Activity - 1For the activity “The Awesome Anthem” on page 449 in the Onward workbook I created a circular frame and my reflection as a chibi (chibi is a Japanese slang word describing something short [a thing, an animal or a person]. ... The term is widely used in Japan to describe a specific style of caricature where characters are drawn in an exaggerated way. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chibi_(slang)). It did not turn out the best and I used my new metallic gel pens when I really should of sketched out in pencil first. However, for the speech bubble I wrote “YOU ARE ENOUGH!” in the hopes that if I continue to tell myself of my worth it will help with the doubts in my mind. I found the information provided in Chapter 8 of Onward to be hopefully as well and wish to build my own compassion towards others in a healthier way. I often feel bogged down by the struggles of others and I unhealthily soak in the stress of others. I need to practice overcoming compassion fatigue and train my brain not to activate when experiencing others suffering. There is only so much I can do, I have limits and I need to build this thought process into my teaching. I am enough as I am and there are events outside my control that are not up to me. These thoughts need to be happening in my mind more instead of trying to take on too much and getting bogged down by what I can not do for others. Activity - 2Chapter 9 of Onward had the suggestion of keeping a time log which I think would be an excellent check of what I do throughout the day and what I really am spending my time on considering what I wrote in our activity Beliefs and Assumptions About Time on page 499 was that I feel I only have time for work, paperwork, gradwork, planning. Which are things I set aside time for but have daily distractions that may cause me from focusing and finishing in a timely fashion. I would like to have time to take care of my own health better, wedding organizing (especially now that I have less than a month left), taking the family out, seeing friends, and it would be nice to get to a movie at an actual theatre. I also thought of what I am using my time for that could be used for a different purpose and it included: binge reading Webtoons, social media scrolling (even though I really don’t feel I do this often but it’s still a waste of time) and I also have sleeping wrote down but I am having issues sleeping to much just from mental exhaustion lately. Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Activity - 1Towards the end of Chapter 6, in Onward by Aguilar, is a section called Learn to Say No. I desperately need to take the advice from these pages, I am often overcommitting myself. I need a reality check of what I can successfully accomplish with my time when I’m helping ten different people with various projects that I get talked into. I need to be more self aware and ask “what do I want to do?” to become better at saying no. This week's first activity Sixty-Five Ways to Care for Yourself made me realize how little I take care of myself as well. Some of my favorites from my own personal list were to lift weights with my other half (he's a health nut and had way more marked off on this list!), home facials, girls day with my tinys, family movie night, and to start park hiking again. I already successfully did the weights this morning and hopefully as the week continues I will check off the other self care to dos! Activity - 2The activity for Chapter 7 was to create a photo collage of what matters to me. As I reflect on my photos over the week and I look through my phone, facebook, and instagram it's blatantly obvious that family, events/experiences, and friends are at the top of my themes in my images. It’s also obvious if I want to be more present for these important themes in my life I have to get my work stress under control and one way to do this would be to shift my mindset to focus more on the “Bright Spots” in my career. The section Deal with Emotions in Chapter 7 of Onward was one I thought I could easy apply when I am experiencing stress at work. I feel the four-step practice of RAIN would be a good reflective practice when I am feeling overcome with emotional stress.
Activity - 1Chapter 4 in Onward has been my favorite of the chapters so far and really stuck out to me due to my position as a shared teacher. I spend my mornings in one school environment and then my afternoon in a different school. I really like my school district as a whole and enjoy both buildings, however, being a share teacher often makes me feel like an outsider. It makes me feel like I don’t fully belong to either place and due to scheduling I am often left out of school wide celebrations/events that are held monthly. My first year teaching I had the time to eat in the teachers lounge and I will always be so appreciative of the advice and kindness I was shown by two of the veteran elementary teachers who I ate with. The year after that I had to spend my time pumping for my second child. After I returned to work I never did get back to eating with others at the school. In this sense I do relate to the section A Dive into Fear. My fear of not belonging causes me to avoid my peers in the workplace (Aguilar, 2018). My antisocial tendencies cause me anxiety that make me feel that I have diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain. I over analyze every interaction I have and am constantly on the look out for others nonverbal communications. The activity from pages 220-223 was intriguing as it made me realize the traits I really value in my close friends. I connect well to individuals that are brutally honest, people who are not afraid to tell you how it is. On the other end of that I reflected on a trait that makes me the most wary, those who complain openly and harshly about others behind their back. These are individuals I avoid because in my mind this is an individual who would do the same treatment to me. I find it strange that I avoid this in my peers but I’m upfront when my students do this and combat this behavior in my classroom regularly. Students do this so often it is draining to keep up on, my go to method is to state that the comments they are saying are hurtful to me because I respect that individual and that when they speak that way it makes me wonder what they say behind my back. This works pretty well with students who I have a good relationship with and varying effects with others. Activity - 2In chapter 5 I found myself relating with the information on mindfulness and meditation. That mindfulness assists with focusing on the present, being in the moment and that through practice you can change reactions you have to certain situations/stimulus. Information from this chapter and from our guest speaker, Steffany Kroeger, came in extremely useful this weekend. This weekend I was taken on an adventure in celebration of my upcoming marriage. Four of my closest friends surprised me by showing up and taking me on a weekend excursion to Kansas City! While there I used a few techniques I had learned from Steffany Kroeger in class. One example I can explain best is how I am always worried I will not remember an experience to the fullest and all I will end up having are the photos. Through practicing focusing on the five senses while downtown I was much more at ease in this new bustling environment. Some examples include; the sounds of the commuters and tourists on the Street Car, the smells of the market food stalls, the macro details hidden in the Union Train Station architecture, the tastes of the local cafes, and the tactile of the plant life that was incorporated throughout the downtown area. Even though my friends had to toss out the timeline they had prepared it was all worth it for the spontaneity and being allowed the freedom to enjoy the city on our own time instead of by what a schedule suggested. By practicing those suggestions I felt more intune to my friends, surroundings, and the experience of our excursion. Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Activity - 1The Lesson About Strong Emotions on pages 105-106 in the workbook surprised me in how analytically I reflected on the prompt questions. I often thought back to knowledge I had learned in psychology classes and then considered how I personally viewed what life experiences had taught me. It also made me realize that I could be helping my students understand their feelings better. I often practice empathetic listening but I could do better by telling empowering stories to those I find struggling. Another reflection to these prompt questions was the feeling of “out of body”. However, when experiencing these emotions in the moment it can be difficult to think about them rationally and why you are feeling what you are. In Chapter two, on pages 56-59, the book Onward speaks about practicing body scans when a strong emotion hits. It talks about how you can start checking your own non-verbal communications and practice understanding yourself better so that you can have a more positive body awareness and better responses to experiences that affect your emotions (Aguilar, 2018). This is a quality I would like to practice and become better at. Activity - 2The activity Problematic Core Beliefs, on pages 174-177, in the Onward workbook made me analyze how I'm often my own worst enemy for my mental state. I scored myself high on the lack of trust and self-sacrificingness problematic core beliefs. These core beliefs cause me to negatively think about issues that are often out of my control or to be unreasonably anxious in social situations. The self-sacrificing belief often overloads my workload. I continually say yes to others and then feel shame when I have let someone down because I had too much on my plate. Lack of trust belief stems from a past relationship experience of verbal and emotional abuse (Psychology classes in college helped me realize that I needed to get out of that poisonous relationship but the after effects still stick with me). I often feel overly anxious about fostering new peer friendships because I worry I’m not good enough or likable enough. Even with these pestering problematic core beliefs I do feel I am overtly optimistic. I found the end of Chapter three to be uplifting with its information on being optimistic and how doing so would assist with my problematic core beliefs. The bullet list from pages 91-92 in Onward were especially satisfying as I considered if I, myself, held the thoughts on enjoying the process and seeing everything as part of your journey, finding solutions to problems instead of constantly complaining, and avoiding negative people (Aguilar, 2018). Aguilar, E. (2018). The Onward Workbook: Daily Activities to Cultivate Your Emotional Resilience and Thrive. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Aguilar, E. (2018). Onward: Cultivating Emotional Resilience in Educators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. |
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