Navigating Anticipatory Anxiety: Tips for Educators to Protect Their Peace

This is my summer wrap up post as I look forward to another school year. The priority moving forward: protect my peace. Read on to learn some of my strategies to do just that.

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In this last week of August, I’m staring down the start of the school year. It’s my 29th year of teaching at Spring Valley High School. It’s hard to conceive that I’ve dedicated so many years of my life to one place. And yet, here we are.

This summer has been good to me. It took a few weeks of no alarm clock to be able to sleep past 5:30 a.m., but I got there. I’ve been healthy and focused on staying that way. We spent time with the family, and we went on our first cruise in many years. I went to my first gymnastics camp and lived to tell about it. The kids are back to college: the eldest for her last Masters year and the youngest is starting year two. We are eagerly preparing for another year of empty nesting and counting down the years left of gainful employment.

Countdown to retirement

I think my personal countdown began in 2020. The pandemic started giving me vibes of Danny Glover’s “I’m too old for this…” and I started thinking wistfully about the end of this phase of my career. At least, more seriously than ever before.

In these past few years, my husband and I have been ramping up our post-career visions. What do the finances look like? What do we want to do with ourselves? Will there be an RV in our life? It’s easy to get swept up in all that future-life talk. It makes you yearn for time to move a little faster. Slowing down, having less to be responsible for, and spending more time on the hammock is so enticing.

I want to be a young retiree, so maybe I can have career #2. Or not. Whatever happens, it will be on my time table.

At the end of last school year, I attended two retirement parties of close colleagues who were finally stepping away. I found myself actually a bit jealous of them in that moment. Three years is a long time when you’re teaching. 180 impending teaching days feels interminable on Labor Day. And yet, I have to back.

Last spring I wrote You Have To Go Through It, an ode to that very thought. It’s a good reminder to put my head down and just get the work done. Summer, my retirement practice, will be back in ten months.

Back to the grind

Retirement musings aside, in less than a week, I’ll be starting the school grind all over again. The dance studio will open to new classes, challenges and creative efforts.

This year, I am approaching the school year able-bodied and mentally preparing myself for another ten-month school cycle. I feel the anticipatory anxiety, right on cue. We have a new superintendent that seems to have done some administrative house cleaning. That includes our principal of 14 years, who is being moved to a district position. That happened abruptly a week before school began. So, in addition to the usual chaos, there’s another major disruption in the flow of the first few weeks. Who’s going to be in charge? Who knows?

Teachers are used to change. We don’t like it, especially when we aren’t the initiators, but we adapt fairly well out of necessity. Our students must be shielded from the tumult so they get find their rhythm and learn. And, it’s getting harder to shield them as we are more unsettled at every turn. There’s still no contract agreement after three years. We don’t know what the new leadership will require from us. There’s always some new, unexpected challenge to the order we try to create. It’s maddening.

Despite all that, for 180 teaching days, we rise to the occasion. While it is exhausting, there is joy in the work. That’s why we can keep doing it for 30+ years. But, the exhaustion is why summer vacation is so important to us. We need to turn down the intensity for a bit and protect our peace in order to keep coming back.

Protecting my peace

Instead, I have personal stuff I’m looking forward to. I’ll move my kid into school. I’ll see one more Yankee game with my forever date. I’ll sing a national anthem at the local ball park. I’ll flip at the gym. And, I’ll get a few more minutes of hammock time. I’ve also loved having more time to write about all the stuff my life throws my way, which I’ll continue.

Learning to prioritize those moments of self-care keeps me going strong. Remembering to make opportunities to maintain self-care practices is most important to sustain my well-being while in the chaos. After a few more mornings of sleeping late, the 5:30 a.m. starts again. Then, I’ll be taking a lot of deep breaths as I enter the school building, facing whatever is to come.

Protecting your peace: educator edition

Don’t forget to protect your peace while in the trenches. As hard as that can be, your kids need the best version of you everyday. You work hard. You owe it to yourself to maintain your sanity.

What does that look like? Here’s a list of 15 of strategies that I try to employ at school:

• Stop and step away from the thing that is frustrating you most.
• Evaluate the best way to spend your precious energy. Then follow through with that.
• Organize ahead of time to save you from last-second stress.
• Stay away from drama, gossip and politics.
• Laugh and connect with your students. Hugs, when appropriate, are good for both parties.
• Go home and leave work at work. Have systems in place so you can minimize doing work at home.
• Text your favorite person with a fun GIF or emoji in between classes. You’ll enjoy the response when they send it back to you.
• Personal mantras can be powerful: “You’ve got this.” “You are worthy.” “You can do it.” It’s like someone else is saying it to you.
• Treat yourself with kindness. You are always doing your best. Give yourself credit, even when things go wrong.
• Lean on a teacher friend during tough moments. And do the same for them.
• Perfection cannot be the ideal. Learning from mistakes is what education is all about. Model that for your students.
• Smile and make eye contact as much as you can when passing people in the halls. It feels great when you can turn someone’s frown upside-down. Eyebrows up!
• Accept that you are feeling your feelings. You are entitled to them, whatever they are. They will pass eventually, and they won’t be as intense an hour from now.
• Slow, deep breaths. Lots of them, all the time. Especially when you are feeling your feelings.
• Go outside. The fresh air does wonders in just a few moments.

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Anticipatory anxiety is inevitable, no matter how long you’ve been an educator. For me, getting into the building and digging into the work helps to allay the pangs in my solar plexus. Once I hit the ground running, it’s all about the business at hand. Then, when I walk out the door, it’s all about living my best life.