Teacher Therapy Session: Perfectionism & The Holidays [S5 E130]

teacher-therapy

Listen to the full episode below:

Today’s episode is truly a gift to the Brave New Teaching community. It’s Amanda here, and I’m joined by my dear friend and life coach, Blair Wilson.

I met Blair during 2020 when I was taking my first steps in seeking out therapy and mental help support during the overwhelming experience of pandemic teaching. I knew that I needed to have someone to talk to in order to process through my aspirations, my issues, my questions, and all of the things that were holding me up in my personal life and making teaching particularly difficult at the time, other than the circumstances. Enter Blair.

Blair is one of the most compassionate, thoughtful, and brilliant people I have ever known. She has helped me tremendously in my personal and professional life, and I know she will help you too.

In this conversation, we are focusing on the topic of perfectionism in teachers, especially during the holiday season. There are so many expectations from us during this season both at home and at work. All of this chaos can really take a toll on our mental health, so she is going to help us navigate through the perfectionism, realign our expectations, and just be more present in our lives.

After listening, you can reach out to us on Instagram @bravenewteaching and @theblairwilson. Blair has offered to take requests for things that you need. Whether it’s a checklist, blog post, or another podcast episode…send us a message and let us know what would be helpful!

Meet Blair:

Blaire is a magnetic and creative life coach and licensed clinical social worker living in sunny California. Her gift is uplifting everyone around her and intuitively assessing what her clients need (even without them saying so!) .

As a former perfectionist, Blaire loves to help women break out of the perfectionist and people pleasing tendencies to cultivate more self love and serenity.

She is an enneagram 7 (the enthusiast) and can’t get enough of her two yellow labs Millie and Charlie.

Topics Discussed in This Episode:

  • How and why teachers struggle so much with perfectionism. 

  • What perfectionism looks like, and how it can hold you back from opportunities. 

  • Whether or not perfectionism follows certain enneagram types more than others

  • Some of the perfectionist traps that we fall into around the holidays

  • Blair’s 4-step process for overcoming perfectionism 

  • Tips for getting out of our heads and being more present

More about Brave New Teaching:

Join hosts Amanda Cardenas (Mud & Ink Teaching) and Marie Morris (The Caffeinated Classroom) in discussions about being brave, trying new things, and all things teaching! As seasoned classroom teachers, Amanda and Marie bring their experience, insight, energy, and oh, so many opinions and ideas... It's time for all teachers to take their classroom and teaching practice into their own hands!

Tune in on your favorite podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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