4 Strategies that Help Me Cope
The Cocoon: July 2025
If you appreciate my work, find it useful, or have followed up on any of these recs, I’d be so grateful for your support with a like, comment, share, or paid subscription!
This spring a friend in one of my group chats shared that she was having a hard time lately (no need to explain why) and asked of the rest of us, “What are your coping strategies?”
I thought about her question a lot in the following days and weeks. I realized that I have a whole arsenal of coping strategies and that these strategies are not necessarily newly employed since, for example, the election. Some of them I’ve been doing for years to cope with other hard times, including the demands of being a New York City public school teacher, experiencing infertility, managing a chronic illness, and navigating divorce.
I also realized that some of these strategies are ones I share with my coaching clients, especially the educators who are struggling with burnout and are seeking ways to keep doing the work they love in a way that’s sustainable for them.
So I did the thing I often do: I made a list. This is not a to-do list or a set of step-by-step instructions. It’s a collection of things I really do that have proven to work for me. If you’re going through a hard time right now, whether that’s trying to figure out what needs to change so you can make it through the next school year or something more personal and/or political, I hope this helps.
I safeguard my mornings. I know that the quality of my entire day will be dictated by the quality of my morning. Whenever possible, I start my day by moving outside. Sometimes it’s 15 minutes around the block with a giant water bottle. Sometimes it’s a 10-mile run along the beach. No matter what, I know my day will be better than if I hadn’t gone at all.
I feed myself. That includes literal food - don’t get me started on my lunch dessert routine - but also all the other ways I nourish myself. I take weekly field trips, two hours alone with my inner lifelong learner. I set aside time every night for reading. Before I turn on a podcast to fill the silence, I ask myself, “What do I need to hear right now?”. I regularly remind myself that rest, love, and pleasure are nutrients, too – and forms of resistance in a world that tells us we are our productivity.
I cultivate community. When I go to Trader Joe’s, I look at the greeting cards and pick out a few to send to people (they cost $0.99 each and are pretty cute/funny) because everyone likes real mail. When I’m feeling sad, helpless, or overwhelmed, I text someone to say that I’m thinking of them and ask how they’re doing. I put reminders on my calendar to periodically reach out to people I know who are struggling with long-term challenges like illness, unemployment, and family addiction. Turning my attention to making someone else feel better makes me feel better, too.
I do what I can. I make monthly donations to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Democracy Forward. I give what I’m able to, and I promise you it’s truly not a lot, but I’ve been told repeatedly, as I’m sure you have, that recurring donations of any size help organizations budget and plan ahead. I’m also a member of the local Democratic club, and I attend meetings and volunteer at events when I can.
Summer is a great time to do reflective work around what’s working for you and what you can do about anything that’s not. This is because stepping back from the day-to-day demands of teaching and leading can mean more time and energy for thinking about what you really want. To support that process, I’m offering a free Summer Cocoon Coaching session (a $200 value) for paid subscribers to The Cocoon.
What happens in a Summer Cocoon Coaching session? It’s up to you, but here are some possibilities:
Reconnecting to why you became an educator in the first place
How to give a tried-and-true instructional unit a makeover that amps up the excitement for both you and your students
Ways to set professional boundaries that safeguard what matters most to you
How to navigate interpersonal challenges with supervisors, colleagues, and other team members
What you can do over the course of the next school year to create new professional opportunities for the life you want in the future
Any other potentially transformative shift you've been thinking about!
If you’re already a paid subscriber, you’ll find the scheduling link below the paywall at the very bottom of this email to set up your session between July 1 and August 31. If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll find a link to upgrade so you can take advantage of this opportunity, which is worth 4 times the cost of the subscription itself!
Your turn:
If you have 5 minutes: Share a comment about something that resonates with you. First draft thoughts are welcome!
If you have 10 minutes: Take a gander at my other Substack RSBB. It’s where I share my most personal writing.
If you have 30 minutes: My co-author Meredith Matson and I share many prompts and exercises to support reflection in our book including these free printable downloads. And here are two previous issues of The Cocoon where you can find support for this process:
Getting Schooled
What I’ve been seeing and thinking about in my recent work with educators
I traveled for 20 of 30 days in June, only spent one of them in a school, and failed to take any photos that day. (I do, however, have lots of June pics from my 25th college reunion, the Outlander roadtrip I took with my sister around Scotland, and the Summer Words Writers Conference in Snowmass if you’d like to see those.) Instead, I want to share the 3 coaching questions I asked teachers and leaders in my end-of-year meetings. They make great journaling prompts too!
How have you grown this year? How do you know? What led to this growth?
How do you want to continue growing? Why does this goal matter to you and your students? How will you know you’re on the right track?
What feedback would you like to share about our work together? What went well? What could have made it even more effective? [You could use this one for any collaborative working relationship, such as with a team, co-teacher, or other colleague.]
Field Tripping + Reading Recs
I’m cooking up a new approach to these sections of The Cocoon (and potentially the aforementioned lunch dessert routine - seriously), so please stay tuned. In the meantime: in Edinburgh I attended an event with author Nicole Louie featuring her book Others Like Me: The Lives of Women without Children. It was hosted at Rare Birds Book Shop, which is the kind of bookstore that makes people want to open their own bookstore.
Let’s partner!
I help educators break through their blocks by finding the intersection of effectiveness and sustainability.
I believe educators need to stay connected to their passion and purpose to provide all students with joyful, enchanting, empowering learning experiences–without burning out.
I have more than 2 decades of experience as an educator with deep expertise in leadership and instructional coaching across grade bands and content areas, learner-centered professional development design and facilitation, and teacher team development.
Interested in learning more?
“This book could not have come at a better time.”
Carolyn Yaffe, Executive Director, Valley Charter Schools
One more thing about cocoons
For schools in New England that are interested in redesigning the high school experience to better serve multilingual learners: Next Generation Learning Challenges and the Barr Foundation (two organizations I *love* working with) are accepting applications for their Innovative Schools Learning Excursion to Washington, DC, this fall. New England-based teams of educators, students, and partners are invited to apply and mini-grants are provided to cover costs. Inspire your team by seeing innovative learning in action and work together on promising next gen learning strategies for MLLs in your high school! Applications are due Friday, August 15.
Thank you for reading The Cocoon! If you’ve read this far, please consider clicking the ❤️ and/or leaving a comment below. It helps build our community and lets me know you’re enjoying these posts.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Cocoon by Rebekah Shoaf to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.