Category: English

World Mental Health day from my perspective as a teacher

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This week, I got a strong cold virus, so I had to stay home from work for some days. This gave me time to listen to morning radio emissions, and I learned that this Sunday is the World Mental Health day.

I think a lot about mental health. My own, my kids’, my students’. I am happy to observe that we are starting to take mental health more seriously in the world, and that people who struggle are feeling freer and safer to talk about it and seek help.

I know that mental health is complicated, there are many factors that affect it, but for a long while, I have been aware of the importance of doing what I can to take care of my mind. How do I do that? To begin with, I try to get to know it better. I observe myself, I reflect about my attitudes and actions, I try to understand where they come from. I try to change or let go of what I see doesn’t help me, I accept as much as I can my shortcomings, and keep reminding myself that I need to be patient. My thinking processes have been this way for over 40 years, so it takes time to change them.

I also do the usual recommendations: I sleep at least seven hours a night, I try to stay physically active – at least ride my bike to and from work every day and go for walks whenever I have time -, I practice yoga asana, breathing exercises and meditation on a daily basis, I keep remind myself to live mindfully, to be in the moment, I prioritise spending time with those who I love, but I also prioritise some time on my own to reset and restore.

This said, I want to write a bit about what I struggle the most with: my job. I don’t always notice it, but whenever I am forced to take a break – like this week because of the cold – I realise how much energy I spend in it and how little energy I have left when I come home.

Every time I talk about this with people around me, the same comes up : the work load. However, I don’t think this is what is draining me. I am getting better at doing what I can with the time I have and avoid feeling bad if there are things I can’t complete because I have to prioritise others. I am not saying that I have a perfect balance here, but I don’t think this is what sucks up my energy.

At this point, I have to specify that my goal is not to complain, I am just sharing my thoughts. I love my job and I feel lucky to do something that feels both meaningful and enriching. Every single day, I learn something new. Either about the subjects I teach, about the world, about my students, about my colleagues or about myself.

I wonder, however, if not the job of a teacher is becoming too demanding. On one side, I think it is good for students that we have their well-being as our number one priority, but on the other side, we also have the pressure to help them get through the school system and preferably with satisfying results (i.e. ‘good’ grades).

I often feel that I lack the knowledge and the tools to help everyone in the classroom to both thrive and succeed academically. When I took my teacher’s degree, the main focus was on how to teach my subjects. The expectation was that I knew my subjects well and that I am open-minded enough to keep exploring different ways to allow students to approach it. To find engaging ways to teach it and hopefully for my students to learn it. There was, of course some focus on pedagogy, classroom management, and social interactions, but not enough for me to become an expert in teenage psychology and special needs pedagogy.

In addition, challenges and needs keep increasing. We have students with clear diagnosis that are supported by the system with extra resources that allow for the school to have more adults in the classroom. This is good, but often not enough as none of the adults in the classroom are experts in the diagnosis and there is little time to gain enough knowledge about it. We have students with diagnosis that the system do not consider need extra resources because they do not struggle academically but they do have social and sometimes emotional or psychological struggles. We have students who struggle with motivation, socially or with behaviour, students with problems at home, students who have the usual struggles of being a teenager. We understand that all are individuals, and still, we are expected to push them through the same system.

On top of that is my general shape and/or mood of the day. There is little room for me to be tired, sad, angry, or even a bit under the weather. I spend a lot of energy, every day, to stay calm and poised. To allow at the same time as I set boundaries. I explain, I talk with students, at the same time as I make sure I show understanding and try to go through my lesson plan.

I think I talk for the majority of teachers if I say that we avoid as much as possible to take sick leaves because that represents more work for us. We then have to make plans for a substitute teacher and follow up with the students when we come back.

This said, this school year, I have been wondering if it is ‘allowed’ to stay home when being too tired physically or mentally to be on top of things, to avoid making a bad choice, or even worse, to avoid ending up burned out and unable to finish the school year. This keeps me thinking and asking myself some questions:

  1. Am I suitable for the job of a teacher? I don’t mean this in a dramatic way. I keep thinking that like in everything in life, not everyone is suitable for everything. I work with so many talented teachers, and it seems to me that they are in full control of themselves and every situation. Maybe my talent is elsewhere?
  2. Aren’t the expectations contradictory? We are expected to take care of the mental and social well-being of students, at the same time as we help them succeed academically. Do not misunderstand me, I think it is very important to help teenagers go through tough periods by showing understanding and care, but I find it difficult to push them into the box of the school system at the same time. The expectation from the parents, the students themselves and the world we live in is still that they have ‘good’ grades.
  3. Contradiction nr2.: adulthood can be tough, especially in the professional arena, and still, although with good intentions, we keep solving our kids’ problems, sweeping the way for them to walk through childhood and adolescence. How will they tackle adulthood if they don’t learn to sometimes just get through difficult times? Shouldn’t we be sharing with them more tools instead? Allow them to fail and reflect with them? Help them get up again?
  4. And another contradiction: we keep telling students that it is allowed to fail, and that failure is good because it is through mistakes that we learn. Still, we expect from them to be happy, motivated, and put their best effort in everything. If they loose motivation in school or have low levels of achievement, we push them to ‘do better’.
  5. What does it do to the mental health of a teenager to not have any other place in life to show their abilities than in the school system? Why do we keep believing that everyone has to go through the same system to succeed in life? Why haven’t we come up with real alternatives for those who would thrive doing something different than sitting in a classroom through one of the most challenging periods in life: adolescence?

Here in Norway, children and teenagers can join sports clubs, but here too, the pressure is quite high as they grow old. Some of them just want to be part of a club and do sports, not all of them aim higher than that, but in many cases, it seems that the goal of the clubs is to push the kids to become better and better, and this results in many teenagers dropping out. With training sessions several times a week, often late in the evening, and in addition the pressure of school, it becomes too much.

I keep wondering if we shouldn’t go back to a more traditional kind of society where young people can become apprentices without having to go through the school system or decide right away a career. I have a new student who lives in what we could call a ‘special’ community where several families live in a neighbourhood where they share common grounds and some buildings. They cultivate fruits and vegetables, have cows and chicken and the most beautiful part, two families share the responsibility to take care of one disabled person who lives with them. This student is so happy living there. She tells me she milks the cows first thing in the morning before coming to school and in the evenings. She has the opportunity to feel useful outside the school or succeed in any other ‘traditional’ arena.

  1. Should we have better systems in place to take care of the mental health of students AND teachers?

Traditionally, students would go to school to get their education. Education is now seen in a more holistic way than before. We understand that a student is not an ’empty’ brain to fill with information, they are individuals that need to be met where they are at. They also need to learn skills that help them continue learning in life, they need to learn social skills, the need to learn how to take care of themselves and those around them, they need to learn to take care of the environment. This is good, but it is a lot for the school to bear. Whenever I am in contact with instances outside the school such as the social services, and express my concern for a student’s well-being, the ball is thrown back to the school, and the question is asked: what is the school doing for this child?

Although I love my job, lately, I feel that I disagree more and more with the way we facilitate for students to learn and thrive. It is draining us and demotivating many of them. I am unsure that we are teaching to help them develop into mentally robust young people, and in the process, it often feels like the teachers’ mental health is being compromised.

‘Bad’ habits

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I once read in one of Mr Iyengar’s book something like this: thoughts become actions and actions become habits. I think my paraphrase is way too short, but that is the part of the quote that stroke me the most. It was in the context of Patanjali’s Yoga sutras and the importance of gaining awareness of our own thinking processes. Ever since then, I try to observe my own habits. It is fascinating to see how many of them are created without intention! Especially the habits that are behind conscious or unconscious ideas of myself and those around me. My behaviour becomes a ‘bad’ habit in certain situations as a result of an idea I have of myself and/or the other person.

Unconscious and bad habits are not always easy to discover, I must confess, and I am always amazed when I do. Like this weekend. My husband and I don’t buy wine very often, but yesterday, we both felt like having some red wine. Here in Norway, you can’t buy wine – or any alcohol except for beer- at the grocery store, you have to go to something called Vinmonopolet (the Wine Monopoly). Therefore, it requires a bit more effort to get it. So Saturday morning, we went downtown to run some errands, and we bought ourselves a bottle of red wine.

We went home. I had some things I wanted to get done, and Arve had his. At some point late in the evening, I was sewing some patches on a blanket when Arve got up from the couch, opened the bottle and served himself a glass of ‘our’ wine. He sat back on the couch with his computer on his lap and the glass of wine in one hand. He looked so content. I felt offended. Trying to be as diplomatic and constructive as I could, I made a remark about it, and he replied something like: well, you seem always so busy, I just didn’t want to bother you. I seem busy?! He has ‘always’ the computer on his lap! Again, I tried my best to find a way to lead this conversation to a space of openness instead of conflict (which is not always my strength, if I am honest).

It turns out, he’s right. Every single evening, I talk about all the things I ‘have to do’. I don’t always end up doing them, but I do talk about them. So, all my husband can do is to grab his computer and do his own thing. So, I have the habit of thinking that he is not interested in spending time with me. That he prefers to do something else.

Added to this ‘bad’ habit of mine is the unconscious expectation that my husband ‘shows interest’ in me, and this has to happen of course as I imagine it. It is as if I kind of expect to get an invitation from him instead of saying clearly that I miss spending time with him and that I would like to enjoy a glass of wine together.

After our chat, he did invite me to watch a movie that he had been wanting to watch. It was nice even though I didn’t make it awake all the way to the end of the movie. Not because of the movie. Certainly not because of my husband. It has just been a hectic week, and with the wine… I am happy I gathered the courage to have this conversation without being confrontational. We had fallen into a habit of thought. I thought my husband was not interested in spending time with me during the evenings because he sits with his laptop on the couch. He thought I was too busy to want to do anything with him. We fell into the habit of believing what the other is thinking instead of talking about both wanting to spend some time together.

A similar eye opener happened some years ago when we were going through a difficult situation. It was tough for both of us, and I started resenting my husband because I felt that he wasn’t giving me much emotional support through this. So, in addition to struggle with the difficult moment, I was being resentful towards him. Acting passive-aggressively. When I finally gathered the courage to have the difficult conversation, it turned out he felt I was pushing him away. I was acting as if I had full control over my emotions and didn’t need his support. It was, of course, a way to keep the pain away because I knew that if I showed vulnerability, I would have to face my own emotions and I wasn’t ready for it. So, the easiest was to keep my attention on something else, namely what I thought was my husband’s inability to show empathy. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time I felt like this, but I had never dared to talk about it with openness. It had always ended up in a bunch of complaints and accusations from my side. We had fallen into a bad habit that none of us had had the ability to see even less break, and I believe this bad habit was the result of my own and my husband’s unaware thinking processes. It is often the idea we have of ourselves and others that stands in the way for our interactions with others.

Choices, choices

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We are all the time making choices. Even not choosing is a choice. With age, experience and after yoga reached my life, I have learned to understand the importance of being aware of the thinking behind my choices. Am I choosing out of fear? Am I choosing with my heart? Am I avoiding to choose? If yes, why?

With age also, I have gained perspective. I can deal with most of the consequences of the choices I make because I know the intention behind them. Somehow, it is easier to deal with unexpected results when I know that my intention was clear. I always tell myself that I can accept the mistake, or the criticism, say ‘sorry’ and move on.

However, there is an area in my life where I struggle a lot with when it comes to choices, and that is my children’s upbringing. I think many parents can relate to this. I observe other parents, especially those who choose differently than me – us, we are after all two parents – and ask myself, why don’t I do like this? I am sometimes invaded by self-doubt.

Our kids are now less dependent on us, and I have started evaluating many of our choices. I have come to realise that some of these choices were less fortunate than others. For example, we chose to live in a place where we don’t have any family, and even though we managed quite well to get through everyday life without any help, I see now that our kids missed quite a lot that kids who grow up with their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins have. We don’t have a strong network that can support them. I think more and more about the importance of growing up with different role models. At the start of their lives, my husband and I were our children’s world, but little by little, they affirm more and more their personality and maybe (most probably even) our personality, our views, our way of doing things, might not align with them. If they had other adults to connect with, they would maybe get different ideas, different sources of inspiration. Also, they are getting into the age where they stop believing their parents when they say how fantastic they are, maybe hearing it from other adults that have a connection with them would work better.

We have never wanted to push our kids too much with school work either. In primary school, the most important was that they thrive, that they enjoy learning, and that they like going to school. I personally did expect certain effort, but I rarely sat with them to do homework. My explanation was that they went to an international school where they had longer days than the kids going to public schools, and I felt that they should be allowed to do other things in the evenings. They also were quite active with different after school activities and I wanted them to relax once at home. Once in middle school, I have talked about my expectation of them trying their best at school.

I don’t necessarily regret this choice, but I think that I should have helped them set a routine for homework because they will need it once they are in highschool.

Like this, I have quite a few reflections on what we could have chosen that might have meant something different or better for our children. However, I feel that I have made some important choices that I haven’t regretted at all.

I want my kids to grow up as caring, balanced and resilient people. I know they have come to the world to write their own story, and I will have to accept however they develop, but at least I will not look back and regret not having these values as my core values. Therefore, I have made some choices that sometimes have brought self-doubt in other areas like professional development, or even how our home looks like.

I know that I don’t tackle stress very well. I know that I am not good at doing many things at the same time because I don’t like doing things halfheartedly. It has been a priority for me that my kids feel loved, supported and seen in everyday life. That they feel that we are present. Not only physically but also mentally. Therefore, I have tried to not overload myself. I have a job, I have some hobbies, but I try as much as I can that nothing stands in the way for me showing my care and love to my kids. I haven’t always succeeded at this, and I have also gone through periods where I have had to work more or been away some evenings or even days, but I have been present as much as I can.

I know my resumé would look much better and I would have more job opportunities if I had a Masters degree. But I also know that studying would mean take away time from some area in my life, and most probably it would end up being my family. Our house is functional and pleasant to live in, but if we made an effort we could make many improvements. This would again mean taking away time to spend outdoors, or on sewing projects, or just sit and watch a movie with my kids.

I keep telling myself that I still have many years to study, to renovate, and to set myself goals, but the opportunity to spend time with my family will never come back. This said, I see how much people are able to do, and I sometimes do ask myself if I’m not a bit lazy. If I shouldn’t be doing this or that.

But, in days like today, I feel that I have at least done some good choices. That there is no one right answer on how we should live our lives. That we all have to find our way. Our priorities and try as hard as we can to avoid comparing our life to the life of others.

Why do I talk specifically about today? I will tell you a little story. Our youngest daughter is 12 years old. She just started middle school this Fall. On Thursdays, she has dance classes after school, and it has become our little thing to eat together somewhere in town before we take the bus to the dance studio. We then have a lot of time to talk. It is very nice to hear her experiences and her reflections.

Today, she told me she went to the toilet during one of her lessons and she found a girl from yr4 sitting in a corner crying. She immediately sat beside her and asked her what happened. The girl told her that a boy in her class had said something mean to her, and my daughter said something like ‘he must not feel very good about himself and that is why he is nasty to others, you shouldn’t pay attention to that kind of comments.’. She stayed with her until she was ready to go back to her classroom.

When I praised her for taking the time to talk with her and showing empathy, she said ‘I am now one of the older kids in our school, we have to be good role models. I couldn’t just go in, pee, and go out when someone is crying. I would have felt so bad.’

Anyone who knows our youngest daughter knows that she has many colours. She is not the most responsible always, but can be quite responsible. She enjoys learning, but she can also be quite lazy. She is caring, but can often be selfish. So this action only tells me that she is balanced and caring and that makes me happy.

Maybe, some of the choices I’ve made have helped her develop empathy? I am not saying that it is thanks to me that she is as she is, but at least our way of bringing her up hasn’t killed this in her.

I observe other families around us and I see kids developing the same and other skills. Sometimes I do think, why can’t my son or daughter do like that? What have they lacked in their upbringing that hasn’t inspired to that attitude? But then I think that luckily for the world, we are different, grow up in different settings with parents with different values and views, so we develop different skills and assets. There is no recipe. We just have to make conscious choices out of who we are, who our kids are and within the context we live in, and enjoy when our kids display their best attributes for their own benefit and the benefit of others.

What am I feeling and learning this week?

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Since last week, I keep oscillating between overwhelmed, tired and annoyed, and serene and optimistic. One day, it feels like I will never get all my tasks done, and the next one I tell myself that I just need to do one thing at a time and things will fall into place.

One minute I am able to show compassion and understanding to the people I mingle daily with, and the next one, I am acting passive-aggressively because what I see as their shortcomings are ‘unforgivable’.

In between moods, I observe and I reflect. I can’t help but wonder why when I feel stressed and overwhelmed, I get so annoyed at other people? Is it because seeing other people’s flaws moves the attention outwards and gives me ‘good reasons’ to be annoyed? Or is it because I usually let people step over my boundaries too much? Am I keeping the peace usually by not saying anything or am I missing the opportunity to be assertive when things are calm and moving dangerously into conflict when I’m tired and overwhelmed? The problem and advantage at the same time are that I know very well my moods, and I know that going into conflict will make me feel worse, so I keep the frustration in, and instead act passive-aggressively which adds on to the already quite dark mood.

Do I feed into the feeling of being overloaded and overwhelmed with my own expectations? Can I simplify? Can I postpone some things? Can I not do others? Can I focus on one thing at a time and let the rest be? Why do I believe that if I’m not in control of certain things, the world will fall apart? Do I even believe that? Not really, so why not let go of control? Delegate. Ask for help. To ask for help, especially in the house is not to nag. Why do I keep thinking that asking for help will make me sound like a nagging wife? Mum? Maybe because of the tone in which I ask for help and maybe the tone appears when I have waited too long to ask for help…

At the end of the day, I keep coming back to the same teachings from Yoga: take responsibility for my own well-being and let the world be what it needs to be. Do what I can do in the roles I have to play but let go of the need to make everything about me. Stop and take a break when I need it. Say no when needed. Don’t get overwhelmed by my dark mood, because like everything else in life, this too will pass.

Having someone to talk with also helps. I am lucky to have a some good colleagues and friends that are willing to listen, show empathy (maybe the most important when I feel overwhelmed), and give advice. I am thankful for them.

Scenes from a Marriage

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I started watching Scenes from a Marriage on HBO last week. While I was watching episode 2, I had so many thoughts and emotions. I know it’s fiction, but I think many couples can identify themselves with parts of the story of this couple. What resonated most with me is Mira’s pain. I have been there too. At a place where I suddenly believed that my life wasn’t as it should be, that my relationship with my partner was partly the problem, and that if I could only get out of it and be with someone different, I would be happy again. I remember how I would oscillate between loathing myself and loathing my partner. I felt that the version of me in the family context was unpleasant, and uninteresting. Just like Mira, I also at some point wanted to get out. It is heartbreaking to see her desperation and the confusion in her mind, and the effect it has on her husband.

While watching the second episode, I also thought, this woman is not mentally healthy. She needs help. I don’t know where the story is going to go, but what I like is that we are not expected to pick a side. Or at least, that is not how it feels for me.

I am grateful that I never made the choice to leave my husband and kids when I was at my worst emotional crisis. I don’t think this would have made me happier, I think it would have made me even more miserable because, let’s face it, who likes to create pain in others? My husband, my kids and my husband through the pain from my kids. I also believe that since I wasn’t in a good space internally, I would most probably be unable to find a good space elsewhere.

This is only one fictional story about confusion and pain, but I think we all at least know someone who at some point in life came to this kind of crossroads where you question the choices you have made and suddenly believe that if only this or that happened, you wouldn’t feel pain, you would be happier. For some, this illusion of happiness comes in the shape of the perfect job, or the perfect house, or the perfect children, just to name some.

Yoga came to my life for good when I was standing at one of these crossroads, and what I liked about it is that we are encouraged to do some serious work of introspection but leave the judgement out. We are encouraged to see ourselves face to face and accept our shortcomings, and at the same time, we are encouraged to cultivate self-love. When we are able to see ourselves with perspective and connect our pain with our views and attitudes instead of pointing fingers at the rest of the world, a completely new world opens up. A world of compassion and understanding but also of self-responsibility.

With time, I have been able to see my own confusion, and my unrealistic expectations towards myself and my husband. I also realised that going through a difficult period with three young children, wasn’t going to last forever. I understood that some of my expectations were the result of limited ideas and perceptions and that I could let go of them. I learned to be more assertive and clear.

Another aspect of Yoga that also has been very useful is the importance of understanding that our value as living beings is beyond our roles and actions. We are encouraged to play our part in life with clear intentions and a positive attitude but not attach our well-being to the results of these actions. This is both difficult to practice but liberating when we manage. Instead of aiming towards perfection and acknowledgement, we aim towards clarity. Why do I do what I do? How does it affect me and others? And when we make mistakes, we accept them, reflect on them but don’t mentally and emotionally beat ourselves down.

I have been reflecting a lot about this lately because I feel that sometimes, my attachment to my idea of who I am creates stress for me and those around me. I am so invested in meeting certain expectations I have of myself that I either end up exhausted or when I do not think or act according to these expectations, I feel awful. I feel like a ‘bad person’. I still need to work on this.

Amazingly enough, the work of self-reflection is very useful when interacting with other people. Personally, it has influenced the way I meet other people. I am less judgemental because I see myself in other people’s shortcomings. Also, when challenged, I can direct my attention inwards and ask myself if the interaction with the other person is the real reason for my distress or if it is something that comes from me (attitude, expectation, perspective, lack of clarity).

Going back to the character in the series, Mira, she has obviously chosen another path than the one I chose some years ago. This doesn’t mean that she is a bad person, or that I am wiser than her. She will get through the pain and experience the consequences of her actions, and it is going to be interesting to see where the author will take her. In real life, all choices we make can lead to growth and take us a step closer to a better inner space if we take the time to reflect and learn. Some paths might be longer because we take quite a few detours, but we will all get there eventually. This is also an important lesson from Yoga, there is no such thing as failure, we don’t win anything with drowning ourselves in regret. All we can do is lift ourselves up and keep walking.