“I do a lot of personal work so that I can do things. I'm good at setting boundaries (….) I know myself well enough, or I know to pay attention to the small things to hold on to them.”
LEARNING TO DISCONNECT AND BE PRESENT
“If you don't know how to do it, then you have to do something to teach you how to do it. So read some books, find a good therapist, model after a friend, ask some other folks how they do it. And then you got to try every day and you can do little things. I'm terrible with my cell phone—I'm actually awful with it. One of the things that I do is that I put it on the charger every night at dinner, so that it's not anywhere near me. It's like putting the alarm a hundred feet away from you in the morning so that you actually get out of bed to go get it. So you have to put it in a lock box. I've done that, too. Actually, it's like a joke in my family. But you want to know what? It worked. I was able to turn it off. Turn off your text messaging. I do that. I literally go into my notifications and I turn it off.”
“I think that's the component that we're missing. People say that it's never-ending. It's really also that you're not giving yourself time to be present in moments. And you need to, especially if you're a teacher. You probably love learning and if you aren't giving yourself time to become present, you're not learning new things outside of the content. Because we aren't [just] what we teach—we're multifaceted. I have lots of interests. I'm not just a musician (….) You’ve got to give yourself the space to put your brain in another direction.”
“I know that that sounds easier said than done. So if you don't know how to do it, you've got to find some ways that'll teach you how.”