it’s kind of like your STEAR cycle is in one sphere, one part of the Venn diagram. Other people’s emotions are in that part of the Venn diagram, and then how you feel about their emotions and actually how they feel about yours is the middle. It’s the blend.

So that emotional triad is important to acknowledge because you have to see how – whatever emotion you’re experiencing, you have to understand where it’s coming from. Is it coming from thoughts you’re having about your own situation? Is it thoughts about what you’re thinking about what other people are thinking and feeling and doing and you’re reacting to that?

Because let me give you an example. A child comes to you and says, “During COVID, I was neglected, abused,” or something horrific. In that moment, when you’re hearing that, you personally have a reaction to their situation. You weren’t in their situation, but hearing the story triggers a very intense emotional response for you.

You’re thinking and feeling about their situation and how they must be feeling. So, there’s all these layers. So, it’s what you think of the situation they were in, even though you weren’t in it, you’re feeling an emotion. And then there’s what must they be thinking and feeling, and then you feel another emotion, which is usually like, concern, compassion, empathy, all of those things where you feel for them, but you also feel anger, upset, just infuriated about this child’s situation.

So, do you see how that all overlaps and then you can get convoluted and kind of confused through your emotion when you’re not able to separate out what’s going on. And I’ll talk more about how to do this on another podcast, but I want to show you that part of emotional resiliency is to understand that there are layers of emotions going on.

And it all does go back to whatever thought you’re thinking at the time. So with the child, if you’re thinking about their situation, you’re going to have a different emotional reaction than when you’re thinking about the child in that situation. Do you see the difference? I hope so.

So, let me wrap up here. What is emotional resiliency? It is the ability to feel any emotion. And it’s to understand what emotion is, which is a vibration in your body, and that that vibration does not control you. It feels like it does, but it doesn’t. It’s a reaction in the body that happens because of a thought we’re thinking.

We create emotions in our mind. And emotions generate an urge to take some form of action. And inaction is an action, by the way, so when you’re feeling a certain way, like the child comes to you and tells you a story about when they were in quarantine and their family – maybe somebody was abusing them, you might have a strong urge to go get them, to call that parent, to call CPS, to make this right, to bring justice to this child.

And you might take tons of action to make sure this child is cared for from this day forward. Let’s also say that somebody comes to you and says that they lost their husband or their partner or spouse to COVID. You might have an incredible urge to take action, but you also recognize there’s nothing you can do and the only thing you can do is be compassionate, be empathetic, hold space for them.

Or let’s say this, this is the one I can think of that’s most personal to me, when my mom passed away, I had considerable grief and it was happening over the holidays. I was inactive. Well, the action I took was to process the emotion, but I wasn’t – what I wanted to do was just get out of grieving and feel better right away and try to feel better for the holidays.

And had I taken that action and tried to pretend like nothing was wrong and everything was okay, that would not have helped me process the grief. The inaction, the lack of action in my business and during the holidays gave me the space and opened up the space for me to process the grief.

So, there’s times where an emotion makes us not want to act, and there’s times when an emotion makes us want to act. And emotional resiliency is really that ability to allow yourself to feel any emotion and intentionally choose your actions, versus reacting to the urge that the emotions create.

So, the urge that we feel is the brain’s attempt to get us out of that discomfort. The brain wants you to get out of any pain as quickly as possible. Whether it’s emotional pain, mental pain, physical pain, the brain’s job is to get you out of pain. Remember the triad? It’s seek pleasure, avoid pain, make it as easy as possible.

So it kicks into gear and it’s like, how do we get out of pain? How do we get out of pain as soon as possible? So, it’s going to tell you to act in a way that protects you from perceived harm, which is emotional pain.

So for example, let’s say a parent yells at you during a principals coffee. Let’s just say that happened to me, maybe. The feeling, as the situation is happening, I’m thinking to myself, “I’m not really sure what to do here, this looks awkward, people are watching and staring, I feel embarrassed.” That was the emotion.

I was extremely embarrassed. And I felt fear and I felt anger and I felt embarrassment. My urge was really to verbally lash back and protect myself, like defend, going to fight or flight mode, or end the coffee, like avoid, and walk out. But instead, what I did because I had coaching was I stood there and I just let the person vent, say what they were going to say, call me the names they were going to call me, do whatever they wanted to do.

Spitting angry, spitting mad. And I stood there and I felt – I literally thought about the inside of my body and I was like, I feel the vibration, my cheeks were flushed, and I stood there and turning inward, into my emotions at that moment, one, kind of tuned the person out, I wasn’t so consumed and lured into the fight, the argument.

I literally turned in and I looked inward and it allowed me to, one, not pay as much attention to what the person was saying, the attack, but two, it gave me strength. I felt myself grow stronger in that moment. And I didn’t have to say anything or do anything or end the coffee. I didn’t have to flee the moment, defend myself, or run away.

I simply just stood there. And in that moment, I felt people noticing my emotional resiliency. They literally were witnessing my emotional resiliency. It was powerful and I stood there. And then at the end of the rant, because I wasn’t reacting, it was kind of a one-way street at that point, I said, “Thank you for your input.”

And then more yelling, thank you for your input. And then the person eventually stormed out because I wasn’t engaging. I wasn’t letting that person win or lose. There was just no argument to be had. I neutralized it because I turned inward. I’ll never forget that moment and I hope that you get to experience a moment like that.

As awful as it felt, in real time, I turned inward and that is what is emotional resiliency, and that is what this month is all about on the podcast, and I can’t wait to teach you more about how to process your emotions, other people’s emotions, holding space for them, and then bringing it all in and letting yourself feel whatever you need to feel so that other people can feel the way they need to feel. That is truly the most empowered state that you can ever be in as a leader.

I cannot wait to coach you all on emotional resiliency this month. Please reach out if you are ready to get emotionally resilient and have a little fun and pleasure. Because listen up guys, it’s not all the bad things. Life is 50/50, school leadership is 50/50, but I want you tapping into the 50% part that is amazing and fun and pleasurable and all about self-care, just as much as I want you diving into become emotionally resilient with all the hard stuff.

Alright, I will talk with you guys next week. Have an amazing, empowered week. Take care.

Hey, principals, listen up. I’ve created a professional learning program for you and your team to build your capacity and lead your staff through the empowerment process. I’ve designed personalized growth experience for you and your school. You’ll learn how to apply the leadership triad to empower your staff and students.

This is the moment where the perfect time and opportunity meet. Education will never be the same and I have the tools to help you navigate the change. To learn more, sign up for a free consultation at angelakellycoaching.com/programs. I’ll see you on the inside.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit AngelaKellyCoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.