first year teacher

I'm normally pretty good about watering my plants regularly, but I'm starting to get worried about them. Disorder and mess is a dragon I battle daily. Along with all the tasks that need doing. Hydra is perhaps a better metaphorical monster though. I keep cutting off heads, and more keep popping up. How did the hydra get killed again? Was it it's own acid spit or something?

I said I was going to stop talking about how little time I have, because it's boring. But I have no time to talk about anything in depth this week, so I must at least peripherally mention that as the reason.

I'm working very hard.
I've got more anxiety and discomfort than I've had in awhile.
I've heard that's pretty normal for a first year teacher.
I'm doing my best to maintain some semblance of balance, getting sleep, spending some time with friends, getting at least a few minutes of exercise.

There are jobs that are hard work, and then there are jobs that are not just mentally, but emotionally demanding. This is one of them.

However, as I slowly learn how to be peaceful, happy, and effective in this challenging situation, it will only lead to more and more growth. I just have to be really conscious of avoiding emotional self-harm. It's like a game: how loving and emotionally supportive can I be of myself?

That will pay off dividends, because it means I can teach that to children, by example, and it means less going into "oh I'm a bad person/afraid of failing" (and that negative self-talk causes me to freeze like a rabbit, shut down, and/or withdrawal.)

A challenging aspect of this that I haven't previously addressed is when other people, either via my own warped perception, or in reality, think I'm a bad person/failure. That external reflection makes it harder to convince myself of the opposite, but convince myself I must, for my own sake and that of my little charges. I have to start caring waaaaaay less what people think of me, while still caring what I think of myself (meaning, still caring about putting in a satisfactory effort, doing what's right, serving with love and light.)

We will see how it all goes. This is almost certainly a much softer landing for a first year teacher than a public school, or a higher grade level. I'm with others, more experienced, much of the learning is social emotional so the fact that I deeply care about the children and strive to be a good human being myself counts for a lot, and I'm with people I like.

There is so, so, so much work to do. I whimper psychically when I contemplate it. As I try to do it during my "spare" time, I'm confronted with the impossibility of it, in my current configuration. I need to develop new super-powers, to do this.

Well, necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps it's the mother of evolution as well.

how about a relaxing image to end with. something I might fantasize about during a precious 25 minute nap: