Episode 2: Self-Care Looks Good on You

Description: Self-care doesn’t always mean big, sweeping changes. Sometimes it’s about the small daily choices that make us feel our best. Join Dr. Tina Boogren for encouragement, reflection, and a fun new way to show your Self-Care Squad pride.

Resources: Buy Self-Care Squad gear at https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators.

Listen Now:

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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode two of season six of Self-Care for Educators with Dr. Tina H Boogren, and that is me. So the first thing I wanna do is revisit the invitation from last week, which was to notice one good thing. And I want you to pause and just consider how that impacted your week. Were you able to do that? What did you notice? Were there any positive changes for doing that? Did your worldview change? Did you decide that it works better for you in the morning than in the evening? I just think reflection is so important, so I just want you to pause and reflect on that. If you didn't do it, of course, it's never too late. You can pick that up and work on that for this week. Notice one good thing that happens each day and I really encourage you to write it down so your brain starts noticing and naming all of the good. Yay! 

So this week's invitation is a super fun one. This week's invitation is to visit the link that we have provided to you, which is simply just Bonfire one word, https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators, and go treat yourself to some merch. I have partnered with Bonfire, they reached out because they love what we are doing. And they said, “You need t-shirts and sweatshirts.” And I said, “Yes, we do!” And so that is exactly what we've created. So I worked with a great designer over there. And we were able to come up with some pretty fun designs that have LYBL and drink the stupid water logos on them that you can put on a t-shirt, you can put it on a hoodie, you can put it on a sweatshirt. We've got all different colors, all different sizes, and so that campaign is launching right now and it's going to go for 21 days. And we're gonna see how it does. And if you seem to like it, then we're happy to explore other options, maybe different logos, different products. But I thought we'd just start with a good old t-shirt and sweatshirt. 'cause man, don't we love a good old t-shirt and sweatshirt, right? 

Whether it's something that you just get to wear around your house or on the weekend, or if your school would allow you to wear it, to remind yourself that we always get a choice and we can choose to live our best lives every single day. That's the whole goal and the mission behind the work that I do around wellness of what if, what if we lived our very best life every single day? It's one thing to live it on vacation and when we have time off and on the weekends, and man, we gotta sink into that. But what if we also figured out ways to live our very best lives while we are at work? What a gift that would be. Not only to ourselves, but to our colleagues and to our students. And so by wearing it on a t-shirt, wearing it on a sweatshirt, we get to remind ourselves of that. 

And as we know, what's kind of become our funny little tagline here is the reminder to just drink stupid water. Right? Which is a truth, right? Drink stupid water. And it's also a reminder that it's sometimes just the little things that make us feel better, right? We are, as I always like to say, we are glorified house plan. And we gotta think about what we need in order to live our best lives. Well, we need a little sunshine and we need some water and we need someone to feed us and someone to talk nicely to us, right? And we need some rest. All the good things. And it's those small, tiny little things that actually make a huge impact. As we know, we don't always just need to burn everything down and start from scratch. We don't need to always say, “starting Monday” and decide that we're gonna make these huge sweeping changes. Instead, it's the teeny tiny choices that we make. 

And for me, I have to recommit every single day to drink that stupid dumb water. I don't want to. I'd rather drink coffee, and then I'd rather drink Diet Mountain Dew, right? I've got all a list of things that I would rather drink, but here's what I know. I know that I am living my best life when I'm drinking water. Yeah, because I know that when I drink water, I don't get a headache and I have more energy and I feel better because I'm filling myself up with what my body actually needs and that is living my best life. Right? 

So there's this whole spectrum of how we live our best lives. It can look very different, perhaps like on vacation, right? Or on the weekend. But those core, basic needs that we have that can carry us into living our best lives while we are at work. And you know, I often say there's different ways to think about self-care, and sometimes self-care is really the self-indulgence. But at the end of the day, self-care is making choices that align with what we need to move forward and how we wanna feel. Right? Let me say that again. Self-care really at the end of the day, is making choices that are aligned with how we want to feel, right? Doing things that help us feel our best. Because when we feel our best, we are better for everyone around us. We're better for ourselves, we're better for our colleagues, we're better for our students. And so what better way to remind us of all that good stuff than to put it on a t-shirt or a sweatshirt. I'm so excited. I'm so excited. 

I have one coming in the mail and of course I will post a picture of it as soon as I get it. I don't have it in my hands just yet, but. When I do, I will absolutely post it for you. So that's the invitation, is to treat yourself to head on over, as I said, and of course, we will link to this in the show notes, but it's just https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators and you will see the cute, cute, cute logo over there. You'll see the cute t-shirts, you'll see the hoodie, you will see the crew neck sweatshirt, and treat yourself. Hmm. You are absolutely worth it. What a fun thing. And it's kind of like, you know, it's wearing our like letter jacket that we're in this squad together. I think it's gonna be so fun and I can't wait. I want you to treat yourself and I want you to post pictures of you wearing it. I would love to see you and your team sporting the t-shirts or sporting the sweatshirts or a hoodie and share pictures. Oh, it's gonna make us all so happy. So that's it. I want you to live your best life. I want you to drink that dumb water, and you're gonna remind yourself to do all of those things by heading on over to https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators and getting yourself a little treat. Mm, amazing. I'm cheering so hard for you. Make it a great week, you guys!

As always, we are so grateful to Adrienne. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for, uh, just being my thought partner, being my friend, and being my uh, magic-maker and getting all of this to our people. Thank you to Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this job that I get to do, that I'm so grateful for. And as always, the biggest, biggest loudest thank you to all of you, the listeners, the badass self-care squad. Ah, you keep me going, you guys. You really do. I'm so grateful for all of you. Feel my hand on your back this week and make it a great week. Go buy yourself something pretty!