Lean Into You

How to Change Habits in our Lives

September 16, 2020 Alex Farrell and Wesley Mayes Season 1 Episode 3
Lean Into You
How to Change Habits in our Lives
Show Notes Transcript

In today's episode of Lean Into You, we talk with Kelly Hopkinson, the owner of Kelly Hopkinson Yoga. Kelly will talk to us a little about how we can recognize bad habits in our lives and how we can start to change them. We will cover:
   
     1) How self-reflection helps us identify when we are performing at our job
     2) The importance of identifying our barriers of resistance
     3) How we can implement simple habits that foster long-term change
     4) How seeking validation from within can help anchor the good habits we've formed.

If you would like to find out more about Kelly's work, visit her website at www.kellyhopkinsonyoga.co.uk. Also, check out her Ted Talk entitled, "Learn to Shine Bright: The Importance of Self-Care for Teachers."

This podcast is funded through a grant with the Tennessee Department of Human Services and Signal Centers, Inc.

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Hello, and welcome to lean into you a podcast to remind educators the best investment they can make today is in themselves. We're your hosts Alex Farrell with childcare wages, Tennessee, and Wesley Mays with the Tennessee Childcare Resource and Referral Network. And today, we're going to talk about how you can begin to change habits in your life. How often do we get stuck on autopilot, working for when we get to go home, or working the week just to get to the weekend, or working the semester just to get to summer break? How do the habits in our lives contribute to that performative mindset? Our guest today is Kelly Hopkinson, a former educator who now runs her own yoga business in England, teaching people that yoga is as much about your mindset and value system as it is about doing poses. She is also a public speaker who presented a TED talk in Norwich about the importance of self care for teachers. In our conversation, we'll talk a little bit about how self reflection can help identify when we're performing at our job. The problem is when we're performing, we're not living and acting in line with kind of our belief system. We'll also touch on the importance of identifying why we sometimes are resistant to change, how we can implement simple habits that foster long term change. And finally, how shifting from seeking external validation to seeking validation from ourselves can help anchor these habits that we formed. Hi, Kelly, thanks for joining us on the podcast today. I just wouldn't be here talking to you. Can you just start by just talking a little bit about your experience as an educator and how you started to incorporate yoga into your routine to help sort of identify where you needed help with self care and how you started to implement some healthier habits? Yeah, sure. So I guess I becoming a school teacher, something I did a little bit later. In life, I didn't do it straight out of school. So I traveled around a little bit and then entering the world of education was something that I kind of thought that I would end up doing. But when I first started, I didn't have any children, it was just me to worry about. And I loved it, I absolutely loved the whole process of learning something new, being such a big part of the lives of the children that I taught, but also the community of teachers that I worked with. And yeah, I loved every everything about it, I had the time, I had the energy to put into my lessons and my role as a teacher. And then you know, I had children. And just like anything with a lot of people real life happens. And that can, you know, sway things off balance a little bit. And I found it quite difficult to keep up with that level of dedication and commitment that I had previously found, whilst juggling this family kind of life. And I found that my taking care of myself came quite easy up until that point, in my role as a teacher, but it all of a sudden became so much more challenging. And just kind of went out the window, actually self care. And looking after myself. And looking after my physical health and my mental health, it was just everything was just all a little bit, a little bit too much. Luckily, I had, like find yoga and stumble across a class, I've always done it. But I did start my turn my teacher training because I was wanting to move in that direction. I was wanting to bring yoga into the classroom. And when I say yoga, I don't just mean laying on the floor and doing some poses and not really connecting with much else. I mean, a whole way of living your life from this from this kind of space. So it just enabled me to learn techniques and ways to actually build in simple self care. Really. Right and I'm sure your your anecdote of your life is not totally different than what a lot of our listeners experience on a daily basis. When you talk about the burnout for you didn't happen necessarily within the context of a classroom your burnout was more driven from work life, home life balance. Yeah, whether it's a an external stressor, like you know, just a change any kind of change. And we'll go through that as your, you know, any career in teaching world when it becomes a performance, which I found myself doing I was like I was performing in this role and the teacher. When I talk about yoga, the if you sort of learn anything about yoga, asanas, the practice of yoga the poses are like one tiny little bit of it. And the other is, you know about breathing and about your values and your belief system and your mindset and you know how you live your everyday life. And then kind of the poses of yoga are popped in there. And then the breathing, focusing your attention. So thinking about mindfulness, these all are a part of yoga, rather than just this one thing of Yeah, rolling out your bat, to be able to apply some of these to your everyday life. And when I'm in everyday life, I don't mean a case of you do your role at school every day showing up giving your energy giving everything, and then maybe sitting in a yoga session after school or at lunchtime. I don't mean that, I mean, kind of weaving it into the whole day. So it's being you know, prepared to go, Okay, well, I'm gonna I need a break, I need your breath. For a minute. I love what you said about teaching felt like a performance to you, I think all of us, you know, we go out. And sometimes that can work. But I think the difference for educators is they're expected to give, and they're expected to give so much and so that performance just isn't going to cut it. So for you, you use the mindfulness component of yoga to start to sort of break out of that performative mindset. If we have listeners that to feel like they're just going through the motions, or performing their role of being an educator, what do you think the first step is that they should take to help implement some better habits in their life and kind of break out of that slump? That's really interesting question. The problem is, when we're performing, we're not living and acting in line with kind of our belief system. So you could do you could try and implement everything, because there's so much out there, but I were overwhelmed with a try this. And so I mean, I would always, I have things that I would definitely suggest to people, and I spoken about them in my tour. And they would be things that unless you're a little bit of work on your values in yours, or what's important to you asked, What are barriers to you at the moment? How you truly are? What is causing you stress? What are you feeling this heightened sense, and why? If you address that first, then when you get these like tips, or these suggestions of what to do every day, it makes more sense, you can actually gain something from it. So for example, I would, you know, suggest to start writing in a journal. However, without kind of connecting to what that could possibly bring to you, and why you would even bother writing in a journal, then the actual Home Journal is just gonna be a little bit meaningless to you. And it will be to be honest, something extra to do. And for somebody working in a school where they feel like their to do list is so so long, adding something in at the beginning of the day is just not going to feel quite right. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because it is so easy to get caught up in, you know, treating the symptoms to a problem, rather than digging a little bit deeper, and identifying the source of your stress or why you're just going through the motions. You know, I think step one always has to be self reflective. You know, you do need to spend some time with yourself to try and get to the bottom of your of your burnout, or your exhaustion or whatever it is. Because once you do that you can start to identify what your barriers of resistance are. And that is super important. Yeah, just just to add on to what you're saying, I think the the beauty of mindfulness is, is recognizing the patterns that you fall into, and recognizing where you go when you're stressed. And taking, like you're saying, taking a moment to recognize those patterns will help you find what's going to work for you the best because you'll say, oh, I can see, you know, when I'm stressed I do this when I'm stressed I you know my anxiety rises. And then whatever works for you to mitigate that is going to be so much more meaningful, like you were saying, and all of those things take time and focus your attention being on them. Because it's not a no, it's not like a quick fix. Because again, one of these lists might be okay, do yoga, do some mindfulness, take a bath, find time for yourself. And we know this stuff. None of this would be rocket science. We, we know this, but there was something underlying meaning that you are not doing those things. And it's connecting into that, like what is stopping you. If we shift our mindset and then if we can decide, like you said, the things that would reduce that level, that feeling that gut feeling of stress, and identify those and then create some really simple habit forming, then that combination, which is what it is, is going to create change, but unless you want to change I'm not going to happen. So we need to change, we need to connect with our belief system. And then we need to actually do the thing, we need to create the action. One thing that, for instance, that I do that is really, really easy is be cognizant of the kind of music that I listen to, and my drive into work. So, you know, I do like a lot of rock music, you know, I like some stuff that has faster pace, higher tempo, a lot of energy. But maybe that's not the best thing to listen to at 830 in the morning, so I've got a solid 15 to 20 minute drive into work. And that is an opportunity to put on some more ambient, softer music, and just breathe deeply. And the reason I'm bringing this up is to show that, you know, I literally changed nothing about the rest of my day, you know, putting on a certain kind of song in the morning and breathing during your morning commute is such a small thing. That is honest, I mean, honestly, it's the perfect way to implement a new habit is start small. And one of the one of the unforeseen benefits of you know, implementing that morning practice for me, I started eating healthier at lunch, I had, I had built up this huge habit of going out to fast food of just doing what was quick and easy and cheap. I never just literally just one day I you know, it was getting around lunchtime, and I realized I wanted something healthier. It wasn't it wasn't a chore to be like, Oh, Alex, you need to eat healthier. It was something that I wanted. And it's interesting how when you implement one thing, and do that, with some intentionality, and with some consistency, that you these other practices start to unfold and unveil themselves really organically and naturally in the routine of your day that's already in place. So at this point, we've done the soul searching, we've identified why we're resisting change, we're starting to implement a new habit that is easy and may lead to other good habits. Now, how do we anchor that and make sure these good habits lead to lasting change? We as you know, as human beings, let alone again, as educators, we can seek reassurance that we're doing a good job externally, you know, and we then don't get it because other members of our teams, or senior leaders or whoever it is, are very busy. Sometimes we don't get that reassurance from the children that we teach. So we're always waiting to be validated and to be like, Okay, well, I'm doing a good job, because that person has come and said, So, or those children, you know, they responded in a particular way. And we need to shift away from that, and actually come back to ourselves so that we get that feeling of, of doing enough and doing my job as well as I can. At the same time I'm taking care of myself, I think if you think about a school setup, and if you think about your family life as well, our work setup, so this doesn't just apply to a school setup. Sometimes if you think about how, who is the most important person in that school? Whether that is like parents or is that teachers or is that children, there is that initial response of of how, of course, it's children, we say in families, of how the children are the most important thing, because that's what we feel we should say, because that's the right thing to say. But actually, I would just ask you to reflect on that and challenge that belief. And actually see if you can shift it to you that you are the most important person in your life. And I don't say that you know flippantly, but you truly are. And if you take care of yourself, and you do have this care, and this everything else to give to other people, if you don't, then you are working. First of all, at this heightened state of stress, you are stressing your nervous system. So that would lead to illness, your mind and the connections that are occurring in the mind with all of this multitasking is just going to affect your health care as well. So just ask that when you think about okay, who am I showing up for show up for yourself first? I just think so. I don't know. It's important. We have a lot of shoulds we should feel like this, we should say this, but I should just keep coming back to you. I think, yeah. Because when we start to, you know, seek validation from ourselves, first and foremost. And we start to make that mindset shift that you know that we're the most important people in our own lives, then, in reality, what you're doing is you're taking control over your own happiness or your own health. I think when we start to gain some of that control back, we are creating, you know, a more balanced environment kind of within us, for some of these habits to stick around become lasting change. So Kelly, one of the last things that we always try to have our guests do is kind of give a parting word of encouragement to our educators out there. I personally loved what you said at the end of year two that talk. I think that would actually be a great, a great closing message. Yeah, I think that would be my life finishing kind of parting words to you would be, and it comes from yoga actually, I don't think I ever really knew at the time, but now stay, which we say towards the end of the class means in its simplest form that the light in me honors the light in you. And sometimes we lose that sense of our light and we don't feel it, and it might be really dulled down, or we're just not connected to it. So just thinking about your light, this thing that makes you you this spark inside of you and do all of those things that support it, so fuel it and protect it and look after it and defend it with your life. Because when that happens, then you can be the light in someone else's life. beautifully put. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kelly, for joining us on the podcast today. Really appreciate it. It was a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you all for tuning into the podcast today. This podcast is funded through a grant with the Tennessee Department of Human Services and signal centers. Signal centers is a nonprofit in Chattanooga, Tennessee, whose mission is to strengthen children, adults and families, their services focusing on disabilities, early childhood education and self sufficiency. If you have a review, a comment a suggestion for a future episode. Please do so on our Facebook page at facebook.com/t N wages or email us at wages at signal centers.org. Again, thank you for listening to the lean into your podcast and we hope you have a great week.