Ep #165: How to Emotionally Support Your Teachers with Jewelle Bejjavarapu

Hello, empowered principals. Welcome to episode 165.

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.

Angela: Well, hello my empowered leaders. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast. We have a very special treat for you. I have yet again another interview from another Life Coach School graduate, Jewelle, my friend here, is a former teacher turned life coach for women struggling with infertility. And the reason Jewelle and connected was through the Life Coach School, but she was a former teacher and she’s got an amazing story for you.

So, this interview really is designed to help you as a school leader identify what teachers need in terms of their mental and emotional wellbeing. And Jewelle is going to share some strategies with you and some things to look for in your teachers to help you as a school leader expand your culture of mental and emotional wellbeing for your teachers. So, Jewelle, welcome to the podcast.

Jewelle: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to be here right now.

Angela: Okay, audience, I’ve got to be honest with you. I’m totally putting Jewelle on the spot. Jewelle and I were having a conversation offline and I was like, “I just love you so much. You have to get on the podcast this second.” So, Jewelle is being a really good sort but we are going to go with it because she has such a great story to offer and a message I really want you as school leaders to hear from her teacher perspective, and her life coaching perspective. Because those two really mesh nicely into how you can support school leaders with their mental and emotional wellbeing. So, Jewelle, why don’t you just start by telling the listeners your story. Tell them how you landed in education, all the moves you made in education, and then how you evolved into the work you’re doing today.

Jewelle: Yeah, so I became a teacher because I made, in college, a list of 30 different careers and teaching was probably the most lucrative, which is saying something about my other careers on the list. There was go-kart-er and farmer. So, also, I had a legacy of teachers in my family. My mom’s a teacher, my aunt’s a teacher, my grandma was a reading specialist, my sister is a teacher, and my cousin just finished her bachelors in education as well. So, that’s what I knew.

I was like, I know how to be a teacher. I know how to get into this field and I know how to find a job in this field. So, that’s’ what I did. I didn’t really think about it too much. It was just like, “Oh, yes, this is what my family does. This is what we know.” We talked about education all the time. We read educational books. We were very much into learning and education.

And so, I went in saying, you know what, I want to do education differently. I want to do more of a hands-on approach to education. I want to do it better than my own educational experience. So, I went down to Costa Rica to get fluent in Spanish and I taught at a bilingual catholic school down there, at a private catholic school. And I taught second grade for the first time. I did not have a teaching degree. I just did it. And that was a huge learning experience.

Angela: That’s crazy.

Jewelle: I highly recommend getting a teaching degree before you even start teaching. But I learned a lot and I realized that I could teach and I could do it and I just wanted to learn more. So, I actually left Costa Rica, moved up to New York City where I got my masters in bilingual and general education at Bank Street College of Education. And there I had an amazing experience. I taught in Harlem at a bilingual public school there. I taught in the Bronx at a charter school there. I taught at a private school on Wall Street and another private school in Brooklyn, probably of which you’ll know the names of. And then I moved down to Miami after I graduated from Bank Street and I taught at a school on Fisher Island, which is one of the richest zip codes in the world.

And I loved teaching. I was obsessed with it and I did all of my professional development and I was a really good teacher, I’m not going to lie. I was a perfectionist. I was type-A. I was super-organized. Everyone was like, “Oh yeah, send your kids to Jewelle’s classroom.” I taught second and third grade mostly and they were like, your kids are going to learn she runs a tight ship. And that’s how I was known.

And it was great, but after those five different teaching moves, I just felt like none of the schools were right for me. Every school had major issues. Everything wasn’t a good fit so I just kept switching. Like, it’s a school, it’s a school, it’s a school, either the school administrators were not supportive or students that weren’t ready to learn, or multitudes of issues. So, we actually moved to Tampa and I had gotten a teaching job in Tampa. And during the summer, I started having panic attacks, and major panic attacks. I didn’t know what they were at the time.

I just knew that I could not go in and set up my classroom. I thought about going to Walmart to get bins and I broke down into tears and started shaking and would end up in bed all day. And this is normally – like I love decorating. This is normally my favorite part of the school year, setup my library and color code my books and, you know, kame sure everything has a theme and I loved it. But I could not do it that year.

And so, I actually ended up resigning halfway through the summer and not starting the school year because I knew emotionally and physically, I could not teach. I had been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. I had been diagnosed with IBS and leaky gut and major hormonal issues. And so, physically and emotionally, I knew I needed some help and I knew it wasn’t the schools; it was me.

And I needed to get that help before I went back and taught again because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to survive. It was not going to help my relationship with my husband. And I wasn’t going to be able to survive in that environment that I was creating for myself.

So, I ended up working with a health coach. I ended up working with a career coach. I ended up working with a life coach, and that’s how I found the Life Coach School. And I remember listening to the very first episode of Brooke Castillo’s podcast and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is what I needed as a teacher. What do you mean my thoughts create my feelings? Of course I was feeling horrible as a teacher. Like, I was thinking some pretty crappy thoughts.

And so, it just all really clicked and I signed up for certification, and I went through certification. And I have applied all of the things that I learned in certification and through the podcast and to my own life and have healed my physical symptoms. I have healed my emotional symptoms. I have gotten through a lot of stress and anxiety and really healed a lot of things, like people-pleasing, type-A personality that I thought was normal and was kind of expected in the teaching field. I want to go as far as saying that.

I knew most of the teachers that I knew were type-A caregivers, especially in elementary school, perfectionists. And that was kind of the standard that I felt I needed to uphold, was I needed to be perfect. Students’ learning was on the line. And if I wasn’t perfect, if the parents didn’t like me, if admin didn’t like me, I was going to lose my job. And that pressure created this emotional and physical and mental catastrophe for me.

Angela: And many other educators have been through that path and it is – listeners, I really want you to hear this, that your thoughts can generate emotional trauma and physical trauma. This is manifested not just in her emotional state but in her actual physical ability to teach. And I think we have a lot of teachers especially this year with the pandemic who are going through incredible amounts of stress. And let me acknowledge and say of course all of you as school leaders are going through this as well.

But what Jewelle is saying here is that she had a moment where she recognized that she was trying different schools thinking that leaving one school and going to another, leaving one situation and going to another was going to make her feel better. And she went, what was it, five different schools?

Jewelle: Five different schools in five years.

Angela: Yes, so she kept trying to change her circumstance and it did not change the result. So, eventually she was like, “Wait a minute I’m doing the math here and I am the common denominator.”

Jewelle: I literally had that moment. I was like, “Wait…” because I knew – my best friend is a teacher and she’s always been such a relaxed, easygoing teacher and no stress, everything’s great. And I was like, you taught at a lot of different schools too, how come you’re not dying? And she’s like, “I don’t know. I guess I take care of myself first.”

Angela: And you’re like, “What? How do you do this? What is this wizardry?”

Jewelle: And I was like, how do you get everything done, make all the lesson plans, make sure the parents are happy, email them, make sure the students are learning, keep track if 30 students in five different subjects, just the paperwork alone, I have to work 70 hours a week.

Angela: Yeah, what was the driving thought behind all of that overworking? Because I talk to my listeners and my clients about the overwhelm cycle where you feel overwhelmed so you overwork and then you get to exhaustion and then you kind of underwork because you’re to burnt out. And then you get behind and you get overwhelmed and you’re just in this cycle.

Jewelle: That’s exactly what I was in.

Angela: So, what was the primary thought or belief system that was driving you to keep pushing yourself to overwork over and over and over again?

Jewelle: I guess I thought I didn’t have another option. That in order to be a good teacher or to be accepted as an excellent teacher – and there was no less than excellent. I was an A-plus student, A-plus teacher. And I could not fail because failure was, you know, less than. And my whole worth was on the line as a person. And I think it was that people pleasing perfectionist type-A mentality that is insidious, just getting sucked into that and seeing everyone around me, all my fellow teachers do the same thing. So, I thought it was normal. I thought, of course we work 70 hours.

Angela: That’s why we’re all attracted t education, because we’re just like work horses.

Jewelle: Exactly. In my family it was normalized and we get around the Thanksgiving table and we complain about school and you complain about the educational philosophy and we sit there and talk about our math curriculums.

Angela: Very fun Thanksgiving topics.

Jewelle: Totally. Now I’m like, thank goodness I’m not involved. But yeah, it was just so normalized. And so, I never questioned it. I just thought, “This is what it means to be a teacher. And if this is what it means to be a teacher then I’m going to do the very best A-plus job possible because I want to be successful.

Angela: Yeah, to the point it was physically ailing you?

Jewelle: Yeah, leaky gut, IBS, adrenal fatigue. I went to the doctor and he was like, “You cannot get stressed.” And I went to multiple doctors about this. But even last summer – and this was three years after teaching – my doctor said, “You have no cortisol left and no reproductive hormones left because your cortisol has eaten into your reproductive hormones. Because you have a certain amount of cortisol that you have in your system and if you burn it, it leaks into all your other hormones and you can’t get it back up.

And so, my doctor told me you literally cannot get stressed. Like, if you have one job, for your health, you may not get stressed. And so, I was like, “Oh.” And that’s when I realized how bad it was.

Angela: Oh my gosh, so this leads me to my next question. When you got that news – and this really became an issue of life or death or the ability to have kids or not, obviously that’s an a-ha moment for you, like what’s really important here. So, how did you manage your stress? How did you flip that around? Because so many people have the same thought you do, that this is just the job of educators. We’re here to work relentlessly for the wellbeing of kids, even to our own physical demise, but we don’t know how to think in any other way or act in any other way. So, how did you start to turn that all around?

Jewelle: I really started – it sounds simple, but I really just started to question that reality. Like, what if there was something different? I had always taken for granted, like, this is how teaching, like you said, this is how teachers are. But I’m like, what if I’m wrong? And I think talking to my best friend and seeing how she was so relaxed as a teacher – and she is an amazing teacher that I admire. And I was like, this isn’t a circumstance. This isn’t a fact.

And so, seeing that it’s my thoughts – and it’s not just my thoughts. It’s many teachers’ thoughts. But seeing that it was my thoughts and seeing how much stress they were causing me and learning that model system really was, like, I can pinpoint these exact thoughts that led me to these actions that led me to get this result of my health. And there was a lot of thoughts, like lists and pages…

Angela: Whole belief systems, right? I call them stories, but they’re really books of belief systems that we have, chapter after chapter of all the things we’ve been taught to think. And then we have just been practicing them for decades.

Jewelle: Yeah, and so I started simple. I started by changing my diet because…

Angela: Okay, was that first thing off the bat?

Jewelle: The first thing right off the bat. I think I had even two months left of teaching. And I first started changing my diet because I was like, I was so sick at that point, I have to do something. And so, I changed my diet and I started feeling better and I started having more energy and I started taking care of myself. And that sort of was a cascade that I learned I had to say no to certain types of foods. I started learning how to say no to people and to myself.

And I think that was a big thing that changed was recognizing that I was in victim mentality, recognizing that I was a people pleaser, and recognizing that I was a perfectionist and that these things weren’t serving me. Because before, I’d been told that these things are serving me, like people leasers and perfectionists are like on a pedestal. And so, I was like, oh, these things about me are not helpful, not serving me. And I think that was when I really started to question everything and really started to put myself first and I stopped working on the weekends. And did my students suffer? Maybe a little bit. But I think in the long run, no because they had a teacher that had boundaries and a teacher that was prioritizing her health and prioritizing her life. And did my parents love that? No. Did my admin love that? No. But I finally felt in control of myself and my thoughts and my life.

Angela: But do you really think that by taking better care of yourself it was a detriment to your students?

Jewelle: No. I think I initially thought that it was because I was like, I’m not grading, I’m not planning, my lessons are not A-plus-plus-plus. But I think really, I was more there for them. I emotionally had the capabilities mentally to have the space to really think better, to show up for them, to analyze what was happening instead of just throwing everything at the wall.

Angela: And I also think you’re more intuitive as a teacher because when you’re rested and you’re feeling good and you are in the present moment with your students, you’re much more in tune to what’s actually going on in the classroom and inside of the students than thinking about you spent four hours writing every detail of your lesson plan and trying to follow the plan versus being more intuitive in terms of what do I actually need to do in this moment for my students?

Jewelle: Yeah, totally, 100% because your focus is different. And you’re taking care of yourself, but you’re also taking care of them and they’re seeing that role model of what it means to be a teacher, what it means to be an adult. And I saw that role model as a child, of what that meant, and so I followed it as an adult. And that was not healthy for me.

And so really, when you’re taking care of yourself, giving your students that view of, like, “Hey, you can be an amazing excellent teacher and you can also have excellent boundaries and excellent self-care.”

Angela: This is so, so good. I want you guys to hear this. You are a better leader and a better teacher when you take care of yourself. And it’s against every belief system you’ve ever been taught. So, Jewelle, when you made that decision that you were going to prioritize your self-care and work a little bit less and have some boundaries around your time and your life – and of course those old belief systems would pop up, like I should be working, I should be doing this – how did you navigate that in your mind? When that urgency to work longer came up, what was it that you did to help yourself commit to the self-care and the boundaries?

Jewelle: Yeah, it wasn’t overnight, for sure. And it took a lot of practice. I remember when I left my job in the middle of summer, I thought I was the worst human being in the world for leaving in the summer and doing what I needed to do 100%, but leaving my school in a little bit of a lurch. And I had to practice that. I had to – telling my family, who are all teachers, like telling my family I was no longer teaching, that took a lot of bravery. And I immediately started looking for other jobs because I had my worth tied up into work.

And so, I didn’t know what to do when I wasn’t teaching. And so, I immediately started looking for other jobs and none of them felt right. And I didn’t get any of them, which is a good thing.

Angela: Right, the universe had your back there.

Jewelle: Yeah, the universe had my back. But I started just listening to my intuition and saying, like, do I want to do this? Will I love this? Is this going to be for me? And it kept coming up as no. And learning how to listen to my body through food and taking care of myself, and I had to learn how to listen to my intuition and trust my gut and trust myself. Because part of me overworking was I didn’t trust myself to know what was the right thing for me. I thought everyone else knew what was the right thing for me. I thought my parents knew what was right, my admin knew what was right, you know, everybody else. But I knew what was right for me.

And so, learning to listen to my guy, trust myself, and then have my own back all the way through. And when I did that, you know, it took a year and a half or so. And I remember – not to go on a tangent, but I remember that summer I left teaching, February, I got an email from the dream school I had applied to a year ago that didn’t hire me at that point, but they were sold, they loved me.

And I got an email from one of the teachers at the school saying, “Hey, we have a position open on my team. You have to apply.” And so I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m needed. I’m wanted. This is it. I can go back. This is the perfect school. This is the perfect situation.” And I did all these things, I started applying and I wrote the cover letter and I was gearing up. And I had this pit in my stomach the entire time.

And because I had been practicing listening to my intuition, I didn’t listen to it for a week but I kept crying and crying about this job and I realized, like, if I’m crying about something, it’s probably not the right decision.

Angela: Yes, note to self…

Jewelle: Like, I’m in tears about something, that’s a sign. That’s a sign my body is giving me and telling me that maybe I should check my thinking on this. And so, I actually wrote to her and said sorry, I’m actually not teaching anymore. And that was the first time I had told anyone that I’m not teaching, and I had no idea what I was doing next. And it was the most terrifying moment of my life.

But I got an email back that was not nice, that was like, not supportive and really kind of rude. And I was like, “Oh thank gosh I said no.” And that was kind of like the first moment where I was like, confirmed, yes, I know what I’m doing, I can trust myself.

Angela: Yeah, that is always a scary moment. And I do think that when we make a commitment to ourselves, something comes along that will test that commitment every single time and even though it felt horrible and scary and sad to say no, in the end, you held the course and stayed on track and that’s what empowered leadership is. It’s staying that course and feeling within yourself that you know the answer, the truth of what you need to do even when on the outside it might not look right. So, kudos to you for saying no to that and then getting on the other side and being like, “Dodged a bullet there.”

Jewelle: Yeah, totally.

Angela: So, what can school leaders do – what should they be tuning into or how can they support teachers like you? Because it sounds like you are that rock star teacher that every principal wants to hire. Like, you’re the A-plus student, you’re the one that gets all your things turned in on time. You get your work done. You get your test scores up. Like, you’re doing the work. The principal probably has to do very little for you and you will go almost – you’re like the top of the class. So, those high-flyer kids get a little bit less attention. And I want our school leaders to hear, just because somebody’s doing an excellent job, doesn’t mean that they’re feeling excellent and you could lose them of you’re not tuned into what is going on with them and how to support them. So, what are your tips for school leaders?

Jewelle: Yeah, I just want to agree with that statement because I was that teacher. I got five teaching jobs and five years. Despite having those things on my resume, people wanted me and I was a really good teacher. I ran a tight ship. Parents wanted their kids in my class. I got my test scores up every single year. And yeah, I was the epitome of success as a teacher.

But I think really what administrators and leaders can do is create that atmosphere, that culture of self-care, self-love, and boundaries. Like, set boundaries themselves and model that for their teachers. So, you know, they go home at four or five o’clock, they don’t stay until eight o’clock at night and they go and spend time with their families. Or they tell their teachers, “Hey, you can’t contact me on the weekends.” Like, setting those boundaries up and showing up for your teachers not just when you have a review or you have a demo lesson, but showing up and saying. “Hey, how’s it going?” Really having that personable connection so there isn’t such a gap.

I feel like in many of my schools, it was like the leaders and then the teachers and it was one against the other. And so, really doing their best to support the teachers and, if you notice someone who is type-A super-great perfectionist kind of a person that you think is amazing, the chances are there’s something going on there that they really need support with. Because there’s a reason why people are like that and there’s a sense of lack or worth or self-care.

Angela: Exactly. And I think what’s hard for school leaders – most school leaders, they were that teacher. They were that A-plus teacher. That’s why they get tapped. And then they get put into the administrative role, which is times 10 what the teacher role is, if you can only imagine. And then they try to fill that role with the same strategy and the same approach, which is overwork, overwork, and you cannot scale yourself to that level. There’s only so many hours in a day and so much energy that you have. And so, if you are a type-A leader and you’ve got really amazing teachers, check in with them.

Jewelle: That’s a sign.

Angela: Yeah. And actually, I think you’re right, Jewelle, to set up – you modeling boundaries, like you saying we’re all going home at four o’clock today, myself included, or celebrating the end of a year, like we’re not having a staff meeting, or something that just acknowledges and appreciates people’s time and effort and energy and tells them that yes you’re doing a great job and it’s not worth killing yourself because if you’re not there for kids, you’re definitely not doing a service to the community.

Jewelle: Yeah, and just teaching our teachers the model, teaching them how to empower themselves. Because I think empowering their teachers empowers the students. Because the teachers – that directly translates how teachers show up us how students are going to show up, the culture. I think cultivating that culture of love and compassion and empathy and cultivating that culture – and you can still have compassion, love, and empathy, and excellence. So, yeah, I think definitely doing that and definitely – the modeling I think is the key.

Angela: And I think that this whole concept of personal development and life coaching, it’s a very new concept for educators at large. It’s new for teachers and it’s new for leaders. Tell us more about what you do specifically. So, you kind of – you’re not exactly teaching in terms of education anymore, but you are a certified life coach and you are helping young women with infertility issues. Can you say more about that?

Jewelle: Yes, of course. So, I help women get pregnant without the emotional rollercoaster. And getting pregnant, I’m sure many of you know, is kind of an emotional rollercoaster to begin with. And then add hormone imbalances, add stress, add infertility. I know, I have told myself – and I’m currently going through this. I’m about ready to start IVF, and I know even starting IVF, I could never have been a teacher and done IVF because you need to miss so much. You have appointments every single morning.

And so, really, taking that into consideration for your teachers who are wanting to have a family, who are stressed out, their chances of having their success and their dream of kids, you know, is scientifically proven, my story was an example, depletes your hormones. And so, I think that’s definitely a struggle with teachers and having families. Because there are a lot of young women teachers who want families and I have a lot of clients that are teachers that are struggling with infertility and feeling like they have to quit their jobs because they can’t take a day off or they can’t take time for the doctor’s appointments every time.

Angela: Exactly. So, if school leaders know of teachers who need support, especially if they’re young and trying to get pregnant and they’re teaching, they can come to you and learn how to manage their stress of the job and all of the excitement of trying to get pregnant. So, where can people find out more information about you?

Jewelle: Yeah, you can contact me. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Instagram. My website. My Facebook and Instagram handle is @simplyjewellecoaching and you can find me at www.simplyjewelle.com and I’d be happy to get in touch with you and help you manage your stress, help you manage your anxiety while getting pregnant.

Angela: Jewelle, I want to thank you so much. This is a really intimate sharing of a teacher’s experience and how the stress of teaching and education and that pressure to be perfect and to people please and to do all of the things so that your boss approves of you, you really were authentic and vulnerable in sharing your personal journey and I thank you for that because these are the kinds of stories that school leaders need to be reminded of that our teachers are humans on the planet doing the best job they can and they’re working really hard, but they have personal lives, just like we do.

And as much as we want to create boundaries for ourselves as school leaders, our teachers are trying to do the same. So, we want to be the example of that and to be the example that it is possible to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically, and to create a space, a culture where teachers are allowed to do the same.

Jewelle: Yeah, and I think that’s totally possible. Going back to teaching, if I ever were to go back to teaching now after having these tools, I would approach it entirely differently.

Angela: Yeah, I can imagine. Well, I wish you all the best. You are amazing. I would have hired you at my school. And I just think you are such a lovely energy in the world and I know you’re going to be amazing and help so many people and I look forward to connecting with you again. Thanks so much for being on the podcast and taking the time.

Jewelle: Thank you for having me on. It was lovely taking.

Angela: Alright, take care. Bye.

Jewelle: Bye.

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