From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
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When you’re busy, it can be impossible to see the smoke. The smoke of your own burnout. As a teacher, for so much of my career, I’ve been busy. There have been seasons when I described the feeling to my husband as “hyperventilation.” There were times I wore the lack of sleep as a badge of honor.
Today’s guest, Dr. Jen Rafferty, was a middle school music teacher for fifteen years. Then, when she reached what she thought was the top of her career (she published her first book, was presenting all over the country) – her marriage was falling apart, her back was debilitated with pain, and she had odd red splotches on her skin that seven doctors couldn’t explain. In the end, it was stress. Looking back, she realized it was burnout.
So, in today’s Motivational Monday, we talk about what can help a teacher move out of burnout without having to quit or just try to make themselves into a different person. I find her arguments about emotional intelligence interesting, and they offer another view as we grapple with the realities and challenges of living a life of personal and professional balance and joy. Jen shares the brain science, tells her own story, and then gives us something we can do tonight. I’ve included links in the show notes below.
If this is you and you’re really struggling, remember, get help from a professional mental health professional, doctor, or minister. But if you’re deaing with life management as all teachers do, I hope you’ll find this show encouraging.
And who you were is no indication of who you can be.
Dr. Jen Rafferty, founder of Empowered Educator
Listen to the Show
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Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- The Empowered Educator: 10 Lessons to Prevent Burnout, Reclaim Your Joy, and Unlock Your Teaching Potential by Dr. Jen Rafferty — the book behind this conversation, published August 4, 2026 by Tarcher/Penguin Random House. It is where the “space between what happens and how you respond” idea gets worked out chapter by chapter. You can also read a sample and see all three formats at Penguin Random House.
- Empowered Educator — Jen’s organization, built on the idea that the well-being of a school depends on the well-being of its educators. There is a hub for teachers and a separate one for school leaders, so start with whichever chair you sit in.
- Generational Change Begins with Empowered Teachers — Jen’s TEDx talk, given at TEDxIthacaCollege. The shortest way to hear the whole argument in one sitting, and a good one to send a colleague who thinks this is soft stuff.
- Unlock Your Teaching Potential — Jen’s own podcast. Short episodes, one idea each, still publishing weekly. If today’s show helped, this is where the next ten live.
The whole episode comes down to one small move you can make before you walk into school tomorrow, so here it is on its own.
Do the two steps Jen gives, in order, starting tonight. First, give yourself grace. Not as a slogan — as a sentence you actually say. “Of course I am feeling like this. Look at everything that is happening.” Jen’s point is that the exhaustion is your biology working correctly and asking for attention, and the trouble starts when you fight it. Then, second, go through the rest of your day 10% slower. Just 10%. Move 10% slower, talk 10% slower, answer that text 10% later. She says that small gap is what makes room between what happens to you and how you respond, and that is where all your choices live. Try it for the rest of today only. If you like it, try it again tomorrow.
About Dr. Jen Rafferty
Dr. Jen Rafferty is an educator, author, TEDx speaker, and the founder of Empowered Educator, an organization focused on transforming school culture by placing educator well-being at the center of student and school success. She holds a PhD in educational psychology, degrees in music education and vocal performance, and certifications in emotional intelligence and neuro-identity evolution.
As a former middle school music teacher, Jen understands firsthand both the joy and the pressure of life in the classroom, and what happens when educators continually place themselves last. Her own journey from burnout to balance sparked a mission to help educators reconnect with their purpose, restore their energy, and lead with greater clarity, steadiness, and intention both inside and outside the classroom.
She is the host of the podcast Unlock Your Teaching Potential and the author of The Empowered Educator, available now through Penguin Random House. Her work has also been featured in Forbes, Authority Magazine, and Best Holistic Life Magazine.
Through Empowered Educator, she has partnered with school communities across the country to navigate the real, messy work of organizational change, helping leaders build the internal capacity their teams need to move forward, by creating the conditions where educators feel supported, steady, and ready to lead.
Connect with Jen: Empowered Educator | JenRafferty.com | LinkedIn | Instagram (@jenrafferty_) | TikTok (@jenrafferty_) | The Empowered Educator Faculty Room on Facebook
Other Shows for Teachers Who Are Running on Empty
- How to Stop Teacher Burnout Before It Stops You with Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson — the closest companion to this episode. Dr. PBJ on catching burnout early, naming what you are unwilling to lose, and why schools carry part of this and not just individual teachers.
- Teacher Burnout: How to Reconnect and Feel Fulfilled with Dr. Michelle Chanda Singh — on serving from fulfillment instead of sacrifice, plus a clarity audit you can run on your own week.
- Habits of Hope to Help Educators with Dr. Julia Garcia — hope as a practice you build rather than a feeling you wait for. This is the one I recorded shortly after my dad died, and it is honest about hard seasons.
Listen and Subscribe
If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, share it with the teacher down the hall who is running on empty right now.
Episode Transcript
This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki
Click to read the full transcript
Vicki Davis (00:00): Happy Motivational Monday. I was killing it, but it was really killing me.
Announcer (00:06): This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.
Vicki Davis (00:12): Today, we’re talking with Dr. Jen Rafferty, founder of The Empowered Educator. She’s a former middle school music teacher of 15 years, and she burned out, rebuilt herself, and now she helps teachers protect their joy and their energy. Her book, The Empowered Educator, will come out August 2026.
Jen, we’re going to talk about emotional intelligence and why taking care of the adults is how we take care of the kids. Why do you think that this emotional intelligence can be such a struggle for so many of us?
Dr. Jen Rafferty (00:51): It’s because none of us were ever explicitly taught how to do this. It’s a skill just like learning how to ride a bike or knowing how to properly put together the dishwasher. It’s a skill that we learn.
And unfortunately, so much time has passed and we’ve missed the memo. Brain science that we’re studying now of neuroplasticity, and the ability that we have to change our brain, hasn’t really been part of the conversation until the last 30 or so years. So emotional intelligence and your ability to be malleable in how you are is new. So these skills were known, let alone taught by our parents or their parents or their parents before them. And this is why it’s been such a big part of this conversation right now. And my message, of course, is to amplify those skills, particularly for teachers, since we spend so much time with our kids and we have such a big influence on how they grow up in this world.
Vicki Davis (01:55): And for those of you listening who think, no, just another soft thing — you know, I’ve been working on my next book, and as I have a piece on emotional intelligence, but businesses that have emotionally intelligent leaders tend to be more profitable than those that don’t. So emotional intelligence is actually a very real world thing that we all need.
So how do you address that, Jen? It’s real. We need emotional intelligence. What does the neuroscience say?
Dr. Jen Rafferty (02:24): It’s showing us that we have this beautiful ability to be flexible in how we show up, that we’re not fixed in our personalities, we’re not fixed in our choices and our beliefs, even in our values. The saying, I just am the way I am — that’s actually not true. The science shows us that you are who you think you are.
And if you’re able to adjust the way that you think, then everything starts to change for you. And who you were is no indication of who you can be.
So to put this in a real life example, if you’re someone who goes to work completely stressed out every day, this isn’t just change your thoughts and think happy things and everything will magically change for you. It’s leaning into your neurobiology, understanding that that stressful way you feel might not feel good, but to your system it feels normal. So it’s going to keep you that way because it’s trying to keep you safe, and normal equals safe.
But if you’re trying to move into a place of feeling at ease and calm, or even excited about going to work, that requires you to look at your thoughts and know that your thoughts are options and not facts. And it also invites you to lean into listening to the signals that your body is sending you all the time and start paying attention and making different choices so that you can become someone different.
Vicki Davis (03:44): Now you faced burnout. What’s your story?
Dr. Jen Rafferty (03:47): So at the time, I don’t think I would have even admitted to feeling burnt out, because I was so in it that part of that burnout was part of my identity. You know, so many of us walk around with this badge of honor of how little sleep we get and how busy we are. And my struggle was part of who I thought I was.
And I was at what I consider to be the top of my career. I had published my first book about teaching music. I was giving presentations all over the country about the cognitive development of adolescent kids and how to create responsive classroom materials and curriculum for them. And I was killing it, but it was really killing me.
You know, my marriage was falling apart. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was a new mom, and I thought there was something wrong with me because I didn’t feel like I could handle it. So what did I do? I did what everyone does — numbed myself, ate a lot of chocolate. I zhuzhed my feelings down. And ultimately, the signals that were coming from my body kept getting louder and louder. I was constantly sick. My back was going out with debilitating pain. And I had developed these red splotches all over my skin that seven doctors could not tell me what was wrong with me. It turned out all of this was stress-related.
It wasn’t until recently, Vicki, that I looked back and I was like, oh, that was burnout. And I couldn’t even see it for what it was. My mission now with the work that I do in Empowered Educator and with my book is to give teachers a lifeline, even when they might not recognize it fully for themselves. They can maybe identify a symptom or something they’re going through that they can pull on to.
Vicki Davis (05:30): So you do talk about burnout to balance. But you know, some are like, well, the only way I’m going to have balance is if I don’t teach. Is it possible to stay a teacher and move from burnout to balance? And if so, how?
Dr. Jen Rafferty (05:42): That is such a good question. Yes. And the reason why I can say yes with such fervor is because I’ve seen it thousands of times with the educators that we work with.
Life is always going to be lifey. Whether you’re in the classroom or not, it’s always going to throw things at you, and there will always be challenges and stressors. While, yes, there are going to be some stressors in your life that you decide you’re not available for, and that might inform your decision to leave — and there are other ways to function in this life, to meet the moment as the person you want to be instead of a victim to your own circumstances.
And that’s what we really do here at Empowered Educator. And it really outlines in the book, you know, that moment between what’s happening externally and your reaction, there is a moment, there’s a space there, and that space is where all your agency is. And we forget, or we haven’t even been taught or told that we have that power, that we have that agency.
So when you get that angry email, or when you have that challenging student, identifying that space and knowing what choices you have in that space make all of the difference between a burnt-out teacher who is perpetually feeling overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated, to an empowered teacher who knows their agency and knows I can meet this moment as the person I want to be instead of the person who I’ve always been.
Vicki Davis (07:10): So Jen, you’re talking to somebody, they’re listening to you in the car and they know they’re right there. They’re burned out, they’re worn out. They don’t really want to go to school tomorrow. What’s one thing that they can do right now when they get out of the car and they slam the door that can help them move towards balance?
Dr. Jen Rafferty (07:26): It’s a great question, because it’s a big leap to go from I’m sick of this and slamming the door and going inside your house, to I’m going to feel empowered, right? This isn’t a magic pill. This is not something that happens overnight. And so there needs to be baby steps. And I’m going to actually give two, because they go together.
The first one is give yourself grace. Give yourself grace. There is nothing wrong with you. The responses that your body is giving you, and that stress — it’s there for a reason. That’s your biology telling you, hey, pay attention to me. I need attention. And it’s actually working really well. The problem happens when we fight it. And so leaning in and give yourself grace. Of course I’m feeling like this. Look at all of these things that are happening. Of course I’m feeling like this.
And when you give yourself grace, then there’s one thing that you can do that I know changed my life: is give yourself permission to move and speak and go through your day 10% slower. Just 10%. When you give yourself permission for that 10% less busyness and rushing and hustling, you start to notice things that you hadn’t noticed before. That’s so interesting. I feel like I immediately need to respond to this text messages. Wait, wait. No, I don’t. I’m going to go 10% slower, and I can take a moment.
And what that’s going to do, it’s going to make that space that I just talked about longer. Try it. And don’t try it forever. If you’re listening to this in the car, try it the rest of today and see what happens. And if you like it, try it again tomorrow. That’s going to change everything for you.
Vicki Davis (08:58): Give all our teachers a little bit of a pep talk as they deal with the challenges of teaching.
Dr. Jen Rafferty (09:03): I think sometimes, again, well-intended folks are giving the pep talks without validating how they feel right now. You know, I think it’s similar to when administrators say, well, just remember your why. You can’t be in a place of burnout and have all of these feelings of overwhelming frustration and, like, slamming the door when you get home of your car, and then, just remember your why back into your inspiration.
It doesn’t work that way. Bridging that gap means validating your feelings, remembering that you have agency, and making choices that feel aligned with who you want to be, not who you currently are.
Vicki Davis (09:42): So many things we could talk about here. We have been talking with Dr. Jen Rafferty for her book, The Empowered Educator, coming out August 2026. So, Jen, thanks for coming on the show.
Announcer (09:56): Thank you for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Join us here every weekday and subscribe to the Classroom Matters newsletter. See you later, educator.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.
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