Join Sarah Noll Wilson and guest Jen Rafferty as they discuss learning, growth, and behavior change. Topics include emotional intelligence, “toxic positivity,” and the neuroscience of change.
Educator, author, and founder of Empowered Educator, Jen Rafferty started as a middle school music teacher for 15 years in Central New York. She is known for bringing her energy, humor and expertise in her presentations while inspiring educators to stay connected to their “why.” Jen is a certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology. Since its inception, the Empowered Educator has reached teachers and school leaders all over the world. Jen has been featured in Authority Magazine, Medium, Thrive Global, Wellness Voice, Best Holistic Life, and was on the TEDx stage with her talk, Generational Change begins with Empowered Teachers. She is also the host of the podcast, Take Notes with Jen Rafferty, which is rated in the top 3% of podcasts globally. Jen’s insatiable curiosity continues to make the Empowered Educator programs relevant and reflective of the most up-to-date research in mindset, leadership, and cognitive neuroscience. She is committed to inspiring teachers and school leaders to discover their voice and maintain a healthy longevity throughout their careers.
- Website: www.empowerededucator.com
- Email: hello@empowerededucator.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jenrafferty_
- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jen-rafferty-2209b31b7
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/empowerededucatorfacultyroom
- Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/take-notes-with-jen-rafferty/id1562606342
TRANSCRIPT
Sarah Noll Wilson
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of Conversations on Conversations where each week we explore a topic to help us have more powerful conversations with ourselves and others. I’m your host, Sarah Noll Wilson and joining me this week is a treat of a guest Jen Rafferty, and I cannot wait for you all to listen to this episode. Let me tell you a little bit about Jen. Educator, author and founder of Empowered Educator, Jen Rafferty started as a middle school music teacher for 15 years in central New York. She is known for bringing her energy, her humor, her expertise and presentations, while inspiring educators to stay connected to their why. Jen is a certified emotional intelligence practitioner and is currently a PhD candidate in educational psychology. Since its inception, the Empowered Educator has reached teachers and school leaders all over the world. Jen has been featured in Authority Magazine, Medium, Thrive Global, Wellness Voice, Best Holistic Life and was on the TEDx stage with her talk, Generational Change Begins with Empower Teachers. She is also the host of a Podcast, Take Notes with Jen Rafferty, which is rated in the top 3% of podcasts globally and yours truly, along with our colleague Dr. Teresa Peterson, have both been guests. So we’ll be sure to link to those episode in the show notes. Jen’s insatiable curiosity continues to make the Empowered Educator programs relevant and reflective of the most up-to-date research and mindset, leadership and cognitive neuroscience. She is committed to inspiring teachers and school leaders to discover their voice and maintain a healthy longevity throughout their careers. Welcome to the show, Jen Rafferty! What else do you want folks to know about you?
Jen Rafferty
Hi, well, first of all, thanks for having me. It’s so great to talk with you again. And you know, something else maybe people might want to know about me is right now, I’m loving the new Beyonce album. (laughter)
Sarah Noll Wilson
I feel like I’m an old person in the sense of, I just haven’t, I’ve heard some of the songs but I haven’t listened to it.
Jen Rafferty
No, you need to listen to the whole thing start to finish. It is an experience. It is brilliant. And it is giving me life right now.
Sarah Noll Wilson
(laughs) I love that. I love that so much. That’s why I love asking this question because you never know what people will answer with. And that my friends, is part of what you can expect in this conversation with Jen is unexpected moments of just absolute joy. And humanity. (laughs)
Jen Rafferty
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
So what? What’s your favorite song?
Jen Rafferty
Oh my gosh, II Most Wanted is I think my favorite. I can’t listen to it without crying. I’ve been listened to it several times at this point. There’s something about it’s a Miley Cyrus Beyonce duo. And it just does something to me, man. Yeah. Yeah. That I feel like needs to be the assignment post podcast. (laughter)
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. Is – well, I’m definitely going to listen to it post podcast, and we encourage those who haven’t, right.
Jen Rafferty
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
You know, see what reaction comes up for you. (laughs) I love it. Okay. So, Jen, talk to, I want you to take us on a journey, because this is the first time our audience is getting introduced to you. And even though they heard you know, the formal bio, talk to us a little bit about what’s the work you’re most passionate about? And then take us back to what was your journey to this work. Right? So it’s a two parter. But let’s start with where you are. And what led you to where you are.
Jen Rafferty
I love this question. You know, the thing that gets me up in the morning and gets the, you know, the fire under my butt, is this idea that there is more in this life than we have come to accept. The status quo that we feel is, you know, it is what it is and this is just how I am, isn’t acceptable to me anymore. And my role in this world, and I think the context to which I’m coming into this conversation right now is through my work with empowered educator and teaching educators, specifically, about this shift in mindset to open the doors to what’s possible for them through concepts of, not just mindset, but emotional intelligence, rooted in cognitive neuroscience. So they continue to have this sense of agency in their own life, and move from this passenger side of things where they’re passively engaging in their life to really taking an active role in that driver’s seat. And my feeling about working with educators is that everybody has to go to school. So if children are walking into classrooms with teachers, principals, bus drivers, school nurses, who know their self worth, who have a toolkit of strategies for self regulation to navigate the stressors that happen in their life, to have techniques to manage their emotions in ways that are healthy and safe and productive. They are learning then how to become these adults who also know these things. And it’s not enough for just the adults to tell them what to do, they have to model it themselves. So the work that I do gets to kind of allow people an opportunity to wake up. And I hand them kind of a flashlight and a map. (laughs) And it’s, you know, this is your own journey. And here are the tools that can help you get to point A, to point B. So that’s, that’s kind of where I am right now.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Can I, can I pause on that second, –
Jen Rafferty
Please, yeah.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And then I do want to honor your background. So we can hear about what has shaped that. There was two things that were coming up for me. One, just this morning, as I was flipping through Instagram, the (laughs) –
Jen Rafferty
As we do.
Sarah Noll Wilson
As we do. And I didn’t, I didn’t catch the name, but it was a child psychologist who does a lot of work on, right, how parents show up. And one of the points he was making is that the you know, kids learn from their environment, they learn from the people that are, you know, raising them, influencing them. And the point he made was, you know, the top child psychologists don’t work on fixing the kids, they work on improving the parents. And there’s something about that that was connecting for me as you were talking about the impact that teachers can make is, can be even more significant, based off of how they’re showing up, how their role modeling, what they’re demonstrating for the kids. So that was one thought. But the second thought that I was curious about is hearing the language you were using about passive acceptance. Obviously, we see this a lot in just everyone, myself included. There’s rules, there’s social constructs. And I’m curious to get your thoughts on education in America is so prescribed. Right? There’s so, there’s so much autonomy that has been taken away from teachers and how they show up and how they think about the learning. And I’m curious to get your thoughts on, what’s your sense on the role that that contributes to perhaps even more of a sense of being a passive participants? You know, so for folks who maybe don’t have children or aren’t connected to it, right? There’s regulations, there’s curriculum, there’s, specially in public schools anyway, that are expected, there’s standards, there’s, it’s very prescribed in a lot of cases, where the teacher doesn’t have the creative freedom and the autonomy. And I’m curious how that, that being their reality then contributes to feeling passive about their identity.
Jen Rafferty
Oh, it’s all connected.
Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s a big questions.
Jen Rafferty
It is very, very connected. And it leads to kind of the place that I am right now. But I’ll start at back at the beginning, you know, you look at the evolution of the telephone, what the telephone looked like when it was first invented to what it looks like. now. You look at like, you look at the evolution of the model of a car. And how it used to – I just actually today read I think this week, in the 1800s was when the Pony Express first came to be, which blew my mind. And now we look at how we communicate with the click of a button. (snaps) You know, just like that, you think about how car has progressed. And you take a look at schools 100 or so years ago, and schools today and not much has changed. And –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Sorry, like that. That’s a – I don’t know that I’ve ever seen it present it like that. And it’s causing me some pain.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, it’s visceral.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Continue on. Yeah.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, it is visceral. Right? And you have this moment like, ugh, right? And, you know, this is a little bit by default, but it’s also by design for a lot of reasons. I don’t know that we’ll have time for in the context of this particular conversation. But I do think it’s important to recognize that schools are steeped in tradition. And tradition unchecked, is, is what, is what’s causing this perpetual space of being passive because this is just the way it’s always been done, then we don’t really have to think about it. And even the things that we consider forward motion are still steeped within this system that is based in this tradition. And in my world, tradition is just peer pressure from dead people. (laughter) That’s that’s how we kind of define tradition around here. (laughs)
Holy shit, Jen.
Yeah. (laughs)
Sarah Noll Wilson
Tradition is peer pressure by dead people.
Jen Rafferty
Yes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Nick, that’s the clip right there to – christ.
Jen Rafferty
(laughs) Right? I mean, like, let’s be honest about this. And I’m, I want to be real here too. I’m not knocking tradition. But again, tradition without some sort of reflection, or, or a check in of like, is this actually serving us, is this actually something we want to be doing, is is actually aligned with who I am and who I want to be and who we are as an organization and where we want to go? And then to have the self worth, the sense of self worth enough to know that you can be an agent of change. I mean, that’s how things start to move. But we’ve been missing these pieces because of this idea of tradition, and passively moving along that I think it’s bred a lot of sense of helplessness, that we, it doesn’t matter what we say, because moving mountains in education, particularly writing around policy, it’s a bear.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Jen Rafferty
But at the end of the day, organizations don’t change until people change. And so if we’re getting to the grassroots of what we’re doing here, one person at a time, one educator at a time, that’s when the values are going to start to shift and that’s when we’re going to start gaining some momentum in this new trajectory.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Your, your, the way you describe things and articulate it is – I’m, I’m very much enjoying the, the simplicity of the language you use to describe things that can be sometimes discussed in a way that’s very overcomplicated –
Jen Rafferty
And serious!
Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s not.
Jen Rafferty
(laughs)
Sarah Noll Wilson
And serious. I mean, just even just the simple thing of organizations don’t changed until people change. I’m like, damn, that’s got to go on a quote board. Like I’m gonna be quoting Jen now, in all of my conversation, (laughter) so thank you for that gift.
Jen Rafferty
You’re so welcome. We’re just getting started.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, I know. I love it. Just send me your invoice for all the insights and wisdom that I’m gaining from this conversation. So. What led you to this work? I always think it’s interesting to hear a little bit of what, you know. Yeah, just what led you to this work?
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, the origin story, right. So you know, I was a music teacher in central New York. I loved it. I was in the classroom for 15 years. And I really thought that was going to be my job forever. It was like a calling for me. When I was 12 years old being in my seventh grade choir, I saved the little dittos and the worksheets, because I thought future Jen might need them one day for her classroom. (laughter) That’s, that’s just what it was. And so I did, I went, I went to Ithaca College, and I had my music education degree. And I also majored in vocal performance. And I loved every bit of it. And I became really interested in brain development because I was teaching middle school. And you know, when people hear that, you know, anyone teaches middle school, they’re either like, Oh, bless your heart, or like, You’re crazy. It’s definitely a little bit of both. (laughs) But that particular age was so fascinating to me, because adolescents go through just incredible changes, you know, in their mind and in their bodies and in their emotional development. It’s not visible like it is when you see babies grow from zero to two. And I thought that if I understood them a little bit more developmentally, I could be a better teacher because I’d be more responsive. So I started my journey into cognitive neuroscience right at the beginning of my career, and I built so many cool programs for them. You know, we had a whole guitar program and it started into then this modern band program, where kids were really bringing back GarageBand culture in our community and still are now, they’re writing and producing and performing their own stuff. And I got to a point where I was conducting honors choirs throughout New York State, I was presenting conferences about adolescent development and music education nationally, wrote a book in December of 2019. And then COVID happened (laughs) and –
Sarah Noll Wilson
I feel like so many people’s origin story is, And then march 2020 happened.
Jen Rafferty
(laughs) That’s how it goes.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And then it all changed.
Jen Rafferty
And it all changed. You know, and I but I think there’s, there’s, there’s gonna be so much research about that, you know, coming, I mean, how how people pivoted and, but that’s another conversation too. But, you know, with that, in addition to this, like, professional identity crisis I had to go through because teaching online was a whole new thing. Singing itself was really very dangerous at the time, if you remember. You know, it was, –
Sarah Noll Wilson
(softly) Yeah. Right.
Jen Rafferty
Killing people. Right? And so, you know, in that same time, I was also going through a divorce with my husband. And I’d moved out of my house that same weekend the world shutdown, and my kids were five and seven. So it was this, you know, personal professional shift that needed to happen. So I took off what I thought would just be a semester to homeschool my kids. Started my PhD in educational psychology. Started my own healing journey, where I really started to implement the practices and mindset and emotional intelligence. And then couple that with what I knew, in my research now with cognitive neuroscience is like, oh, my gosh, this is, this is the missing piece. If, if educators knew this, then it would lead to so much better outcomes for them and for their students, because we couldn’t ignore the fact that teachers were stressed anymore during COVID. Like, this was a problem you couldn’t ignore. And then Empowered Educator was born in the spring of 2021. And we’ve been kind of on this fast track of growth and expansion ever since.
Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s amazing. It’s amazing. And, well, I’m, I’m also thinking about the reality during that time for educators. Not only were they experiencing what many people were experiencing, and figuring out how to pivot, but then depending on where you lived, there is a lot of vitriol around how you were approaching it, whether you should stay at home, you know, that was – we did a lot of work with education systems of how do we navigate these incredibly emotionally charged conversations. And, and we saw firsthand how demoralizing it was for so many educators. And you’re you know, and so what – so as we lean into part of what we wanted to make sure we gave space to today. The language you’re using is, right, how to, how to increase your awareness, that emotional intelligence, understanding the brain understanding what does that mean for you, and how you show up? And how to be intentional about that in your own healing. I would argue that I think everyone needs to understand their brain so much more than they do. (laughs) Why isn’t there just basic psychology classes for like, you know, I mean, there are, right? The emotion, social intelligence program, but it’s, there’s so much, I feel, there’s a lot of unnecessary suffering when you don’t understand your body, you don’t understand your mind, you don’t understand what you actually do have control over or at least what are options to be able to navigate it differently. And, which brings us to this idea of, well you just, you know, if you want to get better and feel better, you just need to think better, you just need to be positive about stuff. And, and I love that you pitch this or offered it as a topic, which is to explore that idea of positive psychology versus toxic positive psychology. Because there, there’s so much, I’m just gonna be honest, there’s so much bullshit out there. And there’s so much harmful messaging, that all you need to do in order to heal is just think happy thoughts. And it’s so devastatingly harmful. So with that, my friend, where do you want to go?
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, well, you’re right.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Where do you want to go from there?
Jen Rafferty
It is harmful. And toxic positivity is, is something that I came to realize was (laughs) an interesting like industry term, if you will, in this educational space. And perhaps in the corporate space, too. But in some other industries with people who are also kind of doing this work. They were like, “What do mean toxic? How could, how could positivity be toxic? How could it possibly be toxic?” And you know, what happens is we’re kind of gaslit into believing that, like you said, if we simply just think happy thoughts, then everything’s fine and there must be something wrong with me or I’m broken in some way because that’s not working. And the truth is, you’re not broken. You’re perfectly whole, you don’t need to be fixed. And it’s not that simple. (laughs) It is an over, it is an oversimplification of some very real concepts and positive psychology is great, but it becomes toxic when the messaging gets bastardize in that way. And it’s like things come out, not just think happy thoughts, but also this idea of well, if we just remember our why, then it’ll be okay. And the thing is, I know you and I have had this conversation. Yes, remembering your why is really important. And it is essential in making aligned decisions. But just saying, remember your why as the antidote for feeling like shit (laughs) is not actually going to do it. And you’re actually going to continue to feel more resentful, and frustrated and angry, it’s gonna make it worse. So what do we do? Well, I don’t often use the word positive in my work, ever. I like to use the word alignment. Because alignment for me, even saying that word alignment does something to my body. There is this inner connection that I have with then a decision that I’m making, with something that I’m saying, with a thought that I choose to attach to, it doesn’t always have to be positive. But my intention is that it always feels aligned. And that shift can be really powerful in reminding people of their agency and again, there’s nothing wrong with you. Your job is to to learn more about you to feel what feels aligned and what doesn’t feel aligned.
Sarah Noll Wilson
What, what type of, what type of pushback have you or resistance or, “Yeah, but Jen, what about in these situations?” What, what does that look like in your world, in your work? I always love the “Yeah, but” moments, because it’s, I feel like that’s where the juice is.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah. So what’s interesting is, I think I used to get a lot of “yeah, buts” at the beginning. Because some people – so first of all, resistance is natural. The “yeah, buts” are a part of the process. If you’re listening to something new, like, “Hey, you don’t actually have to think positive any more, just think aligned.” Your brain is going to be like, Oh, hell no. We’ve been thinking like this for so long. It’s worked for us. And now you’re, you know, this crazy lady on this podcast is telling me to think differently, this is not going to happen. And the first line of defense for that is resistance. Like, Yeah, but… And so that’s, first of all, recognizing it for what it is. That this resistance is part of your brain’s job to keep you alive, because it’s keeping you safe and keeping you the same. And we can talk about that in a little bit if you’d like. But I know you do that in your work. So hopefully your listeners are familiar at least with that. And you know, the “yeah, buts” kind of teeter off for me when we continue to bring it back to your biology. This is your, this is your biology. This isn’t about the circumstance. Your sense of alignment comes from you knowing yourself. And if you know yourself more, if you know your programming, if you know how your brain is wired for different situations, if you know that you have adapted to respond in a conflict situation with hostility, because that’s what you learned was safe growing up, you needed to have that when you were younger, then you have that, again, flexibility to choose and make a new aligned decision that now serves you. There’s a lot of stuff that needs to happen to make that safe and to make that sustainable. But those are the kinds of things that we continue to go back to is like, this isn’t your fault. This isn’t something that you could have controlled. But now that you’re an adult, and you’re no longer in that same environment in which you had to adapt to, you’re in a different environment. How do you want to show up in this space? And that’s usually when people come around to like, oh, okay. And we talk about having that radical personal responsibility that you are responsible for how you show up in a space so, so that the ball’s in your court, ball is always in your court.
Sarah Noll Wilson
It’s that, my good friend and colleague who we’ve had on the show a few times, Farah Harris, she talks a lot about the importance of essentially the family origin of your emotions, of, you know, we’ve adapted that to what are, what did you learn about how to show up with conflict? What did you learn about how to show up with conversation? And one of the things even in hearing your your language, which I appreciate, I can still see folks sometimes maybe going or not realizing that choosing to show up differently from how you’ve shown up for 40 years, for 30 years, right, doesn’t change in a single moment. It’s, and knowing that you love neuroscience like I do. I wonder if you can talk about, what does that effort really look like? Because sometimes what we see is people might get frustrated with themselves. And to be clear, folks, this was me a lot of times until I understood that. (chuckles) It’s repetition, over and over and over. And they can become frustrated or impatient with other people. Right? So my world is largely corporate America. And, “I gave them feedback. And they did it for a week. And then they went right back to their old self.” I was like, yeah, of course they did. The choice to show up differently doesn’t automatically change the autopilot behavior. So I’m curious if you can dive into that a little. Let’s nerd out a little bit around, what does that actually, what does it take when you’re clear about it to make those sustained changes, so that eventually they can become easier?
Jen Rafferty
Yes. I’m so glad you asked this question. So the first thing and I hope people are listening, please write this down. (laughs) Change happens at the speed of safety.
Sarah Noll Wilson
(inhales) Oh, is that yours?
Jen Rafferty
It is, it is not mine. It is a conglomerate of all of it. –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Everything, everything is, everything is pulled from everything.
Jen Rafferty
Change happens at the speed of safety. The person that comes to mind who says this, I know the most who’s always in my ear is a woman named Tracy Litt. She, she talks a lot about this too, you know, change happens at the speed of safety. And this, of course, is in all of the literature about about the longevity of change, you know, and so one of the examples actually, Tracy uses, and I’ll share this here is that, you know, imagine you’re going skiing, and you’re up on the top of the mountain. And you’ve always gone to the right. Now, I know this is not actually how skiing works, but just bear with me. (laughs) So you’re at the top of the mountain, and you’re always going to the right, so we’ve always gone to the right there are, you know, groove marks in the snow ready to go for you. So you get to the top, you don’t have to think about it, you just going to the right. Well, what if one day you get to the top and you’re like, actually wait a second, I think I want to go left. Well, it takes a certain amount of intention and effort on your part, your mind, body, your nervous system to make that new decision. And there are no groove marks there. It is fresh snow. So you go down there and you get back up to the top and you’re just about to go right again, but you’re like (inhales) I really do want to go left. And then eventually you keep going left, you keep going left with intention. And the right side of the mountain is going to feel covered with snow and then the left side is going to have the groove marks in it. And that’s essentially a really simplified version of how neuroplasticity works. But your question about like, well, what happens at the top of that mountain for you to consistently make that decision is nervous system regulation and creating safety for yourself. Because your brain, and I alluded to this before, isn’t going, you know, your brain’s main function is to keep you alive. So if you are –
Sarah Noll Wilson
Exactly.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, if you’re listening to this podcast, like you’re you’re winning today, you you got it. (laughter) Your brain’s like we’re good, we’re done. But it’s always looking for threats and not just threats, like, you know, bears chasing us threats, like we were talking about on my podcast, too, you know, emails, right? Threats, like making a new choice when you’re interacting with somebody. Threats like how am I going to sit in this traffic right now? (laughs) You know, these, these are, if you’re constantly stressed about sitting in the traffic and one day you’re like, you know, it’d be really nice to just not feel this way, your brain is not going to let you do that because it has no evidence of you doing that and surviving to tell the tale. So we need to stop waiting for external circumstances to allow us to feel safe. This is our agent – this is everything. This is our strength. This is our power. This is what it means to feel empowered. You have choices in every moment. And creating safety for yourself is one of the most powerful things that you can do. So what does this look like? One of the things for nervous, nervous system regulation that you can do, it’s super easy, is breathing. And I know breathing gets a bad rap because they’re like, Jen, you’re not gonna change the world by deep breathing. And you’re right, that’s ridiculous. But what you are going to do is create a place for your nervous system to feel safe. So that then you can do the next thing, become who you want to be, say what you actually want to say. You know, nervous system regulation involves not only moving from this survival state to a state of safety or protection into performance, but as you know, you’re also gaining access to your prefrontal cortex, literally the part of your brain that you need to make the new decision, to continue to do that. And so that’s, this is the kind of the skinny of it. The first thing is the self regulation. But the second piece is also the celebration. And they think that we forget about that part too. Because we make the new choice. And we’re like, Okay, I did it. And then we expect it to just happen again. Well, no, we need to continue to create that nervous system regulation and create that safety before, during, after, and then celebrate. Because all of that rush of, of dopamine and serotonin that you’re going to get, or even oxytocin, if you’re calling a friend and be like, Hey, I use my voice in this meeting today. Or like, Hey, I was sitting in traffic, and I didn’t, you know, I didn’t scream out my window today.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. (laughs)
Jen Rafferty
So, you know like, whatever it is, that celebration is going to allow for more of those beautiful neurotransmitters to solidify the new ways of thinking, and then eventually that is going to start to become your new autopilot. So patience, and grace is the name of the game in all of this.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah, yeah. We, there’s a, I don’t remember where, what inspired this. But there was a phrase I started using years and years ago, which is “celebrate the catch”. The moment, the moment – because when people start to, when you start to work on wanting to be more intentional, when you start to work on increasing your awareness, increasing your regulation, increasing being intentional, you just will start noticing more all the times when you’re not. And it can be so easy to fall into shaming yourself, blaming yourself, and then I think you’ll appreciate this. (laughs) I don’t think actually I’ve talked about this on the show. But I call it the shame, shame boomerang. So (laughs) meaning, you’re gonna shame yourself. I’m now telling you, you’re gonna shame yourself. And then you’re gonna get caught between this like, oh, shoot, I did it again. Dammit, Sarah told me I would do this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then it just becomes this like boomerang. But that idea of celebrating and I, is really important, because that’s a moment of awareness. And it’s a moment of choice. And I appreciate you expanding on that idea from the standpoint of and what is happening neurologically is you’re getting all these chemicals that are reinforcing that new behavior. I (laughs) I’m thinking about my friend sent me a meme, or I don’t know, some posts last night, that was like, Stop telling me to push outside my comfort zone. What if I want to go into an even comfier zone and just like, sleep on a hot bread roll (laugh) or whatever it was, but but so anyway, I was thinking about that as you’re talking. The other thing that I, here’s what I’m curious about, you know, this idea of how do you create safety for yourself? Again, just another another gift for, of language and perspective and ways we can think about the conversations we have with ourselves and others. One of the things I’ve learned through my own therapy is one of the ways I can regulate is inside out, right? How I’m thinking about things, how I’m, perspectives I’m taking, and sometimes I can’t do it inside out, I have to do it outside in, which is a little bit what’s getting to the breathing. And so I’m curious to hear other strategies from you. Like, what are some of those other strategies of, that kind of cognitive inside out, to help us create safety for ourselves? And what are some additional strategies to create safety for ourselves that’s more like outside in and I’ll just like, share a couple examples for the audience. If I’m under a lot of stress, taking a really warm shower helps, can, does a whole lot of things to your body to help calm that down. Touching, appropriate touching, right? For me, it’s contact with Nick is really like that’s a that’s a deregulator that helps increase safety. I would love to hear from you. When you look at it through those buckets. What, what else have you found to be really effective for creating safety for yourself?
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, so I think the, for somebody who’s kind of dabbling this, the inside out approach, I think can be a little bit slippery. Because your brain cannot be trusted. (laughter) Your brain cannot be trusted.
Sarah Noll Wilson
That needs to go on a t shirt. (laughter) Or that’s gotta be a title of a book you’re gonna write or an article you’re gonna write.
Jen Rafferty
That’s right! Your brain cannot be trusted. It is not a place to like hanging out and be like, okay, got it. You’re telling me truths, because it’s not telling you truths, right? Your brain, actually I saw, you know, we’re bringing up these memes but there’s so many nerdy memes and you promise we could nerd out. So here we go. There was one meme that I saw that like, It’s so interesting that all of the research on brains has come from a brain. (laughter)
Sarah Noll Wilson
That’s meta!
Jen Rafferty
I know! I know and it keeps me up at night. (laughter) But you know, the truth is like, your brain’s job is to think thoughts just like your eyes blink, and your heart beats and your lungs breathe. We think, you know, anywhere from 65,000 to 85,000 thoughts every single day, and most of them are either fear, ego, or past experiences. So if you’re, if you’re going into this journey, and you’re like, Okay, I’m gonna sit and I’m gonna, like, think about how I feel, that probably wouldn’t be my, my invitation to your first course of action. I think, anyway, we can get it out and get it on paper, even journaling, if you want to do an inside out thing and journal, beautiful. That could be a way. So I tend to go towards the outside in way first, because we can’t see our thoughts, but we can feel our feelings. And that is always the gateway to then what it is we’re thinking. So if we start there, because, you know, the truth is, our bodies talk to us all the time. We’re just terrible listeners. And so if we’ve start to pay attention to, you know, I’ve had this headache for three weeks, and I don’t know why, you know, or my shoulders have been wanting to be earrings for the last three days, or, you know, I’ve had this skin rash that came out of nowhere. And it’s been three months, and I don’t know what’s going on. This is your body’s only language that it has to communicate with you. And so instead of doing nothing, which is usually what we do, and we just keep on going because we’ve got a job to do. And we’ve got to pick up the kids from soccer and get to work on time. What if you stopped for a second and ask yourself? What is this headache telling me? What is this stomach pain telling me? And really connect with what your body is asking from you? What do you need right now? So asking the right questions is really important in this process. It’s not like why am I feeling this way? Because that sometimes doesn’t matter in the moment. It’s what is this telling me? And what do I need? And and then we can kind of go into, okay, well, then now what can I do? So rest. Huge, right? I would love to be in a place in a world in which people prioritized rest for themselves and rest of the people they love.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah.
Jen Rafferty
You know, my kids know, do not wake me. (laughs) If I am sleeping, and it is Sunday, and it is 9:30, go get yourself a bowl of cereal. It’s, you’re fine. And they know that my rest is valuable, because in order for me to show up as the mom that I want to be and I know the mom that they want me to be, I need my sleep. Things we mentioned, like taking a hot shower or having physical touch. You know, there are so many ways we can approach this through that sensory stimulation. Smelling something nice, touching something, you know, interesting with texture. We can go to that physical place of moving, taking a hot shower, connecting with nature, putting your feet in the grass, right? And the thing that I like to talk about, which I know we have this connection with, is the arts. Is actively engaging in the arts where you can access that emotional part of you through, whether it’s listening to Beyonce or taking out your little jelly pens and doing a little doodle for yourself, you know, joining an improv class or singing in the shower. You know, whatever it is take to connect to that emotional part of you that desperately needs your attention gets to be your priority.
Sarah Noll Wilson
(exhales) Jen. I look forward to going back and listening to this conversation. There’s so many. There’s so many gifts in that, in that, just that, what is it telling me? Is just, even that. What, what is it telling, what is, what is the tension in my shoulder telling me? And I, just in the few conversations that that we’ve had together, I know we share this value of rest. And that is something we as a company fight for. It’s something that has been one of the things I’ve been, I’ll say it this way, untangling that relationship with hustle, that relationship with needing to feel like rest needs to be earned, needing to feel like rest is so that you can become more productive. And when rest is the one of the most important linchpins in our mental health. I know for me if I if I don’t get, if I have two nights where I’m not sleeping well, I know my anxiety is going to increase. I know my intrusive thoughts or my OCD are going to become perhaps harder to let just fly through. I know all of this, and that is something that we, it’s, it’s so biological, that our bodies crave it. And I’m speaking from American culture, because we know we have a global audience. But our American culture is chase hustle, and let’s bring it back around, and chase happiness. And those can be incredibly, incredibly harmful. So I’m glad that you brought up that idea of, of rest just for the sake of rest.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And to really prioritize that. And imagine what would be possible if we actually honored and prioritized rest. And and I just want to thank you, too, for that gift of, and wanting that for the people you love too.
Jen Rafferty
Yeah.
Sarah Noll Wilson
And how do you contribute to that? And how do you make that easier? And how do you support that, or whatever the case is? I feel very fortunate now, I am surrounded by people who are trying to do this for themselves, which makes it easier for me to do it for myself, too.
Jen Rafferty
But that’s the whole thing, right? Because that’s, that is exactly, we’ll bring it back to the beginning, how organizations change. Because when you are doing it for you, and you understand the value for you, then you are going to support the person next to you who is also doing it for themselves. And then together this is how it changes. And so often we like, think that it’s more productive. But again, we’re like going based on this tradition, this tradition of hustle, this tradition of how we think we get things done and what it means to be productive, we’re all just like screaming into the void. And nobody’s listening. And we’re getting really angry about it. Where if we just took a second and held up a mirror to ourselves, which I understand can be profoundly uncomfortable. That’s actually how you are going to make the change that you so desperately want.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. And then that’s, that’s where the alignment comes in.
Jen Rafferty
One hundred percent.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Right, who, who do I want to be? How do I want to feel? How do I want to show up? What’s the impact I want to make? And what do I need to do in order to make that? Not just the impact on others, but the impact on yourself, which can be really difficult for folks. (exhales) I feel like this is such a natural, beautiful place to wind down our conversation, because I’m like, you’ve given us so much. And I just want to keep talking to you. So we’re just gonna have to have you back on the show.
Jen Rafferty
Sounds great.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Jen, I want to ask you the question that we ask all of our first time guests. And since you’re our first time guests, I want to hear it from you. The idea of the show is how do we change the conversations we have with ourselves and others and you’ve given us a plethora of things we can think about for ourselves and with others. And I’m curious for you personally, what was the conversation you had with yourself or someone else that was transformative for you?
Jen Rafferty
Wow. You know, I think for, I’ll say the conversation that I’ve really had to have with myself, and I had to call myself out on my own bullshit. And the, the excuses that I would believe, the lies that I would tell myself. I remember in therapy, we were talking once about lying to yourself. I was like, oh, no, no, that’s not me. I don’t, I don’t lie myself. (laughter) And I look back at that now and I’m like, oh my god, that’s adorable.
Sarah Noll Wilson
I’m sure your therapist was like, Uh huh. Tell me more about that.
Jen Rafferty
Oh, yeah. Right. Adorable. But like, I got to a point where I had to, I had to decide, you know, who did I want to be? And it was during that that time of COVID where everything changed. I had no choice but to be reflective in that moment, because everything I thought I was the day before. I wasn’t all of a sudden the next day and I can look back on that as an opportunity for for me to really sit with my feelings. You know, I couldn’t escape, I didn’t have you know, any place. We couldn’t go anywhere. I was literally home with my feelings about everything. And I had this moment of reckoning of you know, Jen, who do you want to be in this world? And, and how many excuses are you going to continue to buy so you’re, you stay small, and you don’t become the person that you know, you can be. And it was a journey of growth and incredible discomfort, similar to growing pains that we feel as kids, you know, it was physical at times. But I was not available to, you know, at the end of my life (laughs) see what I could have become and then just didn’t. And that’s the thing that actually brings me to tears right now, you know, like, I’ve done this exercise many times where, you know, you kind of visualize this future version of yourself, your 85 year old self. And that vision is so clear to me. And so for me, being 40 year old, Jen, I get to ask myself, you know, what would she do? I don’t make my own decisions anymore. She does, all the time. Because when I’m stuck in that place of, ooh, I don’t know where it feels scary or so uncomfortable. I regulate my nervous system. And I’m like (exhales), what does she do, and then I just do that. And that has been some of the most transformative conversations that I’ve been able to have with myself. And the work that I’ve done that has continued to lead me in that direction.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Beautiful, beautiful. I love all of that. And what again, just another powerful reflection, and a tool or an activity that that we can do for ourselves. Jen, for people who are listening to this and feeling the same way I am, which is inspired and in love with you and curious about how they can work with you. We, and I guess we didn’t, we weren’t explicit about this at the top of the show. But what is the like? Who are your clients? Who? And how can they reach out to you?
Jen Rafferty
Yeah, so my clients are mostly educators. And what I mean by educators is anyone has any sort of relationship with kids. So we work with teachers and administrators, paraprofessionals, office staff, and parents, because when all of the adults in our kids lives are experiencing their authenticity, and walking the walk, and knowing their self worth, that’s when our kids are able to do the same. So we don’t yet work with kids. There’s a K-12 curriculum coming up. But we work with the adults who are around kids right now. And so there’s a lot of different ways to work with us. We offer lots of different courses online that you can take as a self paced kind of way. But then there’s also a really cool summer camp that we’re offering right now, a virtual summer camp, which is Redesign Your Mind.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Oh, I love that.
Jen Rafferty
Which is quite literally taking you through some of the processes that I’ve kind of given you the high level explanation to, of how do you make change? How do you make sustainable growth? How do you continue to show up in alignment for yourself, because it isn’t a one and done. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not an overnight thing. It’s a process. And it’s a process with community. So this is a 12 week program that we’re taking people through starting June 3. And it’s the work that I practice every, I practice everything I teach. So, you know, this is the stuff that got me from that day, sobbing my eyes out on the couch in March of 2020, to being on the TEDx stage, 18 months later, and now running this incredible company where I get to teach people to do the same thing. So it’s powerful.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Awesome. Yeah, and what’s the best way for people to connect with you then?
Jen Rafferty
Hello @ empowered educator dot com is a great email and on Instagram, Jen Rafferty underscore.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Awesome. And we’ll post all of that in the show notes. What a gift.
Jen Rafferty
You’re a gift!
Sarah Noll Wilson
Thank you so much for being on the show.
Jen Rafferty
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure. It’s always so fun to talk with you. And I’m looking forward to more and the work that you’re doing is so great. I’m so glad our paths crossed.
Sarah Noll Wilson
Yeah. Likewise, thank you, my friend.
Our guest this week has been Jen Rafferty, and boy, oh boy. She is such a quotable thinker. Organizations don’t change until people change. I still am giggling a little bit at this idea of traditions is just pure pressure by dead people. And not to discredit tradition. There’s an important part of tradition. I love a lot of traditions. But I also love that perspective that they don’t always need to go unchecked. And the thing that I’m really, I’m really thinking about is what are all the ways I can continue to create safety for myself and help others do the same? So we want to hear from you, what resonated for you, what came up for you? What questions do you have? You can always reach out to us at podcast @ Sarah Noll Wilson dot com, where I read and respond to every message we get and we’d love to hear from you. And if you liked what you heard, consider supporting the show, there’s two ways you can do it. First, you can become a patron. You can go to patreon dot com slash conversations on conversations, where your financial contribution supports the people who make the show possible. You will also get access to some pretty cool Conversations on Conversations swag, and you’ll get early episodes without ads. What’s not to love? If you haven’t yet, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe to the show on your preferred podcast platform. That helps us get exposure, increase listeners and be able to continue to bring on great guests like Jen Rafferty.
A big thank you as always to the team that makes this show possible. To our producer Nick Wilson, our sound editor Drew Noll, our transcriptionist Becky Reinert, our marketing consultant Jessica Burdg and the rest of the SNoWCo crew. I am grateful for you all. And a big thank you to Jen Rafferty, and all of the insights that she brought to us. Well, my friends, this has been another episode of Conversations on Conversations. And I truly believe that when we change the conversations we have with ourselves and others, we can change the world. So thank you for listening. And until next week, please be sure to rest and rehydrate and we will see you all again soon. Bye, my friends.
Sarah Noll Wilson is on a mission to help leaders build and rebuild teams. She aims to empower leaders to understand and honor the beautiful complexity of the humans they serve. Through her work as an Executive Coach, an in-demand Keynote Speaker, Researcher, Contributor to Harvard Business Review, and Bestselling Author of “Don’t Feed the Elephants”, Sarah helps leaders close the gap between what they intend to do and the actual impact they make. She hosts the podcast “Conversations on Conversations”, is certified in Co-Active Coaching and Conversational Intelligence, and is a frequent guest lecturer at universities. In addition to her work with organizations, Sarah is a passionate advocate for mental health.