Every Catholic teacher can have times when they feel stuck, burned out or unsure of the impact of their daily work.
In today’s episode I respond to a beautiful listener question that asks for input on knowing when it may be time to make some changes.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome back to the Catholic teacher, almost daily podcast.
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Speaker:The only thing that would be a blessing to me is if you would share this with
Speaker:other Catholic teachers, I just have a real sense that it's a challenging In
Speaker:Catholic education, there are so many.
Speaker:Socio-cultural political structural forces that are against the expression of faith.
Speaker:Against the expression of Catholic passionate education.
Speaker:Where we really seek to make the person of Jesus known and loved
Speaker:in the lives of young people.
Speaker:So simply sharing this with more teachers is a great blessing to me.
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Speaker:Completely free to you.
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Speaker:circuit, working with Catholic schools, Catholic students, all around
Speaker:So wherever you are, check out that link, reach out and let me know.
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Speaker:This is 2022.
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Speaker:They VR you're over there doing great sessions for students on
Speaker:leadership, mental health, faith.
Speaker:And then of course, working with teachers on.
Speaker:Mission evangelization and, uh, and teacher wellbeing.
Speaker:This whole teacher burnout exhaustion thing is such a big issue.
Speaker:So if you are in Catholic education and you are noticing that you or
Speaker:your colleagues are struggling with fatigue and burnout, a little bit of
Speaker:disillusionment, Then go check out those links on how you can book me to speak.
Speaker:And finally, you'll find a link somewhere here to Karen's Catholic
Speaker:masterclass for women around the world.
Speaker:She does this amazing online masterclass for Catholic women.
Speaker:So go check that out.
Speaker:Okay, let's jump Today is another fantastic listener question.
Speaker:They're a great privilege to read these and to speak into them in some way.
Speaker:We're going to trust the holy spirit is going to be doing that.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:This is a beautiful question.
Speaker:Uh, from a lady who I really admire, who does some great work.
Speaker:And she said this, I am interested.
Speaker:In what you can do when you feel stuck.
Speaker:And you feel that your talents or opportunities are hard to grow?
Speaker:Perhaps I am over some of the aspects of teaching mainly correcting year
Speaker:eight, English And at coming up to a young 65 and still needing to work.
Speaker:I wonder how I can inject more satisfaction into the working day.
Speaker:But I would like to feel I can use my talents more overtly
Speaker:than just in the classroom.
Speaker:Any suggestions, ideas, hints for the listener who feels that
Speaker:they have a light to shine.
Speaker:But I'm not sure of the best avenue for this.
Speaker:To work.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Summary.
Speaker:What have we got here?
Speaker:We've got somebody doing amazing work in Catholic education.
Speaker:Faithful diligent
Speaker:In the lives of young people, but having an interior sense that is
Speaker:this, all there is, is this all that I'm called to maybe some fatigue You
Speaker:know, it's understandable, isn't it?
Speaker:You know, it's a.
Speaker:This journey of education.
Speaker:You guys are professional givers.
Speaker:That's what I always say.
Speaker:Catholic education is the art of professional giving.
Speaker:I'm an introvert.
Speaker:Believe it or not.
Speaker:I know when you hear me on the microphone or you see me on YouTube.
Speaker:You're like introvert.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:I am the biggest introvert.
Speaker:I know my eldest daughter may be close, but I am like, so.
Speaker:Somewhere way down the introspection curve and, uh, you know, for introverts
Speaker:as much as we can be creative.
Speaker:And, uh, and passionate about what we do yoga to get tired
Speaker:and probably some extroverts.
Speaker:I feel this as well.
Speaker:So really what we're dealing with here is a very real
Speaker:situation in Catholic education.
Speaker:Many of us can relate to.
Speaker:So I want to frame this a few ways.
Speaker:At the top level.
Speaker:I think what we're dealing here with here is a discernment question.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:And the good news is that in, uh, in the Catholic tradition, we have
Speaker:a great long history of discernment.
Speaker:You've got the great masters, of course, like.
Speaker:Uh, St.
Speaker:Ignatius of Loyola who really did sort of the master work on
Speaker:discernment, but take heart because.
Speaker:The Catholic tradition is one of a deeper discernment, the discernment of
Speaker:spirits, the discernment of experiences of desolation and constellation.
Speaker:Where is God moving at any particular point in my life?
Speaker:Am I called to enjoy it.
Speaker:Am I in call to change?
Speaker:So I want to frame this initially as a discernment question.
Speaker:And one of the first suggestions I'd like to make is around the
Speaker:question of spiritual direction.
Speaker:So I'm very blessed.
Speaker:I have a wonderful spiritual director who I work with remotely.
Speaker:They're based in the U S and so we meet up usually once a
Speaker:fortnight on a secure platform.
Speaker:And, uh, you know, really just the job of a spiritual director is to listen
Speaker:with the person is to try and listen
Speaker:The direct team.
Speaker:Uh, to uncover what God is saying or doing in their lives.
Speaker:I know that many of you listening either will not have had spiritual
Speaker:direction before, or if you have, or in the past, you might find
Speaker:it difficult to find somebody.
Speaker:This is really true.
Speaker:It's.
Speaker:We're at a moment in history where there is a lack of
Speaker:spiritual directors available.
Speaker:And of course, if you can find one, then you've got to find one
Speaker:that you really connect with.
Speaker:So what I would suggest first for anybody facing questions
Speaker:like these is to begin it.
Speaker:From the perspective of a, an adventure of discernment.
Speaker:You know, uh, what was it that Plato used to say You know, feelings,
Speaker:excellent servants, but terrible masters.
Speaker:In the psychological literature, we refer to emotions as epi phenomenon.
Speaker:They, they emerge from within our consciousness and they are great servants.
Speaker:Of course, if they master us, if our feelings completely
Speaker:dominate our existential horizon, then life becomes problematic.
Speaker:But I want to say to this person in this question that these feelings
Speaker:are communication, their data, they're telling you something.
Speaker:They're not specifically telling you what to do, but they're telling you
Speaker:that there's a question to be addressed.
Speaker:So the, I would really frame it, whether it's through a
Speaker:greater commitment to prayer.
Speaker:A greater commitment to times of discernment or spiritual direction.
Speaker:I want to put that in place first.
Speaker:You know, we have a great holy hour at the cathedral here in where I live
Speaker:and I sort of try and get there most And really these days I just sit, I
Speaker:listened to really beautiful music.
Speaker:I have my Bible and I just sit and I try to position myself.
Speaker:With the Lord.
Speaker:Uh, I don't tend to hear very much.
Speaker:I don't tend to have, you know, out of body experiences, but I just want
Speaker:to say to everybody, as you face these questions of discernment, Just place
Speaker:yourself more fully in the presence of the Lord in whatever way you can.
Speaker:It might be going for a long
Speaker:But let's get a big on that now.
Speaker:The sermon is the first piece.
Speaker:The second piece I want to talk about is.
Speaker:There's a beautiful quote from Carol House Lander that I want to share with you.
Speaker:And I want to share it with you in the position of reframing.
Speaker:So my other sort of hat that I wear of course, is in, uh, you know, coaching
Speaker:and motivation and personal development.
Speaker:At a pretty high level with, with senior people.
Speaker:So one of the most powerful tools we have in executive coaching
Speaker:is around the area of reframing.
Speaker:So you take a question or problem and you try and find a different meaning.
Speaker:So you frame the question, like, what else could this mean?
Speaker:Okay, so you want to take your experience and ask good questions about it, you know,
Speaker:because if you asked the wrong question,
Speaker:You know, say for this person who's struggling a little bit with, you
Speaker:know, just teaching day after day.
Speaker:If you asked the wrong question, if you ask a question, like why do I
Speaker:hate my life so much Your brain is probably going to serve up a really
Speaker:unhelpful But if you ask a question, like, what else could this mean?
Speaker:What else could be happening here?
Speaker:What is the invitation.
Speaker:And then you start to journal and think about that.
Speaker:You get a different set of outcomes.
Speaker:Now, where is this beautiful quote that I wanted to share with you?
Speaker:This is from Carol House Lander, somebody I came across.
Speaker:Uh, you know, more recently, I hadn't really heard much of her work, beautiful
Speaker:Catholics on a mystic and poet.
Speaker:And Carol ha house.
Speaker:Linda writes something here.
Speaker:I'm gonna read it to you.
Speaker:That can really help us reframe.
Speaker:The mundane, the T the sometimes even could we say drudgery?
Speaker:Of education, the constant daily grind marking year eight essays
Speaker:turning up day after day after day.
Speaker:Listen to what she says is very powerful.
Speaker:Here
Speaker:Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives.
Speaker:That going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is
Speaker:nothing else, but waste and weariness.
Speaker:But it may be that God has sent us there because, but for us.
Speaker:Christ would not If our being there means that Christ is there.
Speaker:That alone.
Speaker:Makes it worth while.
Speaker:That's had a really big impact on me over the last maybe couple of years.
Speaker:You know, Carol House lender is saying that.
Speaker:There are times there are possible possible situations
Speaker:where if we were not there.
Speaker:If we were not sent into that specific classroom, into the life of that specific
Speaker:young person, then the presence of Christ would not be ministered to them.
Speaker:I think that's a really important reframe.
Speaker:I don't know if that's the answer.
Speaker:I can't specifically speak into this person's circumstance or anybody else's
Speaker:and say, this is what God's saying, but I think it's really worth considering.
Speaker:That sometimes we just need a reminder.
Speaker:That you know, I often talk about God's economy.
Speaker:You know, human economy is all about bigger is better.
Speaker:Faster is better, more is better than less.
Speaker:You know, more fame, more influence, more power, more
Speaker:followers, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But if you look at God's economy, it's radically different.
Speaker:He's really into the small, the seemingly insignificant the overlooked.
Speaker:The repetitive, the mundane, the simple today's the feast of I'm sister
Speaker:Festina come Oscar who's of course the, the missionary of divine mercy.
Speaker:I'm reading the divine office this morning.
Speaker:You look at her life.
Speaker:You know, she, she was the simplest person.
Speaker:She got rejected from convent after convent.
Speaker:And now there, you know, she's already a Saint, but they're looking
Speaker:to make her a doctor of the church.
Speaker:So sometimes, and she died young.
Speaker:She was the Gardner and she was the Porter at her conference.
Speaker:She carried bags and worked in the garden.
Speaker:And yet God uses her to unleash this phenomenal new insight
Speaker:into the nature of God himself.
Speaker:So please do not overlook the small and the insignificant because you
Speaker:know, you could reframe those year eight essays, you You could say to
Speaker:the holy spirit, give me the grace.
Speaker:To help me to be re-energized for this work.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because if you can
Speaker:One student who comes from maybe a family there.
Speaker:They don't have great literacy or they don't have a history
Speaker:of, you know, success or maybe breakthrough in their family history.
Speaker:Just the fact that you really work with them on their essays, Controlee changed
Speaker:the trajectory of someone's life.
Speaker:So please let's all of us not overlook the small details.
Speaker:The things that we feel can be mundane or repetitive can actually
Speaker:be incredibly important and powerful.
Speaker:So that's just the concept of a reframe that maybe if it wasn't
Speaker:for us being there, the presence of Christ wouldn't be there.
Speaker:And I just wanted to, to sort of flesh
Speaker:One final time with a great quote from mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Speaker:Who beautifully said, I have discovered the great paradox.
Speaker:That if I love until it hurts, there is no more hurt.
Speaker:Only more love.
Speaker:You know, She's extraordinary mother Teresa, of course, because she
Speaker:experienced great spiritual darkness.
Speaker:I know some of, you know, there's some of You know, given her influence
Speaker:and her fame, she struggled for many years with periods of sort of almost
Speaker:depression, spiritual depression, darkness, a dark night of the soul
Speaker:experienced spiritual dryness.
Speaker:But she discovered that the ability just to keep going to love when she
Speaker:didn't feel like loving to contribute, when she didn't feel like contributing.
Speaker:You know, and I've discovered that very much in my own life, sometimes
Speaker:you just have to do and do and do, and then the feelings come on.
Speaker:The other side of it now, again, sensitive to this question, I'm not
Speaker:saying that we should ignore our feelings
Speaker:Push on indefinitely because if we do, we get cynical, we get angry.
Speaker:We get exhausted.
Speaker:We take it out on our family.
Speaker:So this is the discernment piece.
Speaker:So Christ either reenergizes us, the holy spirit, either reframes our experience and
Speaker:reminds us that that's where God wants us.
Speaker:Or it's the discernment question of, are we called to be, or do
Speaker:something else at this moment in life?
Speaker:And the last thing I want to say on this is.
Speaker:Many years ago, I listened to an extensive piece from John Maxwell, who of course
Speaker:is a world famous leadership guru.
Speaker:And Maxwell's thesis was that our core mission in life are essential.
Speaker:Vocation doesn't change over the life course.
Speaker:But it's expression does.
Speaker:So God tends to call us into one dominant way of being like we've obviously
Speaker:got the vocations in life, you know, religious life, married life, single life.
Speaker:We've got But the, he tends to give most of us a particular interest or carers.
Speaker:And so for me, It's always been teaching.
Speaker:And motivating, like I love to teach and to motivate people.
Speaker:That's what I love to do.
Speaker:Now I did it for.
Speaker:For a time as a school teacher, then I did it, uh, you know, doing live
Speaker:seminars for up to 40,000 people a year.
Speaker:I'm doing it now in podcast videos and live speaking again.
Speaker:But can you see that the way that that has been expressed in my life has changed In a
Speaker:few hours, I'm giving a live seminar to a.
Speaker:To a group on, uh, on resilience.
Speaker:So I'm going to be there on stage today.
Speaker:Speaking about resilience, I'll be teaching.
Speaker:I'll be inspiring encouraging people because this stayed the same.
Speaker:So I want to say to this lady, Uh, you Your core interest in life.
Speaker:What really animates you.
Speaker:So you need to look at what you really love to do.
Speaker:What is it that took you into teaching in the first place?
Speaker:What is it that at its best, you still love about teaching and education.
Speaker:You know, because maybe it's just being called to be expressed in a different way.
Speaker:Maybe it's time to teach teachers.
Speaker:Maybe it's time to mentor people.
Speaker:Maybe it's time to teach in a different area or a different age group who knows.
Speaker:But it's rare that God goes, you know, it's unlikely that God is
Speaker:going to take me from what I do now.
Speaker:And make me want to become an accountant.
Speaker:It could be could happen.
Speaker:I'm not, I'm not God.
Speaker:You know, it's unlikely.
Speaker:He's gonna make me a, you know, a deep sea diver who knows
Speaker:like come up with anything.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:You get my point.
Speaker:So he tends to have a continuity with us over time.
Speaker:So look into your life and go, what is it that I love about this?
Speaker:Or I did love about this.
Speaker:And asked the Lord, where am I being called to express it?
Speaker:Lord, you want me to stay here?
Speaker:Do you just need to refresh me?
Speaker:Re-energize me reframe what's going on or are you calling me to be somewhere
Speaker:else and do that with the help of a trusted spiritual Okay, everybody.
Speaker:I hope that's useful.
Speaker:Uh, for all of us at different times, you know, we're never abandoned.
Speaker:We're never alone.
Speaker:It can feel like that definitely had times in my life, on the spiritual
Speaker:journey where I feel completely empty.
Speaker:And wonder where God is and it's all through the scriptures.
Speaker:You think of a lodger off to the prophets of Baal incident where he's had this
Speaker:massive victory, but then Jesse Bell is trying to kill him and he ends up under
Speaker:this tree, begging God to kill him going.
Speaker:I've had enough, I'm done.
Speaker:I'm out.
Speaker:I've had enough.
Speaker:I'm exhausted.
Speaker:Everyone's going to kill me.
Speaker:I'm done.
Speaker:How many times have the great men and women of scripture been
Speaker:at the very end of their rope.
Speaker:And it's at that moment that God steps in.
Speaker:So let's trust.
Speaker:We have a good God let's trust.
Speaker:He's not going to leave us orphans.
Speaker:Let's lean into prayer, discernment, spiritual direction, and get the
Speaker:answers to these crucial questions.
Speaker:But I do want to say to everybody as I finish.
Speaker:Take heart from those beautiful words of Carol House, Lander hall, beautiful
Speaker:words, those words that remind us that.
Speaker:Even if it doesn't feel like it, if we weren't there, Christ may not be there.
Speaker:So press on my friends, press on, press on, press on.
Speaker:And, uh, make sure you've subscribed.
Speaker:Please go check out that as links I'm speaking again, and I
Speaker:would love to come and speak to your staff afternoon retreats.
Speaker:Uh, I've done evening sessions.
Speaker:Full-day programs working with students, whatever you need, reach out and check
Speaker:that speaking God bless everybody my name's jonathan doyle this has been the
Speaker:catholic teacher pretty much daily podcast and i'll do another one for you tomorrow
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