How Mini Breaks Got Me Through the Week

Hello, tender friends !

Reading this book was a good reminder of how powerful mini breaks can be. My work week last week was significantly better because I was intentional about mini breaks. The stressors were exactly what I expected, but I ended the week feeling a lot better than I expected because of this intentionality.

As I go into my second week of working a job I didn’t want, this book has reminded me to reset myself with somatic mini breaks throughout the day, even though the author doesn’t explicitly call them somatic breaks.

Somatic work has changed my life, and last week made me feel proud of my evolution. I practice breathing exercises each day before going into work and entered each day buoyed by this practice. Throughout the day, I incorporated somatic activities (which the author refers to as “PQ reps” in the book) by listening to the squeak of my shoes while walking in the hallways, registering where I feel annoyance in my body when working with students with attention spans like goldfish, and focusing on the hum of electricity in a room that I previously thought was quiet.

I’ve been working on these things for years, but reading this book was the boost that I needed before going back into a work environment that I had hoped to leave behind forever.

The sad thing is that, looking back, I remember not allowing myself to take somatic breaks because the workload was so intense when I was a full-time teacher that I was afraid I didn’t have time. When I was fortunate enough to practice yoga, I almost immediately fell asleep on the mat because my body unloaded so much tension and secondary trauma that I fell asleep against my will.

I don’t think I’ve written about it on here before, but I worked for a national nonprofit called Teach for America when I taught full-time. I had gang members in my classes, and students who brought guns to school ended up back in my classroom three days later if they got suspended. Sometimes they didn’t even get suspended and were there the next day, causing me to jump out of my skin every time they reached into their backpack. (Interesting note: gang members were often some of the easiest students to work with. They actually tend to stay under the radar if they show up to school and aren’t the ones who typically tear up your classroom. They tend to keep a low profile in school since they’re doing so many illegal things both in and out of school. I even liked some of them and could see how much promise they carried inside of them. It was sad that their promise was sabotaged by life circumstances.)

Oh, and of course the best somatic exercise is feeling fresh garden produce between your fingertips. Praise Jesus for this.

Anyhow, maybe I’ve leveled up. My secret hope is that God put me in this environment so I could learn this precise lesson, and now that it’s learned he’ll release me. In my world of hope, someone is going to call me this week with a dream job offer that pays better and is more aligned to my long-term career goals. I’m going to just keep hoping…

OK, that’s all for today, tender friends! Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for sharing!

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