In the compass model, the four sectors, Mind, Spirit, Strength and Heart, not only contribute to your overall wellness, but also provide guidance on strategies to help build your compassion resilience. Strength is one of the sectors. Strength encompasses stress resilience and care for the body. Stress resilience allows us to maintain a level of calm as we encounter the inevitable stressors of our job. Developing our ability to care for our bodies and listen to the signs that our bodies give us, support our whole health and minimize any unhealthy responses to stress. Becoming stress resilient and caring for our bodies often require assistance from others. Help seeking is a key skill for both of the areas in the strength section of the Wellness Compass.

Distribute this document to all participants to explore prior to the following application activities

Key Activity

Listening and Responding to Stress in Your Body (10-15 min)

Wellness Practice

Practicing Perspective Shifts

Circle Agenda

Staff Circle Agenda, Section Ten

Core Content Visual

Choose Nourishing vs. Depleting! – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.

Supplementary Activities/Handouts

Writing and Sharing Staff Resilience Stories (30-60 min)
One of our pilot schools for this toolkit experimented with an activity that went so well, they want to share it with other schools. Staff were asked to write a short story about an obstacle they faced and overcame. The stories were submitted anonymously and shared with students by random staff in various classes. The next day the homeroom teachers led a community building circle to talk about what the students had heard and what it meant to them.

Why it is so hard for teachers to take care of themselves

Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s TED Talk on How to Make Stress Your Friend explores a perspective shift on stress when the healthy pressure of growth in your work place feels overwhelming.

For Easy Printing

You can find all documents in this section included in this pdf for easy printing. 
The documents included are numbered individually, not as one document.

Additional Resources

This article discusses the stages of change applied to emotional resilience. The website offers many brief articles on topics included in this toolkit.