Waycare Academy

"I hope..." is not a strategy.

Simply hoping this school year will be better places your power in everyone and everything outside of yourself.

This is what I call living by default.

Instead, choose to live by design.

Take your power back.

Design your school year.

✨ Decide on routines that will support your well-being.
✨ Be intentional about who you spend your time with.
✨ Prepare responses for stressful, difficult, or conflict-filled moments before they happen.
✨ Find an accountability partner who will help you stay focused on solutions instead of getting stuck in problems.
✨ Know what keeps you connected to your best self—and make it part of your daily practice.
✨ Gather the tools you'll need and have them ready.

And most importantly...

Have a plan for when things don't go as planned.

Because they won't.

Even the most positive, grounded educators will have difficult days. The difference isn't whether challenges happen—it's how you respond to them.

Ask yourself:
• What will I do in the moment?
• How will I care for myself that evening?
• How will I reset the next day so one difficult moment doesn't become a difficult week?

September doesn't have to happen to you.

You can create it with intention.

A little planning now can completely change how you experience the year ahead.

💛 I'm curious...

Would you be interested in spending a day with me and a group of like-minded educators designing your school year together? A day to reflect, create healthy habits, build your personal toolkit, and leave with a plan you can actually use.

I think it would be an incredible way to begin the year.

❤️ Rachel

“My awareness is the key to my freedom.”

After my husband died, I was running on autopilot. I was simply trying to keep my head above water.

I was one of those people you would see waiting in the mile-long Tim Hortons drive-thru, grabbing my coffee even though I was already late for work. More than once, I walked into my classroom with my Timmy’s while O’ Canada was playing. Looking back, that was not the best version of me.

My students were incredibly kind and compassionate. They knew I was struggling.

The only part of my day I intentionally planned was my lessons. Everything else was survival.

I was exhausted.

Grief is heavy. It weighs on your body, your mind, and your spirit. Eventually, I crashed. And crash I did.

What was I missing?

Awareness.

I also carried the belief that taking care of myself was selfish. I believed I just needed to push through.

It’s a pattern I see in educators all the time. We sacrifice ourselves for our students, our colleagues, and the job.

What a heartbreaking belief.

I wasn’t living with intention. I was living by default, simply trying to survive.

I don’t judge that version of myself. She was doing the best she could with what she knew. Today, I know more, so I choose differently.

Now I catch myself throughout the day and pause.

I ask myself:

• Am I breathing?
• Is my jaw clenched?
• Is my belly tight?
• What emotion am I carrying right now?

Then I respond with intention.

I shake it out.
I stretch.
I splash cold water on my face.
I take a few deep breaths.
Some days, I spend a few extra minutes in mindfulness or meditation.

These practices don’t remove life’s challenges.

They give me the freedom to choose how I respond to them.

Awareness creates choice.
Choice creates freedom.

This week, ask yourself:

What can I transform from an automatic reaction into a conscious response?

Be gentle with yourself as your awareness grows.

Living with intention isn’t about being perfect.

It’s about being present.

❤️ Rachel

“I’m not enough.”

I have counselled and supported hundreds of educators, and when we get to the root of their emotions, one belief almost always rises to the surface:

“I’m not enough.”

It’s understandable why so many educators feel this way. We are constantly being evaluated by parents, administrators, colleagues, the public, and even our students. Each person views us through the lens of their own experiences, expectations, and often, their own fears.

One of the most important things I coach educators to remember is this:

Your worth is not dependent on your students’ success.

Can we continue to grow as teachers? Absolutely. We can learn new strategies, strengthen our practice, and become more effective at making learning accessible for every student.

But your effectiveness as a teacher does not determine your worth as a human being.

If you’re struggling, it may simply mean you need more support, more training, a different environment, or perhaps you’re being called toward a different path. It does not mean you are weak, broken, inadequate, incapable, unworthy, or a failure.

As Dr. Joe Dispenza teaches, our personality creates our personal reality. When we repeatedly identify with the belief, “I’m not enough,” we begin to live from that identity. But the moment we become aware of that story, we can choose a new one.

You are not your thoughts. You are not your past. You are not someone else’s opinion of you.

Each of us is unique, created with gifts, strengths, and purpose. When we remember who we truly are and honour those gifts, teaching becomes less about proving ourselves and more about sharing what comes naturally from within.

Today, take a few minutes to write down your strengths. Celebrate them. What comes easily to you may be exactly what someone else needs.

Share your gifts with the world.

And perhaps the greatest lesson you can model for your students is what it looks like to genuinely love and value yourself.

Because when you believe you are enough, you give others permission to believe they are enough too.

YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ENOUGH

❤️ Rachel

“You are not broken.”

Being in education can make you feel broken. Less than. Lost. Hopeless. Not good enough.

Or maybe it was just me.

There were times I cried on my way to work, feeling like a failure—especially in the early years of my career.

"I don't know what I'm doing."

"I can't teach this."

"I can't manage my class. I just don't have the skills."

"No matter how hard I try, I never seem to get ahead or feel like I'm doing a good job."

This career can challenge your self-worth, your self-image, and your self-esteem.

If I could go back and tell that scared young teacher anything, I would tell her:

•You have embarked on a journey of growth and expansion.

•Look for progress, not perfection.

•Trust that the challenges are invitations to learn and grow.

•Be present.

•Slow down. You set the pace.

•Relationships are more important than anything else. Build them with your colleagues and your students.

•You may not have all the answers or solutions, but I can guarantee that someone out there can help.

•Pace yourself. It's not a race, and you can't get it wrong.

•June always comes. Think long-term. Don't just try to make it from September to Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then March Break, and finally June. Enjoy the year.

•Breathe. Take it all in.

Being in education challenges you physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually.

And what a gift that is.

Few professions ask you to evolve as deeply as this one does—not just as an educator, but as a human being.

Ask yourself:

How has being in education challenged me? What have I learned? How have I grown?

Celebrate that. Honour it. And get excited for the next challenge.

You were never broken. You were becoming.

❤️Rachel

"Stories lose their power when you stop identifying with them and stay rooted in the present. You still remember what happened, but it no longer defines who you are."

We've all done it.

Something painful happens, and we tell someone.

Sharing can be incredibly healing. Share for clarity. Share for solutions. Share to process. Share for validation.

But sharing becomes counterproductive when we keep telling the same story because we haven't resolved it. Eventually, the story becomes part of our identity.

For years, I told the story of my grief and loss. I shared it because I was in pain and felt lost. Deep down, I hoped someone would see how much I was hurting and rescue me.

Yes, I was a victim of addiction in my family.

But I didn't want to stay a victim.

So I stopped living through the story.

It will always be part of my heart and my memory, but it no longer defines who I am.

Think about this past school year.

Was there something you couldn't let go of? Did you tell a colleague... then repeat it in the staff room... then tell your family... then bring it up again weeks later?

Now imagine 50 staff members all doing the same thing.

What kind of culture would be humming through the hallways ?

I'm not saying don't share your feelings. We need to.

I'm saying be mindful of when sharing no longer serves you.

As Dr. Joe Dispenza teaches, every time we emotionally relive the past, our body experiences it as if it's happening again.

How do you know you've crossed that line?

You walk away feeling worse instead of lighter.

Pause before you tell your story and ask yourself:

Am I speaking with purpose, or am I speaking from pain? Be gentle with yourself.

Remember... you don't have to live by default.

You are the creator of your life—even your teacher life.

And a shout-out to Regional School for the awesome mug! ❤️☕

Rachel

“I should have known better.”

I’ve made many mistakes in my life—personally and professionally.

I’ve also been hurt by people who have made mistakes.

Forgiving yourself or forgiving others isn’t what many people think.

True forgiveness isn’t saying that what happened was okay.

True forgiveness is acknowledging what happened and deciding that you will no longer let it define your vibration or shape your identity.

One of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s teachings is that when we repeatedly revisit painful experiences and feel those emotions again, we’re teaching our body to live in the past. Over time, those emotions can become an attitude—and eventually, part of our personality.

“The more we rehearse the past through blame, justification, condemnation, and identification, the more we anchor it, and the more it controls us and our future.”

Have you ever done something you wish you could take back?

Or perhaps you’re carrying the weight of something someone else did to you.

Remember this:

“The self that made choices in pain did the best it could with the awareness it had.”

Be present. Take a few deep breaths. Thank yourself for surviving. Take responsibility for your actions, and make amends if necessary.

Then move forward.

Learn from it.

Grow from it.

Your mistakes don’t define you. They become part of your growth when you’re willing to learn, forgive, and let go of the past.

Be kind to yourself.

❤️ Rachel

“Others do not cause your emotions; they awake what already lives within you.”

Truly understanding what this means can be the single most important lesson that can changed how you live and teach.

When others say or do things that hurt us, we can pause and be curious about the meaning we are placing on it and why.

Example…I used to have a colleague that would almost always cut me off before I was finished a thought.

Sweet mother this really bothered me. Bothered me to the point that I was getting very angry and would avoid speaking infront of this person.

Here is the meaning I put to his actions;
-my opinion doesn’t matter
-I’m stupid
-maybe I don’t know what I am talking about
-he hates me
-he doesn’t respect me
-he is a jerk
-he is so rude
-he needs control

Reflecting on this and looking beyond these assumptions I realized why this upset me so much.

-I was hushed as a child.
-my needs to be heard were not met as a child.
-I still need to work on my self worth and confidence
-I still need to work on truly understanding that I am enough.

I also reflected on why I didn’t just ask him to stop interrupting me.

Here is where the true lesson in the situation lays-I didn’t know how to have healthy boundaries and knowing how to be assertive without being aggressive. I also placed his feelings before my own. This comes from childhood experiences and adopting others’ belief systems.

This situation triggered me and the work is to go beyond the narrative to heal the parts that need love.

He may still just be a jerk,rude, and inconsiderate to others but I don’t take his behaviour personally anymore.

I know I have good things to say. It may not be for everyone and I do rabble sometimes(like this post lol) but this does not make me less of a person.

Practice pausing when you get activated. Look beyond the surface and learn something about yourself.

You choose the meaning you put to things. You choose how you will feel.

Take your power back.
❤️Rachel

“Intuition and inner knowing is another quality that has been deeply suppressed across humanity.”

This is the secret super power of an educator; intuition.

When we tap into our intuition and inner knowing, we flow through the day with ease.

We pick up on the needs of our students. We sense our colleague needs a hand or a hug. We see the fear in a parent’s eyes and we reassure them. We see the student sitting in the hall alone again and pause to chat with them. We sense the lesson is not working and adjust on the fly. We design instruction and assessments to set students up for learning and growing. We seek solutions and pivot when we need to. Good things happen serendipitously. We get in the “flow”. We feel empowered. We feel purposeful.

But our kryptonite is stress, fear, and burn out.

When our nervous system activates for survival, our intuition and inner knowing takes a back seat. This is biology not psychology.

Now we become reactive. We act from fear, anger, exhaustion, hopelessness and pressure.

We miss the child who is showing signs of hunger. We walk right passed the colleague who is really struggling with out even saying hi.
We blame. We gossip. We criticize We are short tempered.
We work harder to control. We burn ourselves out.

So how do we honour and tap into our intuition and inner knowing when school is so busy and we deal with so much in a day?

I can run an entire course on this topic but in short we can start with 3 actions.

1) start your morning with a ritual of priming for a good day. This can be affirmations, mirror work, meditation or dancing and laughing

2)Intentionally design moments throughout your day to be present. Check in with your body. Do some somatic work throughout the day to manage your nervous system. Add it strategically into your lessons so the students benefit from it too.

3) Do a 3 minute debrief with yourself at the end of the day; what did I learn today , what could I do differently and what did I do well. Celebrate yourself.

Practice tapping into your intuition this summer. Discover how powerful you really are when you listen to yourself and your true knowledge.

❤️ Rachel

Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are.

Feelings and emotions are like signal lights on a car. They get switched on to indicate a direction.

Our feelings are whispers of truth. They can be trying to protect us, trying to teach us, trying to show us a need is not being met, and they can be signaling to us we are off track and not living in alignment to our true selves.

As an educators, we experience a range of emotions; anger, sadness, frustration, betrayal, joy, hope, happiness etc…

But when the bell rings we are “on”. Educators are the best actors in the world. We step outside of our emotions and show up for our students the best way we can.

So let me ask you this…when you experience these emotions do you make time for yourself at the end of the day to reflect and listen to your heart and soul.

Do you accept and process your feelings as they are and hear their whispers without self judgment and criticism?

Many of us have not developed this practice yet. We suppress, we ignore, we blame, and we neglect those emotions. This can lead to burn out.

This summer practice naming how you are feeling. Accept and allow the feeling for what it is. Look beyond the surface of the emotion and try to hear the whisper of what it’s trying to tell you.

Love your feelings. ALL of them.

❤️ Rachel