On this episode of the Teacher Career Coach Podcast, I sit down with Blake Blankenbecler to talk about therapy for teachers. Blake is a licensed professional counselor based in Austin, Texas, specializing in helping people with anxiety, trauma, disordered eating, and hurt relationships feel better and find relief. Together, we dig deep into the emotional injuries commonly experienced by service-based professionals, like teachers. Follow along to hear more about the root causes of some of teachers’ biggest stressors, understand why setting boundaries can be so hard, and learn how to start implementing simple self-care routines into your every day. This episode covers a lot in terms of therapy and self-care, so be sure to tune in!
Therapy for Teachers: Recap and BIG Ideas
- Traumas and experiences from our past can lay the foundation for feeling like you need to put other’s needs over your own.
- There are mental, emotional, and physical consequences if you always choose to disappoint yourself over others.
- Many teachers are naturally empathetic givers, but it’s important to advocate for yourself both at work and in your personal life.
- If you feel wrong putting your needs first, understand you’re part of a broken system and unrealistic expectations. Strive to implement simple activities in your day that are for you.
- You can go to therapy for being human, not for just being in crisis.
- Don’t be afraid to ask questions—it’s a vital aspect of finding the right therapist and type of therapy for you.
- Self-care doesn’t have to be a complex daily routine. Keep it as simple as possible rather than getting caught up in perfection or guilt.
- When it comes to self-care, start by asking what you and your body need that day. Then figure out how you can give that to yourself.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Teacher guilt (and other stressors) that land teachers in therapy.
Daphne: Hi, Blake. Thank you so much for being here today.
Blake: Hi, Daphne. Thanks for having me.
Daphne: I have been dying to have a therapist on the show for quite some time because the topic of therapy has come up time and time again in past episodes. So many guests who are also former teachers have offered advice from their own therapists at some point in their interview. Clearly, teachers can benefit from learning about therapy in general. So, thank you so much for being here.
I’d love to start with a brief overview of who you are, what you do, and your area of expertise.
Blake: I’m so grateful to be here, and I’m so grateful for all the teachers listening. I’m Blake Blankenbecler, and I’m a licensed professional counselor in Austin, Texas. Well, thanks to COVID, I have a virtual practice. I work predominantly with women, helping them work through anxiety, depression, trauma, eating disorders—all things that are really common to see with teachers. So, I’m really excited to have this conversation today.
Daphne: When I put out my desire for having a therapist on the show, you reached out to me confirming that you’ve seen patterns with your clients, especially teachers, like experiencing guilt and having a hard time pulling back.
Why is it that you think that so many teachers end up finding themselves in this funk and seeking out therapy?
Blake: You know, thinking about helping professions, therapists and teachers are in a similar space. I often say we don’t come into the field by accident. Often, we are hardwired to want to be helpful. There’s a sort of emotional injury that I see a lot with teachers called the premature injury. Basically, when we are really young, around two or so, there’s this experience where we’re becoming little kids, yet we still need to be little babies. Think about a kid playing with a ball, and the mom or the dad is standing next to them. They’re playing with the ball like a big kid, and then they fall. Suddenly they need to turn back into a little baby because the fall was scary. Often, they’ll look back at their parent, and the parent either won’t be paying attention, or they’ll give a tough-love response.
This preconditions people to kill off their really young baby parts, meaning the parts of them that are messy or the parts of them that need help. Then they become hyper in tune to what everybody else needs.
So when I see teachers, they are some of the most compassionate, attuned, and empathetic people that can tell you so much about their students just by looking at them. But then when I start to ask, “What do you feel about this? What’s this like for you?” I get a lot of blank faces. It’s not that they’re not answering the question. It’s truly that they don’t know how to answer because they’ve never gotten to. They have a whole upbringing of being disconnected from their own sense of knowing and needing and being messy.
Daphne: That’s a great point. I have an episode where I talk about teacher guilt and what I struggled with when I was in the classroom. I struggled with scaling back whatsoever on how much I was working. I struggled to fill my own bucket to the point that it was impacting my personal relationships. The thing is, it didn’t feel like I had any other option.
It felt impossible for me to not spend my weekend improving a lesson plan, or not to do more to help a struggling student. I wanted to make sure my students reached a certain level or got any additional support that they needed. My job was just constantly on my mind to the point where I was missing out on social events in my personal life because I just felt like I couldn’t spend that time away from work.
Blake: It truly feels like you can’t. Your body literally feels like it cannot.
Daphne: And the more you put yourself in that position, the easier it is to get disassociated from it and instead get further and further into it. I think the longer you’re actually in the position and feeling empathetic for so many people, the harder it is for you to remember that sometimes your interests are going to conflict with other people’s interests. Sometimes you need to choose yourself over others.
Blake: You will disappoint people.
Daphne: Disappointing people is my biggest fear. My absolute biggest fear is hurting people’s feelings, putting them down, or just not supporting them when I know that I’m capable of doing so.
Blake: It’s so easy not to disappoint other people, yet it is so easy to disappoint ourselves. The reality is you’re going to disappoint someone. And if you are only ever choosing to disappoint yourself, that’s going to come with a cost. It’s going to lead to burnout and your body’s going to start giving you signs.
I’m not a teacher, but I am in a helping role, and I even remember that I got ulcers in my stomach at a certain point. I can’t tell you the number of people who come with me with IBS or ulcers. It’s like, “Huh, isn’t that not ironic?” Your body’s trying to tell you that this isn’t sustainable, that we can’t care for all of the students, and their parents, and the system. It’s too much.
Daphne: One of the things that I constantly dealt with was a lot of swelling under my jaw, a clenched jaw, and a lot of strange headaches, rashes, and strange swelling from time to time. It was my very last year of teaching and I wasn’t necessarily struggling with the students, but it was just a very toxic work environment for me dealing with adult bullying and a lot of other really toxic behaviors. That was when I ended up just having to remove myself from the situation altogether. Before that, every doctor connected my symptoms to stress.
Blake: Adult bullies in the workplace are the worst.
Understanding the impact of toxic environments, micromanagement, and poor administration.
Daphne: Do you have a lot of teachers that you talk to that come from environments that are less than professional? If so, can we talk about how that impacts them mentally as well.
Blake: I’m really glad that you brought that up because I do see that. I mean, I’ve had teachers who are in roles where they do have kids that have really high needs and are coming from different backgrounds where they don’t receive as much care and support at home. So then school is their primary place for that support. What makes it even harder is the administration, the obnoxious number of meetings and amount of paperwork, and having supervisors show up in your classroom at inopportune times.
I often talk about it like this: imagine yourself taking a test and your teacher was just watching you or standing over you, just staring down your shoulder. You’re not going to do well on that test because your nervous system is going to be in a fight or flight response of being really scared and feeling unsafe. Granted, it’s often like a requirement that supervisors come in and watch your classroom, right?
Daphne: Absolutely. I went through the stull evaluation multiple times a year, but it all depends on the school district. It also depends on your relationship with the principal. I had a principal who came in bi-monthly and it never felt that stressful. Now, that last school district where I felt like it was a very toxic work environment, I completely tensed up whenever I had any evaluation.
I think that a lot of that has to do with the way you feel about your position in general, whether it’s teaching or not. If you don’t feel like you have autonomy or if you don’t feel truly valued and respected, you can start to resent the position or just kind of fall out of love with it. I think autonomy and having a professional environment go hand in hand. Similarly, toxic work environments and being micromanaged go hand in hand as well.
Blake: Yes. When you’re being watched by an unsafe supervisor, unsafe principal, unsafe administrator, you tend not to do well and it creates resentment. You don’t want to show up. You want to hide.
Often, when I’m working with a teacher, these are bigger themes in their life. It’s not just about showing up in the classroom. It’s not knowing how to advocate for themselves with my friends or with family. So again, it’s this whole thing where we are often drawn to these professions and these workspaces that sometimes feel a lot like home, where we are expected to be the givers—we’ll get into the human giver syndrome soon—or we’re expected to be the givers and to be really sweet, obedient, and compliant. So, when we start taking up space, and asking for things, and having boundaries, there are punishments in different ways.
Daphne: That’s such a great point. And I don’t want to generalize and say that every administrator is toxic because I think people in higher-up positions in education face burnout as well. Sometimes they’ve just gotten to this place of complacency where they know that they don’t have to actually listen to the concerns of those below them because I think they bank on the fact that they’ve made it very hard for these people to actually leave this position regardless of feeling financially or emotionally stuck, so they’ll just take the status quo of, “It is what it is.” You know, they say there’s a high turnover teacher rate, but I don’t think administrators actually expect people to leave.
On the other hand, companies I’ve worked at post-teaching, where I felt valued and respected, know that, even if I’m super happy, another really good company might poach me and pay me more. So, they want to keep me happy, let me know that I’m valued, and give me the autonomy to create what I want to create and explore the different parts of my career that I’m excited about exploring. They want me to stay there for the long term, whereas with teaching, I think the system itself is a little broken, and it’s expected that people will accept the status quo.
Blake: I’m glad you made that point because I know that there are incredible administrators and principals, and it is really that the system is inherently flawed and broken.
Daphne: I’ve had one of the most inspirational principals and administrators, Principal Rahh, speak on an episode of the podcast. He actually advocates for his teachers to get higher salaries and advocates for self-care as a professional development practice where he pays them to come and do yoga. Instead of just saying make time for professional development, he puts his money where his mouth is.
For some teachers, there’s a financial limitation or they don’t have the free time to pursue these self-care interests. He’s really fighting to change the way that the system is treating teachers, especially in his school, and I know that there are so many principals out there that are making changes and doing everything that they can do as well. So, I definitely don’t want to give the idea that there aren’t administrators who care.
Therapy for Teachers: Exploring Human Giver Syndrome to understand why self-care can be so hard for teachers.
Moving to human giver syndrome—what is it?
Blake: I’m so excited to talk about this. It’s a concept that was developed by a female philosopher from Cornell University, Kate Man. She is the author of a book called Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. I first heard about this concept in another book that I actually recommend every single teacher and administrator read called Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski.
So it’s this experience, and I’m going to have you guess who the human givers are. It’s this experience of being obligated to give, not ask. You are expected to feel indebted and grateful rather than entitled. You are expected to abdicate any resource or power that you might acquire. You must at all times be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others, and sweet and obedient. So there are human givers whose moral obligation is to give and then there are human beings, where their more obligation is to be and to be inspired.
I just want you to take a wild guess. If there were two genders, which gender do you think more represents the human givers?
Daphne: I would say female lead in that category.
Blake: Yeah. Precisely. I tried actually looking up this statistic. Do you know the percentage of teachers who are females?
Daphne: I could roughly estimate 80 to 90 percent, but that’s just an estimate.
Blake: I got, like 70 to 75, but clearly way more females. And so the Human Giver Syndrome is really present in Western culture and Western society. We see it so much with teachers, where they are expected to give endlessly. Even you were talking about having to do more lesson plans and not doing other things because you had to give more to your job and your students. In a way, you were enveloped in the Human Giver Syndrome, where you were saying, “I can’t take. It’s bad for me to take.”
So, when I hear teachers saying it’s so hard to practice self-care, it’s like the self-care activities themselves aren’t inherently aren’t hard—like going outside for a walk. But because the very fact of doing them means that you’re disobeying the system that says you are only here to selflessly give to others, it makes it really difficult to do even simple activities for yourself.
Daphne: Yeah, absolutely. Even just when you were talking about how this is usually experienced by those who identify as females, I think that teaching, in general, has become such a submissive profession. If you ever see one of older documents proclaiming “The Rules of What It Means to Be a Teacher,” it’s like you couldn’t be married, you had to have your skirt down to a certain length, etcetera.
Even now, there are people who are in the profession that aren’t allowed to have pictures with their significant others up in the classroom if it’s not a heterosexual relationship. There are teachers who struggle with just being put into a category determining who they need to be and conform to as a human. I think that is something that a lot of people really struggle with.
I remember completely deleting all of my social media because I knew that last school year there were parents who were saying not-so-nice things about me on Facebook. They were looking for me online, and I knew that if they saw a picture of me with a glass of wine, that was something I could actually get in trouble for from my own administrator. I had an interaction where people were having glasses of wine at dinner, and I had someone say to me, “I don’t think it’s appropriate to do this out in public anywhere near where the school is located.” And I remember thinking, I am an adult woman, and I don’t know if this is going to be the right fit for me.
Blake: It’s that experience of you needing to be a giver 24 hours a day. Emily Nagoski even did research and talked about how some women are feeling guilty for even sleeping. They feel guilty for sleeping in or sleeping too much. The standards can be ridiculous. Like, God forbid you enjoy a glass of wine.
Daphne: I think that it’s definitely turned into a career where some school districts and some environments have turned into something that is not what it should be. The overall objective is to help students, but not help students have an impossible expectation that is not manageable for us as human beings. It should be more about finding that love of education and passing it along to future generations. That’s what gets muddy, the further and further people get.
Learn why therapy for teachers is so important for your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
I wanted to go back into the topic of therapy a little bit more, and why you think that therapy is so important for everyone, not just those at rock bottom.
Blake: I’m on a big kick to help folks realize you can go to therapy for being human, not for just being in crisis. I think it’s wildly important. I just posted a question on my Instagram asking people what the best part of therapy was for them. Most of them didn’t even talk about how they were able to work through their trauma. Instead, they talked about how much they changed in the presence of a safe relationship, where they were listened to and they were heard. When they said things, they weren’t going to be judged. They were given a generous assumption. And they were also challenged on some of the things that they said. So, they said that was the thing that changed them the most, was that relational aspect.
And that’s even what empirical evidence shows. When it comes to therapy, it doesn’t matter so much what theory you use in dictating your positive outcomes in therapy. It’s the quality of the relationship that you have. If you look at a person’s life, it’s relationships that have hurt them and that have gotten them to where they are. It’s also a terrible and beautiful truth that it will also be relationships that heal them. So, therapy is an important place where you get to have a relationship that is healing, attuned, and sacred.
How to find the right therapist and type of therapy for a teacher’s needs.
Daphne: So, how can people almost go on blind dates with therapists to figure out the right therapist for them? I know my fear would be being judged for something I say in therapy or that something would conflict politically or morally and feel I have to pull back. I want to love who I’m seeing for therapy. So, how do you recommend people go about finding therapists that actually work for them and with whom they can build a great partnership?
Blake: You’ll have to go on some blind dates, make some calls, and ask around. Word of mouth is always going to be the best bet. But I also think it’s important to remember you’re paying this person, so you get to ask questions like, “Can you tell me more about your political beliefs? That’s something that’s really important to me and I want a therapist who’s aligned with that.”
Daphne: Yes, that would be something that I would want to talk about before I went in. Certain misaligned beliefs would be a struggle for me.
Blake: Now that I live in the south, I get a lot of questions about my practice from a faith perspective. I’m just really honest with them because if they need someone who prays with them and reads from the Bible, I’m probably not going to be the best fit. However, if you want someone to hold this part of your life with you, I’m absolutely game for it. And it’s okay if we don’t agree.
Something else that I find to be really important about therapy, especially for teachers, is speaking up for yourself and being assertive. If you feel judged, I really invite you to call your therapist out on that. I’m always really honest with that and if I did make a face or something, I’ll talk about what I was experiencing.
So, just remember that you get to ask questions. This is your space, and you get to take up space. The very notion of that is part of the reason why it’s important to go to therapy in the first place, to learn that it’s okay to take up space.
Daphne: And there’s also a lot of different types of therapy. So, how do you choose which one is the right one for you? I know that that’s a very open-ended question that you could likely go on for an hour about.
Blake: I’ll try and condense it. I think websites are very important and so I think of a therapist’s website like their living room. When you’re looking at it ask yourself, “Do I want to be there? Do I like the vibe of it? Do I like what they’re saying? Do I feel like I can sit on the couch and stay awhile? Do I feel curious or excited about being there? Do I like what I’m seeing and how I feel when I’m seeing it?”
So, just notice those cues in your body. I think that that’s a great way to approach it. And then most therapists offer free 15 to 20-minute consultations where you get to talk with them. Part of that initial conversation is just realizing if you like the vibe of that person. Do you feel a connection? If you don’t, you don’t owe anything to the therapist. You get to keep looking. So, that’s an important thing to remember. I hear a lot of people saying, “Well, I don’t want to hurt their feelings. How do I tell them no?” That’s some of the work of therapy, right? To learn how to speak up for yourself.
I know your initial question was how to know what kind of therapy is best for you. I’ll give a quick rundown of the types of therapy. I’ll start with what I practice, which is from a depth psychotherapy lens. So, this is going to be a long-term attachment working with the unconscious, such as early childhood experiences. I think that’s really important, but I also know not everyone has the time or resources to devote one hour every week for years and years to therapy. I mean, I sometimes see clients for two to three years.
Luckily, you have options. If you’re needing CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy, those therapists are going to help you learn how to change your thoughts and, in turn, change your behaviors. There is a type of therapy called EMDR, which stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. That’s really great as a type of trauma therapy, where you go back through specific memories and reprocess them. There’s something called DBT, which is dialectical behavioral therapy, and that’s going to be all about radical acceptance, and how to really accept where you are, and learn how to be with those experiences in your reality, and then change them.
Daphne: I noticed that you said that you worked with your clients for years at a time, and that means that you know the ins and outs and everything about them, including things that trigger them. You’ll probably remember connections that they wouldn’t have noticed. Do you think that those more scaled therapy programs, and we don’t have to mention any names, where they might have therapists who are text messaging and supporting 2000 or 3000 different clients are able to offer that same level of support?
Blake: It’s better than nothing. Part of the reason for doing that therapy is working in the here and now, meaning we get to talk about what’s happening in the present moment. With a text message, you lose some of that connection and emotional clarity.
We need to be able to see each other’s faces, and that’s so much of the work I do. A lot of therapists do work around attachment and nonverbal communication. A lot of times, like when we’re doing trauma therapy like EMDR, a person’s actually using the therapist’s nervous system to regulate. And you don’t get that often with text messages. There are options to do therapy in person or virtually where your face still gets to be seen and you get to see your therapist’s face. There are options and affordable ways to get it done.
Tips for finding affordable therapy for teachers (no insurance needed).
Daphne: What are some of your best pieces of advice on how teachers can find affordable therapy options?
Blake: Okay, I have some options for you. The first thing is to call university centers and see if they have counseling centers that are open to the public. For example, I went to a grad school in Nashville, and they had a Marriage and Family Center that was open to the public and because the therapists were grad students, they offered sessions for 10, 15, and 25 dollars. You can also look for interns and associates. Google “reduced rate counseling in my area” or go to the websites of different group private practices and see if they have low-fee therapists available. A lot of group private practices will hire associates and interns woofer services at reduced rates. The first three to six months I was doing my practicum, I charge $35 an hour per session, so that’s out there.
Other options include group therapy. I know it’s scary at first, but it’s an underutilized resource that runs from 30 to 75 dollars. Granted, it’s not individual, but it is some of the greatest care that you can get. You will get feedback from your peers and from your therapist, and it is wildly powerful. It takes some bravery to get in there, but try that out if you can.
Then there’s also a site called Openpathcollective.org. They have practitioners all over the country that charge 30 to 60 dollars for their sessions. It’s important to note that you don’t need insurance for all of these options I’m mentioning, which is great. Sometimes with insurance, a therapist has to give you a diagnosis that goes on your health records. So, these options are affordable and let you keep your health records more private.
The last thing I’ll say is to ask therapists if they have any sliding scale spots. So, I have two or three spots that I offer. I ask clients what they can pay, and we make it work. So ask away.
Daphne: And for anybody right now who is interested in working with you, they need to be living inside Texas, correct?
Blake: Anywhere inside the state of Texas, yes.
Implementing self-care practices into your daily routine.
Daphne: And we’ll follow up with how to contact you at the very end of the show, but the very last thing I wanted to touch on that I know that you’re an expert in is just self-care in general. I know that you have a lot of really great advice for teachers when it comes to how to implement self-care practices into their routine.
Blake: Yes, I love self-care so much. One thing I strongly believe about self-care is that it can be small and digestible. It does not have to be a wild daily routine. Keep it as simple as possible. One of the things that comes from that book that I really recommend folks reading, Burnout, is this idea of completing the stress cycle every single day. I think most teachers are really empathic and attuned, so they’re collecting all of this energy from all of these needs you notice in others. It really weighs on your body day after day to notice these things and to always be on.
So, it’s really important to try to do something to complete the stress cycle every day. This could be crying, it could be going on a walk, it could be doing anything that gets you out of breath. That’s like your bare minimum. If you need to put on a song and dance to get out of breath, that is a great way to do it. A 20 second and really attuned hug with someone is a great way to release oxytocin.
A lot of times there’s all of this talk on like mindfulness and meditation, and sometimes we’re too up and we’re too anxious to so the idea of getting quiet and silent and still is like the last thing our body wants us to do. So, something that would be really great to do is put on one of those songs again and just get your body moving and shaking. “Back in my body” by Maggie Rogers is probably one of my favorite songs to do this to.
If you think about trauma responses, shaking is a natural trauma response. So, if you see any type of wild animal that’s injured or in danger, once it realizes it’s safe it starts shaking as a way to release trauma in the body. This is something that we get to do too. Just shake your body to your song imagine all of the nasty, bad or, achy feelings and just shake them off. This a great thing to do after a negative parent exchange or anything that just has you feeling down or yucky. Just shake and flail your body all over, imagining that stuff getting out.
Daphne: My fiance— loves meditation, but every time I think of meditation, I’m like, “Nah, I have too many tabs open,” and it makes me so stressed to think about being silent for five minutes. For some people, it is a skill that they have to build up to and it’s one that they’re very hesitant to.
So, for me, I have to do something physical to get breathless and clear my head, like going for a jog. Then I’m able to calm down and think about what I need to do next.
Blake: Yes, it can be something so small. You know your body and what it needs. It’s even great to start by asking what you and your body need that day, and then figure out how you can give that to yourself. We get really caught up with perfectionism when it comes to self-care, which makes me really sad. If you think you need to drink all the water and wake up early, meditate, journal, and work out, and so on and so forth. Then it’s like, “I can’t do any of that. So I’m just not going to do any of it.” Instead, just choose one element of self-care to focus on.
Blake can help you get started with your self-care routines!
Daphne: I think what a lot of teachers really need as a form of self-care are rest and to learn to have grace with themselves and to let go of what they cannot control. And just walking away from doing all the things and letting themselves enjoy moments of silence, rest, and doing things for themselves.
Blake: Yes, having grace with yourself is so important. A lot of people don’t have tolerance for things pertaining to self-care, like giving yourself kindness and compassion. It feels more familiar and comfortable to push through all boundaries and work yourself to the point of exhaustion.
When you first start a self-care practice or even start thinking about going to therapy, it might feel wrong to value yourself. Just because it feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Know that it’s going to take some time, just like training for a marathon. You need to start training to be able to tolerate self-care, kindness, and compassion for yourself.
Daphne: On your website, I think you have a five-day self-care challenge. Can you tell me a little bit about what that includes?
Blake: I’m really excited about that. It is something that I created, but you don’t have to feel obligated to do it in five days. Do it in any amount of days that you want to. Five just sounded nice. Essentially, it is an invitation to explore your story around self-care, including a lot of what we talked about today with the emotional injuries that happen when you’re younger.
So, it’s exploring how your family viewed rest and play. Did you ever see your mom rest? Did you ever see her take a minute? Or did you see her push herself to the point of exhaustion? Then it’s making those connections that help you understand why you might have a hard time taking care of yourself.
Then it is just a really gentle exploration of how you can come into connection with your story, your body, and your emotions to create some really gentle, caring ways to begin turning towards yourself to value yourself. It’s about understanding how not to just give yourself away, but learn how to be with yourself and have a self. So, that can be found on my website blakeblankenbecler.com.
Daphne: Thank you so much for joining us here today. You have been such a delight, and I’m actually very excited to end this interview so I can go take that challenge. I’m really excited and think I have some ideas of what it might open up for me. I’m really excited to see it from your perspective.
Blake: Oh, good. Thank you and thank you for how you are. I think even just having created this space and doing the work that you’re doing is opening up possibilities for so many teachers to begin asking the questions around self-care. You cab help them realize there are other career options for them where they can feel more valued and where they can value their worth and integrity. So, thank you for the work that you do.
Daphne: I really appreciate you saying that. You know, I wanted to build a community for people who felt the same way that I did, and it’s so sad that there are so many unhappy teacher memes. It’s just kind of turned into a career where many people take pride in that part of it. I wanted to dive into that and explore why that was. If you’re unhappy, there are a couple of different options of what you can do to change your environment, change the way you perceive the stress, or identify the factors contributing to the stress. It might also be that you’re not happy in this career, so let’s figure that out, too.
So, bringing you on here has been just such a massive piece of the puzzle of what I’ve been missing. I’m so so grateful for you to be here.
Blake: Thank you for having me.
Where to go next
If you’re just beginning to think about leaving teaching, brainstorming other options is a great place to start. But if you’re like many others, teaching was your only plan—there never was a Plan B. You might feel at a loss when it comes to figuring out what alternatives are out there.
Start with our free quiz, below, to get alternative job options for careers that really do hire teachers!
