Ready to learn the Ins and Outs of Using Your Summer to release stress and finally make this coming school year burnout free? Then take a breath.

No seriously. Breathwork is one of the number one easy (and free) ways that you can use your body's natural systems to work with you instead of against you. Just because we're talking about it today, I bet you'll start noticing your own breath. Most teachers and people in general spend most of their day in shallow breath without realizing it. This breathing prompts the sympathetic response – emotions you feel when you're stressed. But it's not just about breathing, right? Our bodies do that on their own. It's about breathing with intention.

Using Breathwork to Reduce Stress & Teacher Burnout

In this episode, I get to interview one of my good friends, Dr. Katie Raher, and she shares her journey from teacher to psychologist through multiple breakdowns and burnout, which lead her to becoming who she is today, a certified trauma-informed breathwork facilitator. She shares with us what breathwork is, the science behind how it works, and how you can start using it as a tool to transform your burnout recovery this summer.

Dr. Katie Raher is the Founder and CEO of Constant Love and Learning, an award-winning teacher turned School Psychologist, a Certified Trauma-Informed Breathwork Facilitator, and a Kimochis Certified Trainer. She creates wholehearted experiences of healing, connection, and learning that help educators transform their inner and outer worlds, one breath, one feeling, one moment, one relationship at a time. She is also one of 20+ amazing teacher experts, who is presenting at the third annual Summer Self-Care Conference for Teachers.HEAD OVER TO THE SHOW NOTES: teachingmindbodyandsoul.com/episode59

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[0:04] Hey, Katie, welcome to the Resilient Teacher Podcast. I'm so stoked to be chatting in real time again with you.

You're one of my favorite teacher wellness advocates, so I'm really excited for you to be on the podcast.

I am excited to be here right back at you. You are one of my favorites, and so it is a delight to be here with you.

Yeah, so I gave this awesome introduction to you before, but I would love for you just share a little bit about yourself, how you started teaching, and how you began supporting other educators. Yeah. So I was always inspired by the education system growing up because my mom grew up in extreme poverty and lots of trauma history. And with her, a big piece of how she broke that cycle was because of relationships with positive folks she had to do in terms of her experience in the education system, so in her educational path. And so I was always really curious about education, but never necessarily thought I was going to become a teacher.

[1:05] And final year of my bachelor's degree, and I needed one last requirement, kind of a deal.

And there was only one class that met that requirement, and it was a class all about education and inequities in education. And I got all fired up, and I felt like my soul found its calling. So there we shifted gears and definitely went into the education system.

And so I taught in the classroom, elementary school for a few years.

[1:37] Definitely burned out and ended up with lots of health challenges. At the time, I never really.

[1:45] Thought it was because of the fact that I was working like 80-hour weeks or anything like that.

No, that's not true. That was just normal protocol. I just thought, you know what? I want to go back and learn a little bit more about how to support kids in the classroom. I was particularly most passionate about the kids who had the biggest challenges. They were the ones that lit me up the most.

And I also, in one of my years, I had this amazing instructional coach who I was like, oh my gosh, I love her job. I want to do what she does. I want to help teachers so that they feel more supported. So I was like, let me go learn more about how to help kids and then I'll help teachers with that. So then I became a school psychologist. And in my work as a school psychologist, I had the privilege of going to a graduate program where the major focus was on prevention and on being in the general education setting as much as possible to support that prevention. Definitely, you know, our role is supporting across all levels in a school setting, but really using a consultation model where we support teachers. And so that.

[2:54] Was my favorite part of all the things I learned in graduate school. And so much of my career as a school psychologist was doing that work. So I would do this mental health consultation model with teachers. So they would bring me their concerns about kids or whatever other dynamics in their classrooms that they wanted to consult about.

And I really functioned through a collaborative problem solving method. And so it's never like me being the expert to come in and be like, okay, teacher, this is what you got to do to fix the situation. It was more, right, let's explore this problem together. Let's explore what, you know, could be a co-creation of possible intervention ideas and things like that.

And so ultimately, so much of the plan, it would come from the teacher. I would throw out things to reflect on, but ultimately the teacher was the one who created that.

Despite that, even though the teacher would be very much on board with the plan, and it was very driven by their strengths, their preferences, all these things, still oftentimes it wouldn't be implemented in real time. So all along in my career, I was very curious about like, what is the missing piece? So then, you know, fast forward to me.

[4:00] On my journey where I burn out again and have lots of health problems again, because on top of like the workaholic nature of my past and all along and perfectionistic nature, in this time frame, had added motherhood to the mix and lots of sleep deprivation. And not just sleep deprivation from my kids who generally have never been great sleepers, but also from my beliefs that to be a good teacher or a good psych and a good mom, I have to get all the things done and do them all perfectly. So I would stay up. I would sometimes even go to sleep, but then I'd even wake up in the middle of the night to get more work done. I mean, I was doing all sorts of, wacky things. So my health started to derail. My mental health started to derail. And I really, honestly, I didn't even recognize myself anymore. A person who historically had just.

[4:54] A lot of patience for kids, that went away. I had a lot of apathy at work. All the things that that lit me up were just, you know, my soul was definitely not feeling it.

And on my journey, I started to get curious about the fact that, oh, wow, this is the missing piece of where that, you know, that disconnect was.

So I started to ask the teachers I was supporting more about their health, their mental health, was going on, like their humanity also. And it was like so many exhales from my teachers I supported, so much of like, yes, this is what's going on. Okay, well then let's figure out how to support you. And I wasn't necessarily, I'm not their therapist, but sometimes I would redirect them to resources, but I would support them in their mental health so that they could show up as the best of themselves. And then all of a sudden the plan started to work more effectively when they they were implementing with kids, because instead of just killing themselves in the process, they had somebody caring for them. So that's kind of how I ended up in direct service in schools. And then I just really continued to get fired up about that in terms of my work. So now I run a business where I, like you, focus on educator well-being.

[6:19] Because I believe that, and really like the whole educator, just like you do, all of those layers of the humans that are in classrooms and in schools, that's really where we're most impactful on kids.

And I also really believe in...

[6:38] When we unpack our own patterns, that's how we unpack the patterns that are problematic in the school system and make sure we don't pass those on to kids so they don't end up in their mid-30s like I did where I was in an epic crash and burn with my health. That's a little bit of my journey and how I got here. Here I am on your podcast, excited to share more. I know. I absolutely love your story, because you talk about how you got to the point where you were helping these teachers and what you saw from your perspective. And we're on the same mission to support these educators, but also because this is a huge piece of how we can kind of heal the system from the inside out, you know, like how we can start really effectively reaching children and helping them to break these patterns, to notice these patterns that they have. And so that the cycle doesn't really continue for this next generation. And I absolutely just, I love it. I love it. So with all this transformation that you went through, what was the most impactful and actionable thing that you did to really transform as the whole educator? I know that your big thing is whole educator, and I love that. So I'd love for you to talk about that more.

[7:57] Yeah, I really did take baby steps on my journey. So sometimes people will tell me, oh, you have all these things worked out.

Well, it's been a journey, and I'm still on it. Yeah, same, same.

It's never done. So as I speak here, it doesn't mean it was like an overnight process. It was baby steps.

But I think the most impactful thing, you know, I would say is that I did a lot of work on my internal narrative and my soul and...

[8:33] And doing that in community with support and allowing myself to receive support, because much of my career in adult life, and I would even say youth, was, okay, I can do it all myself and push through and make that happen.

That's still something I'm working on, like in business, it's like, okay, it's okay to receive help.

And so with my own journey and my own return to physical and mental health, very much on my journey, I definitely started with baby steps, breathing, taking a few deep breaths in bed, drinking a glass of water in the morning, these kinds of things.

But those were not things I necessarily even came up with on my own.

I knew I needed help. I knew I needed to shift.

[9:18] But I was going, how am I going to switch my life? Because the whole reason I got into this problem is I don't feel like I have enough time.

I don't feel like I have enough resources, enough money.

Those are the kinds of things I told myself that I believed.

And I had people, though, that I finally started to let in to help me, who said, well.

[9:37] Can you just take a few deep breaths in the morning in bed before you get up?

OK, I could do that. Yeah. Yeah. That's like less than a minute. I can manage that.

Can you drink a glass of water so you don't end up by the end of the day totally dehydrated?

OK, yeah, I can do that.

And with that surrounding support, then with my little micro steps with people kind of supporting me, I shifted my identity.

I became someone who believed that I was worthy of nurturing my mind, body, spirit.

And so I continued with the little things that helped my body.

And I will say, you know, working on my body was a big piece because I definitely needed to balance my blood sugar.

So I wasn't crashing and dizzy all the things that were happening and whatnot. We won't go into all those details. But then the real magic really was as I continued to unpack the patterns, the beliefs, just the way I moved through the world. I really genuinely believed that self-sacrifice was the ultimate goal in life. That's what I thought a good educator did. That's what I thought a good mother did. That's that I thought a good woman did all the things and.

You need, you know, and that's not when we all do do this sort of this inside-out work like you described it as, That's how we actually heal systems, Yes, absolutely. And you know you were talking about your individualized well-being.

This is what I love.

So listening to you is also providing me that validation, but I know that it's helping our listeners to feel more validated, too, because so often we do think we're alone.

We think we're the only people who are experiencing these things that we, you know, they, nobody would understand.

And then when you get into these situations where you listen to a podcast or you join a circle like you talked about, we recognize how similar our stories or how often these same stories are played out.

And that's where we find that healing is in that community, in that support system.

And gosh, I just could talk about all of these things for hours and hours, amen, as I'm sure you could too.

But you do this really cool thing. You started doing breathwork.

And I'm a huge proponent for breathwork. I have participated in one of your breathwork times.

And it was really transformational for me.

So I would love for you to just tell us how you got started with breathwork, getting certified in this, for the teachers who are like, what is breathwork?

Can you just talk a little bit about that?

Totally. So I'll say how I came to it first. And it's interesting that I ended up.

Even when I started my mindfulness practice on my well-being journey, I wanted to focus on other things.

There's lots of types of mindfulness, right? And the breath focus was hard for me, and I had to kind of work through that and heal that, because I knew it was powerful.

I have a lot of things in my toolbox. And breathwork was probably one of the last things I was willing to try.

I've tried so many other things out there that are possible because of this aversion.

But once I got there and I tried it, I was like, whoa.

What the heck was that? It blew my mind. And I was like, okay, there's breathwork I tried and that was breathwork. And so I had this gigantic emotional release.

I had this unconscious stuff that got processed and not everyone's first time is like that.

And it depends on the facilitation, but I was in a place that that felt safe for me to do and I had this amazing experience.

And so then I continued with it on my journey and just kept utilizing this powerful tool to heal my body, mind, spirit.

And then, I guess it was over a year ago at this point, I kept getting these intuitive hits to lead breath work.

And so I just kind of sat with them. And then one day I just got like a really strong, okay, this is this is your next move. And I was like, Okay, well, let me find out from the person, you know, who, one of the people I do breath work with, and I tried it with a few people, let me just find out who they who they work with and who they got trained with. So I literally opened my email. And the first email.

Right now, everybody who's listening, you and I, we're just breathing because our body is naturally, the autonomous nervous system is doing its magic. We don't have to think about it. It just happens. But the cool thing about breath is we can also bring it into our conscious awareness, and so we can do something with it. It's one of these magical thing in our bodies that we can go both sides. And so there's the ABCs of breath, of conscious breath. So A is just your awareness. So right now, probably even just because I mentioned it, you may be noticing your breath and noticing its speed, its depth, its texture, no need to judge it, just noticing it, being with it. And then there's the B where I talk about how we bring in intention. So perhaps somebody is, the breath is really fast and they notice that there's some tension and stress and they want to bring some calm into their body, right?

So maybe that's the intention. Or maybe they're feeling really lethargic and they want to bring in energy, right? So that's the intention.

So for an example, if I were to just do a few breaths of that, and I would keep going. And And that was a sort of a semi-rapid pace there.

And that's just one of the patterns I use.

But it would be, we'd keep going.

And so we go for different lengths of time. It can just be a minute.

So if you're a teacher and you just wanna bring calm, you could do this for a minute, you know?

And you could go a little quicker if you wanna activate, like maybe you're feeling so tired and you wanna get some energy in your body, or maybe you're feeling activated and you wanna bring some more calm and you could go slower to bring that.

But we also go for longer periods of time because that really is where some really powerful somatic work can happen.

There's like things that can come in, and rightfully so, right?

Our body, our minds, everything as part of us ultimately is just doing the best to protect us.

That's, you know, an assumption of mine.

But when we turn off the mind through the breath and we come into the body, the body is where so much is held.

Tension, trauma, that toxic chronic stress that's in there. Because much of our lives we spend.

So there's sort of these little breather sessions, which really are more rooted in relaxation, clarity, those kinds of things, day-to-day breathwork. And then there's when people are ready for a longer session where we go nine minutes or above with this connected continual breath, we can tap into that unconscious work. And because I'm trauma-informed, we go, though, at the pace everybody needs. So some breath work out there, if you hear about it in your corner of the world, know that.

What trauma-informed breathwork does is it honors your nervous system in a way that we slowly and steadily build a window of tolerance. Yes, you could get an outer space experience, but then not actually be able to integrate that. And I want people to be able to integrate it because, I'm always thinking prevention in my work and how can I make the most bang for our buck. So So we're not treating everything, but we're also just preventing things.

And not only does it help with direct stress relief, but it expands our window of tolerance such that if there's something stressful out there, our nervous system doesn't even get as triggered because we've healed some of this.

We've expanded that window. And that's like, I think, to me, one of the most powerful things that can happen.

Yes. Oh my gosh. And you sort of answered a question that I was having while I was listening to you, was how, you know, like the science behind breath work, like how is it helping us manage the stress?

And you went right into that. So that's really awesome. Do you have anything that you want to add to how the science kind of works?

But ultimately, what I will say is that when we do this continual, you know, connected breath, it shifts the pH in the blood.

It shifts sort of the state between carbon dioxide and oxygen, and then through that, that's what allows you to get into your body more deeply and do that powerful work.

And so also just knowing it's a slow, just a reminder that it's slow and steady and giving yourself permission to be supported.

That's one of my favorite things about breath too is it's accessible, like teachers aren't rolling in the dough or anything.

So you can, you know, put on a song, you know, and breathe to it, kind of a thing.

But I will also just say one of my other favorite things is just that it really tones the vagus nerve.

It shifts your heart rate variability.

These are just some other fun science things. So people may hear about some of those terms as they kind of explore how to take care of their health and mental health.

But breath work has such a powerful impact on those particular things, which have these other ripple effects.

And so, yeah. So that's just a little bit. Yes, I geek out over the science stuff about it because it's just, it's amazing what our body does in order to protect us and keep us safe, but then also what it can do to heal us also.

So I'm just a geek out over this stuff, and I love that you do the breath work.

So for that person who's listening, they're like, OK.

This sounds like something I need. Like this sounds like something that I want to start trying out.

I know that you offer breathwork sessions. Can you kind of walk us through what that looks like when.

Yeah. So I do have shorter sessions and then longer sessions.

So the shorter sessions, I am calling them just take a breather.

And those sessions, it's the same process as the longer sessions, but the active breathing portion is shorter.

So we don't get into the unconscious because maybe if you want to do this on your lunch break, maybe you don't want to go into this big unconscious processing, obviously. So they're shorter. But all the sessions, the shorter and the longer ones, the longer ones are called my meditative sessions. First of all, I review sort of some safety things because I want to make sure people know what to expect and I want to make sure you're reminded of the fact that you are empowered in this breath process. You ultimately are in the driver's seat in that breath and I may guide you with my voice, but ultimately you are in your body and so your experience of it gets to be what you need in that moment. So day to day, session to session, it may look a little differently for you. And I go over sort of what to expect that are sort of just normal things that happen in the body so that people feel safe. Because that's what, like you just said, it's the safety piece that allows the transformation to happen. When the nervous system feel safe and then you unpack this, that's really where the healing begins. So then we always start with a little bit of just sort of traditional mindfulness. I bring your awareness into your body.

And ultimately, all my breath work is gentle, depending on what you need for your nervous system. But it's that active breath portion. And again, so I would be guiding you with my voice.

But again, you can ease off. Maybe you're like, oh, that's it. I did three minutes of active bread and that feels good. I'm going to now just return to my natural breath." Or maybe you stick with me for the full seven minutes or eight or 20 or whatever, depending on the session.

Yeah.

And we have breath holds and depending on where really the intention of the session is. And then we release the breath. We just go back to the natural breath. And usually that time is really wear.

Your system has come back to baseline. It's like usually people's systems are so.

And yeah, it's a common thing that if there's time, I also do love to have people share because of that community piece to hear, oh my gosh, that was my experience.

And sometimes it's, oh my gosh, that was a transformation. And sometimes it's, wow, today I could feel resistance and I didn't have the same level, But that is the beautiful transformation too, that awareness, that realization that that's also okay.

So I know that for me, one of the things I've had to heal on my own journey is I was like, okay, I'm going to recover from being a perfectionist.

I'm not going to do all the things, but then I was like, oh, I'm going to heal like a perfectionist. Yes.

And I was like, I'm going to do all the things and do them just right to make sure my health doesn't tank or gets better just right.

And then I was like, oh, I'm doing the same thing as I did with the other stuff.

So I was like, I'm going to unpack that. I was like, okay. So it's okay if it's not an A plus every night.

So that's kind of what the sessions are like. I do offer one-on-ones, but I do typically offer more groups because I just am trying to make it really accessible for as many people as possible.

And it was actually, it was in the evening time. So I was like, okay, okay, I need to like really release some stress.

My kids are in the other room. I had to like be on mute. I was like, oh gosh, okay. So I got to do this.

And I felt after that session, like...

And I had to start with baby steps to be like, okay, this is safe. This is okay. I literally, I was the educator. I mean, it's ironic that I'm doing what I do now because I was the educator who literally kind of laughed at people who did this kind of stuff and thought.

You know, should I take a walk? Should I say I'm directly in the classroom with my kids?

Should we all say, hey, you all notice your breath too. Should we take a couple deep breaths?

So it doesn't have to even just be on your own. It can be with your students or with your own kids.

Like, oh, I need this. And then bring intention into the breath. So like I was just saying, you know, if you're in the classroom, oh, I'm noticing my breath is really fast right now.

Let's just bring some calm into this. So let's just take a big deep breath and through the nose and just really lengthen that exhale to get that parasympathetic nervous system back online a little bit more. So at first, giving yourself permission to do that. So often when I support teachers now, like on a sort of regular basis, when they're sort of on a break from the, you know, break in the middle of the day kind of a thing, or they're on their planning.

I'm, you know, I'm anyone who knows me knows I'm not like a gonna force anyone into anything, but I'm like, okay, if you're repelling resistance, let's just take three breaths. That's it.

And then they're always like, oh, that felt good.

Yes, but we often don't wanna give ourselves permission to pause.

So that I would say is next, you know, bring that intention in and you can play and figure out what breath, you know, the one I was just doing, the halo active is the most simple of the conscious connected kind of breath that I do.

It is just in through the nose, out through the mouth.

But you put on a timer for a minute and do it on your own. Or forget the timer, just do it until your body feels good. So those are just possibilities. But yeah, work your way up. Go through the ABCs, and you don't need to push yourself too hard, you know, that can then create more resistance. Your body's like, wait a minute, this feels a little too.

You're trying too hard. Yeah. And then I think once you're ready also to receive support, it doesn't have to be me, it can be other breathwork facilitators, but allow yourself to receive that support. I know for me that was such a huge piece of my healing. And so in my work, the beautiful thing is who I I am intentionally serving is educators, caregivers. So typically, when people come to the sessions, even when they're in the group, it's like, Oh, I love these people here. It tends to be very heart centered, soul led individuals, trying to make a difference who are ultimately.

Yes. Oh my gosh. And I love how you brought it into the classroom too, because I think so often the teachers are very stressed because they're making all these decisions. They're having to, you got behavior, you've got this. But in that moment, what their body needs and probably what the students need too, is that breath, is that time to just pause and really, Get centered again, and I just love that you brought that up because I think that can be a really powerful, Transformation and a way that not only is the educator working towards their well-being but also supporting the students as well So yes for that Can I just add that it doesn't have to ever look one way some people I I do lots of times close my eyes I get still I do the breath I might meditate whatever it is But it doesn't have to be that way you can move through the breath You could dance through the breath, but just being, it's like being intentional about the breath while you're doing those things.

And so you get to have fun with it and play with it and figure out what works for you. Yeah.

You know, they're, they know that they have people like us in their corner.

Like people who are looking out for them, wanting to support them, knowing the trauma-informed piece, you know.

So do you have any other resources that would help teachers or can you share where teachers can learn more from you and about you?

Maybe get some breath work with you? Can you talk about that?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, my website is constantloveandlearning.com and lots of possibilities on there.

On there. Breathwork is definitely one I would love to support people with. I have a vision of supporting lots of educators with breathwork this year. I want to get the word out there about this. So thank you for being part of that. And it's super accessible right now, and I'm probably going to be keeping this all year long. I really want to have a social impact model. So it's a pay what you can.

When I'm leading my business and when I'm in schools, I'm having to continually make sure I honor the model of what I advocate for so yes so I, and just going a little bit more slowly. Just moving slowly is actually one of my intentions for the Word and just trusting the timing of things, trusting how things unfold, and.

So I just, I want you to know that and I want the listeners to know that I have learned a lot from you so that they'll go and follow you.

And I am so grateful for you because when I started being passionate about this work, I felt like nobody did this.

This was just the most novel idea possible. And now, in part because of you really lifting up other people doing this work through the Summer Self-Care Conference, through this podcast, through other work, the word is spreading.

This is not unusual. People have heard about the possibilities.

And so I'm just grateful for you lifting other folks up and helping us just make that collective impact.