Self-Compassionate Professor

Dr. Felice Russell describes how she navigated the difficult relationship she has always had with academia, leaning on self-trust, leaps of faith, and one-degree shifts to make the many career decisions that have gotten her to the place she is now: a school librarian who feels settled and content both at work and at home. Find Dr. Felice Russell on LinkedIn.

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"Time is so precious," says Dr. Martha Kenney. In this episode, Martha describes the importance of finding your why--a process of pausing, going inward, getting re-acquainted with yourself, and naming your values. Once you know your why, you can allocate your time accordingly, aligned to the intentions you have for your life. Martha explains that her faith softened her to this process. And ultimately, as she explains, time management cannot work well until you know your purpose.

Happy Equinox!! Welcome to the Spring 2024 Season of Self-Compassionate Professor!

First, I talk about how honoring the change of seasons invites a more intentional approach to work and life generally: 1) helps us to see beyond the academic calendar, 2) opens us to a sense of spaciousness, 3) gives us a sense of "punctuation" between seasons, 4) gives us permission to let go and let the seasons inform our timelines, and 5) anchors our daily, weekly, and monthly planning in seasonal goals, strengthening our commitment to seasonal goals.

Secondly, I discuss the importance of detoxing (broadly defined) during early spring so as to ready yourself for the season.

Dr. Dan Lair, Associate Dean of Faculty and Student Affairs at the Metropolitan State University of Denver, talks about the benefits of perceiving our academic work as “just a job.” Specifically, Dan explains what work means to him, the pitfalls of tying your job to your identity, the impact overwork by his academic spouse (me!) has had on him, and surprising findings from his institution’s attempt to address faculty workload issues. He shares simple advice for dealing with overwhelm and breaking the culture of busyness. 

Burnout and betrayal expert, Lora Cheadle, discusses how self-betrayal often masquerades as burnout, how we can begin the process of healing from self-betrayal, and how to "dance" our way to authenticity.

I explain how to know when boundary work is needed, how to use Christina Maslach's six sources of chronic stress (workload, values, reward, control, fairness, community) to find your boundary gaps, and I offer a meditation by Karla McLaren about how to feel an embodied sense of boundaries. Please remember to leave a review of the podcast!

As she prepares to leave one career behind and pivot full-time to another, Dr. Cara Jones describes experiencing a "busy season" in her career. In her academic job as a tenured associate professor, she sets strong boundaries to protect herself from excess nervous system dysregulation while also approaching her work with as much integrity as possible. In her blossoming work as an Internal Family Systems (IFS) practitioner, she experiences great spaciousness, a sense of timelessness, and a path to healing both herself and her clients. Cara also describes the general theory of IFS. Find her at https://www.integratingscatteredparts.com/.

Dr. Toyosi Onwuemene describes how healing from her people-pleasing behavior impacted the dynamics of her relationships at work, how she learned to find more supportive spaces and leave behind toxic ones, how she now invests in herself and those around her, and what she means by "fighting" for her career. Find Dr. Toyosi Onwuemene on Facebook and LinkedIn as well as Instagram @coagcoach.

I re-release my 2021 interview with Dr. Angela Gist-Mackey. She explains that her career journey began in advertising, but eventually she realized that not only was academia a better fit for her, it paved a path for her to fulfill a larger purpose. While in her advertising career, she experienced bullying by supervisors and was struck by the sharp differences in the organizational cultures in which she worked. Angela was fascinated by these organizational dynamics and so began her PhD in organizational communication some years later. Now, as a tenured professor at the University of Kansas, Angela has much wisdom to share about the career wellness lessons she has learned over the years. At the core of it all though, her sense of legacy and purpose steers her career as both a professor and co-founder of her family business. Find Dr. Angela Gist-Mackey at https://angelagistmackey.weebly.com/ or https://www.mackeyconsultingllc.com/. 

Professor of STEM Education at the University of Colorado and creator of the Whole Professor Project Blog, Dr. Erin Furtak tells the origin story of her blog, the epiphany she had that her approach to work was exacerbating her migraines, her commitment to feeling whole, and her ongoing journey to feeling well. Erin insists that wellness among academics is an important conversation that must be sustained. Find and subscribe to the Whole Professor Project at https://wholeprofessorproject.net/ and find Dr. Erin Furtak at https://www.colorado.edu/education/erin-marie-furtak. (Register for the "digest, rest, and envision" workshop series at https://selfcompassionateprofessor.com/).

Dr. Geneviève Taylor, Associate Professor of Career Counseling at the University of Quebec in Montreal, discusses the foundational role mindfulness has played in her career wellness journey, saving her time, inviting clarity and creativity to her work, helping her to set boundaries with ease, among other benefits. Find Geneviève at https://professeurs.uqam.ca/professeur/taylor.genevieve/.

I describe the ways academic institutions socialize us into deficit thinking where we often come to believe we are not enough. And while having a deficit thought or story is not a problem in and of itself, believing such stories and allowing them to drive our careers is a big problem. I talk about how to disrupt this type of thinking as well as how to regulate your nervous system when you find yourself in a fight/flight state due to deficit thinking. Enroll for the sabbatical program here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1047

In this interview conducted by Dr. Sanne Frandsen in her Facebook group, Next Level Career Community for Women in Academia, Sanne interviews Dr. Patrice Buzzanell. Patrice explains what led her to academia, how her motherhood journey began in graduate school, her struggles, and the great success she has enjoyed overall in her academic career while also raising six children. Patrice also discusses her research about motherhood, women, and career as well as her experiences of being truly lit up by the coming together of her research in a way she had not imagined. Find Dr. Patrice Buzzanell at pmbuzzanell@usf.edu and Dr. Sanne Frandsen at https://www.sannefrandsen.com/ or find her Facebook group. Reach out to me, Danielle De La Mare, on LinkedIn or email me at danielle@selfcompassionateprofessor.com.

Continuing with our theme of connections, I discuss how all roads lead back to Dr. Sanne Frandsen! In this episode, I introduce Sanne as next week's guest host and tell several fun stories of connection and coincidence. I also re-release my interview with Sanne where she describes the power of narrative, explaining how many of our career problems manifest from the stories we tell ourselves. She offers two specific examples: how feelings of inadequacy and time poverty are often issues of mindset and can likely be managed by telling a new story. Sanne also explains that in career crises, people must navigate through messy and ongoing narrative changes until they are able to find something that fits. Find Dr. Sanne Frandsen at https://www.sannefrandsen.com, on LinkedIn at Sanne Frandsen, and in her Facebook group, Next Level- Career Community for Women in Academia, a group open to academic women anywhere in Europe.

In the spirit of connecting to those beyond our immediate circles, I re-release my interview with Dr. Alex Ketchum, author of Engage in Public Scholarship: A Guidebook on Feminist and Accessible Communication. Alex explains the value of engaging in public scholarship--a hopeful message for individual scholars, the academy generally, as well as society at large. She also describes her own experiences doing public scholarship, the need for broader engagement with academic research in our society, as well as the risks and challenges of doing such work. Follow Dr. Alex Ketchum on Twitter: @ketchum22.

Dr. James Hedges, Dean of the Division of Online and Continuing Education at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, discusses his career journey from faculty to administration. He also offers lessons learned: chaos can create opportunities, negotiation and confidence is key, discussing workplace issues with colleagues is important and therapeutic, and opening to and accepting ambiguity and failure is necessary, among others.

I argue that spiritual practice allows you to relax into the task of paving a self-compassionate career path. Drawing on Brené Brown's definition of spirituality, I offer examples of spiritual practice and explain how such a practice may support a person in career crisis. 

I discuss Parker Palmer's notions of career discernment and how his philosophy aligns with my group coaching program, The Sabbatical Program. I also describe how the program is intended for those who want to do the deep work of connecting deeply to self and others as well as my intention to cater to those who are willing to turn into a slower pace and a pause. Registration for Sabbatical begins January 13 and closes January 30. Find details here: https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1047

In an effort to contextualize last episode's trauma discussion, I re-release my interview with Dr. Sara Taylor who explains that academia was a perfect holding container for her trauma. Since trauma affects every aspect of our lives, including our career decisions, Sara makes a convincing case for all of us to do the deep inner work required to release our trauma. She offers examples, questions, and truths to consider as you begin this work for yourself. Find Dr. Sara Taylor at https://sarabtaylor.com/.

Stephanie Lagana and I intentionally create space for "whatever conversation needs to happen." She describes what healing looks like on individual and collective levels and what we can do to begin and continue the healing process. Find Stephanie Lagana on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/steph-lagana/ or on her website at https://www.thedianacollective.co/. (Register for "self-compassion for academics" at https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1066).    

Dr. Leslie Wang helps listeners to re-conceptualize their relationship to academia so they may make intentional decisions about the future of the relationship (look for her upcoming book on this topic!), shares her own "break-up" story, as well as describes how the relationship she once had to her work negatively impacted her physical health. Find Leslie at https://yourwordsunleashed.com/. (And register for"semester unplug" as well as "self-compassion for academics" at https://danielledelamare.com/?page_id=1066).  

In this episode, I offer an update about Dr. Matthew Goodman's unfolding entrepreneurial career now that he has stepped out of his academic position as well as re-release the interview we did prior to his exit. Based on Dr. Kristin Neff's research in Mindful Self-Compassion, Matthew defines self-compassion, describes its power, the benefits and challenges of practicing self-compassion, and he even leads us in a self-compassion exercise! Matthew talks too about how he uses self-compassion and other daily practices to navigate the challenges he faces in his own academic career. Find him on Instagram @MatthewGoodmanPhD or on his business website, https://www.the-middle-way.com/.