The Hidden Cost of Disconnection

Alan’s story begins with a familiar pattern many of us recognize. As a young dean in 2008-2009, he was waking up at 4 AM just to keep up with emails, feeling constantly overwhelmed by the demands of his role. Sound familiar? He describes feeling like he was “treading water” with no clear training path for the complex work of student life.

What Alan didn’t realize at the time was how much his body was holding onto from his daily work. The arguments with students, challenging parent conversations, and constant crisis management were living in his nervous system, creating a state of chronic activation that many of us experience but rarely acknowledge.

His turning point came during a silent retreat as part of mindfulness teacher training. Within the first 24 hours of silence, Alan found himself having vivid flashbacks to school conflicts, arguments with his boss, and parent confrontations. “I wasn’t thinking about these on a day-by-day basis,” he explains, “but when I actually stopped and was not reading and writing and was not doing anything, I could no longer distract myself from how alive this stuff was in my nervous system.”

Understanding Your Body’s Wisdom

One of the most powerful shifts in Alan’s perspective came from reframing his relationship with his nervous system. Instead of viewing his tics and heightened sensitivity as problems to solve, he learned to see them as information. “I get a little bit of nervous system feedback,” he says. “For me, it’s like, oh, the fireworks are going off. I know something is going on. I need to slow down and investigate.”

This reframe is revolutionary for those in student life work. Rather than fighting against our body’s responses to stress, overwhelm, or difficult situations, we can learn to listen to what our nervous system is telling us. When we notice tension in our shoulders, clenched fists during a difficult conversation, or that familiar feeling of being “wound up” after a challenging day, these aren’t signs of weakness. They’re our body’s way of communicating about our environment and experiences.

The Travel Time Revolution

One of the most practical insights Alan shared involves something deceptively simple: travel time. When he moved to a multi-campus school and had to walk four blocks between buildings, he discovered that this transition time became precious. “I started having to put travel time in my calendar,” he explains, “and that started to be one of my favorite times. Nobody can talk to me. I’m not checking emails. I walked into those meetings so much more prepared.”

This led to a broader realization about how we structure our days. While we invest heavily in understanding what students need for transitions, downtime, and focus time, we completely ignore these same needs for ourselves. We go from meeting to meeting, crisis to crisis, without any buffer time to process or reset.

Try this: Start scheduling 5-10 minutes of “travel time” between meetings, even if you’re not actually traveling. Use this time to walk, breathe, or simply sit quietly. Notice how it changes your presence in the next interaction.

Creating Presence, Not Perfection

Alan introduces a powerful question that every educator should consider: “What does it feel like to be in your presence?” He’s quick to clarify that this isn’t about being perfect or saintly. Students can sense when we’re busy, frustrated, or stressed before we even speak. The goal isn’t to eliminate these human emotions but to generally cultivate a presence that feels open and approachable.

This connects directly to our work in creating cultures of belonging. Students need to feel that they can actually talk to us, that we’re genuinely available for connection. This availability isn’t just about having an open door policy; it’s about the energy we bring to our interactions.

Nervous System Work as Equity Work

One of the most compelling aspects of our conversation was Alan’s connection between nervous system regulation and justice work. “Whether it is at the individual or collective level, the capacity to have space for discomfort, to have some distress tolerance, that is the first thing and probably the biggest tool,” he explains.

This insight is particularly relevant as independent schools grapple with difficult conversations about equity, inclusion, and social justice. Our ability to stay present during uncomfortable conversations, to hold space for multiple perspectives, and to repair relationships when harm occurs, all depend on our nervous system’s capacity to handle activation without becoming reactive.

Alan points out that we’re living in a time when there are attempts to “legislate away discomfort,” but meaningful change requires our ability to have difficult conversations. Mindfulness and nervous system awareness aren’t just individual wellness practices; they’re collective tools that enable us to engage more skillfully with complex social issues.

Rethinking Advisory and Relationship Building

Our conversation touched on a persistent challenge in independent schools: advisory programs. Many schools struggle with advisory because they hire excellent teachers but don’t specifically train them for the relational aspects of advisory work. As Alan notes, “It is one thing to say, I know how to design a really interactive and engaging and dynamic experience for students where they’re in conversation with each other about this piece of content, which I know a lot about. I know less about the content of their lives.”

The solution isn’t just providing more activities or games for advisory time. It’s helping faculty develop confidence in human-to-human connection. Alan suggests that if our faculty meetings look like “business, business, business, goodbye,” we’re not practicing the relational skills we need for effective advisory work.

Consider this: How do your adult meetings model the kind of connection you want to see in advisory? Are you creating opportunities for faculty to practice the skills of authentic relationship building with each other?

Practical Tools for Overwhelming Moments

When asked for one practice that made a huge difference in handling overwhelming situations, Alan emphasizes finding something pleasant in your immediate experience. This might be noticing your breath, feeling your feet on the floor, or even just looking at a tree outside your window.

The key insight here is helping your nervous system orient away from what’s unpleasant or threatening. Our nervous systems naturally focus on problems to keep us safe, but this can lead to rumination and increased stress. By intentionally noticing something pleasant or even neutral, we give our nervous system a respite.

“It doesn’t even have to be long,” Alan emphasizes. “It doesn’t have to be, I’m going for a walk in the forest for three hours. I don’t have that. I don’t even have a forest, let alone three hours. But there’s a tree outside my window and that’s actually nice to look at.”

Where Culture Change Really Begins

When I asked Alan where schools should start in creating cultures of belonging and wellbeing, his answer was clear: with faculty. “When you change the person who stands in front of the room, or maybe isn’t standing at the front of the room, but when you change one person in that room, what happens in the room changes.”

This represents a fundamental shift in how we think about professional development. Personal development isn’t separate from professional development; it’s the foundation. Creating a culture where self-exploration, self-knowledge, and curiosity about our own humanity are valued and expected changes everything.

The Leadership Permission to Be Human

One of the most powerful moments in our conversation came when Alan shared a story about an incoming head of school who realized, after decades in education, that no one had ever asked him what he needed to feel resourced for difficult conversations. The focus had always been on strategy, boundaries, and “getting it right,” but never on internal preparation.

This reflects a broader challenge in educational leadership. We often operate under outdated models of leadership that prize invulnerability over humanity. But students, families, and colleagues don’t need perfect leaders; they need authentic ones who can stay grounded and present under pressure.

Three Simple Steps to Start Today

Based on our conversation, here are three concrete steps you can implement immediately:

1. Schedule Transition Time: Add 5-10 minutes between meetings and commitments. Use this time to reset rather than rushing from one thing to the next.
2. Practice Pleasant Awareness: Throughout your day, take moments to notice something pleasant in your immediate environment. This trains your nervous system to orient toward resources rather than problems.
3. Model Humanity: In your next faculty meeting or team gathering, start with a genuine check-in. Ask “How are you really?” and create space for authentic responses. Practice the relational skills you want to see in advisory and student interactions.

The Ripple Effect

Alan’s journey from a disconnected, overwhelmed dean to someone who helps others navigate their nervous systems with greater ease offers hope for all of us in student life work. When we learn to befriend our own nervous systems, to see our body’s responses as information rather than inconvenience, we become more effective educators and leaders.

More importantly, we model for our students that being human isn’t a liability to overcome but a strength to cultivate. In a world that often demands we operate like machines, this permission to be fully human might be the most radical gift we can offer our school communities.

The work of student life has always been inherently human work. By bringing greater awareness to our own humanity, we create the conditions for others to do the same. And in that space of shared humanity, real learning, growth, and belonging become possible.