Dr. Jennifer Costanza shares her journey from perfectionism, imposter syndrome, intense stress, and difficulty healing to feeling an overall sense of mental and physical well-being. She explains the importance of knowing your body’s stress response and emphasizes how making time to focus on your physical and mental health—finding ways to feel grounded, getting quality sleep, finding joy, etc.—makes you better at your job. Find Jennifer Costanza at https://www.rooted.life/ or @rooted.life on Instagram.
Dr. LuElla D’Amico describes how her own suffering during the tenure process opened up a whole new joyful adventure where she now shows up more fully for her family, her faith, her teaching, her university, her scholarship, her communities, and her own well-being. She offers inspiration, encouragement, and advice for academics who also aspire to be more whole.
Dr. Victoria Wright shares her own story about leaving academia as a full professor. She now finds herself running the Ph.D. Life Coach Podcast and membership experience, helping PhD students and academics overcome overwhelm and procrastination. This work, as she explains, represents the culmination of having weaved together her research, skills she developed working with Ph.D. students, and the personal calling she answered during the pandemic. Find her podcast, The PhD Life Coach, anywhere you get podcasts as well as on her website at https://www.thephdlifecoach.com/.
This episode is not an interview, but a chat about the experiences of the Highly Sensitive Person, a designation perhaps overrepresented in academia. Drs. Geneviève Taylor and Danielle De La Mare discuss what it looks and feels like to process everything deeply, get overstimulated easily, feel emotions intensely, and notice the subtler parts of life. We also explore both the gifts and drawbacks of having a sensitive nervous system and ways we practice self-acceptance and self-compassion.
Our pausing practice is perhaps the most important part of creating more career wellness in our work, yet we don't have a social structure that supports pausing. In this episode, I discuss ways you might begin to think about pausing, how to structure an ongoing pausing practice, and the benefits of pausing for career wellness. During this seasonal transition, I hope you pause, detox, and declutter. Happy Equinox!
Kelly Miller tells the story about how her identity was deeply entangled with her work, the toxic work environment she found herself in, the suffering that ensued when she left the work, and the breakthrough that happened next.
Kelly explains that her faith as well as her work with both the Enneagram and Primal Questions built a foundation for her to leap into the next chapter of her career. While she continues to heal, Kelly now actively leans into new places, people, and ideas that serve her new way of being in the world.
Find Kelly Miller at https://www.kellymiller.co/ as well as @socialkellymiller on Instagram and TikTok and Kelly Miller on LinkedIn.
Paul Weigel talks about what it means to be authentic, true, and connected in both work and personal life. We explore what it looks like to make space for ourselves as well as others in the classroom and in other spaces. We also talk about the courage it takes to show up authentically, be present to deeper meaning in each moment, and hold work/life gently. Find Paul’s book, Iron Dad here.
Dr. Mary Mirvis discusses how her unconventional academic career is taking shape and her faith in the journey. First, we talk about writing: the huge role writing has played in her life since childhood, how she used writing to heal from burnout, and how journal-type writing has strengthened the relationship she has to her research. Second, we talk about the purposeful career: finding joy, openness, and freedom in the everyday as well as leaning into your career desires, even when they’re not culturally sanctioned. Find Mary at https://mary.mirv.is/.
Dr. Shiri Noy explains how creating systems to manage research is essential to individual researcher well-being as well as a necessary practice for maintaining the health and integrity of academic research more broadly. In short, Shiri encourages researchers to think and talk more about project management so that we can find ways to feel more confident and less stressed in our research, do work that is best aligned to our values and ethics, as well as maintain/improve the health of our broader disciplinary fields and institutions. Find Dr. Shiri Noy as well as information about her book, Project Management for Researchers: A Practical, Stress-Free Guide to Getting Organized, at https://www.shirinoy.com/.
Happy Solstice! In this episode, I discuss what mean by solstice-inspired rest, why you should rest over the winter break, how to rest, and what to do if you find rest difficult. Overall, rest can do magic, but takes courage, especially for academics. I have a wish that you practice trusting the process.
Dissertation coach, Dr. Jen Harrison, explains how certain cultural and structural issues prevent professors and institutions from fully supporting their grad students in their writing process. She names a number of issues including an "inside-outside" problem whereby academia does not want to accept help from those outside institutions. In the end, both grad students and professors find themselves bearing the weight of such problems, but Jen offers recommendations to improve conditions for all. Specifically, she discusses the power of writing groups. Find Dr. Jen Harrison at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-harrison-rwp/.
Michelle Grosser describes her journey toward a more regulated nervous system, explains how to communicate safety to our bodies so that we feel more whole, more alive, and more intentional in our lives, and describes simple strategies for regulation. Find Michelle Grosser at https://michellegrosser.com/.
After a 27-year career in academia where she had been promoted to full professor, served as chair, as well as served as Associate Dean of Research at her institution, Dr. Martha Mitchell explains that she was ready for something new. Currently working as a manager at a national laboratory for approximately one year now, she has found the new work and new environment to be energizing, inspiring, collaborative, and exciting. In this role, she is also able to continue doing parts of the work she loved as an academic, namely leadership and mentoring. Find Dr. Martha Mitchell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-mitchell-45a69a8/
In this authentic and inspiring conversation, Dr. Azucena Verdín tells us about how she once did not like the ways she moved in the world, struggled with self-compassion, and easily spiraled into rumination. For a time, she believed leaving her academic career was the answer until she realized--after identifying the role anxiety was playing in her life--that she was only running from herself. She now belongs more fully to herself and is able to work and live with a much quieter mind than in the past. Find her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azucena-verd%C3%ADn-phd-743605268/
You're invited to feel into Fall 2024 and let the new season teach you something! In this episode, I acknowledge the heaviness of fall semester and describe how you can "tap" some of this heaviness away. As you widen your vision and see your life beyond your academic responsibilities and feel connected to something bigger, you are better able to welcome a new season and approach it with intention. Happy Equinox!
Dr. David Weill shares his story about quitting his job—at the prime of his career—as the Director of the Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford. Wanting more balance and a more contemplative life, he says, “I had a real sense that it was time to go.” He now writes in the mornings and does consulting work with transplant hospitals in the afternoons. His new novel about a transplant doctor, All That Really Matters, just came out.
Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu shares her childhood realization that anything can happen and discusses how this insight has shaped her career and life. She describes difficult times where she felt unwell in her work and in her body, explaining that in each situation--from burnout to a covid-inspired career pivot--she continually chose her own wellness and wholeness. Yvette emphasizes the importance of self-trust, leaning on her own values, the strength embedded in her support system, and the resources available to her through the privileges she has been afforded. Find Dr. Yvette Martinez-Vu on LinkedIn, Instagram @gradschoolfemtoring, and https://gradschoolfemtoring.com/.
Dr. Katharine Stewart shares her story about choosing to leave her position as Sr. Vice Provost and return to faculty, explaining that while she loves her administrative work, she also loves (and misses) her work as a teacher and scholar. Katharine urges academics to let their values lead, to bring their whole selves to their work, to honor the career seasons they find themselves in, and to foster trust among those they work with. From this place, she tells us, we thrive and our institutions of higher education also thrive.
Dr. Sheena Howard tells how the president of her institution called faculty into a room and announced the shut down of certain departments and the letting go of certain faculty. She describes the experience as scary and eye-opening, realizing that even though she was able to keep her job this time, that may not always be the case. From there, Sheena invested herself in building side hustles. She now teaches other faculty how to brand themselves for increased income. Find Sheena at on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsheenahoward/ or email her at sheena@poweryourresearch.com.
