Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Relationship Researcher | Retention Specialist
Exhaustion is not effective.
Stopping the "sacrifice first, repair later" (if at all) cycle
Serving Those Who Serve Others
Sustainable Service Work Depends on Self-Healing, Not Self-Sacrifice.
When our work aligns with our gifts, it becomes a source of renewal for ourselves and for those we serve. By moving out of survival mode and self-sacrificing patterns into grounded, authentic thriving, our Presence models the well-being, resilience, and possibility we want those in our care to experience.
Hello! My name is Jen, and I am a public school teacher turned teacher educator, relationship researcher, burnout preventionist, and mental health advocate.
I serve individuals called the relationship-centered professions of education, youth work, leadership, and public health to sustain and retain the wisdom of our caregivers through
PROMOTING
Mental Health
PREVENTING
Burnout
PROTECTING
Relational Well-Being
"We have healthier teachers working with our students."
District Curriculum Director
The Physics of Healing Relationships
YOU Are the Intervention
Your energy, authenticity, and emotional state act as an external nervous system for those you lead, teach, and support. When your nervous system is regulated, grounded, and attuned, you create a safe, supportive environment where others feel seen, heard, and empowered.
This is the physics of healing relationships:
by prioritizing your own self-healing and embodying a steady, coherent Presence, you calm, uplift, and inspire others to thrive.
In relationship-centered professions like education, leadership, youth work, and public health, connection is our most important tool for impact. Yet when we operate from survival mode under constant stress, emotional labor, and compassion fatigue, our own well-being suffers, and our ability to care effectively and sustain meaningful relationships is compromised.
Burnout isn’t just about workload;
it’s about disconnection and disempowerment.
The Light You Cast™ curriculum, offered through on-demand trainings, transformative on-site professional development, energizing keynotes, and restorative community practice circles, draws on the science of thriving to rebuild connection, reinforce self-efficacy, and foster self-healing, core capacities that help retain and sustain caregivers in their callings. By integrating relationship science, nervous system health, and trauma-informed, healing-centered engagement principles, The Light You Cast™ helps caregivers cultivate self-healing and strengthen mental health, emotional intelligence, and relational attunement.
Schools Start Here
Schools are where this work began. They are where the daily realities of teaching, learning, belonging, and burnout collide and where the need for authentic, attuned human connection is most urgent for students and school staff.
The Light You Cast™ strengthens personal, relational, and organizational well-being in schools by building trust, preventing burnout, and creating sustainable cultures of care and safety from the inside out. This work supports the educators and school staff who empower others and everyone within their circle of influence.
Where to Start
At the heart of our work is what matters most in all relationship-centered work:
human connection.
Healthy environments make human connection possible. When workplaces are psychologically safe, individual mental health, relational well-being, and organizational health can flourish.
The Light You Cast™ strengthens personal, relational, and organizational well-being to build trust, prevent burnout, and create sustainable cultures of care and safety that support those who empower others and everyone within their circle of influence.
Where would you like to begin?
FOUNDATIONAL SUPPORT
For Everyone
FOCUSED SUPPORT
For Target Cohorts, Groups, or PLCs
ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT
Focused Interventions for Leaders and Organizational Health
Provide proactive support, inspiration, and encouragement that reinforces intrapersonal resilience and interpersonal connection through our universal The Light You Cast™ ON-DEMAND training, one-time, event-specific keynotes or professional development sessions, or one-on-one burnout healing and prevention coaching with Jen
Provide ongoing, in-person support that drives lasting, systemic change through guided community support groups and targeted multi-session trainings tailored for specific roles, teams, and cohorts where all The Light You Cast™ curriculum materials are tailored to the specific needs of the group.
Provide targeted organizational wellness consultation, personalized coaching for leaders, and strategic leadership team professional development to cultivate positive, resilient workplace cultures grounded in care, connection, and collaboration powered by the signature The Light We Cast™ practices.
TLYC | Signature Curriculum Elements
Trauma-Responsive
Approaches
Nervous System Health
Practices
Stress Metabolization
Interventions
SEL
CASEL Approaches
Mindfulness
Practices
TLYC curriculum aligns with
5 Essential Elements of Workplace
Mental Health and Well-Being
CASEL Social Emotional Learning
@ CASEL 2017
@ HHS 2022
Whole School, Whole Community,
Whole Child Model
@ CDC 2024
The Light You Cast™ | ON-DEMAND
Transform the Way You Care for Yourself and Others
Heal, restore, and reinforce relational resilience at your own pace while earning 4.5 Continuing Education Clock Hours of professional development in mental health, relationship science, and social and emotional (SEL) competencies.
6,000 +
human-service professionals
served
26,000 +
views of modules
19,000 +
hours of engagement
The Light You Cast™ ON-DEMAND is an ongoing, sustained mental health training designed to support educators and human-service professionals day after day, not just during a single workshop. This eight-module mini–master class series provides instant access to research-backed principles, practical strategies, and mind–body practices you can use anytime, anywhere to keep stress at bay and strengthen your inner steadiness.
Each 35-minute module distills the latest science on mental health, stress metabolization, and nervous system regulation into quick, effective tools created for busy professionals who need relief and renewal in real time. Participants also earn 4.5 clock hours of CEUs, making this daily-wellness resource both impactful and professionally meaningful.
"This training saved my teaching career."
Elementary Educator
The Story Behind the Science
For me, healing from and preventing burnout and compassion fatigue is both professional and deeply personal.
As a former elementary and middle school teacher, I believed exhaustion was proof that I was doing the job “right.” My genuine capacity to care pulled me into perfectionism, hyper-productivity, and self-abandonment long before we understood how chronic stress erodes connection with students—and with ourselves.
Motherhood brought this into sharper relief. Having three babies in 17 months pushed my nervous system beyond what I could sustain. The overwhelm, shame, and isolation made it nearly impossible to care for my children or myself.
One morning, exhausted and sleep-deprived, I realized: No one is coming to save you.
Terrifying and liberating at once, that moment became the turning point. It sent me back to graduate school to research and understand how we protect teachers; how we prevent burnout and compassion fatigue in a profession too essential to lose its people.
I designed, researched, and "teacher-tested" an integrated curriculum that drew on the neuroscience of relational health, mental health, mind-body & nervous system restoration practices, aligned these with what we know about the stressors that drive burnout, and created an adaptable handbook of practices and strategies that grounded teachers; keeping them in alignment, in the classroom, and in healthy relationship with students where both were energized by the relationship.
This awakening is where The Light You Cast™ began: a commitment to building sustainable, relational practices that allow educators to meet the needs of those in their care while renewing their own mental and emotional well-springs.
Let's Connect!
Book a Free (and enjoyable) Consultation
I would love to chat.
We can schedule a 15 - 45 minute discovery conversation where I learn more about your needs and offer ways I am potentially able to support you or your staff's development. This is a no obligation, no risk discovery conversation.
