Preventative Maintenance: Tangible self-care

Last semester felt very long, as I discussed in my last post. I have friends who teach in various institutions across the country and so many of them expressed these same feelings about last semester. Whew.

One day in a particular class, when I could tell that people were stressed, I shifted gears early on into the class session. I crossed off the agenda items we had planned for the day and gave them some exercises/questions to do to help them think about their final paper. After that, we talked some about an upcoming holiday and listened to a bit of a podcast episode that had connections to the class. 

I told them it is like preventative maintenance on your car, you have to be intentional to take care of it when it isn’t broken, so that you don’t find yourself in danger on the side of the road someday.  I didn’t want them to be even more stressed in a few weeks when they realized this assignment was looming over them. 

That little “re-set” in the second half of the semester didn’t work a miracle, but it did give us a chance to breathe a bit on a day we all seemed to need it. It was also a day that my students, most of whom I had not had in class before, deepened their trust in me because they could see I cared. That was a gentle but palpable shift. 

As we finished last semester and then moved into the break, I continued to reflect on that day. For a social worker, I have always been not great at what we call “self-care”. Self-care has always seemed abstract to me. But in the past couple of years I have gotten better, finally, at what some people call “boring self-care” or what I referred to as “preventative maintenance” for my students. Taking care of things, and me, before breaking down is the very least I can do. (I still have room to grow.)

Hopefully you have some planned “preventative maintenance” days for yourself, and if not, I hope you consider it. Whether in your work or in your personal life, some space to breathe and the message to yourself that you are worth the rest is invaluable.