This is one of my favorite frameworks that we teach. It gives a structure to these conversations around emotions that can be really scary and messy. Especially when occurring in a classroom full of kids with lots of emotions!

I also find them useful in my own life with both my son and with myself.

This term “regulation” has actually been bothering me over the past few months. Something about it feels harsh to me. Sort of like me kindly and calming asking you, “How are you feeling?” And then once you pour your heart out, me shouting “REGULATE IT!”

It felt like a judgmental and controlling word to me.

However, I just found out that I was wrong about the word “regulate.”

I used to tell my students all the time, “It’s okay to make mistakes. We learn from our mistakes.” And I now repeat those same words to my son.

But I wonder if I’ve been lying. Because when I actually made a mistake, Melissa told me, “It’s okay.” But I didn’t tell myself that. I didn’t give myself that permission.

One way that I’m trying to move past self-judging and towards self-awareness is through personality tests. And I actually recently took a vulnerable step in this direction.

In addition to taking our EASEL test myself, I also agreed to join our Applied EQ team in letting three of my colleagues take an EASEL 360 of me, so I could see how my self-assessment compared to my colleagues' assessment of me.

I’m trying to let myself feel my actual feelings without judgement, and it’s hard. I find the reframe of thanking an emotion helpful because it’s such a drastic shift from how I normally approach my emotions.

So now when I feel something hard or inconvenient like sadness or anger, I’m thanking it instead of trying to talk myself out of feeling it or trying to control it.

Thank you, sadness, for letting me know I really cared about someone.

Thank you, anger, for signaling that something is unfair.

Thank you, fear, for reminding me that I’m alive.

So often in teaching, I thought I was doing everyone a favor by denying my body and sacrificing my health for everyone else’s benefit. It never occurred to me that I was modeling unhealthy behavior for my students and positioning myself for teaching burnout.

We are teaching kids about emotions all of the time whether we’re aware of it or not. It’s not about learning the right thing to say about emotions. It’s about being someone who can handle tough emotions.

“Stress is the energy you produce as you wonder whether you can deal effectively with a threatening situation.”

Stress is fuel. You can put it in your car and drive across the country, or you can pour it on top of your car and light it on fire.

Our CEO experienced a social experiment of sorts on twitter, by accident.

Adam Saenz, licensed psychologist, author, and emotional intelligence expert, posted this picture on twitter on the eve of his substitute teaching position.

He asked for advice for his first day and hundreds of followers responded. The responses were overwhelmingly positive, and there were also some funny tweets of warning.

How are your students?

Are they feeling sad? Happy? Frustrated? Angry? Content?

Can they regulate all of their emotions?

Do you think they could add a strategy to their toolbox for self-regulation?

It’s October, and I find myself wondering how you’re doing.

I wonder if you’re breathing calm and steady, feeling peaceful and fulfilled. Or maybe you’re holding your breath, wondering how you’re going to make it through the school year.

This time last year, I was holding my breath and white-knuckling my way through each and every school day.

I wish I could go back to my past self and tell her, “Stop. Take a breath. It’s okay to be human.”

I wonder if she’d listen. She was always so busy. It’s hard to picture her sitting down and taking a deep breath without rolling her eyes.

Today, I know better.

When I worked with educators this summer, I noticed a common theme no matter what school or state we were visiting: teachers and administrators are often more comfortable talking about students’ emotional needs than they are their own.

We spend half of our training on adult SEL before moving on to student SEL, and I can feel some educators get frustrated during the first half. There was a feeling of “Just tell me how to meet students’ needs. Why are we wasting time on ourselves?”

How are you? Really, how are you?

If your life was a car, what would the dashboard look like right now?

Are you truckin’ along with all systems go? Or is your check engine light on, signaling something is not quite right?

My life’s check-engine light came on last week.

In a fast food drive thru line.

It was not pretty.

When we partner to EQ-uip schools, one of the first things we do is have leaders and teachers in the district take the EASEL. This helps the adults on campus grow in self-awareness, so they are better EQ-uipped to navigate the complex emotional landscape of schools.

The EASEL includes a personality assessment, and my favorite aspect of personality to talk about with educators is conscientiousness.

When we were training educators how to teach empathy this summer, Melissa, lead content creator of the EQ-uipped Classroom, shared one of her own teaching experiences as an example.

Melissa was a first-year teacher. She was teaching third grade, and it was the fourth week of school. Her goal for the day: teaching subtraction. She thought, “I’ve got this. Subtraction is easy.”

Have you ever taught subtraction to third graders?

Our team has been traveling the country throughout August, EQ-iupping educators with the Emotional Intelligence tools they need to have a successful school year. One of the resources that has resonated most with teachers and administrators is our Emotions Chart.