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Unlearning burnout: Karma Yoga


Since I was 19, I've known that my job in this world is to be a light. By that I meant that I knew I was supposed to bring joy and kindness to the world- to be a bearer of goodness. This higher purpose drew me through college and to my career as an Educator. My effusive passion for this purpose was recently stated in feedback of teacher appreciation from my students at the high school. They noted the passion and joy that I bring to the classroom.

My ability to serve without being encumbered by the fruits of forced expectation is karma yoga. According to Vedanta philosophy, karma yoga should give me energy and it should not dissipate my energy. When I am attached to my students’ absorption and acceptance of my teaching, the learning is thwarted because my spirit is polluted with disappointment. This causes frustration and annoyance. When I am frustrated or annoyed, it interferes with my ability to deliver the content effectively either by outwardly impacting the relationship, or by causing you to lessen my own efficacy and teachings through a quiet resignation towards the job. When my efficacy is compromised,  no longer am I (me) working towards the higher ideal. Instead my mind circles on issues related to my own ego. I think thoughts like, “Do they respect me?” “Am I a good teacher?” or I ask questions like, “Why don't they listen to me?” or “Why don't they behave?”

All of these questions bring them back to me as the focal point. This identification of my actions as related to me is what forces the action of my service to lose its positive karmic effect. It is also what drains us.

When I remove myself as part of the equation (my inherent desire to be a good teacher), then I am left with only the actions of being a good teacher. With this shift I can work to serve the souls of those in front of me without being impacted by my own desires.

So, how do we respond to feelings of overwhelm? First, remove the self and identify with what my students need. The nature of our children today need to be considered. They do not come to be with the knowledge of how to learn and I must respond to that first need before I come to the next. It does not serve us to measure or compare our students to the past experiences or worry about the fruits of our work with them.

This presents a dilemma for the modern teacher who was instructed to be data-driven. When we focus on the fruits of our labor, good teachers can discard the actions of efficacious teachers and the name of data collection. This will squelch the love of learning that we are ultimately here to achieve with our students as our higher ideal and why we came to the profession in the first place. When we focus on the future (or dwell in the past) it undermines the higher ideal we have set to improve the lives of our students through education.

Another contradiction exists: the idea of being a “passionate” teacher. Although we should have passion, we should not be passionate. Why? Because when we focus on being passionate, the focus is on ourselves and our own ego. When we have passion towards our work instead of to our feelings about the work, we ascribe our value to the work itself. So if we can remove the ego and all of the pitfalls that comes with that perspective, our work becomes about those we serve instead our needs to validation and confirmation.

If we are connected with our students without being passionate, we can more clearly see their needs- all of their true needs- and act accordingly.

How will we then learn to respond to our students if we're not guided by these existing paradigms? We learned to see each one for their true nature and their needs, all of which might evolve because they are still developing. But this clarity of perception leads us to clear action.

 

An Outline of the Discussion (link to video:

  1. Yoga is a connection to the self. We “yoga” to bring us closer to the self.

  2.  Four kinds of yoga that we can practice to hone the connection:

    1. Hatha Yoga: Physical practice

    2. Bhakti Yoga: Devotional Thoughts

    3. Karma Yoga: Action

    4. Gnana Yoga: Study

  3. Karma Yoga is action directed towards service; Educators and other helping are already in action towards a higher ideal.

So, why does our karma yoga exhaust us?

 “We should work to enjoy Monday mornings as much as Friday Nights”


  1. Work should give you energy, not take it.

  2. What takes energy? Disappointment, frustration, overwhelm.

  3. These are emotions.

  4. When we let our emotions run over our responses, we exhaust ourselves

  5. This manifests as emotional response to situations and resignation.


FORMULA FOR REMOVING BURNOUT

  1. Remove the Ego --> attach to the work itself

    1. Our identity is wrapped in the profession and not the work itself.

    2. Proper assessment of our students.

    3. Remove your entanglement of the past (how it was before…) or the future (data collection)

  2. Serve dispassionately

    1. Remove the excitement of the present.

    2. Remove preferences of what we “like” and “don’t like”

    3.  Do what you ought to do- without preferences for likes and dislikes.


For more informatiojn on this the Vedanta Philosophy, visit Vedantaworld.org

 

 
 
 

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