Wanna try a new podcast? By me?
In which I consider how you, dear reader, might benefit from my podcast for teachers
It’s time to come clean. I am a psychotherapist, yes, but I have morphed into a special type of psychotherapist who works almost exclusively with teachers.
Why teachers?
Because I am a teacher. Because I love teaching. And because I believe that teachers, like parents, are (or can be) incredibly influential developmental partners to the children upon whom our planet’s future depends.
What special type of psychotherapist am I?
What I call a
psycho-coach.
What exactly is a psycho-coach?
It is someone who coaches people to reach their goals, do their best, find happiness and satisfaction
by paying explicit attention to their emotions and relationships.
By doing what I call emotion work. Relational attunement. Which works.
But that’s not what this post is about.
What this post is about is the podcast I launched last October. It’s called Teachers’ Lounge with Betsy Burris. Every episode is a story I tell about emotion work — psycho-coaching — that I have done with an actual teacher (or two or three). Every story is a small miracle that the teacher pulls off because she paid attention to her negative, unbecoming emotions and turned them into an effective plan of action driven by understanding and compassion.
Good stuff.
The reason I’m mentioning this podcast here, in Being Better, which is a newsletter for regular everyday wonderful people, not just teachers, is that it occurred to me this morning in the shower that regular everyday wonderful people might really like listening to the podcast. Because, even if the podcast is about teachers, it is for everyone. The concepts I apply to teachers’ difficult situations are the exact same concepts I apply to regular everyday wonderful people’s difficult situations. The axioms that wrap up every episode are just as helpful to regular everyday wonderful people as they are to teachers.
For example:
Episode 1 of the podcast is about Summer, who responds to a resistant student (similar to a resistant child? or co-worker?) by acting out her own frustrations. And then figures out an effective way to melt the resistance and dissolve her frustrations. Sound relevant? Check out the Summer episode.
Episode 4 is about Rachel, someone who is team-teaching with another adult and finds herself doing the lion’s share of the work. (Sound familiar? at home? at work? in a friendship?) She figures out what she’s doing to perpetuate the problem and what she’s willing to do to end it. AND how to survive getting what she wants. Deep!
Episode 8 is about Penelope who discovers one day that a student violated her private space in a way that turned her world upside-down. (Like an angry child or parent or sibling or other physical or emotional intruder?) Against all odds, she figured out how to connect with this child as a result of this trauma in a way that she never had been able to before.
All the episodes in between are just as rich, interesting, and, I wager, helpful as these are. And they’re nice and short! ish. (Under 30 minutes long.) And there’s upbeat music! Written and performed by my brother!
Try ‘em. If you’re really interested in Being Better, I’m pretty sure you will not regret it.