Leaving the Classroom: A Transitioning Teacher Podcast

Leaving the Classroom 45: Former Teacher Turned Holistic Wellness Curator with Kim Brooks

In this episode of Leaving the Classroom, former teacher Kim Brooks shares her journey of transitioning from the classroom to holistic wellness curating.

Tune in to hear:

• Kim's story of teaching for 18 years in elementary school both in the US and internationally before feeling burned out and resigning.
• How she discovered yoga and other holistic practices helped manage her stress and fibromyalgia, leading her to get certifications in yoga, meditation, Reiki and more.
• Kim now offers private wellness sessions blending various modalities and shares insights on embracing life after teaching, managing stress, and asking for help in the transition process.

 Listen to the episode here:

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This podcast is sponsored by IDOL Courses and is the only authorized vocational school and implementation program of its kind that not only shows you exactly how to create your job application assets and build a portfolio from scratch, but also includes credentials, mentorship, expert coaching, and paid experience opportunities in corporate instructional design and online learning for life! Learn more about the program here. 

Enjoy the podcast transcription:

Kristi Oliva 

Welcome to Leaving the Classroom. This is a podcast for teachers who are ready to transition out of the classroom and into a new career. Each week, I'll share stories about what I've learned moving from education to the corporate world. I'll answer the most common questions and share my best tips to help you get started. If you are considering leaving the classroom, this show is for you.

Kristi Oliva 

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Leaving the Classroom. I'm Kristi Oliva. I'm so glad you're here. Today I'm talking to Kim Brooks, former teacher turned holistic wellness curator. Welcome, Kim, to the show.

Kim Brooks 

Thanks. I'm super excited to be here and chat about teaching and what I'm doing now.

Kristi Oliva 

I know, I'm so excited for this conversation, because I have talked to a couple of teachers lately who have just talked about the physical and mental toll that teaching takes on your body. And so I definitely want to talk about this, but first, let's hear about your transition story. Because you are a former teacher, you're gonna feel the feels outside of teaching, but I'm sure you can tell us that there are a lot of connections. So just start from the top. How long were you teaching? What kind of teacher were you and take us all the way through how you got out?

Kim Brooks 

Okay, well, I taught for 18 years. I was in elementary school. I started out as a third-grade teacher, fifth-grade teacher, reading specialist. Then I was a reading specialist for two years in the US and then I started international teaching. So, I was a reading specialist in Morocco for three years. Then, after being out of the classroom for five years and coaching teachers, and saying, "Hey, you should try this thing that I've never tried before," because technology is so different, I thought I should go back into the classroom. So, then I went to Taiwan for two years and I taught fifth grade. And that was a very techy school, and I learned lots of things. They had a great STEM program.

Kristi Oliva 

What city were you in, because I taught in Taiwan for a minute?

Kim Brooks 

Oh, no way! I was in Taipei.

Kristi Oliva 

Oh, okay. I was in Kaohsiung.

Kim Brooks 

Oh, okay, where were you? What school were you at?

Kristi Oliva 

I was at an International School. It was all Chinese and Taiwanese kids, but a full immersion English school.

Kim Brooks 

Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah, I was in Taipei. So I taught at American schools. But yeah, so that was during COVID. And all along, even though I was traveling and all of that, wellness was important for me. There was still... a part of it was me and being a perfectionist. Morocco was less stressful, I would say. But I was still dealing with 12 years of stress from teaching and like our fast-paced, changing system here. My first year of teaching, I had, I think, 16 kids in my class. And quickly it went up to 32. Within the next couple of years, they gave me a teacher assistant to share with someone else. But in fifth grade, I'm like, what do I do with a teacher assistant? She can't grade my papers or do any of these things. So it was just like overtime, wearing me down and wearing me down. And then with COVID, you know, now I'm living in Taiwan, and my family is all in America, my dad had cancer and so passed away during that time. I was able to come back to the US and be here and then go back and go through like the very strict quarantine in Taiwan. But at that point, I was like, I should probably go home, be closer to family, ground myself a little bit. So I thought I'd take a year off. But with COVID, I didn't think it was the best year to take off because I wanted to travel. So of course, I went on LinkedIn, they were hiring for reading specialists in my old district. So you know, I did the easy thing, went back. After a month, I was done. I just, I was the only reading specialist in the school. It was just... we came right back. There was no transition like for kids, teachers, anything. It was like okay, let's just get right back to it. Testing started within a couple of weeks. And it was just, it was too much. So I did make it until June of that year. So I resigned... 

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, like I was ready to leave after my first year of teaching. My teammate was like, "No, like, stay." I had this stack of papers that were just like, I didn't know what to do with them. I had no organization system. I didn't know... I just kept putting them in a pile until the end of the school year and this pile was so high. And she's like, "Literally throw all that." So I stayed and I loved teaching. I mean I was on a leadership team pretty early on, I went to all the trainings, I did all the things. I got my master's in reading, but the work-life balance, I just, I still wanted to have a life where I was doing all the things I wanted to do, which meant I was literally killing myself to do both because it was a lot. And over that time, I had gotten diagnosed, well, I guess, a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. So, which is like chronic pain, inflammation, fatigue. There's a lot of different types of symptoms that go along with that. And yeah, so I was dealing with that on top of teaching. And once I moved to Morocco, I had time and space to really slow down. I also had an opportunity to connect with people who love to travel, were into wellness as well. So we had a yoga instructor that came to our school, I had a yoga studio, right by my house, like yoga had always been a part of my life. And it was kind of my anchor, like I never really went back to kickboxing or bootcamp class or any of those. But I always went back to yoga no matter how much time had passed in between. And so I felt like I was doing these things more once I was there because we had a, I think it's like a 3:30 bus and 5:00 bus that took us home. And so I was like, I don't want to stay till five. So I got on that 3:30 bus every day. And then it kind of forced me to leave work. And everyone was of the mentality that we didn't have to work so hard. There wasn't all the testing either or the pressure, it was...   

Kristi Oliva 

Were you considering leaving before that? Like was this a build up? Or do you think it was...

Kristi Oliva 

That's what I'm interested to know. So these were American schools, you said only in Morocco and in Taiwan, but they're still in different countries. So I'd love to hear what differences you immediately saw from America's education mindset to these other countries. Even if it was an American school. I'm sure you saw some differences there that were culturally induced from those countries.  

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, so I mean, the biggest difference is they were private schools. So we had a teacher assistant in every classroom. They had language classes and PE or music or whatever. In Morocco, they had a two-hour planning period. Then in Taiwan, we were on a 10-day schedule. So I forget, but maybe day 1, 5, 7 were our long, special days. We had like three hours, and those were our meeting days. So we had a math meeting on day one, and then day five, it was your reading meeting and then next time was with your team, just doing whatever you needed to do. So there was a lot more time for planning, which is unheard of in elementary school. We also had really nice lunches. Both schools had yoga teachers. The one in Morocco, we paid for it, but it was very minimal. And then the one in Taiwan, they paid for the teacher to come to the school.

Kristi Oliva 

Oh, wow.

Kim Brooks 

That's once a week. Yeah. And we also had 11 sessions, I think they provided for a therapist at a community place right down the street.

Kristi Oliva 

Awesome. So this wellness has always been a part of you, obviously. I mean, yoga is a huge wellness staple, I think. So then what really made you say, "Okay, today's the day or this year is the year, I have to get out"? And what did that look like?

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, so I had moved back to the US. At that point, I honestly wasn't sure. Like, am I gonna go back? Or am I going to stay here? I was already in this place of, "I don't know what I want to do, but I know I can't do this." And I had a house here in Baltimore, I'm in Maryland. And I knew I didn't want to go back to that house. I had renters in there. A couple of months after I arrived, of course, they don't pay their rent and they leave and it was a great time in the market, so everything happens for a reason. I feel like the stars are just always aligning. Things are happening. If we open our eyes and we get quiet and we start noticing, it's all right there. And so this, it just happened. And I sold my house, I had a lot of extra money, I was living with my mom at the time. And yeah, I just decided I wanted to take some time off, because even teaching internationally where I had so many more breaks than in the US. So, like in Morocco, we followed American holidays, Moroccan holidays, Muslim holidays. I was on vacation a lot and I pretty much lived, you know, right next to Europe. So for $100, I could go most places in Europe. I bought a car while I was in Morocco. So, I drove all around the country all the time, but still I was still bound by that teacher schedule. I was meant to go travel and not be on a schedule. So I ended up taking that time and traveled for two months. I went to a bunch of the places that I never got to go while living in Morocco, and just kind of bounced around, met up with some family and friends along the way, then came back. So that was in December of 2022. And there was a yoga teacher training coming up. Someone had recommended this person because I kept saying, maybe I'll take the yoga teacher training. And I was thinking I was going to go somewhere, maybe to India, I don't know. These were things I was saying, which is the same thing with living internationally. It was like this thing that I would be like, yeah, maybe I'll just do this when I get back, in real life, it was just a dream. But again, everything just sort of puts you on that path. So I had been saying that for a while and then one day, there was an Instagram Live and this girl is talking about her yoga teacher training, who someone had told me about. I decided to listen to it and then, next thing, you know, I'm emailing her, we're having a conversation, I loved her, I'm signing up, I'm sending her all my money. I'm like, let's do it. So, not thinking anything except for I wanted to deepen my practice. And I knew at that point, I was just so lost and stressed, I needed an anchor. So I'm applying for jobs, writing my resume 70 different times, and also learning about all the jobs. So I had been doing that since the summer before, even while traveling. I was doing all the free webinars trying to learn about Instagram design or learning about all the things that they say if you're a teacher, then these are the perfect jobs to do. So I looked at all of them and I was like... I went on interviews. One of them was for teaching, but adults, like soft skills. I was so stressed before this interview, and then I had to teach a group of people online. I was like, "Oh my gosh! Why am I doing this?" I don't want to teach anyone in this way. I don't want to be on Zoom teaching someone else's presentation. So an instructional designer would create the presentation, then I would have to interpret it and teach it. So it was a great experience but, as you probably know, it's really challenging to get rejections, not know what you want to do, and figure it all out. And I had started this yoga teacher training during all of this. So I'm weekend two, bawling my eyes out. I'm like, I don't even know these people. I'm just like, here I am. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. And I don't know, I just started through that training, through slowing down, really paying attention to what was important to me and what I wanted. And then on Instagram, a little job posting came up for the stand-up paddleboard place that I had gone to the summer before and had this thought like, oh, it'd be fun to do something like this. Like, you know, this is right after I quit teaching. I just want a fun job where I don't have to think or do anything. So it popped up, they were hiring. And I was like, well, I'm gonna apply. They did not request a resume but I was like, I am sending you my resume because someone needs to read this thing that I worked so hard on. I don't know if she ever read it, but she called pretty quickly. And what she didn't post on Instagram is that she needed someone to basically help her manage everything because she was having baby number two in the middle of summer, which of course with stand-up paddleboarding is like prime-time. So I ended up starting working there and doing rentals, doing scheduling, social media, planning events like coordinating with people. So if they wanted to bring a corporate group out for a stand-up paddleboard or if a yoga studio wanted to bring their studio outside and do a paddle I would help coordinate those events, and sometimes I would lead the paddle portion. At that point, I got my yoga teacher certification. So I got my certification in May, started working there in May. So I taught like on-land yoga and lead paddles after. And then from there, someone who... It was where my yoga teacher training happened. It was her studio. She came there, and we had an event together where she was leading the meditation on water. My yoga teacher was leading the yoga on land, and I was leading the paddle. So it was kind of a fun little collaboration. But from that, she was like, "Oh, my gosh, you're doing so many things right now." And she's like, "What all do you do?" So I told her, then her and the yoga teacher looked at each other. And she was like, "I was just telling her I am overwhelmed and I need someone to come help me do all these things. Would you be open to it?" And, I said, "Yeah, let's talk about it later!" So obviously, stand-up paddleboarding is seasonal. So I started working for her at the end of the season. And I'm still working for her doing back-end things, managing her workshops, payroll, stuff like that. And I started my own business in the midst of everyone else's businesses. So yeah, and I'm now offering private sessions. So in this last year, I've gotten my yoga teacher certification, and a meditation training. I got my Reiki certification and breath work. So, my hope is to bring all of these modalities that helped me so much during this stressful transition, but also the stress of teaching. I really leaned on these practices, and I've tried so many things. So I leaned into the ones that worked best for me, everyone's different. But yeah, so I'm excited to now be able to offer these sessions for people where they can just come and literally, it is a relaxing experience, from the moment you walk in the door. Just someone to take care of you, nurture you, for 90 minutes. Which is what I feel like I needed most when I was teaching. I needed to literally unplug and go somewhere and just disconnect.

Kristi Oliva 

So, have you seen a difference since you left teaching? Like, I know, you mentioned the fibromyalgia. I'm not saying that that necessarily was healed but I don't know, you tell me. What has been your progress after leaving that stress of teaching?

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, so the other thing is, again, I mentioned earlier, the perfectionist in me is still alive and well. It is definitely something that I'm through yoga, where all these practices I've worked on. So I now notice and catch myself when I'm getting into that place of being busy. Because no matter what job you have, you can fall into that place of overworking yourself and saying yes when you should be saying no, and pushing through instead of taking rest. So, I wouldn't say it's completely gone but, oh my gosh, it's crazy. It is absolutely crazy. Also, stress is contagious, and being in these environments where everyone is stressed and not taking care of themselves, that energy is just toxic. And it's really, really important that people protect their energy and take care of their well-being. So yeah....

Kristi Oliva 

Thats a great point.

Kim Brooks 

I'm not waking up at 5:30 in the morning. I make my own schedule. Like, if I have a doctor's appointment, and for some reason, something—it was like a day where I had to actually, I mean, most of my work is remote. So aside from when I have to go teach in person and things like that, but I can create my entire schedule. So I mean, I was at the beach for a week last week, working from there and I just text my boss. I mean, she's the owner of a meditation and yoga studio. So we have very different conversations; we start meetings with taking a breath, and I can tell her, "I'm overwhelmed." And I think there were some boundaries I didn't have quite in place and just working with things that, you know, you don't know because when you're a teacher, you're just kind of told what to do, and you don't really have control.

Kristi Oliva 

What's interesting about what you brought up is I talked to so many teachers, and I experienced this myself, where I've had a hard time turning that off. That I must say yes to everything, I have to take on everything. I even have a hard time... like my job encourages me to take time for life, work-life balance, and making sure if my kids are sick, they don't even say, "Oh, make sure that you put in your time!" They're just like, "Go take care of your kids." But I have a hard time... I've always held on to a second job, even after leaving teaching, because it's almost like I'm addicted to, like, I can't sit still, I can't stop. And so I'd love to hear your suggestions of how to break that cycle, because I think I thought it was immediately going to be relieved. And there are so many things that did get immediately relieved when I left teaching. But like I said, I talked to other teachers, too. I think we all struggle with, with stopping the cycle of certain things that we got accustomed to in teaching, and one of those is never being able to stop working. Like I just find more things to fill up my day. And, I don't need to anymore, I don't have that financial burden. But I still am like, I have more time. So I must find something to do. What would you say to somebody who's struggling with embracing the time they now have presented to them?

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, that time is... it can be really scary for people too because that quiet time is the time when your thoughts are running wild, and you're hearing those thoughts, and they might not all be really positive thoughts. So when you have those limiting beliefs and you have those self-critical words, especially if you're applying for jobs and you're getting rejections, and then you're telling yourself, "Oh my gosh, what did I do? Why did I do this? I'm never gonna get a job." That's not helping, that energy is... There's a thing that we say in yoga, and it's, "energy flows where attention goes." So when you're putting your energy on being overwhelmed, being stressed, being in that scarcity mindset, any of those things, your energy is being directed there. And it's one of my favorite quotes. Because I find myself, even with all of this work, still noticing these patterns. And I've had therapists; I have a coach right now that's helping me with business things. One of the things that's really helped is writing down my vision for my life and figuring out what are my values. My top three to five values. And for me, it's connection, community, flexibility, and freedom. Those kind of go together for me. I guess I made that a lot more than three to five, but I call those words the same thing. But connection, community, flexibility, freedom, growth is really important to me, and creativity. So now, whittling down to those, I know that whatever job I have or whatever I'm doing for myself, I need those things to be a part of it. And you know, in five years, my values might shift a little bit as to which ones are most important to me. But I think it's really important to spend that time getting to know yourself while you're in the job hunt. Like, what are those thoughts coming in? Write them down; they're not true. Get them out on paper. Start to figure out what you want your life to look like. And then take baby steps. Like, what can you do right now that is going to help you achieve that desired feeling? Because what you want is a certain feeling. Everyone wants to be happy, safe, and loved. Whether it's through work, your family, yourself, whatever it is, that's some of the main things that we all need. So how can you feel that way? And that's going to help when interviewers have that question, like, "What questions do you have for us?" Like, ask about the work-life balance, and maybe you're looking for something strictly remote. But I think it's really hard for teachers to understand that when you leave teaching even if you did have to go in a couple of days here and there, it's still like maybe the flexibility piece is more important than the remote piece. So really getting down to that. Why do you want that thing? What is it that you want for your life and for yourself?

Kristi Oliva 

Well and they think it's one or the other. They think it's either like teaching where there's absolutely no freedom or it's remote. I'm hybrid, three days in office, but it's not even three full days. I just need to go in three days. So I usually go in after traffic and then before traffic, so it's about half the day that I spend there. And I still have flexibility of which days and I still have flexibility of which hours. And so I'm glad you brought that up, because a lot of teachers do think that they need to demand fully remote in order to have the flexibility they're looking for. But that's not necessarily true. Yeah.

Kim Brooks 

Yeah. So I mean, I just think it's really important to get clear. And sometimes you don't know until you try some different things out. And really taking breaks and asking for help. Because I mean, you can sit in front of the computer all day long job hunting. But also when you get into that new job, give yourself grace. It is a new job, it is completely different from teaching. You are not expected to know everything, and people are going to be supportive. So when you enter this new space, start connecting with people, and maybe even asking whoever is in charge, like, "Alright, who are the people that I go to for support?" So I think that's pretty important. Another thing...

Kristi Oliva 

I think with teachers though... I know I still struggle with that four years out because I just had a 1:1 with my manager, my annual review this week, and that came up that I sit in a spot for way too long before I asked for help. And I blame that on teaching, I do. I always say that teachers are programmed. I compare teaching to either a narcissistic, abusive relationship or a cult, which is still a narcissistic abusive relationship. And you get programmed on certain behaviors, certain feelings, certain things. And one of those is you should be able to figure this out all by yourself. You shouldn't need to ask for help. In fact, there's nobody here to help you; you're on your own. Even if those words weren't explicitly ever said to me, that's the programming I received. And four years later, I'm still having to deprogram myself, which is so interesting. Because, again, I thought, as soon as I got out, all these things were just gonna be fixed. And I'm still struggling with these, for lack of a better word, wounds from teaching.

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, and I've done a deep dive into healing modalities and things. And I mean, I can't even imagine my life without all of these at this point. But they just helped me so much with just really that time for myself, and our body has the ability to heal itself and take care of itself. That's what it does. But when we are drowning it with all kinds of things, because we're self-medicating with who knows what, and then just the impact that stress has on our body is insane. And I've just been doing a lot more research recently. I mean, I'm not a neuroscientist or anything like that in the medical field. So I can't really speak to it. But gosh, I just listened to something online the other day, and it was even talking about dry skin. I've had dry skin for so long. And that being an effect of stress. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, everything they were talking about, it was everything that I was experiencing was stress." And living on that constant, elevated cortisol spike always, that is your state of norm. And so now when I wake up, I don't typically have an alarm. I teach yoga, I do breath work, I do meditation, I have quiet time throughout my day. And so I just think that's really, really important. No matter what you're doing. If you stay in teaching, you're transitioning, if you're in a new job, taking that time to get quiet with your thoughts, as scary as they may be.

Kristi Oliva 

I think that's a perfect way to finish this off. I've got two more questions for you, though, that I ask everybody. The first one is: Can you tell me three traits as a teacher that have served you well in this new endeavor?

Kim Brooks 

Well, I'm very organized, reliable, and dependable. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to actually do it. And I think my ability to make things that are complex, a little bit more digestible for people. So just teaching in general.

Kristi Oliva 

And last question, that's for me: Do you regret leaving teaching?

Kim Brooks 

No, not even a little bit. I miss teaching. I miss the kids, I miss planning the lessons, I miss all of that. But once I figure out what I'm doing now, fully, I intend to be present in some way. I loved my conversations with teachers. And, yeah, I mean, teaching, I would like to go back into schools in some capacity and be able to support education. I don't know what's going to happen with the education system moving forward. It's a little scary to think about, but it's so important, and it will always be really important to me, whether I'm in it or not. But I got to a point, I'm not helpful anymore. I needed to help myself before I could do any good.

Kristi Oliva 

Yeah, I think that's where I am too. But I do feel this nagging need to just go back and help the other people off the sinking ship and put their masks on or whatever analogy you want to use. So, I'd love for you to tell people how they can get in contact with you. I don't know if you teach virtual classes, but gosh, I'd be interested. So tell us how to get in touch with you and find out more about taking advantage of your services.

Kim Brooks 

Yeah, 100%. I would, I'm always happy to connect. I don't have a scheduled virtual class regularly, but I do private sessions. And it's kind of a blend of yoga, meditation, breathwork and Reiki healing energy. So it's kind of based on our conversation of what someone is needing. And then I'll curate an experience that will be really nourishing for their body. But they can find me on LinkedIn, Kim Brooks, or on my website https://www.kimbrooksyoga-wellness.com.

Kristi Oliva 

It's the dash, the horizontal dash, right?

Kim Brooks 

Yes, exactly. Yeah, my website's on my LinkedIn too. So that might be the easiest way to find me.

Kristi Oliva 

Perfect. Well, thank you for coming. I'm so excited to have met you and talk to you. I always get so excited when I see transitioned teachers pop up in my feed. So thanks for... I had never met you before and so today's been fun.

Kim Brooks 

Yes, it's been great. Thanks for doing this and supporting teachers in this way. It's amazing.

Kristi Oliva 

You're welcome.

Kristi Oliva 

Do you want to leave the classroom, but you're not sure where to start? Take the free leaving the classroom career quiz at idolcourses.com/leavingtheclassroom. It's time to take control and make the career change that will change your life. It changed mine. See you next time.

Kristi Oliva 

That's all for this episode. But you can find more at idolcourses.com or subscribe to the podcast. And if you are ready to leave the classroom, use my code classroom100 and get $100 off enrollment to IDOL courses Academy.

Send your stories or questions to [email protected] or share them with me on Instagram @leavingtheclassroom.