Self-Compassionate Professor

Dr. Jia urges us to create more space in our careers and lives: space for recovery, rest, compassion, self-compassion, and more. She shows us that space is not absence, but presence. Find Dr. Jia at publishedMD.com or email her at info@PublishedMD.com

Dr. Felice Russell describes how she navigated the difficult relationship she has always had with academia, leaning on self-trust, leaps of faith, and one-degree shifts to make the many career decisions that have gotten her to the place she is now: a school librarian who feels settled and content both at work and at home. Find Dr. Felice Russell on LinkedIn. Sign up for coffee chats at https://danielledelamare.com/.

Marny Requa explains that life transitions such as becoming a parent and menopause are not just short-term changes and then everything returns to "normal." They are major life transitions that deserve to be acknowledged, honored, and planned for. However, as Marny explains, we are not doing these things well on institutional, cultural, nor societal levels. She tells her own story about how she internalized these larger societal notions as a professor transitioning into parenthood, the challenges it presented, and the importance of giving ourselves grace. Marny also shows the huge positive impact available to our society if we shift our thinking and see life transitions for what they are (see the resources she mentions below). Find Marny at mrequa@gmail.com, on Instagram @worklifeshifts , or linkedin.com/in/marny-requa Marny offers these resources for exploring this topic further: Nancy Schlossberg on life transitions: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gYXeH2MnzatL3oIeglQGG_kRDBLIx5-l/view Neuroplasticity & father's brains: Abraham et al academic article linked here: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1402569111 Slate article on neuroplasticity that mentions the above research here: https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/06/fatherhood-makes-men-better-at-work-and-at-home-research-shows.html Center for Parental Leave Leadership website for resources on support during parental leave: https://cplleadership.com/ North American Menopause Society: https://www.menopause.org/

"Time is so precious," says Dr. Martha Kenney. In this episode, Martha describes the importance of finding your why--a process of pausing, going inward, getting re-acquainted with yourself, and naming your values. Once you know your why, you can allocate your time accordingly, aligned to the intentions you have for your life. Martha explains that her faith softened her to this process. And ultimately, as she explains, time management cannot work well until you know your purpose.

Happy Equinox!! Welcome to the Spring 2024 Season of Self-Compassionate Professor! First, I talk about how honoring the change of seasons invites a more intentional approach to work and life generally: 1) helps us to see beyond the academic calendar, 2) opens us to a sense of spaciousness, 3) gives us a sense of "punctuation" between seasons, 4) gives us permission to let go and let the seasons inform our timelines, and 5) anchors our daily, weekly, and monthly planning in seasonal goals, strengthening our commitment to seasonal goals. Secondly, I discuss the importance of detoxing (broadly defined) during early spring so as to ready yourself for the season.

Dr. Dan Lair, Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, talks about the benefits of perceiving our academic work as “just a job.” Specifically, Dan explains what work means to him, the pitfalls of tying your job to your identity, the impact overwork by his academic spouse (me!) has had on him, and surprising findings from his institution’s attempt to address faculty workload issues. He shares simple advice for dealing with overwhelm and breaking the culture of busyness.

Burnout and betrayal expert, Lora Cheadle, discusses how self-betrayal often masquerades as burnout, how we can begin the process of healing from self-betrayal, and how to "dance" our way to authenticity.

Dr. Cynthia Ganote describes hiding her artistic interests in graduate school, believing that if her academic community found out that she sang, acted, and danced, she would not be taken seriously. When she took her tenure-track job, she put all of her energy and effort into it, letting go of her artistic work completely. While on the outside, Cynthia’s academic career appeared incredibly successful, on the inside, her spirit was dying. Cynthia describes the messages her body was sending at that time and how she came to eventually listen. In this way, Cynthia stresses the importance of “internal belonging”—belonging to yourself, behaving authentically, and letting the messages coming from within guide you in the career discernment process. Find Dr. Cynthia Ganote at cynthia@drcynthiaganote.com. And join us in the SELF-COMPASSIONATE PROFESSORS Facebook group!

No matter the career decisions in front of you--big or small--making choices from a place of wellness is key to paving a self-compassionate career path. We invite wellness when we invite slowness, connection to self, and connection to inner wisdom. Find your own self-compassionate career path in the Sabbatical Program, which begins September 1, 2023. Register here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1047

I explain how to know when boundary work is needed, how to use Christina Maslach's six sources of chronic stress (workload, values, reward, control, fairness, community) to find your boundary gaps, and I offer a meditation by Karla McLaren about how to feel an embodied sense of boundaries. Please remember to leave a review of the podcast!

As she prepares to leave one career behind and pivot full-time to another, Dr. Cara Jones describes experiencing a "busy season" in her career. In her academic job as a tenured associate professor, she sets strong boundaries to protect herself from excess nervous system dysregulation while also approaching her work with as much integrity as possible. In her blossoming work as an Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner, she experiences great spaciousness, a sense of timelessness, and a path to healing both herself and her clients. Cara also describes the general theory of IFS. Find her at https://www.integratingscatteredparts.com/.

Happy Solstice! Today I discuss why pausing and feeling into your career vision every solstice and equinox creates a solid structure on which your vision may take shape in the "real world." I also explain how to do your own summer solstice planning session this season and in the future. Find out more about the Sabbatical Program here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1047

Self-trust is an essential foundation on which one builds a self-compassionate career path. When we cannot trust ourselves to make decisions grounded in wellness, we can feel helpless, hyper-vigilant, or both, and get stuck in an unhealthy response cycle. In this episode, I discuss how we can break the cycle of distrust within ourselves in three major ways: 1) feeling the discomfort of unhealthy responses in our bodies, 2) choosing to connect deeply to something we care about, and in this pivot away from the unhealthy choice, 3) celebrate our commitment to ourselves and our own career wellness. I argue that when we run through these steps over and over again, we begin to create a neural pathway of self-trust and in time, choosing career wellness becomes our default. (Register for the Mindful Self-Compassion workshop series here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1066)

In this episode, I explain how walking a self-compassionate career path is extremely difficult, but how doing the work can help you to feel supported in mind, body, and spirit. I also describe my list of "ingredients" for paving such a path: 1) naming honestly your wants/desires for your career, 2) connecting regularly to self, 3) noticing intent when you agree to do something new in your work, 4) setting boundaries, 5) welcoming rest, silence, and slowness in your life/career, 6) being witnessed in a community. Also, you may register for the "Mindful Self-Compassion for Academics" workshop series here (https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1066).

Dr. Toyosi Onwuemene describes how healing from her people-pleasing behavior impacted the dynamics of her relationships at work, how she learned to find more supportive spaces and leave behind toxic ones, how she now invests in herself and those around her, and what she means by "fighting" for her career. Find Dr. Toyosi Onwuemene on Facebook and LinkedIn as well as Instagram @coagcoach.

I re-release my 2021 interview with Dr. Angela Gist-Mackey. She explains that her career journey began in advertising, but eventually she realized that not only was academia a better fit for her, it paved a path for her to fulfill a larger purpose. While in her advertising career, she experienced bullying by supervisors and was struck by the sharp differences in the organizational cultures in which she worked. Angela was fascinated by these organizational dynamics and so began her PhD in organizational communication some years later. Now, as a tenured professor at the University of Kansas, Angela has much wisdom to share about the career wellness lessons she has learned over the years. At the core of it all though, her sense of legacy and purpose steers her career as both a professor and co-founder of her family business. Find Dr. Angela Gist-Mackey at https://angelagistmackey.weebly.com/ or https://www.mackeyconsultingllc.com/.

Professor of STEM Education at the University of Colorado and creator of the Whole Professor Project Blog, Dr. Erin Furtak tells the origin story of her blog, the epiphany she had that her approach to work was exacerbating her migraines, her commitment to feeling whole, and her ongoing journey to feeling well. Erin insists that wellness among academics is an important conversation that must be sustained. Find and subscribe to the Whole Professor Project at https://wholeprofessorproject.net/ and find Dr. Erin Furtak at https://www.colorado.edu/education/erin-marie-furtak. (Register for the "digest, rest, and envision" workshop series at https://selfcompassionateprofessor.com/).

I offer an update about Dr. Melva Robertson's academic career as well as re-release her 2021 interview. In it, she describes both her research about Covid and the Great Resignation as well as her own career pivot into academia after the Covid pause provided ample reflection time and insight. Melva explains that self-care, mental health, and finding calm are foundational pieces to career transition. Find her at http://www.melvarobertson.com/. (Register for the "digest, rest, and envision" workshop series here.)

Dr. Geneviève Taylor, Associate Professor of Career Counseling at the University of Quebec in Montreal, discusses the foundational role mindfulness has played in her career wellness journey, saving her time, inviting clarity and creativity to her work, helping her to set boundaries with ease, among other benefits. Find Geneviève at https://professeurs.uqam.ca/professeur/taylor.genevieve/.

Check in with yourself, take a self-compassion break, and sign up for the FREE "Digest, Rest, and Envision" workshop series May 23-25, 2023. Register here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1066