TRANSCRIPT - Mental Health Matters - Managing Burnout and Boosting Resilience Ð 5/6/24 >>Amelia: Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for joining. Hey, Kate, about how many people do we have? >>Kate: About 30. >>Amelia: About 30. Perfect. Cool. So thanks for inviting me back to do another Coffee Hour. I am a licensed clinical social worker based here in Utah. And I'm here to talk a little bit about emotional wellness and resilience. For those of you who tuned in or watched my presentation last year, you're going to remember that we spent quite a bit of time -- you might remember, no judgment if you don't, we spent quite a bit of time discussing the symptoms of burnout and our window of tolerance. We're going to be reviewing some of that same information that we discussed last year but just as a brief review. Stay tuned. It will be just a little bit of a refresher for you but I want to provide an opportunity for people who maybe haven't or aren't familiar with the topics to kind of orient themselves in those concepts. Because we'll still be using those as a guidepost today. I'm really hoping, ultimately, throughout our time together that I'll be able to guide you in finding some practical strategies to improve your overall wellness and increase your resilience. So let's get going. Of course, definitely if you have any questions, just pop them in the chat. Kate's going to keep an eye on those. And so any questions or anything that you feel like you really just want to share, that's fine. It's okay. Get a little vulnerable, if you're comfortable. But if you're not, that's okay too. All right. So on this slide I have a -- >>Kate: Amelia, Amelia, I'm so sorry. We are not seeing the slides. We're on a different tab. You just need to go back to the -- >>Amelia: Hold on. All righty. Okay. >>Kate: There we go. >>Amelia: Yes? Two thumbs up? >>Kate: Yes. Two thumbs up. >>Amelia: Perfect. Oh, gosh. I swear I know how computers work. Okay. So on this slide I have a -- just a picture of some rocks balancing on a beach. And just similar to last year I want to start out with a little bit of practice in our mindfulness. So I want to do just a brief mindfulness exercise to get us all focused, shake off the stress of your workday, maybe your work year. You're approaching the end of the school year, although for some of you the end of the school year doesn't exist. Participate in this to your comfort level. If you're not comfortable closing your eyes, that's okay. Keep them open, find a point to look at, and soften your gaze. All right. So I'm going to invite you to just get comfortable, whether you're sitting or laying down. I'm going to invite you to close your eyes. And when you take your next breath, I want you to just simply be more conscious. Allow your breath to bring you into the present moment here and now. Breathe through your nose. Inhale cool air and nurture yourself. Exhale warm air and expel any tension and negative emotion. Just focus on your breath. Focus on right now. I'd like to invite you to direct your attention to your feet. Feel your feet connecting you to the floor and the Earth. Gentle correct your posture by slowly lifting your chin until the top of your head radiates up towards the sky. Relax your shoulders down like ice melting in a hot spring. Feel your neck grow long. Relax your forehead. Relax your eyes. Relax your jaw. Relax your ears. And relax the muscles at the back of your neck. Notice your breath and allow it to bring you into the present moment where you're safe, relaxed, and doing something positive. Quiet your mind. Let thoughts go by, like leaves floating in a mountain stream. Bring your attention to your breath. Disengage from the past and from the future. Enjoy fully the present moment. Begin to cultivate an inner peace, a safe place in your heart filled with love and light and just breathe. When you're ready, I'd like to invite you to return back to the room -- room, in air quotes. Open your eyes and just take a moment to just notice your surroundings. I'm so glad that you're here and you're here with me and we're here together. And I'm so glad that we can all meet to learn a little bit about ourselves and a little bit more about wellness. I want to turn to the chat for a minute and how is everybody feeling? >>Kate: We have relaxed, super relaxed. I should do that every day, honestly. >>Amelia: Yes, you should. We'll get into that, girl. Perfect. Okay. Wonderful. All right. So I want you feeling relaxed. I'm hoping you're feeling open. And don't fall asleep on me but if you do, that's okay. I won't know because I can't see you. Okay. All right. So I want to talk first a little bit about my objectives for our time together today. And I hope to be able to accomplish four things. I want you to be able to recognize the signs of burnout and understand the causes of burnout. I also hope to help give you some guidance on developing your own coping strategies and self-care practices. This being a group of educators, I know you all -- you have to have a fair amount of resilience just to show up every day. So I hope today, in our time, that you'll be able to identify some things that you can do to enhance that resilience that you already have. So we're going to start by just reviewing a little bit about burnout. So Babette Rothschild is a therapist who treats stress and trauma. She kind of specializes in secondary trauma, so the helpers is what she calls them. She has a book called Help for the Helpers and in it she defines burnout, burnout occurs when inadequate self-care from any combination of risk factors becomes so extreme that your about to function normally becomes severely compromised. Think of burnout as a potential any time someone is overloaded with responsibility to the point of mental and physical collapse. End quote. So that's what burnout is but what does it look like? I want to kind of return back to the chat and I want everyone to just kind of think for a minute what are the warning signs or symptoms that typically manifest for you when you're approaching burnout? If you feel comfortable sharing, that would be great. >>Kate: This is Kate. While we wait for the chat, I'll say I definitely feel myself, like, not wanting to do anything. It's like the to-do pile is too big. I don't want to do it. >>Amelia: Do you find yourselves disconnecting? >>Kate: For sure. Britney says in chat, start to feel overwhelmed and getting angry easily. Lisa says overwhelmed. April, brain fog. Oh, I feel all of these. Work production decreases. >>Amelia: Yes. Yes. Those are all ones I can relate to as well. >>Kate: Lack of sleep. Stressed. >>Amelia: Yeah. Kind of goes up to here. You just can't stay afloat. >>Kate: Tempermental. >>Amelia: Emotion regulation is a big one and it's not one we talk about a lot but emotion regulation is a big one that I feel like we can't find balance. To the extremes. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you so much for sharing. So let's review some of the symptoms of burnout. Some of these are going to sound familiar, because you just said them. And some of them might surprise you because sometimes we don't talk about these lesser-known things that burnout can be. I think we tend to attribute them to other things. But burnout sometimes gets taken out of the conversation. So here we have this list. Physically drained. Feeling overloaded, overworked. Skipping out on social activities. Sleep problems. Sleeping too much or not able to get enough sleep. Waking up tired. Dreaming about work. One of mine. Missing deadlines. Little or no motivation to go to work. Loss of enthusiasm and pleasure. Loss of concentration. Quality of work is inconsistent or declining. Missing deadlines, disengaging, and thinking often about quitting. Okay. All of these are ways that burnout can show up in our lives. And I think it's important that we keep these in mind as you go -- as we go to our little journey together today. And see where do these pop up. And then I really want you to also, how do they feel? Because so many things on a society -- we live in a society that almost prides itself on its burnout, right? How many all-nighters we pulled in college and how many hours a week were at the office and all of those things. They're almost like badges of honor that we give ourselves. And when we don't, if we're not feeling -- I don't know if anybody can relate to this. But sometimes when we don't feel these things, these symptoms of burnout, we also are feeling shame, right? And so if we're not tired and we're not overstressed and we're not overwhelmed, we're kind of wondering, well, maybe I need to be taking more on. And so I really hope that by discussing some of these things we'll be able to help you find a balance. So we're going to jump into the concept of window of tolerance. Those who participated or watched my presentation last year may recognize the image on the screen. That's this chart that I adapted from the national institute for the clinical application of behavioral medicine. Ooh, Kate loves the window of tolerance. The window of tolerance was developed by a psychiatrist named Dr. Dan Segal. It's a concept used to describe the ideal zone of emotional and physiological arousal for everyday life. That's a mouthful. Don't worry. We'll break it down. So if someone is operating and they're living out of this zone, they're able to deal with everyday stressors. The ups, the downs, whatever life is throwing at them, they feel like they can manage it and they can manage their emotions well while doing it. It doesn't mean that the ups and downs don't happen, it just means that if you're in your window of tolerance you feel like you're the one in charge and that you can manage the stressors. So in this chart, we have five colored boxes that are arranged vertically. Each box or zone describes a state of arousal. When we talk about arousal, we're talking about physiological and emotional, how high we're getting or how disconnected we're getting. So each zone describes a state of arousal within this window of tolerance concept. At the top we have red, which is hyperarousal. Below that we have a yellow/orange mac and cheese box titled dysregulation. Below that we have a green zone labeled window of tolerance. Below that we have blue zone, also dysregulation. Below that we have a purple zone which is hypoarousal. So we're going to start in the middle with the green zone, which is our window of tolerance. This, again, this optimal zone of arousal. If you're in this zone, you feel present, regulated, and safe. You have your ups and downs, life feels manageable and you feel in control. Sometimes this is called the resilient zone or the okay zone. If we go up to the orange box above green, we have one of the zones of dysregulation. This kind of dysregulation is the kind that leads to hyperarousal. So we think about high blood pressure as hypertension. Low blood pressure is hypotension. We're looking at hyperarousal. If you're in this zone, your feelings of frustration and agitation increase. If you're in the zone of dysregulation, I should clarify, your feelings of frustration and agitation are going to increase. You might feel like you might explode or you want to explode but you still feel like you're in control. This is kind of like a yellow warning light. Right? If we're in our dysregulation. We're not quite at hyperarousal but we're getting there. If we go to the red zone, that again is hyperarousal. When you're in this zone, you feel overwhelmed, anxious, or out of control. This is where we experience that classic fight-or-flight response. And then we're going to reorient ourselves down at the green box, that window of tolerance. Right in the middle. So if we go down, we have this blue box, which is another zone of dysregulation. This is the zone of dysregulation that comes as we're approaching hypoarousal. When we're in the zone of dysregulation, we feel like we're becoming increasingly unmotivated, maybe even a little lethargic and we're close to shutting down or zoning out. We are uncomfortable but still in control. When we reach true hypoarousal, that's the purple zone just below the blue. This is where we feel physically numb or frozen. We disconnect, we zone out. We disassociate from ourselves and our environment around us. We detach from those around us and we really just want to numb out and disconnect. So this is our -- the purple zone is our freeze or shut down response. So hyper, fight or flight. Hypo freeze or shut down. Instead of digging into the zones of dysregulation in hyper and hypoarousal a little bit more, because I did that last year. Feel free to go back and watch that presentation. I'm going to focus on that window of tolerance and how we can develop it. And you don't have to watch my presentation from last year. There's so much information online about this. Just Google "window of tolerance" and you'll find lots of cute things that pop up. But I want to talk about the window of tolerance because I want to focus on how we can expand and grow that. So our green zone, window of tolerance. On this slide I have a little drawing of a stick person throwing their hands up in celebration saying "I got this." When we are functioning in our window of tolerance, we feel balanced. We feel calm. We're relaxed and we feel in control and we feel like we're able to take on daily challenges. If we're in our window, we got this. Sometimes our window is really big. It's big. We feel like we can handle everything that life has to throw at us. Whatever it is that day, I can take care of business. Right? Sometimes we wake up and that window is non-existent. Like I'll get out of bed. I sneeze funny and, all right, my whole day is thrown off. I'm toxic. I'm going back to bed. Nobody talk to me. On this slide we have a graphic of this window. Through it you can see the sun, the clouds, and the sky. Again, sometimes we refer to this as our resilience zone or the okay zone. To the left of this window, in red, is a list of some common things that will shrink our window of tolerance. Things that may get smaller. These things can include: Poor sleep, physical illness, anxiety, trauma, poor nutrition, stress, grief, and rejection. While this is not an exhaustive list, these are all common things that make our okay zone smaller. On the right side of the window in green we have a list of things that expand the window of tolerance. These things include: Gratitude, mindfulness, grounding exercises, self-care, and movement. Movement -- and I chose that word specifically, not just exercise, but movement. Movement in a way that feels good for you. And that can be lots of things. That can be taking a walk. It doesn't have to be, okay, I have to go to the gym, which I hate, and grind for an hour and a half because that's what Gillian Michael told me I had to do. It can be anything. Find a way to move your body that feels good to you. I want to take a quick minute and go to the chat and see if we have any comments or questions about window of tolerance or recognizing signs of burnout . I'll give just a minute for people to offer any questions or comments. >>Kate: None yet. >>Amelia: Okay. So that's great. That's good. It means so far I'm speaking coherently. Okay. So what I would like to do also is throw out the question -- and we're going to come back to this slide, the slide with the window of tolerance graph on it. And I want you to think about what are some of your warning signs. So the yellow box and the blue box, those are our warning signs. When we start to feel agitated and that increases and we're getting uncomfortable but we're still in control. I want you to think about what are your warning signs. For me, if I'm approaching hyperarousal, I start to get hot. Like, really, really, really warm in temperature. Not like I don't become Kate Upton or anything. I become very warm in temperature. I start to get a little bit red. I'm a little bit red right now because this is intimidating. So what are some of the things -- what are some of the warning signs for you? Does your heart race? Do you get sweaty? You don't have to share if you don't want to but I want you to have a moment where you're mindfully thinking what does your body experience when you're approaching these warning signs. >>Kate: Ragan says I want to push back. >>Amelia: Interesting! >>Kate: Stomach ache. >>Amelia: Yeah. Physiological response there. Uh-huh. >>Kate: Tightness in the chest. >>Amelia: What about concentration? Does anybody struggle with concentration? That can be a sign for both hyper and hypoarousal. That's one that I have for sure. I really struggle to concentrate on conversations. That's one of my warning signs. If I can't focus on a conversation -- which is scary to say when you're a therapist because that's kind of all I have to do is just focus on a conversation. You know, like I know, hey, I need to do some time for self-care. Okay. >>Kate: Ragan says very much, difficult to focus. >>Amelia: And some of the ones that also fit into this are maybe we go home and we have an extra glass of wine that we normally wouldn't have at night on a weekday. Or extra, you know, few extra cigarettes because it's been a really, really stressful day. Or an extra piece of chocolate cake. Something maybe we wouldn't normally do but we're feeling it and we're going to dive into some kind of a numbing behavior. >>Kate: Someone put in the chat the opposite. Anxious and stomach upset. Not wanting to eat. >>Amelia: That's common too. Loss of appetite. Uh-huh. Okay. All right. Thank you, all for sharing. I know it can be really vulnerable to kind of open up, especially in a work setting. So I really appreciate the participation. Okay. So window of tolerance. Let's talk about ways that we can expand it. If we can expand that window of tolerance, we start to build a little bit of resistance to those factors that contribute to burnout. There's a few ways that we can do that. But before we dive into expanding the window of tolerance, I really want to focus on -- take a couple of minutes to focus on what do you do when you feel completely overwhelmed. What do you do when you are in hyperarousal or hypoarousal. What do you do in the moment? How do you manage that? How do you get through the day? These help now are practical strategies that help you regulate your nervous system and return to that window of tolerance very quickly. So the goal is that hopefully when you start noticing some of these warning signs, when you're getting a little disregulated, you can implement them before you get into crisis mode. These techniques and strategies is community resilience model developed by Elaine with the Trauma Resource Institute, called help now! Skills. These can help us reregulate our nervous system. This model states that the goal of these activities is to let your nervous system know that there is no threat and that you are okay. These things are good. Like this is part of our nervous system. If there is a threat, we want our body to respond with hyperarousal or hypoarousal if there's a threat. The problem is if there's not a threat and we kind of go into those zones, it's less helpful for us. It can be very disruptive. We need to tell our body that there's no threat and that you're okay. To do this we want to focus on sensations. What is your body experiencing in the moment and what can you do to change that. And so how can we divert attention to something that's more positive or neutral. For the most part, spending even 20 seconds focusing on these different sensations will help to reset your nervous system. 20 seconds is good. 30 seconds is better. See if you can do a minute or two, right? Some of them you don't do for ten minutes because that would be dumb. You could push against a wall for two minutes but after 30 seconds you'll probably notice something different. All right. Okay. So, a couple of these: Drinking a glass of water, juice, or tea. If you're outside, touch the surface of something in nature. Touch the grass, maybe a tree. Maybe the concrete. Look around the space where you are. Pay attention to anything that catches your eye. Name six colors that you see in the space that you're in. If you're inside, notice the furniture and touch the surface. Count backwards from 20 as you walk around the room. Notice the temperature of the space. Is it cold, warm, hot, or just right? Notice the sounds within the space, whether you're inside or outside. Walk and notice the movement in your arms and legs. Notice your feet making contact with the ground and how does that feel. Push your hands against a wall or door slowly and notice your muscles pushing. So literally push back. That's okay. When you practice these skills, you want to focus on sensation. And not just sensations of the things around you but what's happening inside of you. Are your muscles tense or loose? Is your breathing rapid or shallow? Are you cold, hot, just right? Focus on some of those physical sensations that happen in your body as you direct your attention from the panic or the freeze to doing something else. Again, these skills are things you can do in a moment of crisis to help reset your nervous system. But part of expanding that window of tolerance also includes establishing a wellness routine. Oh, actually, I forgot. I added this slide. So there's this app. I'm a social worker. I'm all about resources so there's this app. And I included it on the handout. From the Trauma Resource Institute. It's free. This sounds like I'm selling something. I'm not. It really is free. This is an agency who developed the trauma resilience and community resilience models and they utilize this model all over the world. They also have an online version of the app, if you don't have access to a smartphone or you were with a kiddo or client or, you know, you wanted to use the computer instead of your phone. So this walks you through the different zones of tolerance. Helps track where you're at. Are you high? Are you low? Then it walks you through help now skills. Totally free. It's called the iChill app and it's a really, really great tool and resource. Okay. So let's talk about building wellness into our routines so we can expand the window of tolerance. So, on this slide we have a pie chart of eight different areas of wellness. This is called the wellness wheel and each area is as important as the other, which is why each of the slices of the pie are the same size. The information for the next few slides on the wellness wheel is taken from the substance abuse and mental health services administration, or SAMSA, and their guide to wellness that they publish. That's the resource I put on the handout. It's free but it really does help you walk through. I'll talk more about that in a couple of slides. So on this chart -- because I like colors so I kind of did the rainbow thing, Roy G. BIV. We have physical wellness in orange, spiritual in green, intellectual in light blue. Environmental wellness in dark blue. Social wellness in purple, and financial wellness in pink. Let's briefly dive into these wellness just a little bit more. Okay. So on this slide we have occupational wellness and physical wellness. For occupational wellness in red, this can include participating in activities that provide meaning and purpose and reflect personal values. This can include daily activities, hobbies, employment. For this area we look at work relationships, balance, and accomplishment. Think about things like are you involved in work that fits your values? Do you schedule time for leisure activities like taking a walk or spending time with your friends? Are you acknowledging your own accomplishments? On the same slide in orange we have physical wellness. Now that can include things like good physical health habits like nutrition, exercise, appropriate healthcare. Some categories of physical wellness also add sleep, use of substances like alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs, medication safety, and preventive healthcare. Things you want to think about. Do you have access to nutritious food? Do you participate in enjoyable, physical activity? Do you go to the doctor, dentist, or other healthcare providers for routine care? For emotional wellness in yellow, this involves the ability to express our feelings, adjust to emotional challenges, cope with life stressors, and enjoy life. Some categories in this area include our feelings and emotions, self-care, and stress management. Ask yourself a few questions here: Do you acknowledge your feelings without judgment? Do you leave yourself plenty of time to get to work or other activities? Are you learning to manage stress in ways that work for you? All of those matter when it comes to emotional wellness. Next to emotional wellness in green we have spiritual wellness. This is definitely a broad topic and what it represents essentially is your personal beliefs and values and finding meaning, purpose, and having a sense of balance and peace in your life. Whatever that looks like. To look a little deeper in this area we can look at our beliefs, our involvements, and the time we devote to these things. Are you taking the time to decide what values, beliefs, and principles are important to you? Have you looked for a group in your community that helps you connect with others who share those beliefs? Are you receptive to your own spiritualty, even in times of pain or grief? Okay. All right. The next slide we have our blues. Light blue we have intellectual wellness, which are things that keep our brains active and our intellect expanding. In a greater sense, intellectual wellness can involve looking at different perspectives and taking them into consideration. Some categories of this dimension of wellness include personal interests, education, brain exercises, and conversation. In dark blue we have environmental wellness. Not something that we think about a lot but it matters. This can include things like green living, getting a change of scenery, and then your home and work environments. Overall, this dimension of wellness involves being able to be safe and feel safe. This can include having access to clean air, food, and water. Preserving the areas where we live, learn, and work. Occupying pleasant and safe environments that support our well being and then promoting learning, contemplation, and relaxation in natural places and in our spaces. All right. Our last two dimensions of wellness on this side we have social wellness in purple and then in pink we have financial wellness. So for social wellness, this involves having healthy relationships with friends, family, and a broader community. We can look at our broader community, meeting new people, how much time we're devoting to social activities. Questions you might want to ask yourself to assess this are have you scheduled time with friends for a movie or dinner? Are you open to meeting people from different backgrounds? Do you set aside quality time for friends and family? And then in pink we have our financial wellness. This domain can be defined in a few different ways but overall it involves things such as your income, debt, savings, as well as a person's understanding of financial processes and resources. We want to think about this domain of -- how this domain of wellness fits into our lives and how it's related to how well we're doing every day. Are you working in a field that you're passionate about or you do well? Are you able to spend time reviewing your finances weekly or monthly to plan for expenses? Is your savings in line with your life goals? All of those are things to take into consideration. So, I want to take a minute to just do a self-assessment. Feel free to chime in the chat if anything sticks out to you. But otherwise just note to yourself which ones kind of speak to you. Okay. So as I read through these habits, ask yourself honestly if you have noticed this in yourself. Do you push aside your own feelings to prioritize the feelings of others? Do you isolate and not seek support? Do you skip meals? Do you neglect hydration? Do you reduce or avoid breaks? Do you postpone normal time off such as weekends and holidays? Do you feel guilty about taking any time away for yourself? Do you work beyond the hours that you are actually paid for? And do you delay or stop taking vacation time? Reflect to yourself how many of these are your habits and how many times have you justified to yourself, oh, I should just save my time off anyway. Or less water means fewer trips to the bathroom. If you've noticed these same behaviors in a friend or colleague, what would you tell them to do? Would you encourage them to push through the hunger or push through the exhaustion or sleep less, like four hours? My guess is no. If a friend came to us and we had concerns about a friend or colleague exhibiting some of these signs of burnout, we would tell them that, you know, hey, take care of yourself. We don't often have that same message for ourselves. Okay. So, back to the wellness wheel. I want to give you the opportunity to look at it again. After we've kind of reviewed each of these areas, I want you to think, if you were to rate yourself on a scale of 1 through 10 with 10 being I do this really, really well, there isn't much room for improvement, how well do you do? Feel free to chime in the chat, if you feel like it, but really just a self-assessment on each of these areas. How well do you do? Do you have any ones? Do you have any tens? Really consider which areas of wellness that you do well and which areas maybe you could improve. I'll give you just a minute to look at this slide and we'll move on. Okay. I'm guessing that for most of you, at least one stuck out for, wow, I could really use some improvement there. Kate has a comment here. I feel like I definitely cycle. Sometimes I do some areas well and sometimes I do others well. But never all of the well at the same time. Yes. I think I can relate to that a little bit. But I always have one or two that I really, really need to work on. Okay. So included in the handout that I prepared is this link to the SAMHSA, creating a healthier life. A step by step guide to wellness. This is a free resource. If you feel like you're struggling in any of these areas, this guide may be able to help you explore what steps you need to take and identify resources to help you get there. If you're like, yeah, I really feel like I could improve my financial wellness or social wellness, pull that up. You know, a few pages. It's a PDF. Take a look and see where can you improve and how can you improve. If you're feeling overwhelmed in one of these areas of life, then go to see what kind of resources there are. Great tool to use. All right. So resilience. What it is, what it isn't, and how to cultivate it. And on this slide we've got a picture of a brain but half of the brain is cute flowers. So let's talk about resilience. So the American Psychological Association has this to say about resilience. Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustments to external and internal demands. It's how we adapt and it's how we move forward. What resilience isn't. So wellexcel.com has a great article. It does not mean having a smooth or painless life. The road to resilience is fraught with barriers, obstacles, setbacks, and challenges. While some people seem to naturally possess traits that make them resilient, we can all grow our resilience. Okay. So there's this picture of a sunflower on this slide. Sunflowers are my favorite flower. They have been since I was a kid. And the reason is that sunflowers can grow in the most unlikely of places. You find a sunflower in the middle of an asphalt parking lot. Maybe you'll find a few. And it just grew there. It found a crack. It found a way. Everybody is capable of growing resilience. Sometimes it might seem that it comes easier to other people. But if there's one thing that I want you to take away today it's that everybody has this and everybody can grow it. It's a skill. It's a skill that sometimes needs to be built. It's like a muscle that you need to work out. But it's possible to learn how to bounce back a little easier. All right. So in our last few minutes together I want to look at how we can build that resilience. There's this great article published by American Psychological Association that discusses the different components of resilience. They include our connections, finding a purpose, embracing healthy thoughts, and fostering wellness. Let's look just a little closer at each of these areas. Yes, thank you, Kate for putting that in the chat. I just saw you put that up. All these resources I included on my reference page. Let's look a little closer at each of these areas. I would like to invite you to notice how there is quite a bit of overlap between these eight dimensions of wellness and how we can build resilience. Because that overlap is important. So for this first section is building our connections. One way we can do this is by prioritizing our relationships. Even when we're going through a difficult time, if we're able to connect with compassionate and empathetic people, this can remind us we don't have to be alone. Seek support from the people who care about you. Another way we can build our connections is by joining a group. Look for groups on Facebook or through local organizations that maybe could offer support and maybe even a sense of purpose or joy when you need it most. The next way we can build resilience is by embracing healthy thoughts. Four ways we can do this are by keeping things in perspective, accepting change, maintaining a hopeful outlook, and learning from our past. Next is finding purpose. We can do this by helping others, being proactive, making progress towards our goals, and looking for opportunities for self-discovery. There are lots of times where people find that even in the midst of a difficult event or trauma that they've grown in some ways. So maybe somebody that is going through a traumatic event, they'll report that they have improved relationships with loved ones. Or they report that, wow, I'm actually a lot stronger than I thought I was. Those things are important. It's important to be honest about what you can already do. Be honest with yourself about that. Okay. And this fourth way that we can build resilience is by fostering wellness. We can do this by taking care of our bodies, practicing mindfulness, and avoiding negative outlets. It can be really tempting to turn to substances like alcohol or drugs or something that we classify as maladaptive behaviors like shopping, eating, gambling, to deal with our problems. Remember that for a coping mechanism -- I'm going to say "coping mechanism" to be considered a healthy coping skill, it needs to be healthy for you in both the short term and the long term. It's not a skill unless it's healthy for you both short term and long term. All right. Whew, I'm actually on time. I'm feeling really good about this. So, I want to just go to the chat and just see what kinds of questions do you have? What is sounding easy? What's sounding impossible? Is there anything else that I can help with today? Are there any slides that you want to look at again? >>Kate: Nothing in the chat yet. >>Amelia: Beautiful. No questions? Okay. Kate, take over. [Laughter] >>Kate: That's a strong ending. >>Amelia: Woohoo! >>Kate: Amelia, thank you so much. I was thinking about this in the middle of the presentation. I was like, man, I wish we would have done this in November. Here we are ready to end the school year. I'm excited to have these resources and things to really review, especially over the summer. Getting ready for next school year and maybe just start out with some of these already in mind and some strategies in place. I put in the chat I love the window of tolerance. That's actually something I learned with you last year during your session. So thank you for bringing that back and spending some time there. And it's interesting, too, some of you I recognize some of your names as being with us in our Texas Focus conference that we had in February where we talked about behavior. But we talked about reframing behavior as distress. So thinking about these things are so important for us and building our resilience and avoiding burnout. And thinking about how our students and how this impacts them as well. When our kids are exhibiting what we call "behaviors," how often is it because something is going on that they are out of their window of tolerance, right? Whether they're getting to that hyperactivity or hypoactivity. And those arousal states. Just, oh my gosh, this has been so good. Thank you so much. >>Amelia: I just have one more follow-up on what you just said. This is something I love so, so much. Especially with our kiddos. Start -- I'm sure this is something that got brought up. Start reframing that conversation of what's wrong with you to what's happening. What happened to you? What's going on? >>Kate: Yeah. >>Amelia: Especially with our kiddos. Love it. You guys are all amazing. >>Kate: Thank you. Amelia does have a slide up with her information. I think it's also on the handout. Reach out if you feel like you can use any resources.