Self-Compassion for Overwhelmed School Leaders | A Conversation with Stephanie Lill

I really thought, based on my knowledge of my students past experiences, that this would work and it didn't. So, is blaming yourself helping you? Is this a good time to make a decision about what I'm going to do next? Hey everyone, I'm Shane Leaning.

Welcome to Education Leaders, the chart-topping leadership podcast for school leaders just like you. As an organisational coach, I've helped thousands of leaders worldwide lead with greater confidence, make better decisions and create winning teams. On this show, we explore the strategies that are going to help you achieve your goals and transform your leadership. This episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association and the Teacher Development Trust.

Stay tuned to learn more. Now, my guest today is Stephanie Lill, goes by Lily, and she's a passionate advocate for mindfulness and education. In fact, she's founded an organisation called Mindful Sparks, which is a provider for mindfulness-based training in schools. They teach students, teachers, staff and wider school community mindfulness practice that cultivate a lot more connected and compassionate learning communities.

In our conversation today, Lily breaks down some of the crucial differences between kindness, empathy and compassion in some ways that I've never even considered before. And if you're someone who, like me, worries that being too compassionate with yourself might make you complacent, well, I think this episode is going to help. Let's get into it. I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what compassion is.

It's a word that's used very easily without really understanding the true nature of what it means. And it's very interchangeable with, like, kindness and empathy. And then you have compassion. But they're all very, very different things.

And the way that they show up and the repercussions of integrating these into your day will have very different impacts. I mean, just to put you on the spot a little bit, like, what would you say would be the difference between kindness and being compassion? Oh, my goodness. This is just totally off the top of my head.

I'm almost thinking kindness is doing nice things almost or just being nice in compassion. To me, there's something about knowing that other person or stepping into their shoes or maybe it links a bit with empathy or something. I don't know. Compassion to me sounds a bit more understanding than kindness.

I don't know. But it's quite hard when you're put on the spot to give three clear definitions of what they are. It can be quite tricky. I was the same when I started going down this kind of journey in my educational career.

Like, I was like, but what? Like, I am being kind or am I being empathetic or am I being compassionate? And kindness is, like you said, doing nice things, right? It's the basic saying, please and thank you.

Somebody's crying or here's a tissue. Not much thought goes into it. Not much investment goes into it. It can be a little bit more of a learned habit that we do if we see a certain situation.

And there's nothing wrong with that. It's great, right? We want people to be kind and do nice things. Empathy is like the next one up.

So there's a little bit more of an understanding, like, oh, I can see that you're crying. Here's a tissue. And I understand that something has happened to make you feel this way. I don't fully understand how you feel because I haven't had your experience.

I'm not you. But I can relate on some levels when I felt sad that maybe you might feel some of these qualities too. So there's a bit more connection there. And then compassion is the next step.

It's the action. I can see you're crying. Here's a tissue. Here's the kindness, empathy.

I'm really sorry that you feel this way. I can relate. And the compassion comes in to be like, well, what can I do to either help alleviate your suffering in this moment or what can I do in the long run that would allow this not to happen again? So that's why it's so essential for schools to understand what compassion is because it isn't always this immediate, oh, I said a nice word to you.

We're done. Sometimes we need to really look at, well, what happens now? How did this situation come about? You know, it could be a fallout between friends in your class.

You're the homeroom teacher. You're managing that. It could be a kind of disjointed teaching cohort and you're in leadership and you're trying to work out. How did we get to this point where, you know, in Key Stage One and Key Stage Two are not talking?

Or it could be a bigger thing of like, why do we have such a high turnover of staff? Why are we getting so stressed out? So it's bringing that compassion and going, I see what your experience is and how can I help to alleviate that? That's really nice framing.

So it's a lot more action based in a way, isn't it? I've drawn myself like a few steps as she was saying. So kindness and then the next step, kindness is doing something, empathy is kind of understanding the situation. But compassion is actually taking action on what you've learned about their position, I guess.

100%. I love that. That's really useful. And I'm intrigued, like, where have you come from in all of this?

Like, what brought you to thinking in this area? Oh, my gosh. It's been such a long, random, convoluted journey of my career in teaching. If we go back like 2012, I started really getting into yoga meditation.

2014, I did my yoga training, teacher training. I went on these meditation courses and I started bringing elements of that into my classroom, breathing, movement. That was the main bit. And I didn't call it like what I do now falls under this umbrella of mindfulness.

I didn't call it then. I wasn't aware of mindfulness. And it was great. And it definitely helped in the moment, you know, getting kids to calm down, maybe bring their energy up.

We're stuck in desks in classrooms for a long time, so bringing their movement around. I could see how that was impacting their ability to focus, to just be engaged with the day. But that was like, there's still something lacking. And I was in a class where we had a lot of challenging relationships with, between students.

The kids are 9, 10 years old. And we had a lot of challenging behaviors being exhibited because of situations that were happening at home. And I don't know, just I found that talking was so important, right? That communication was so important.

Active listening was so important. And then I was just like, well, I have all this information. What do I do? And I think sometimes it can be, you know, your ego jumps up, going to go fix all the problems, solve everything.

You know, I'm this super teacher and this is what I do. And, you know, I learned the hard way many times of just jumping in, not really understanding everything, not understanding where I stood with everything and how I related to everything. You know, how it was impacting me mentally, emotionally, and physically as well, having learnt this information. And so I was sometimes going into like, you know, I'm going to go and solve the problem and fix everything.

I meant well, but because I was coming from a place where I wasn't grounded or balanced, sometimes it didn't have the intended effect. So it took a lot of years. And I would honestly only say in the past maybe three or four years when I'm like, it is compassion. This is what I've been trying and experimenting with.

And I didn't fully have a big grasp of everything, you know, and it's only maybe three or four years ago. I was like, right, this is kindness to empathy, to compassion. This is the journey. And sometimes I would try and do kindness to compassion.

And I was like, but I really didn't understand the situation. Or sometimes I thought kindness was enough. I wasn't listening hard enough to what my children were saying, what my colleagues were saying. You know, and I was like, oh, there's more to it.

And, you know, the work I do with Mindful Sparks as well, that's naturally gravitates to all of this. And it's a skill. You know, compassion is something that is teachable. It isn't something that we all naturally have.

It isn't something that there's a finite point to. It is something that we can learn and we can constantly improve. And as I've been on my journey with Mindful Sparks, it's, I would say for me, the self-compassion side of it is one of the hardest things I find in my journey. But it's something I know that I can continually improve.

I love that journey that you described. And it's no surprise that you came from that yoga background and you've been able to explore that in your practice before bringing it to others. I think it's good to hear that compassion is a skill, not just, well, it sounds like a personality trait, you know, doesn't it? Compassionate.

That's a compassionate person. They were born compassionate, but actually to hear that it's something, it's a muscle that you practice. And you mentioned about working on yourself and learning about yourself. And I guess that's a big part of yoga or meditating.

Tradition is about working on yourself so you can help others. So you mentioned at the end there, self-compassion then being a really important part. So talk me through that. That's really interesting.

Because our description there was kindness to empathy, to compassion. I was thinking totally externally. I was thinking about others, not about self, but then you said self-compassion. It's like, oh, okay.

How's that differ? So compassion, obviously, is this outward action that we're taking, right? Be it giving somebody a tissue because they're upset and then thinking, okay, how can I help you to feel happier, give you an ice cream, tell you a silly joke, give you a hug. That's compassion on a very small scale.

You know, recently, for example, in Thailand, we were in the receiving end of the earthquake in Myanmar. So there's a lot of help needed. So it might be something bigger like that. Okay, what can I do?

How can I rally my community to support others? Donations, give my time, whatever that might be. All very important. Self-compassion is when we turn that attention on ourselves.

And one of my staff has this amazing analogy of a torch, right? You're going through the day and you have this torch and you're like, oh, yeah, look at that person. Oh, look at that person. Oh, look what's happening over there.

You're shining your spotlight on lots of different things that influence the way you think, feel, react. It influences your decisions. It influences the way you navigate the world that day, the long term. But if you turn that spotlight onto you and the three areas that we promote in our approach is your thoughts, your emotions, and your physical responses.

What am I thinking now? What am I feeling now? What am I doing now? You can begin to see these habitual patterns of behavior.

Are they reactive? Are they responsive? Are they coming from a grounded place? Is it a perception that I believe, or is it an objective version of what's happening?

And once we can begin to see these habitual patterns of behavior and understand ourselves more objectively, there's no right or wrong, right? Every experience is valid. We can then begin to see how do I talk to myself in these situations? How do I treat myself in these situations?

How do I invest in myself in these situations? So self-compassion is, can I show the same level of kindness, empathy, and compassion to myself that I would to show to somebody else? So a lot of that might come, you know, if we're thinking about teachers, you've got this great lesson plan, you're like, oh, I've got all these resources. It's going to be so much fun.

And within 10 minutes, you're like, this is a disaster. Nobody's interested in it. Nobody cares. The kids aren't interested.

And that's broken. And I'm super stressed out. And how easy is it to then say, oh, my gosh, I didn't think that through properly. I'm such a terrible teacher.

Like, why can't I get this class engaged? It's very easy to get into that spiral because we have such high standards that we're trying to always work towards either internal ones or external ones that are given to us by the school. And, you know, this is where that self-compassion comes in. Can I reframe that?

As you know, I really tried my best today. I really thought, based on my knowledge of my students' past experiences, that this would work. And it didn't. It didn't.

Full stop. Right? There's no blame. There's no guilt.

There's no shame added to that. Now, I've noticed that I'm feeling quite agitated by this. I feel a bit embarrassed. I'm frustrated.

Is this a good time to make a decision about what I'm going to do next? Probably not. It's probably more reactive. So can I take a pause when I'm feeling this way?

Do I want to go get a cup of tea? Do I want to just go walk around the playground, you know, get some of that energy out? Do I want to go see my teacher, Bethany, and just have a little bit of a grumble about what happened? Do I just want to lay down on the floor in my classroom for five minutes?

Like, what's going to work for me that's going to allow me to feel a bit more grounded? And then from that, you know, what can I do differently next time? Knowing that, there are so many factors as to why maybe that lesson didn't work out. I mean, unless you just kind of lay down on the floor and didn't say anything, yeah, then maybe a bit of that fault landed on you.

But there's so many other things that could have influenced why that played out the way it is. So is blaming yourself helping you? Is it supporting your wellbeing? Is it allowing you to be the best version of yourself?

So that's where that self-compassion comes in. This is incredibly helpful for me personally, actually, Lilly, because, you know, when I hear the word self-compassion, it scares me a little bit. And here's the reason it scares me, like, you know, just knowing my trace is I worry that if I'm too compassionate on myself, I won't move forward. Like, I won't do the things that I need to do.

I'll make the changes that I need to change. So I was listening there thinking, okay, so how do I talk and treat myself in that position? But then you said something that's really struck me. It's about the timing of the decision.

Is when you're in the heat of the moment the right time to make that decision? And, you know, when you are in that beating yourself up mode or whatever it is, that imposter signal, whatever you're feeling, is that the right time? And, of course, the answer is if you were to be kind to yourself and understand, no, that's not the right time. It doesn't mean that you're not going to move on that.

And I like how you then move to what can I do differently in a kind way, in a compassionate way towards myself. What can I do differently knowing that it may not work again? But, you know, what could I do? That's a real reframing.

That's quite helpful for me. Yeah, don't glad that resonated. And you picked up on such an important point and that is pausing, especially when you're working in many jobs and my background's in education. So I speak from that.

But when you're in a school, there isn't much downtime in a day, right? Once the kids are in the door until the kids are out the door, it's pretty much go, go, go. You've got your schedule to keep. You've got your duties to do.

You've got your admin to try and keep on top of. And it can be very overwhelming just to go, oh, that lesson was a disaster. Right. What have we got next?

Maths. Okay. Get your math books out. But you're still in that agitated state.

You're not grounded. You're not regulated from that previous encounter. So even if it is just like, right, I'm just going to go to the toilet. I mean, how many times have I just sat in the toilet just to have that pause?

Because that genuinely is the only place where the kids aren't going to bother you, right? You can't ignore that. But just to sit there just for five minutes, taking a couple of breaths, whatever that might be that works for you, just to create space between what just happened and what you're going into next. This episode is supported by the International Curriculum Association.

Now, I've been working with the ICA for quite a few years, but they've been around for 30 years and they've been around championing quality, unlocking potential and improving learning in international schools right around the world. I really, really love that at their core is a model for improving learning. And this model is focused on the learning experience and they have tons of great curriculum materials, PD resources and even an accreditation pathway for schools just like yours. So if you're interested and I really do recommend you check them out, head over to internationalcurriculum.com.

Today's episode is supported by the Teacher Development Trust. TDT's associate qualification in CPD leadership is so perfect for international school leaders. It's fully accredited and it's delivered online over 10 months. In it you'll create an actual CPD that's a continuing professional development strategy for your school based on research that shows well planned PD, improves pupil outcomes and teacher attention.

And I actually did this program myself and hands down it's some of the best professional development I've ever done. So much so that I am delighted to be co-delivering this special Asia cohort which starts in November. If you want to learn more go to tdtrust.org or click the link in the show notes.

I work with a lot of school leaders especially who are trying to just really support the well-being of their staff and it's really challenging. But a lot of the culture of school starts with leadership, right? Like they can often set that culture or set that tone. So I wonder in your mind in this well-being space, mindful space, how do leadership set the tone?

It's such a great question and it's such a big answer. But I'd like to share an experience I had with a leader at one of the schools I worked at because I just thought how it played out was so nice and for what it was if I had a powerful long-term ripple effect. And I think it's quite a nice way of showing what this can look like. It doesn't have to be these big performative or like knee-jerk responses.

It's something about how can I begin to practice what I'm preaching. We tell students all the time be kind, be kind, but do we see that in use kind language, use nice words. Do we see that all the way from the top? So a few years ago in Bangkok, we struggled with air pollution and a few years ago it got really bad out of nowhere.

Really, really bad. Your visibility was down. It was scary. It was a scary situation.

At that time I was like middle leadership. I was in the pastoral role, child protection role. So I had very good relationships with teachers. It was quite a small school.

And teachers were coming in just agitated and fearful and unsure, understandably, right? You're like, what is this? What's happening? Do we need air purifiers?

Like, are we going to get sick? None of them had experienced that before. I used to work in Shanghai with a couple of other teachers. And also the head of the primary was also from Shanghai.

We'd experienced that. They knew we had experience with this. So that's a big reason why they came to us. Like, are we going to be okay?

So, you know, I'm hearing teachers, they're really freaked out. Other schools have shut. Why haven't we shut? Why are the maids still going outside cleaning things?

Why aren't the children here? But we have to be here. There was a lot of confusion and uncertainty. And obviously, you know, the top leadership are in meetings, as with every school.

Like, what are we going to do? There was no air pollution policies in place. This was such a new thing. Like, how do we respond to this?

And of course, they're getting it from all sides, right? Board of governors, teachers, parents, each other, like, they're swamped. And eventually, later in the day, found the head of primary and was like, how's it going? And, oh, gosh, it's a day, you know, I'm having a day.

It's a lot. We're trying to work it out. And I said, look, you know, I don't want to add to your plate, but this is the general feeling. This is the mood amongst teachers.

And they're not happy and they're scared and they feel that they're not being heard. They feel that they're not being supported. Their well-being's not being taken seriously. And I think it will be really beneficial.

Very casual, 10, 15 minute, let's just all meet up, listen to them. And I said, I know it's going to put a lot on your plate, but I think this is something that will be really valuable in the long run. And, you know, there was a bit of resistance. Like, do you know how much I have to do?

And I'm like, I fully can assume. I don't know exactly, but I can assume what is happening. But I said, I think this is an investment for the long time to really build that relationship with your staff and to build a community that communicates and takes these things seriously. And, you know, hats off to him, he did.

And it was super casual. We were in our normal meeting room, but instead of him standing up and, you know, having the agenda on the board and da, da, da. Because the kids weren't there, we were, you know, like, it was a bit more casual. We all just sat down.

Everybody sat down and, you know, the head was very vulnerable in that moment to say like, this is a hard day for me and this is what we're trying to work out. I understand that you feel XYZ. Can you talk to me? Like, I need to understand where you are.

And he just listened to people and people have gone into that I'm going to say this and I'm going to give them a piece in my mind. And the moment there was that equal space and the moment there was an opportunity for staff to really be seen and heard and feel valued, a lot of that tension, a lot of that fear, a lot of that animosity, you could see it drop because it was like you're taking me seriously. Like you believe my experience is real and there's no judgment. Like you genuinely are interested in what I'm experiencing right now.

And it was a really pivotal moment because later, as I said, I was working in Child Protection. So we were having lots of tricky conversations throughout the school year with different teachers. But you could see that there was a relationship, a stronger relationship between the head of primary and certain teachers that genuinely came from that experience because it kind of set the tone of how we're going to have these tricky conversations. And we're going to approach them with open ears and open hearts and open minds and we're going to work together the best way that we can resolve this situation in this moment.

These are the steps we're going to take and I want you involved in these steps. I want your opinion in these steps. I want your feedback, you know, and that's compassion. It sounds like that leader at that time was being really real and really human in that moment.

And maybe some of that humanity or vulnerability is something that connected to how often do we as leaders not feel like we're not able to do that. And yet that seemed to be the winner in this situation. Hundred percent. And he picked up on a really important word that the humanity, a big part of compassion is understanding that we have a common and shared humanity.

Yes, they might be your leader, they might be your boss, but they're still human. They still have a life outside of school and vice versa. Your teachers are human and have life outside of school. And it's understanding that there are going to be days where they don't come as their best selves, right?

They didn't sleep well. Somebody in their family is sick. They've got money, worries and there are going to be days when they're distracted because they're so excited they're going to go home and see their family who they haven't seen for like a year. You know, so they might not be the version of themselves that you would like them to be.

But it's understanding that they're still a good person deep down and understanding that we can give people grace some days. Yeah, I think so. And that speaks to the reality of what schools are is that these large collections of human beings, right, who all have their own experiences and personalities. And if you're a leader going in thinking, I want them to be like this, that's not going to go well.

It's not going to go well. And it's impossible, right? How can you do that without completely stripping back the individuality of everybody? Exactly.

So as we kind of come to the end of the conversation, I wonder if there are any ways that we can think of ways to practice compassion or bring it into our school life. Are there any things you can think of that might help the listeners to just kind of start to embed a bit more compassion in our work? One of the things that worked really well for me when I was beginning to integrate this into my day as a teacher and as a human being, rather than how can I support my kids? I was like, I need to do this for me too.

Where my desk was and my computer was, I had a notice board behind it. And I literally had loads of sentence starters on post-it notes. So whether it was like, you know, I got an email that like really riled me up and instead of just do, do, do, do, do, do, I'm going to reply now on my full anger and then regret everything I write later. I would just have things that were like literally like count to ten.

Do you need to reply to this email now? What's more important in this moment? Just things like that that worked for me. I found language that worked for me and that's what's really important is you've got to find the language that works for you.

You've got to find these little pauses in the day that are meaningful to you. Don't just be like, oh, I've got maths next. Let me go take a break. If you don't feel you need it, don't do it.

But if it's like, okay, I just need a moment. I'm going to ask the kids when they come into my room. Everyone get a book out. We're having five minutes of reading, just anything, whatever it might be.

And in those five minutes, I'm going to pretend to read but actually I'm just going to kind of hide behind my book and close my eyes for a couple minutes. There isn't this big, magical, beautiful, you know, I'm going to get the yoga mat out and put an eye mask on. It's not the reality. The reality is how can I begin to find these pauses in my day?

The second one I would say is imagine that spotlight I talked about earlier and if you are in a situation where it feels a bit intense, it feels a bit overwhelming, you're feeling a bit wobbly, you know, you're not feeling fully regulated. Ask yourself these three questions. How's my mind? How are my thoughts?

What emotions can I notice and name? And how's my body feeling? So is my mind racing? Is my mind all over the place?

If it is, I'm probably not going to be able to answer this or solve this situation in a clear way, right? If my emotions are big and overwhelming, I need to ground myself. And if I'm feeling tight and tense in my body, okay, like, I'm not going to be that nice, warm, welcoming person that I need to be to have this conversation with somebody. I'm already going in, my arms cross defensive.

If you're like, okay, I notice that mentally, I'm not in the right headspace to answer this email or to have this conversation with this person, self-advocate, right? Set those boundaries and just say, just give me five minutes. Or do you know what? Can we continue this conversation after school?

Or how about I email you my thoughts and we can talk about it tomorrow, right? There needs to be a level of self-advocacy here because people can't read your mind and they don't understand you. And if they're also not on their own journey of that, if you say, I just need a moment because of this, they're not going to relate. You can say, do you know what?

I will answer your email. I will answer your question. I will continue this conversation, but I need it to be on my grounds, on my terms. Because then I will come to it with an open mind with an open heart.

That's really, really helpful. And what you described at first is scaffolding, isn't it? You can't just expect to kind of go into this. So I love the idea of just having some things on your notice board.

And I was scribbling down as you were writing as well those three questions. How's my mind? What emotions can I notice? How's my body and label?

And how's my body feeling? Yeah, I'm almost tempted to write that on a sticky note and stick it up next to my desk because I think in the heat of the moment we can forget to check in with ourselves, right? 100%. This has been really, really helpful, Lily.

I have just very selfishly gotten a lot out of this conversation and I'm really, really thankful. Is there anything that we've missed or that you feel that would be good to highlight before we finish? I think the most important thing for people to take away is that compassion comes from or to be able to act in a compassionate way comes from having strong self-awareness. You need to understand yourself well to then understand whether you react or you're responding.

And it takes time. It takes practice. Some days you will be like, wow, I feel like I'm in a Disney movie. You know, the birds and the bees love me and I'm spreading kindness everywhere.

And there are going to be other days when you're like, I don't want to talk to anybody because we're human and it's okay to have these ebbs and flows of how easy we can practice compassion or how easy we're able to access it and to not beat yourself up on those days. It is a skill that the more we practice, the easier it becomes. You know, listening to that conversation with Lily, I've always seen that term of compassion as slightly fluffy, but hearing her break it down into kindness, empathy, and then compassion as action, that's really powerful for me. I really like Lily's point about timing.

When we're in that reactive state, beating ourselves up or feeling overwhelmed, that is not the moment to be making decisions about moving forward. When we're being self-compassionate, we're not lowering standards or being soft on ourselves, but we're creating mental space to respond rather than react. I really like some of the practical strategies here too, having sentence status on posting notes, checking in with your mind, emotions, and body. And that great example of the school leader who just sat down with his staff during the air pollution crisis, it really highlights to me that sometimes the most powerful thing we can do as a leader is just to simply be human.

You can find more about Lily and Mindful Spikes in the show notes along with some of the links to the resources we mentioned in our chat. Education Leaders is hosted by me, Shane Leaning, thanks to my show editor, Pete McGill, and for the original music by Guillerme Silva, and thank you so, so much for tuning in today. If we don't speak before, I'll see you here next week. If you want to learn more about the brilliant work of the Teacher Development Trust and the International Curriculum Association, you can find them using the links in the show notes.