Dr. Jen Clifden
Educator | Relationship Researcher | Soul Doctor
Safeguarding the Energy of Our Caregivers
Educators, leaders, physicians, nurses, counselors, public health caregivers (to name just a few) are called to relationship-based professions where their personal presence -- the energy they share with those in their care -- is their greatest asset.
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However, those who care are the most susceptible burning out.
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Burnout Is Treatable
The Light You Cast™is a healing-centered, science and soul-based curriculum of restorative, protective, and preventative practices that heal the mental, emotional, physical, and soul dis-ease that leads to the protective (not defective) states of burnout, compassion fatigue, and moral injury.
Based on a salutogenic, asset-based approach to caregiver optimal health,
The Light You Cast™ curriculum and trainings focus on reconnecting a caregiver to their innate healing and resilience capacities to manage the energy that feeds the dis-ease of burnout while they strategically learn how to magnify their greatest dispositional assets as a caregiver:
Presence | Compassion | Perspective Taking | Unconditional Positive Regard | Resonance
Book a Free Consultation
Schedule a complimentary 1-on-1 with Dr. Jen to learn more about how we can undo burnout and reignite compassion and hope in yourself, your team, or your organization.
Who I Work With
I serve those in RELATIONSHIP-BASED professions who seek to
UNDO BURNOUT so to bring more of their SOUL into their role, including:
Education | Public Health | Healthcare | Organizations | Individuals
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But it did not start that way.
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16,000+
Hours of participant engagement to date in
The Light You Cast™ curriculum and trainings
"There's no doubt in my mind that we've had healthier educators working with our students, which really impacts the overall student experience, and also helps those employees."
- District Curriculum Director
Where to Start
The Light You Cast™ curriculum is designed to suit the varying needs of organizations, institutions, and individuals. Start with a single talk or workshop, deepen your learning with more immersive, targeted programs, and sustain & broaden organizational impact with online courses
Introductory Options
(in person or online)
Deeper, Role Specific Trainings
(in person)
Self-Paced & Sustaining
(on-demand, online support)
Includes single Light You Cast™ keynotes or professional development sessions that can be 90 minute, half-day, or full day that are perfect for your entire staff.
Includes more targeted, sustained, role specific work where we customize the Light You Cast™ core curriculum to meet the needs of core groups:
educators, counselors, leaders, public health, and healthcare.
The entire (8) module signature Light You Cast™ curriculum fully online and fully self-paced can be licensed for just you or your entire organization or staff.
ABOUT
For me, healing from and preventing burnout and compassion fatigue is both professional and deeply personal...
As a former elementary reading interventionist and middle school teacher, I remember assuming that feeling burnt out meant I was a good teacher. I had little to no awareness about the phenomenon of burnout, so I just assumed that I was the only one who was incapable of coping or worse yet, that my high-sensitivity meant my inability to cope was due to who I was and how I was wired.
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Then reality forced me to face the depths of burnout to an extent I was definitely not prepared for. I became a mother to three infants in the span of 17 months.
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Burnout and compassion fatigue set in hard, and it set in fast as a mom. I had never felt a caregiving force like I felt caring for my children so before I even knew what hit me, I was mothering from stage three burnout and coping with postpartum depression (PPD) while attempting to care for three infants.
Burnout disabled my capacity to care for my three girls and myself. It negatively impaired my desire to create healthy attachment bonds with my babies, and I fell into a self-neglect spiral the atrophied my relationship to my intuition and inner voice.
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I felt like I was trapped in a deep, dark hole that kept filling faster than I could toss the darkness out. Then one sunny morning at 7am (with no sleep the night before), I broke. I remember thinking, "There is no way out of this. No one is coming to save me."
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In that breaking, something in me broke free. I realized the only person coming to save me was myself.
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As I begin the slow and deliberate healing process of coming back to myself as a mother, I started to research and write to mothers about the things I was doing to reconstitute my energy and my soul wellsprings while being a caregiver. The daily practices I was engaging was resonating with other mothers.
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Over the years, as I got healthier and my girls grew, I decided that what I learned on my "soul-battical" from teaching could potentially help teachers, too. I created an 8 week curriculum designed to heal teacher burnout, and I vetted it through a doctoral program at the University of Minnesota. The impact data was astounding, and I discovered that burnout is burnout across many different caregiving roles.
Burnout does not discriminate. It manifests in those who care deeply who also need and deserve compassionate care and mindbodysoul health support.
I believe that our callings and our caregiving should not hurt our relationship with our selves. I learned that when I was unable to build and sustain a healthy relationship with myself, I was impaired in my ability to nurture resonate, healthy relationships with those in my care. I was determined to discover a way out of that double-bind.