The Space Between 

It’s been nearly six months since I have written a post or shared my thoughts in writing. I took the easy way out and started adding my thoughts on Instagram in the form of a daily thought via stories. People seem to engage more with video than writing, but there is something about writing that keeps me coming back.

I’ve had a lot of time to digest some things that happened at the end of the calendar year, and I want to share some thoughts here.

A Rough Four Weeks 

In the matter of four school weeks, our team had to issue significant consequences to four different students who I worked with for the past two to three years. Two of which resulted in District Level consequences, one a long term suspension, and lastly a change of placement. I understand that these series of events are not my fault, nor are they a direct reflection of me and my ability to help students or even lead in a positive way.

However, at times, I feel this way. The negative voices in my head replay the 100’s of interactions with these students and ask, What if, Why did you do that way, You could have done it this way, Didn’t you know that wouldn’t work. Now that I have seen the space between the events, the chaos, the consequences, the mediation (in some cases), and the end of the school year. I realize that my actions and interactions with these students were out of love, but also out of my love for the other 1200 students in our school.

I can’t go into the details of these events, but collectively they struck me, and I had a difficult time finding positive things to write and think about and my negative self-talk began to take over. In part, I feel that this lead me to a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. In which, I started leading out of fear and reaction instead of love and response.

Cognitive Model

Again, I know these events were not my fault and in reality, should have made my life more comfortable, but my brain didn’t interpret these events it that way, and they made my life more difficult. Looking at the Cognitive model below…

Event —> Interpretation —> Emotion —> Response

My interpretation of the events was where the breakdown happened. Triggering negative thoughts and emotions which lead to negative reactions both on the inside and outside. I started to believe that I was failing my students, not just a few of them, but all of them. It’s irrational and not true, but it was a difficult space to be in.

Negative Talk

The negative self-talk began to creep into other aspects of my life, including my role as husband and father. I knew I had to figure something out.

I’ve slowly cleared the space between and rewired my initial interpretation of these events allowing a new emotion and response. It hasn’t been easy, but my negative self-talk has been replaced with positive talk as well as a greater understanding of what the students were thinking and feeling during this time as well.

The positive part of these events and the past six months is that when similar events happen in the future. I know that I need to purposefully interpret situations in a positive way, which will similarly frame my emotions and responses.

Dr. Kristin Neff triggered the initial thoughts of this post