Stir Up Some Calm

(Part 1)

In my “real life” I am an Administrative Babysitter Vice Principal at a K-9 charter school.  Most days I love my job.  I love the challenges and variety.  I actually like solving the problems, most days.  I am privileged to get to do something I am really passionate about.  But like anything that pays you to show up, (or parenthood, which pays nothing and this rule still holds true) it has its share of rough days.  The kind that in the words of one of my student’s parents “make you just want to hide in your closet with a bottle of wine and a straw.”

 I am a person with many, many flaws but I pride myself on being able to keep my cool in difficult conversations. Usually this is one of my top five strengths. (Don’t laugh at me for ranking them, I revised my resume recently and it makes one think about these things)  To be clear I am better at keeping my cool in my professional life than in my personal one.  (And why is it dear readers that it is always easier to say something nice about one’s self if one has admitted that one is not perfect first?  Hummmm……..)   Well this week I lost my calm, my self-control took a spontaneous vacation, my inner Zen went into witness protection, leaving not a trace.  At 9:15 on a Tuesday, during contract hours where I have agreed in writing that Me, Myself, and my mental faculties will be available to meet the needs of my school.  It was not awesome timing.

Now I am going to go out on a limb here and assume that if you are still reading this on paragraph three you are a few things…..

1-      literate  (Feel free to think kind and grateful thoughts about your elementary teachers)

2-      technologically with it enough to operate a computer, cell phone, tablet, etc.

3-      were at least a tiny bit interested in the subject of this post

Now that we have agreed on these things, I going you judge you a bit here (don’t worry I’m not a harsh critic) and conclude that you are a few things……

A-     HUMAN (Society has yet to train monkeys, elephants, or dolphins to read fluently or get online.  Not to worry, I sure someone, somewhere is working on it.)

B-      A person who has also, somewhere along the line lost their cool when the timing was really crappy they would really have preferred not to.

You can’t just walk out of work, safety drop the kids at the fire station, or climb in the car and keep driving until you hit an ocean.  (Well technically you could, but………..)  

In moments like these we need all need a go to routine/skill/techniques to restore our inner chill.  There are many ways relax, and we have all heard the old go to tricks Count to 10, 20, 100 or go for a walk.  But those are not always options. I didn’t have those options last Tuesday, but I did have hot coco and a mug in my desk.  Here is a recipe for what I did.

Ok, it works if you have a quiet space to sneak away to, but we don't all have that I hear you say.  That's ok too.  One key to a good calm down is flexibility of technique.   So in upcoming posts I will be sharing "recipes" for a variety of approaches to getting your inner calm back.