Dr. Jen Clifden

Sustaining Teacher Energy through the Attitudinal Phases of Teaching
with The Science of Hope 

“Hope is the single best predictor of well-being.”

(Hope Rising, 2022)

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In teaching, hope is not a personality trait as much as it is a necessary psychological strength that can be intentionally cultivated, especially during the most demanding seasons of the school year. When stress inevitably rises, hope plays a critical role in helping educators remain grounded, flexible, and engaged rather than becoming stuck in survival responses.

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• This session explores the science of hope as a powerful protective factor for teacher mental health, emotional vitality, and professional sustainability. Educators learn how hope supports the nervous system’s ability to stay in a state of flow and social engagement, even when challenges arise; preventing prolonged activation of fight, flight, freeze, or fawn responses that contribute to burnout and emotional exhaustion.

• Educators learn the four core components of hope and explore how hope strengthens the two foundational states that protect against burnout—self-efficacy and self-agency.

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As educators cultivate hope, they also cultivate Presence. Hopeful teachers are better able to stay regulated, adaptive, and relational under pressure, and this state of being naturally transfers to students. When educators feel hopeful, their Presence carries energy, possibility, and calm, creating classroom environments where students feel safer, more engaged, and more ready to learn.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Reignite the Light: A 4-Step Hope Practice

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The Science
of Slow Burning

The Science of Slow Burning is about learning to respond from alignment; not rush. Education is a calling rooted in care, purpose, and deep relational work, yet without the right supports, that same care can slide into urgency, depletion, and burnout.

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• This session invites educators and school staff to reconnect with the core features of their calling, their purpose, strengths, and values, while laying the foundation for self-healing and sustainable practice.

• Participants explore the difference between slow burn and burnout, learning how aligned action fuels steady energy, clarity, and motivation over time rather than exhaustion.

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Grounded in an understanding of the attitudinal phases of teaching, this session helps educators normalize the emotional shifts that occur across a teaching career and develop skills for moving through these phases with compassion, insight, and resilience. By learning how to regulate stress, honor limits, and return to alignment, educators cultivate the capacity to heal, adapt, and remain connected to the work they love without sacrificing themselves in the process.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Create your "Anchor Before Action" Plan

Nervous System Basics for Educators

Teaching and school-based work place constant demands on the nervous system. This session introduces teachers and school staff to the basics of nervous system functioning so they can better understand how stress shows up in their bodies, thoughts, emotions, and behavior and how to respond before stress turns into burnout or compassion fatigue.

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• Educators learn to recognize their own stress appraisal patterns and how the nervous system moves through fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.

• With this foundation, teachers develop practical strategies to restore balance, regulate stress, and return to a state of flow during the school day.

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This session also helps educators learn how to notice nervous system cues in students, such as escalation, withdrawal, shutdown, or people-pleasing, and respond in ways that support regulation rather than react to behavior. By learning how to create internal safety for themselves, educators strengthen their ability to remain grounded, responsive, and connected, creating classroom environments that support both teacher well-being and student emotional safety when it matters most.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Return to Flow Action Steps

From Stress to Strength: Making Stress Work for Teaching and Learning

School-based work places educators and staff in constant contact with stress. This session reframes burnout and compassion fatigue as protective signals rather than personal failures, helping school professionals understand what their stress responses are communicating and why these responses make sense in demanding educational environments.

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• Educators learn the critical difference between tolerable (growth-supporting) stress and toxic (depleting) stress, and why tolerable stress is not only inevitable but necessary for effective teaching and optimal student learning. 

• Educators explore the 4 E’s of the stress and trauma response and develop skills for recognizing early signs of burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress in both themselves and the students they serve. Through this lens, educators learn how to reduce toxic stress and transform stress into a tolerable, manageable experience and one that becomes a conduit for learning rather than a barrier to it.

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By learning how resilience is built through completing the stress cycle, school staff gain practical strategies to restore balance, protect their energy, and prevent stress from accumulating into burnout. As educators practice moving stress through their own bodies, they become more skilled at supporting regulation, recovery, and readiness to learn in students thus remaining present, effective, and connected in the complex environments where teaching and learning take place.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: The H.E.A.L. Path to Completing the Stress Cycle

Self-Compassion as a Restorative Practice

In school settings, relationships are the foundation of learning, behavior, and belonging. This session explores research from psychology and neuroscience showing how self-compassion activates the brain’s calming and soothing systems, creating the internal safety needed for listening, reflection, and repair; the core functions of restorative dialogue and circle practice in schools.

• Educators and school staff learn to recognize stress-inducing self-talk that often arises in high-demand school environments, understand the triggers beneath it, and apply a practical 4-step CARE strategy to shift self-criticism, shame, and anxiety into self-efficacy, confidence, and agency.

• As educators strengthen these internal capacities, they build the emotional regulation and presence required to facilitate restorative conversations and circles with intention rather than reactivity.

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This session also introduces the basics of holding restorative practice circles, including establishing emotional safety, setting shared norms, modeling reflective listening, and using compassion-centered language that supports voice, accountability, and repair. Educators learn how their own regulated Presence is the foundation of effective circle practice, and how self-compassion supports them in holding space for students during moments of conflict, harm, or emotional intensity

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Restore Before You Repair Pause

Co-Regulation,
Mirroring & Modeling

In schools, adults are the primary models of emotional regulation and mental health. This session helps teachers and school staff learn to interpret student and colleague behavior through a nervous-system–informed lens, allowing them to see actions as signals rather than problems to be fixed.

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• Educators and school staff practice co-regulatory, relationship-centered strategies that help students and adults feel safe, understood, and supported, especially during moments of stress or dysregulation.

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Grounded in healing-centered engagement, this approach emphasizes the “what happened to you?” perspective, supporting connection, emotional safety, and authentic social-emotional learning across school communities. By strengthening resonant relationships, educators learn how to mirror calm, empathy, and steadiness where they strategically create classrooms and schools where mental health is not just taught, but modeled daily.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: Signal Before Solution - 3 Step Co-Regulation Strategy

Creating the Teachable Moment

In schools, transformation rarely comes from grand gestures. It happens in the small, everyday interactions that shape how students feel seen, safe, and valued. It is in these moments that teachable moments are created. This session invites teachers and school staff to recognize how brief, intentional interactions grounded in simple relational practices can turn ordinary moments into powerful opportunities for learning, regulation, and connection.

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• Drawing on the science of relational attunement, educators learn how small shifts in Presence, tone, timing, and response create the conditions that make students ready to learn. They also learn how to "read" subtle shifts in student energy and engagement so to be able to consciously respond to student needs.

• ​Educators leave with practical strategies for intentionally creating and noticing powerful "micro-miracle moments" throughout the school day that support engagement, belonging, and learning without adding more to their plates.

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When students feel emotionally safe and regulated, instruction lands. These often-overlooked micro-moments are where trust is built, behavior softens, regulation is restored, and curiosity returns, transforming moments of challenge into moments of teaching. When teachers and staff learn to recognize and cultivate these moments, teaching becomes more sustainable, meaningful, and deeply human, and learning becomes possible when it matters most.

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STRATEGY TAKE-AWAY: The 10 Second Shift to Create the Teachable Moment

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