A new article, “Intervening into Burnout,” appears in Inside Higher Ed today. In this follow-up piece to “Honoring Ourselves and Each Other Through Burnout,” I offer examples of creative interventions into burnout. These examples are gifted to me through coaching, so I write with deep gratitude for people who are trying different ways of being, doing, feeling, thinking, relating and imagining in higher education. Here’s an excerpt: “Burnout is also never ... Read more ...
emotional literacies
Can Registration Be Relational? How I’m Longing for Sliding-Scale Registration to Work
This raw reflective post shares what I have been struggling to put into words: a desire for relationship and recognition, even during transactional moments like registration. Specifically, I’m reflecting on what I’m learning and how I’m longing for sliding-scale registrations to be a form of relationality itself—where all people are recognized and resourced. Can registration be relational? What would that mean, especially when money is involved and we live within the ... Read more ...
It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’m Again Writing with Heartache
My heart is with you and all of us grieving, raging, and moving through the day with heartache. My heart is with all of us and our people connected with Michigan State University (MSU) and all people impacted by gun violence. With DC and Southern California, with so many people, so many locations. My heart is with all of us living in a state of terror -- in the terrorizing nation-state of the United States and in the midst of normalized everyday violence. My heart is ... Read more ...
Doing the Holidays Differently: Untangling from the Mythical Norm and Revising Rituals for “the Holiday Season”
Preface: This post took me more than six weeks to write. I started drafting on the winter solstice, so it feels right to publish on the cross-quarter day imbolc. I’ve needed the time to sit with the questions I share in this post—questions that are sure to keep evolving. I hope you’ll come with me on this journey into my spiritual life and desire to do the holidays differently. The Holidays Are Hard. Do They Have to Be? For me and for many of us, the holidays are hard. ... Read more ...
Voting as Harm Reduction, Public Outcry, and Collective Responsibility
On the eve of elections in the United States, I share three orientations to voting: voting as harm reduction, public outcry, and collective responsibility. These are three ways I think about voting as everyday action aligned with striving toward justice. Three ways to vote even when it hurts, even when the heart aches. Why My Heart Hurts on Election Day and Why Voting Still Matters As I wrote back in 2018, my heart hurts on election day. And it does today, leading up to ... Read more ...
Slowing Down to Clarify Commitments
Earlier this summer, I had covid and slowed to a snail’s pace. Everyday care (like bathing and brushing) took incredible effort. Because I had such little energy, I had to make tough decisions about where to put that energy. In many ways, being sick provided time for review. That review clarified my commitments, helping me consider if where I’m directing energy is truly where I want to be putting it. For the most part, I could answer: yes. I am clear about my deepest ... Read more ...
Q&A with David Luis Glisch-Sánchez: Life Coaching as Restoring Wholeness
This interview with David Luis Glisch-Sánchez, Ph.D. shares how life coaching aligns with living for justice. Recently, David launched Soul Support Life Coaching with focuses on healing and restoring wholeness. I’ve been really excited to witness David share the vision for this work, build the business framework, and begin to offer coaching and workshops. David is a sociologist who has spent years both doing self-work and studying how others heal “to make whole,” ... Read more ...
Continuing to Respond to the Supreme Court’s Decision Overturning Roe
Dear Beloved Reader, I began this post during Friday’s writing group, where I was when the Supreme Court released the Dobbs decision—overturning Roe v. Wade, restricting legal abortion access, and undercutting reproductive justice. I felt held in deep companionship through the news. And I remain incredibly grateful for activist-educator-writer-friend-colleagues who show up in the world with commitment and care. Now, more than ever, I feel the need for community—for ... Read more ...
Reframing Burnout and Recognizing the Collective Experience
Today, I have a new article published in Inside Higher Ed: “Honoring Ourselves and Each Other Through Burnout.” Here’s the opening: In the past few months, nearly all my conversations have focused on burnout. One friend is running on fumes, another wonders how to keep teaching when her body says no and still another rattles off a near-endless list of what’s not getting done. Such stories are nearly endless, too. The recent Inside Higher Ed opinion piece “Academe, Hear ... Read more ...
Small-Group Coaching: Aligning Career with Commitments
This summer I’m hoping to try something new: small-group coaching focused on career discernment. After several years of facilitating “Career Discernment for Academics: Aligning Career with Commitments,” I’m reflecting on how career discernment can be a lonely experience. This is true even while many people are experiencing similar frustrations and asking similar questions. How do we shift time toward priorities? How do we navigate unjust workplace conditions? How do we ... Read more ...
![Updates to the new offering “Pathways Through Burnout: A Cohort Experience”:
For the past year, Candace and I have been listening to requests for an offering around burnout (or, more precisely, being burned up), and we launched a new cohort experience August 1st. We are deeply grateful for the range of responses we’ve received since then, and we’ve been prioritizing time to listen and discern what people want and need.
Through a lot of conversation and reflection, we’ve decided to slow down further and to reshape the offering.
We’ll continue offering interactive workshops on practices for navigating burnout—with new dates announced for November 3rd and December 15th (and more to come in 2024).
Starting in January, we’ll hold a few one-day retreats with time for art, play, contemplative practice, conversation, and coaching. We hope the retreat will feel like something that’s possible now (with so many pushes and pulls on time and attention).
All of this is leading to a 12-week version of the cohort experience: a season of connection to match a season in life. We’ll reopen applications in the spring and hope that a small group forms well ahead of our start date in September 2024.
The details of all of these experiences—and an invitation to join the workshops in Nov and Dec—are shared online here: https://heart-head-hands.com/pathways-through-burnout/
✨✨link in bio✨✨
And we continue to appreciate all sorts of feedback (questions, suggestions, affirmations), so please reach out anytime. <3
[Image says: “Pathways Through Burnout / Practice Workshops / One-Day Retreats / Cohort Forming for Fall 2024” and shows photos of the two of us—Candace and Beth—side by side.]
With @dr._candace_epps_robertson_ #burnout #update #practice #contemplative #meditation #writing #art #retreat](https://heart-head-hands.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
