A Confession!

Many of you know that last Fall I embarked upon a new adventure. I started teaching English Secondary V at Place Cartier.You may know this because I had to drop a few of my private classes from my weekly schedule, in order to meet the demands of this new position.

While I had a wonderful time at the centre and I loved working with all of the dedicated staff, I made the difficult decision not to accept another contract.  I had to admit that I found teaching both fitness and English too demanding at this particular point in my life. I had no idea how much work would be involved, nor how much of my personal time would be lost, to correcting and planning.

As I speak to you often about stress and how it can manifest negatively in our lives, you need to know that I I have first hand experience dealing with this subject. While trying to be the perfect English teacher and the best fitness instructor, I started having panic attacks when I had never experienced these before. I felt like I had no time to simply rest and worst of all, I started to feel sad much of the time. I knew that stress was building up inside of me and no matter how hard I tried to hide it, I could not keep up!

I knew that my balance was off and I needed to make some tough decisions.  I could not keep both jobs and do each as perfectly as I wanted.  I also was not willing to do one of the jobs half-****d.

I decided that though I loved working at Place Cartier, the time was not right for me to continue. I love teaching fitness and I am not ready to give this up just yet!

A few of you have asked me this week about my English teaching job, so I wanted to inform you a bit better.  The Directors at Cartier were sad that I was not returning. I was well received and told that I would be missed but that I could return anytime I wish.  I finished my contract with great success and simply chose not to accept another one.

I am very proud of myself for having ventured out of my comfort zone. I am also very proud that I recongized the signs of stress and dealt with it accordingly before I became very sick or burnt out!

Have a wonderful day everyone!
Beth