Carol: You're listening to the Counselor Chat podcast, a show for school counselors looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of joy. I'm Carol Miller, your host. I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind Counseling Essentials. I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative approaches to engage students. If you're looking for a little inspiration to help help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place. Because we're better together. Ready to chat. Let's dive in.

Carol: Hey there counselors. Welcome back to another episode of Counselor Chat. I'm Carol Miller, your host, your fellow school counselor, and the person who's probably just like you. Where you're currently living in that weird July limbo. Were part of you still wearing flip flops? And the other part? Well, it's mentally labeling file folders and wondering if you should go back to school just to check in on things. And for me, I mean, we just are getting done, so we are going to June 27th. So I mean, we really just got out of school. Yeah, and I'm thinking about the things for next year that already have to be done. Crazy, right? But if you're anything like me, you're probably juggling that summer guilt. You know, the one that says, shouldn't I be doing something? Mixed with a deep cellular level exhaustion that screams girl, please sit down. I'm calling today's episode Red, White and Burned Out. It's signs you need more summer recharge. And I thought today we would talk candidly about counselor burnout. What it can look like, why you might not even realize you're still carrying it, and how to actually recharge in a way that serves you best. Let's start with a little truth bomb, my friends. Burnout. It doesn't always look like a total collapse. Sometimes it looks like you're scrolling Pinterest for classroom decor, but you have zero motivation to actually buy anything. Or maybe you're dragging your feet to answer emails from your principal because you were expecting one to come in even though it's technically your time off. Or suddenly you're dreading all those back to school ads, not because you're not excited for the kids, but because you don't feel excited and that it worries you a bit. Here are some sneaky signs of burnout. You're a bit more irritable than usual. Even at home. You're feeling guilty for not being productive in the summer. You've stopped doing the things that normally bring you joy. You're constantly tired even after sleeping in and you've already had the maybe I should leave education thought more than once this summer. Does any of that sound familiar? My friends, I am going into year 34 and trust me, it has not been a career of just wearing rose colored glasses and everything is fine and life is just fantastic. Nope. I have been there. I have been irritable. I have been so irritable that I didn't even know I was being irritable. And it wasn't until I took a transfer from the high school to the middle school and people actually came up to me and said, wow, you're smiling. I mean, I thought I was happy before that, but I was pretty snarky and pretty irritable. Sometimes we miss those little cues in ourself. And like I said, I have been there more than once. And I want to say this clearly and as lovingly as I can. My friends, you are allowed to rest without earning it. Summer is your reset button. It's not a productivity contest. I know I used to love working in the summer. Not so much because I was working in the summer, but I really like getting that paycheck. And I was pushing 20 to 30 extra days and I didn't realize that that was also adding a lot of strain and a lot of stress. Even though I had a little bit of flexibility with the hours that I went in, I actually would like to go in a little bit earlier so that I could get out extra early. My kids were little so I'd have plenty of time to hang out with them and do the things with them and I got to pick the days that I, I went in. So I always felt I had time for some break. But it was still wearing on me once again. I didn't even really notice that until I transferred to the elementary level. And instead of having 20 or 30 summer days, I had 10. But really I only work about three and I need that summertime. I need that time off. I mean, I'm a busy lady. I got stuff going on all of the time. Between my family stuff and drive in and all the counselor stuff and the, the conference and perks content club and my TPT store and going to different conferences and trying to fit all the things in while still being a good mom and a good wife and a good friend. It's sometimes a tricky balance. But summer is an excellent reset button and it isn't a productivity contest. And here's the kicker. Recharging isn't Just doing nothing. Sometimes it's doing something that restores you, that brings you back to yourself. So I want you to ask yourself, when was the last time I did something to. Just because it made me happy? And what fills my cup outside of work? Am I spending time around people who make me feel like myself? And do I know what kind of counselor I want to be next year? But if you're thinking, well, I've mostly just been napping and reorganizing my spice cabinet, then, hey, I can respect that too. But if your soul still feels tired, you might need to be more intentional about your recharge time. I can remember, and my husband still does it to this day. I stress about getting all the things done in the summer for school. And there had been a couple days that I wasn't getting everything done in my summer days that I was allotted. And my husband would always say, is it better for you to go in and put the extra hour to. In to give yourself that peace of mind so that when you start school, when school starts, you'll feel better? Or is it better for you to take the time off and not worry about any of that and stress and handle that stress when it starts in September? And sometimes there's no real good answer. Sometimes it is, oh, it's better for me physically and mentally if I get it done now. Otherwise I'll spend the rest of my summer stressing that I didn't get it done, I didn't get it done, I didn't get it done. And sometimes it's better for me to say, nope, I gotta let this go right now because I'll just handle that stress when it comes to me in September. You have to. My friends know you and what's best for you. I'm going to be honest, I didn't make it over 30 years in this profession because I didn't handle the stress. No, in fact, I learned how to handle it because school counseling is stressful. Even if you think, wow, I work in a great district, I work with great families, I work with great kids. There are things that just come up in our day, in our days, that's a lot to deal with, It's a lot to process. It's emotionally draining. So we need to be able to handle that stress. And for some of us, it might be we need to leave education because maybe this isn't the place where we can figure out how to balance it, how to handle it, or maybe it's just not the career path that you thought it would be. And for some of us, it is knowing what you need to fill your cup and really prioritizing that and making it a necessity in your life and not really an afterthought. You need to be my friends, really intentional about your recharge time. So try spending an afternoon outside without checking your phone if that's what serves you best. If you're into journaling, journal about what you want more out of your life and what you want less of, and say no to things that feel like a should instead of a want. But you can also reconnect with other counselors who just get it. I know when I go to different conferences, I really see three types of people there. I see the counselors that are going because they go every year, and when they go, it's like a big family reunion with all their friends from across the state or across the country. They're getting together and they're really reconnecting those bonds. And for others, they're trying to sharpen their tools in their toolbox. They want to get inspired. They want to learn some new things so that they can work smarter and not harder. And then the last group of counselors are the ones that are barely hanging on, who keep thinking, I'm not sure if this is the right career path for me, but I'm going to give that one last go ahead to see if there's something that can rekindle my why that can push me to finding the joy that I've lost. Reconnecting with counselors, my friends, is so important. You need to be with people who, who just get it. There's really nothing like it. I know this summer I am going to be spending a lot of time probably in the woods because that's where my family likes to do the camping. But we're going to be on some beaches at the lake. We're going to be hanging out. I already have a hotel room just to be by the pool. And we're going to do some of those things as a family or just my husband and I, just to slow down the pace of life that we have a little bit because we both drive in different directions and we drive a lot. But I'm also going to go to a couple conferences. I'm going to Aska, and I'm going to the 2025 Summer Counselor Conference because I need to be with people that have that passion. I. I need to be around people that light me up. If you're looking for a way to recharge, reconnect, or reignite your passion for this work. I really hope that you come to our 2025 Summer Counselor Conference. It is totally virtual. So yes, you can attend in your yoga pants right from your porch. But having led this conference for the last four years, I can say it is packed with some really powerful sessions, some excellent conversations, and practical tools that can actually energize your practice instead of overwhelming it. What I found is that it's not your average sit and get pd. It is a community. It's inspiration when it's just for us. I really look forward to the Facebook group and seeing the pictures that people post. I mean, I love seeing pictures of people's rooms and things that they've found online. Even just posters that they have hanging in their offices. It just kind of lights me up. And I really love the zoom meetings where we gather with people from all across the country, all across the world, in fact, and hear what different people are doing and even what they're doing for the summer. So if you haven't signed up already and you're looking for that little charge or recharge, I hope you'll. You'll join us and I'll drop the link for that in the show notes. But it's easy. It's just summercounselor. Conference. Com. But in terms of recharging and re energizing my friends, another thing that I've really invested a lot in myself is learning about the eight dimensions of wellness and trying to make sure that I have a little bit, or I focus a little bit of me in each of those dimensions. Whether it's financial wellness or spirituality or environmental. I need to make sure that I'm dipping and scooping from each of those dimensions. And that could be a whole podcast in itself. In fact, maybe I think I will. I'll do one of those later on this year. But knowing about the dimensions of wellness and how it affects us is a really good first step of also making sure that your mindset and your. Your willingness to look at things sometimes a little bit differently, to slow down and take a breath, is really helpful because school counseling, I'm hoping that you guys are here for a really long time. I would love it if you can make it to 34 years, too. And really the only way that you're going to do that is by recharging, reinvesting in yourself, finding things that are going to spark you, but also slowing down sometimes because we can't. We can't do it all. We just have to do our best. I had this is our last week of schools day before our last day. And I actually had one of our community programmers in our building. And she works with. She's like a mentor. She works with a couple of our students. And she was like, boy, I'm really sad that my one person hasn't come to school. And I know that she's having all these mental health problems. And we have been trying to really get her connected and hospitalized, and there's just so much red tape. But she's like, I'm so sad that I spent all this time with her and I wasn't able to make a difference. And I had to remind her that sometimes we are making the difference. We just. We don't see it. You know, we're just planting those seeds. And kids, adults, us, we have to be willing to make the change. A lot of times we know what needs to be done, but it's so easy to fall into those old predictable habits that we forget sometimes that we have some habits that really don't serve us any longer that we need to get rid of. And we need to build better ones in their place because they will serve us better. And for this little pumpkin, she's just not in the space right now that anything that we have said to her or suggested or the work that we've done together, it's just not sticking. And she's just not quite ready. Doesn't mean she will never be ready. She's just not ready yet. So we do what we can with what we have. So remember that we are making a difference. You are making a difference. And this has gone a little variety of ways, and I have really gone off track a little bit. But as we talk about burnout, I'm hoping that you guys use this summer to think about those little things, things that are going to fill you up, how to say no to some things that you don't really need to be doing. How to move beyond just taking that extra nap and really fill your life with things that are going to reinvigorate you, energize you, and recharge you. Take advantage of your summer, Invest in yourself, invest in your education. Because although it's your summer and it's time off, I think sometimes when we do those summer conferences, even though we're focusing on school, we're not in school. We are connecting with people that are going to really push us forward, and we are going to make next year easier for us by learning the skills that are going to move us in the right direction for our program. And when we do all those little things in combination, that's how we really prevent all the burnout, because we have to do all the things. Remember I said the eight dimensions of wellness and having something filled in each one of those. It's that it's putting little bits of us and all these things to try to really balance us. It's like the spokes on the bike we're keeping. We're going to keep adding spokes so that it keeps us held up. Anyway, my friends, I don't want you to leave education. I want you to do things that bring you joy. I want you to sleep in from time to time, but I don't want you feeling irritable. And I want you to go back and head into the school year just feeling wonderful, ready to go, and knowing what led you here in the first place. Anyway, if there's things that you want to talk about, if you are super stressed and you're not sure what to do, if you're feeling like, man, I am burnt out and don't know what to do, send me an email. Let's talk about it. Because everyone needs somebody in their corner. And my friends, I'm in your corner. Anyway, that's it for today. I think I rambled enough. But enjoy your summer. Recharge, reconnect and reignite yourself and your passion. You are doing great things. And until next time, I hope you have a really restful week. Bye for now.

Carol: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Counselor Chat. All of the links I talked about can be found in the show notes and at counselingessentials.org podcast. Be sure to hit follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player. And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it. Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at counselingessentials. Until next time. Keep can't wait till we chat. Bye for now.